Disclaimer: All characters belong to the queen J.K. Rowling and this is just a work of fanfiction.
Author notes: Hi! This is my first fanfic though I have read many awesome works of art by many awesome authors. This is inspired by one such author's story - 'They didn't know we were seeds' by LucyLuna. That story is mind-blowing and you should check it out. Also, I do not have a beta so any mistakes which are found are my own. Hope you like it!
The Second try.
Chapter One: Severus Snape.
Severus opened his eyes with a start and a scream in his throat. It was dark and he could see Nagini slithering towards him, jaws open and to rip his throat out. This didn't feel like the floor of the shrieking shack, it was too soft. Was he dead? Was the battle over? Nagini had ripped his throat out, he had to be dead. But his hands felt warm. His jumping heart told him he was breathing. So what had happened? And where was he? It was dark.
He looked around as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He saw a small bed that he was lying in and the curtains on the window blocking out the light. What was this place? His hand moved on its accord and switched on a small bedside lamp and then closed around his throat. He was trembling. That's when he noticed. His hands were small. He stumbled over to a door that looked like it led to a bathroom where he found a mirror and looked at his face and gasped. He looked young, not more than eleven. Had he gone back in time? How did this happen?! One minute he was dying and the next he woke up looking like his eleven-year-old self.
He looked around the bathroom and recognized it. The toothbrush in a small glass, the layout- it was all familiar. Close to panic now, he ran out and looked around the room. It was his childhood home. The small calendar showed it was 29th of August with a red circle around September 1st. There was a trunk in the corner. He walked over and opened the lid with trembling hands. It was filled with second-hand books and robes. A wand was on top of the contents. He lifted the wand and felt that warm feeling as his wand recognized him and it felt good to have something familiar during this crazy trip his mind had taken.
He stood there with the wand in hand as his initial panic was soothed away by the feel of his wand. He heard the sound of door slamming and voices. Dropping the wand back into the trunk he stumbled out of his room and down the stairs taking two at a time. Running towards the kitchen he smacked into someone and his jaw almost dropped. It was his mother.
Alive.
He subtly pinched his arm to make sure this wasn't just a dream. 'Was this afterlife?' his mind gave yet another question. Why was it giving only questions and no answers?
"Careful now", his mother growled in a low voice. "Your father just got back." The smell of cheap spirits followed her words and made Severus's nose wrinkle.
'Definitely not heaven,' he thought to himself. 'Or maybe this was hell?' He slowly slipped out of the kitchen and into the backyard. He could see the shed where his mother had set up a small potions lab and added a muggle repelling charm to ensure Tobias never entered her witch's sanctuary. He fell to his knees in the soft grass. This was definitely real. The sun was up. He was in younger body with the mind of his older self.
"Holy shit!" he gasped out. What was happening? Was he given a second chance? He was eleven. That meant lily… "She's alive!"
Without even thinking, he dashed across the small yard and into the side road not even pausing when he heard his mother calling him. He had to see her!
'Wait,' his mind supplied and his steps faltered. She doesn't know he is an older man in his eleven-year-old body. What was he going to tell her? 'I am sorry for calling you a mudblood five years from now and joined the Dark Lord causing you to die and your son to grow up with your sister who hates magic? She will think I have gone completely insane!' His feet had carried him to a small park that was between their houses and he observed a girl with red hair pacing and muttering.
"Lily."
It came out as a whisper. He swallowed the lump that appeared in his throat and tried again.
"Lily!" he croaked. She paused and looked up.
"Sev." She said just as quietly. He ran across to her and pulled her into a tight hug.
"Lily. I am so glad to see you again." She pulled out from the hug and her eyes gave him a cursory once-over. His hand subconsciously flexed as to cover his left arm. Her emerald eyes narrowed and he took another step back, away from her when her eyes filled with murderous rage.
SLAP!
"Get away from me! Death Eater!" 'Well that eliminates her not being from the future,' he thought.
"Lil" he started.
" No! Don't you Lil me, Snape." She shot back.
"Lily! I am not a death eater yet! And I won't be. Not this time." he shouted. She paused.
"But you were. You joined him. He killed me! He killed James! What happened to my baby! Harry! What happened to my baby?!" her eyes filled with tears as she started panicking.
"Is he dead? He cast a killing curse at him, didn't he? I couldn't save him. I couldn't protect my baby!" she sunk to her knees and put her hands on her face and started sobbing. He sighed.
"No. You did protect him." She looked up with tears running down her face.
He sighed again. "When he killed you and cast a killing curse at your son, it rebound on him and destroyed him. Your son got a scar on his forehead but he lived and was called the Boy-Who-lived."
"Harry survived the killing curse?" she asked with a quavering voice.
"He did and I am sorry for my part in it." This drew the fury back in her eyes.
"You joined him", she said, her fist clenched.
"I did and I regret it. I was a spy for Dumbledore and when the Dark Lord resurrected himself, I continued being a spy till I died."
"You think that excuses the people you killed? And lives you destroyed? He killed James and me! So that he could get to my son! "
"I also died for your son Lily," he said quietly.
"What…?"
He sighed again. "It's a long story." Just as he was about to begin, her sister appeared and yelled for breakfast.
"Meet you after breakfast?" she asked.
"Yes. Alright" he replied and watched as she wiped her face while walking back towards her home.
Petunia gave a sneer as she left ahead of Lily. "Nice pyjamas Snape." He ignored her, turned on his heel and walked back.
After breakfast, he changed into his day clothes and all but ran into the small park and started pacing. He was back. 'Were they the only ones back? Were there others like them too? Dumbledore? Potter? Black? Lupin? Did Lupin even die? Shit! If Dumbledore remembered, how was he going to even face him? True he asked to kill him but still….' he was so lost in thoughts he didn't even see Lily approach until she was in front of him.
"Lily" he gave a smile. He wasn't sure she would actually return. Her face though was impassive.
"Explain Snape. Explain what happened after I died and don't even think about lying…" and so he did. She was furious when she heard about Pettigrew escaped and how Sirius was sent to prison without trial and was quite proud when he talked about her son's "adventures" throughout his school years, but when he heard about the piece of the soul of the You-Know-Who in her son's body, her face crumpled.
"We will not let it happen again Lils. We will change things this time around. I promise." he consoled her and tentatively put his arm around her and gave a mental sigh of relief when she didn't push him away. "We will be meeting them in two days." There was no need to explain who 'they' were.
"Do you think they remember? She asked.
"Maybe. But best not keep our hopes up. We have another chance of living again." He whispered to her and she nodded.
The next few days went by quickly with them discussing as too how this could have happened if any of the others remembered and Severus explaining in detail about his previous life and about Harry. He received a few stinging hexes too as a punishment for describing Harry as 'arrogant as his father' and he saw how she wished to hex her sister for not caring for harry as much as she would like. Soon it was time to board the Hogwarts express and see if there were other time travelers like them and if so, for him, which meant apologizing, and be in the receiving end of many more hexes. But he still looked forward to it. He was not going to waste this life by petty squabbles. This was a second chance to try to correct his mistakes and save the future. It was his second try at his life.