A/N: Since I was little and first read Harry Potter, this pairing was always in my mind. Years later, I'm finally writing it and it's so odd but wonderful.
Massive thanks to AJ for betaing this! You're a star, my love.
Written for:
Snape Appreciation Challenge: Husband
Hogwarts Life Challenge: Veela Hair
x.X.x
It goes like this: when Lily Evans is not even a mere flicker of existence in the universe's eyes, her parents chose to buy a house on Privet Drive.
This story is a tragedy, at the end, but there are beautiful things hidden in the rumble and this is one of them.
x.X.x
At seven, Lily is brighter than all the stars and her hair is like a burst of flames as she runs down the street, hollering with breathless laughter.
Always lanky and awkward in his own bones, Severus Snape stumbles after her. He is already in love with the girl from down the street, though he cannot yet put words to describe the butterflies in his stomach and soul.
There is purity in this, in falling before the world darkens with reality. Dreamers are naive, yes, but they are also golden in their innocence.
x.X.x
James Potter grows up lonely and this is really the end of this story, if you are still paying attention to things like ends and beginnings.
(Time is such a painfully human concept, but so are love and hate and they make the world spin)
You see, James grows up alone and there are no happy ending for kids who watch the world from their windows and dream about colours bubbling until everything looks brighter.
x.X.x
The Hogwarts letters come when they are eleven because even though this is the kind of story that spans oceans and eternity, some things never change.
(The sun comes up. It goes down. There are people breathing and living and dying. The world spins and it is breathtaking)
"You're going to love Hogwarts," Severus Snape tells Lily as the swings carry them to the stars, their feet tucking and untucking for momentum.
Lily's grin splits her face in its eagerness and Severus ducks his head to hide his blush. "I know, Sev. I just wish Petunia could come too. She's been awfully sad about not being to attend."
His grin falls flat. In another life, it could have been him without a letter, doomed to sulk in the shadows about it.
"That sucks," Severus lies and Lily nods mournfully, not catching the ingenuine tilt to his words.
This is the problem, you see, where Lily sees the world as if it was beautiful and Severus sees the world for what he thinks it really is.
(They're both wrong but didn't I warn you this story is a tragedy? Heed my warnings. There are nights so dark you cannot see the stars)
x.X.x
In another world, it is Sirius Black with his wild eyes and dangerous mind who enters the compartment that James is sitting it.
It is Sirius Black who tastes the word Gryffindor on his tongue and thinks freedom.
This is not this story.
In this story, Bellatrix Black, already dangerous at sixteen and only getting deadlier, sees Sirius eye a compartment where the Potter heir sits.
Bellatrix is not insane. She will never be, despite what people will scream, whisper, taunt.
"Sirius, stop slouching," she hisses and drags him after her to the end of the train where she introduces him to her confused but proper friends.
(This part isn't a tragedy. James Potter may not be here to pull Sirius Black into something like redemption, but this was never about that)
(Andromeda is still here. She is still marrying a mudblood and she will love him till her dying days. When she leaves, two more grey-eyed, black-haired Blacks will follow.)
x.X.x
Instead, Severus Snape follows at Lily's heels the way he will do for years: into Gryffindor, into the Order, into the light.
(This isn't a spoiler. This is a choice. This story isn't yours but you find bits and pieces of yourself scattered in other people and places)
Lily startles when she sees the messy-haired boy quietly staring out the window. James Potter does not go still often, this wonderful, wild boy, and he rarely will go quiet but he does now, staring.
"Hi," Lily says and drops her stuff down on the seat cheerfully. Severus follows, but he clutches his stuff close to him and his gaze is cold and mistrusting.
This is where the paths separate. This path is less followed perhaps, but it isn't a better one. There aren't better ones, just different losses.
"I'm James Potter," James says, sticking out an arm to shake. Lily grabs it, approval easy. Severus offers nothing more than a nod.
"What house do you think you'll be in?" James asks.
Severus is the one to answer, Lily's mouth opening half a beat behind him. "Slytherin. I'd rather die than get Gryffindor."
James's smile is infectious, his laughter easy. "I was about to say the same thing about Slytherin."
It's nothing really, shouldn't be, but it is—
Severus Snape's lips quirk, momentarily, into something resembling a smile.
