Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.
Note: This story is rated 'M' to be on the safe side, given some of the murkier elements of the underlying subtext. This story is alternate universe, assuming events which start significantly diverging from canon in mid-1976.
James didn't pay much attention to it at the time – the way that on the train back to Hogwarts for the start of their sixth year that Snivellus didn't rise to their goading, and seemed distracted by something.
Remus, on his way back from the hospital wing on the first evening following a check-up with Madam Pomfrey, had said he'd almost tripped over Snape, outside the headmaster's office, looking pale-faced and desperate about something.
James was too busy at the time wondering what had happened to Lily? She'd disappeared over the summer. Apparently there'd been a Death Eater attack or something because she'd been a muggle-born.
James had hoped against hope, somehow, that she'd escaped and survived – and would turn up at Hogwarts sooner or later, but the term progressed and she didn't.
Once it hit home that that was it – that she was almost certainly dead and that he was never ever going to get the chance to see her again – it took him two whole weeks of moping to get over it.
Well: he told himself that he had got over it; he hadn't really.
James joined the Order of the Phoenix, of course – he wanted to well and truly pay back those Death Eater scum, who'd… made it a world without Lily… and he needed to be held back on occasions by his mate, Sirius. 'Steady on, Prongs: They're the bad guys, not us…' became Sirius' mantra for the first fourteen months or so of James' participation in the fighting.
But they were winning, at any rate, the Order and the Ministry. The Death Eater tactics became more and more desperate – more murders, more burning of homes, more families torn apart. They were rats in a corner, fighting back with the desperation of cornered rats.
And then, suddenly, it was over.
Neville Longbottom, The-Boy-Who-Lived, the defeater of Lord Voldemort, with dead parents and with a lightning scar on his forehead.
And then the betrayals began.
Death Eaters who'd lost hope, captured and spilling the names of their colleagues.
Albus Dumbledore mysteriously exonerating Snivellus, who'd been named as a Death Eater but who had recently started teaching Potions classes at Howarts, replacing that decent old buffer Slughorn.
And Moony… Moony.
James couldn't believe it, but Moony had killed Peter Pettigrew and thirteen muggles. There was something about Peter having discovered that Moony had been a spy in the Order for Lord Voldemort, and had tried to confront him about it, instead of sending for the aurors.
One of James' friends had betrayed the Order to Lord Voldemort.
One of James' friends had killed another of his friends, and multiple muggles.
One of James' friends had been sent to Azkaban without a trial – it was hardly proper to have a trial for a werewolf spy who had been working for Voldemort, the Ministry had concluded.
James, or what rational part of him remained between the redoubled hurts, was inclined to savagely agree.
James was only vaguely aware of the passage of time for an indefinite period after that. With the war over, Professor Dumbledore gave him a job at Hogwarts: Broom Instructor and Quidditch Match Referee.
Teaching first year pupils how to fly, and running quidditch matches.
Sometimes – especially when Gryffindor were playing – James felt alive again for brief moments.
Well, also at times, too, with Sirius.
Sirius had given the bird well and truly to his family. Sirius had gone and married a muggle. Apparently his mother had dropped dead of a heart-attack when she heard that.
The older generation of Blacks had grimaced and put Sirius back on the family tree, without consulting him about it. They were more moderate than the generation of Sirius' parents. Better a Black who'd married even a muggle, in their minds, than that the name die out altogether. Sirius and the older Blacks had had several conversations about it, and reached a deal: Sirius would not change his name and acknowledge no connection whatsoever with the family, if his cousin, Andromeda – who though she bore it well actually had been hurt by the whole being disowned thing – was reinstated.
The older Blacks bowed.
Snivellus – well Professor Snape, James supposed – was occasionally seen flitting around the halls of Hogwarts. Sometimes, when James was sneaking around tailing him under the old Potter invisibility cloak, just to make sure that he wasn't up to no good, Snape had this haunted look on his face.
Once James lost him for ten minutes, distracted by a suddenly shifting staircase, and when he came upon him again, Professor Snape was in the midst of some sort of argument with the headmaster.
"…does this still have to go on?" Snape demanded, his back to James.
The headmaster cleared his throat.
"Good evening, Professor Potter." he said.
James slipped the cloak off. It turned out it never fooled the headmaster. Invisibility cloaks not working on one of the most powerful and knowledgeable wizards in the world sort of made sense though.
"Umm, good evening, Professor Dumbledore." he said, feeling embarrassed.