"Well then, I guess you'll have to compromise," Lily jokes and well, she's always had a uncanny habit of being right.
(They don't compromise. They just follow her everywhere and anywhere)
x.X.x
The hat is old, threadbare on Severus's head the way his robes are on his body. It has always come back to this, to how the old and the new are just a cycle.
"You don't have to choose what is expected of you," the hat tells him and Severus wants to laugh the way he hasn't for years because he knows that, but he lives in other people's expectations and it's hard.
"I know that," Severus snaps and the hat falls silent.
"It takes courage to stand up to people," the hat muses and Severus wants to roll his eyes but he wants to rage equally much because he's never wanted to be in this position.
"I know that too."
Three beats. The hat is contemplatively silent.
"I know you do. GRYFFINDOR!"
x.X.x
"What happened to 'I'd die if I got Gryffindor?'" James jokes, his smile mischievous and easy in the bright sunlight of the great hall.
Severus scowls. "Accidents occur, Potter."
Lily laughs and both boys turn to her in equal surprise. She doesn't answer them though, just snorts into her orange juice.
"What is it?" Severus asks Lily, his face softening.
(And that's more magical than anything else in his story. No potions or spells compare to how the friendship looks in the reflection of people's eyes. This is the kind of thing people could die for)
(This is the kind of thing people will die for)
"Sev," Lily tells him, her smile fond. "You're the bravest person I know. This isn't an accident."
Severus blushes, his face redding. Lily doesn't react but James does, his face a flustered mix of confusion and hope.
Oh. James thinks, staring between Lily and Severus. Oh.
(So that's what friendship is)
x.X.x
This is a story about a girl with fire in her hair and soul, the boy with shadows understand his lines and clouding his heart, and the boy who would break himself against the world to save them.
James, you cannot save them all, no matter how hard you try.
x.X.x
They fall into a routine because this is what you do in places where there is something like safety, because you live and love in a dangerous world, because you cannot let this break you.
"Your hair is ridiculous, Potter," Severus taunts, his own hair falling limply along his cheeks.
James smiles, this boy who is only ever hopeful. "I know, do you want me to pass you the toast?"
Lily snorts into her orange juice the way is tradition and the two boys exchange equally incredulous looks over her head at the way she always laughs at them.
Severus wants toast. He wants to live in these moments forever, to sleep in his own warm bed, to never see his father again, but he would never admit it.
"Pass him the toast," Lily says and Severus thinks she might get it. They both do.
The toast is delicious, especially when James dumps jam on it before passing it to Severus's plate.
Severus ducks his head low and whispers, quiet enough so no one can hear, "Thank you."
x.X.x
They spent the sunlit days outside, soaking in the sunlight like they can warm their souls. When it falls to fall, they wrap layers and in winter they huddle in the library, warmer than they have ever been before.
James thinks he may love them both, as they sit, pressed into a couch together.
So what if Lily's hands are always balled into fists, a fight boiling in her blood, if Severus is too fast to snap back and equally fast to flinch at a touch?
They are bent but James is ready to face the world if it means not letting them become broken.
x.X.x
This is a story about three kids with hope blooming in their tangled hands but this is also the story of a madman determined to make the world sing for him and the horror he will cause.
This is a story of black and white mixing into gray, black holes growing inside hearts, betrayal.
This is a story of a chessboard called war.
(No matter how far you run, you are still a pawn. You will spend your whole life being tangled into this and it will twist your mind until you are almost thankful.)
(Because yes, you are falling, but at least you are not falling alone)
x.X.x
In fourth year, there's a ball that makes Lily's mouth quirk in a mischievous smile, that makes James's eyes light up, that makes Severus frown with confusion.
They attend as a group, of course they do, and James dances with every kid at the ball and a few teachers that humour him.
Lily dances with Severus, pulls Peter onto the floor, spins Alice and drags Remus into a waltz.
(He's a werewolf, Severus had pointed out in third year and Lily had laughed and said, "So?)
James hesitates at the last person. He has spent years being entranced, baffled, thankful by Severus Snape.
"Dance with me?" James says and his smile is warm the same way Lily's eyes are, the way sunlight pours into the windows on the days Severus's mother relaxes.
Severus turns up his nose. "And why would I do that, Potter? You'll stomp all over my feet, knowing your clumsiness."
"Humour me," James says and there's something pleading in his voice, something strained.
Please.
Severus does not say yes but he does not say no and James drags him to the floor where he does not step on his feet.
Lily joins them, twirling, and Severus's feels two hands on his waist and someone's breath on his neck and the feel of two hands dragging him after them.
"I love you both," he says.
The world spins. Two people echo his words.
x.X.x
You can end the story here, if you want. There has been love confessions and the world is lighter than the burdens we must all carry.
You can end here. There will be no one to judge you. I understand.
x.X.x
His father rages.
"A witch and a wizard? Weren't satisfied with one? You're a disgrace to the Snape name."
He is a disgrace. He is the realism to Lily's optimism, the quiet snark to James's easy smile, the part of a third that is irreplaceable.
"My son is no disgrace," Eileen says quietly and Severus wishes she did not speak at all, because his father has a habit of painting his anger with bruises all over their bodies.
x.X.x
In another world, it is Sirius Black who stumbles into James's house, broken, as war looms on the horizon.
In this world, Severus does not go to James's. He drags his mother to Lily's because it is closer and he has another burden along with himself to carry.
Lily does floo James, her face turned pale and her nails bitten to their stubs.
"Lils?" James says, yawning sleepily, clad in pyjamas. It is 3am. Lily does not think any of them will sleep easily ever again.
"It's Severus," Lily says, her voice cracking.
James face falls. He jumps through and collapses in her arms.
A tear rolls down Lily's cheek. She doesn't wipe it because that would mean letting James go and she can't.
x.X.x
The true tragedy of life is not that we are dying, but the things we will lose before death.
What are you willing to sacrifice? Do you know how much you're willing to lose?
How about everything?
x.X.x
It all comes to fall in sixth year because Lily is beautiful and reckless and glorious but she had mud in her veins and rage in her bones.
Avery, pure-blooded and smug with it, his gaze cruel, hisses, "Mudblood."
There is a moment where Lily almost walks away, where James and Severus almost pull her back, where she is mature in the way she never had been.
It does not last long. "Inbred," Lily hisses back.
Avery is quick with his wand. Lily is quicker with her fists, Muggleborn and always, always so proud.
They both spend a week in the hospital wing. Lily becomes a regular visitor. Madam begins to save her a bed.
(There have always been things worth fighting for)
x.X.x
In seventh year, lips blessed and grinning proudly, Lily says, "Alice Longbottom, you know her, right? Well she told me about his group dedicated to fighting the Dark Lord—"
"No," Severus snaps.
James watches, jaw set. When he speaks, it is tired. The world is bloodthirsty but he's never wanted anything but peace.
"You're joining no matter what we say, Lily. I know you."
She doesn't have anything to say to that because they all know it's true.
x.X.x
Severus likes to stay to the side during these meetings, likes to be the steady hand and he careful ear, the one who keeps his lovers safe.
Albus Dumbledore approaches slowly, like he is about to talk to a wild animal. Severus wants to snort that's he's not the person he needs to be weary off.
"Severus, my dear boy," he says quietly. Albus has spent his entire life letting little boys save the world because he needs them.
"I have a job offer for you. It would save lives." Albus chances a look to where James and Lily talk animatedly together, bottles of butterbeers on their laps. "It might save their lives."
Severus sighs. He knows manipulation, but he has no other option.
"I'm listening."
x.X.x
"Absolutely not," Lily snaps. "Don't you even think about it, Sev. I'm not letting you become a spy only for you to die."
Severus looks at her, alive and burning with emotion. "I could either way, but this way, I could save lives."
James wraps his arm around Severus, pulling him close. Severus leans in to the steady arms, thinking about warmer days where he haughtily raised his nose at James's kindness.
"Promise us," James says quietly. "Promise us you'll come home."
Severus stares.
"Promise me," Lily echoes urgently.
Severus takes a deep breath.
"I promise."
x.X.x
Remember when I told you this story was a tragedy? I was not lying.
This story is a tragedy, at the end, but there are beautiful things hidden in the rumble and this is one of them.