"You're a little early for our scheduled meeting. Perhaps you could see me in my office in ten minutes?" the headmaster said.
There hadn't been any meeting James had had scheduled with the headmaster, but he supposed that the headmaster guessed at what James had been doing there, and hadn't wanted… Professor Snape… to suspect it.
James turned up in the headmaster's office anyway, and he and the headmaster exchanged some words about how the headmaster would appreciate it if James would please discuss any additional security measures that he wanted to implement with the headmaster before going through with them?
James didn't find out what the argument had been about though; what Professor Snape had been so anxious to bring to an end.
James saw her in Diagon Alley in December, 1987. The dark-haired girl.
James was there shopping for Christmas presents for Sirius' children, including James' godson, Peter, named after the deceased friend they'd lost.
A dark-haired child, animated and vivacious, and with Professor Snape, and with her eyes.
James Potter, even after a decade, could remember the exact colour of Lily Evans' eyes.
James hurriedly finished his errands, and went urgently to see the wisest and most powerful wizard that he knew, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.
Professor Dumbledore listened to James' story thoughtfully, and then requested, politely, that James show him?
They accompanied one another into a trip into James' memory in Albus' pensieve, and then they emerged to stand once more on the floor of the headmaster's office.
The headmaster stood there, twirling his wand, and looking thoughtful.
"Yes, I see what you mean, James." the headmaster said. "To someone who knew and was as interested in Lily as you were, the resemblance would of course be obvious and immediate. This is most unfortunate. Lord Voldemort, you see, will likely some day return. His spy in the Department of Mysteries, Augustus Rookwood, discovered that there had been a prophecy made, which concerned Lord Voldemort, and Lord Voldemort having chosen to believe said prophecy, it is almost certain that he has not been permanently removed from our society."
"What does Lord Voldemort have to do with this?" James demanded, bewildered.
"That child, James, and others like her, may well mean the difference between success and failure for us, when the day arrives when Lord Voldemort chooses to once more make his presence felt amongst the living. His understanding of matters of the heart is incomplete, I believe, which may well prove to be his ultimate undoing. I'm afraid, James, that I'm going to have to request that you not pursue this matter any further."
And that was that. The headmaster had made his mind up, that this was something which James did not need to know anything more about, and so he said nothing more about it. Well not except:
"And I would appreciate it, James, if you did not bring it to Professor Snape's attention that you had discovered him in this fashion. Professor Snape believes the child's existence to be a secret known to only a few, and I would prefer him to continue in this belief for as long as is convenient."
Author Notes:
Yes, Severus Snape went to see Albus Dumbledore very urgently at the start of the 1976-1977 school year, because something which had happened over the summer holidays meant that Severus Snape wanted Albus' help, and would do 'anything' for it. Albus' response was pretty much 'thank-you for volunteering to infiltrate the Death Eaters for me, Severus'.
In this universe, Neville Longbottom is indeed 'The Boy Who Lived'.
The Longbottoms (parents of this universe's Boy Who Lived) didn't hide under a fidelius charm - hence the Peter/Remus business in this universe was simply about one of them having turned on the Order of the Phoenix at some point, and the other having come upon evidence of it resulting in a confrontation.
I enjoyed the idea of a universe where the news that her disowned son had married a muggle caused Walburga Black to drop dead from the shock. It's possible she hadn't even had a portrait painted by that point...
Regulus, for what it matters, is dead as per canon.
I'm not sure if Lily is alive still, as of Christmas 1987, when this piece finishes; if she is, Albus presumably wants her to stay exactly where she currently is (either as a presumed 'captive' or in some other way in long-term hiding), so that if/when Lord Voldemort returns and the Death Eaters get going again, the situation will reassure them.
This story is a one-shot. Possibly, if I weren't busy with other long-term projects, there might be a James Potter/Miss Snape match in it somewhere, as a sort of reflection/parallel of some of the Severus Snape/Harriet Potter fanfictions that there are around...
Update: (23rd December, 2014)
One early reviewer observed that the canon Hogwarts flying instructor, Rolanda Hooch, doesn't rank as a 'professor' in the Hogwarts hierarchy; in this universe James Potter does rank as a 'professor', partly because of James' background, and partly because the headmaster wanted to avoid a situation where professor Snape 'outranked' broom instructor Potter.
To clarify, the child whom James sees Professor Snape with in Diagon Alley is a daughter of Professor Snape and Lily.