What Awaits After Death

by Angelis Raye

A few Notes and Warnings:

First and foremost, this fanfiction is: a Severitus Challenge, requested by Moogle, also known as Boogum on here. Currently not Beta'd. Post DH, since it was the best Harry Potter book ever written. I hope this is something different, but something that everyone can enjoy.

A few harsher words are used, but not many. Dark themes are dominant, although Harry will not side with the Dark Lord, Voldemort. More Mature themes are also present (implied and stated).

This is my first time writing either Draco or Lily, so forgive me if they are not as you picture them. Do not expect such a large chapter for the second one.

Pairing(s) in this chapter: Lily X Severus.

Words: about5700.

Chapter 1:

A Background and the Raising

"No, wait!" Harry exclaimed, pulling off the Invisibility Cloak, recklessly tossing it to the ground. He rushed in front of Severus Snape, hissing to Nagini, who was residing in her bubble, protected from everything else.

"Aha! So, I see... my planning really worked, Severus! Did I not tell you that he would come?" the Dark Lord, Voldemort Taunted, waving the Elder Wand about as he talked.

The tension between them grew until it broke with a snap (quite literally) -- the old, worn boards underneath Harry gave way from under his feet. Harry leapt back just in time, but tripped on his Cloak, which he had tossed aside earlier, falling down hard on his back, and knocking his head hard against the flooring with a sickening crack.

Lord Voldemort smiled, his face twisting into a mask of pure bloodlust, his deadly crimson eyes set in a fiery gaze, concentrated on Harry.

A bit shocked and a lot more terrified than anything else, the Boy-Who-Lived got to this slightly unstable feet hurriedly, clutching his head disdainfully. He would not allow his mortal enemy such an opportunity to kill him so very easily. His breath was coming in desperate gasps, his heart pounding in his ears, right behind his eyes, making him somewhat blind to his surroundings. Attempting to steady his wand hand, he pointed it directly at Voldemort, failing in his attempt.

"Well, well... are you trying to initiate a duel between us?" the other leered. "Because, with the Elder Wand in my possession, I will destroy you!"

"Master, wait!" shouted Snape, knowing that since the Dark Lord still retained at least one of his Horcruxes and would not truly die, he hastily spat out what he knew. If the boy died? he shook his head his head slightly: no, Draco would do as he had been asked to do. "You should not duel Potter with the Elder Wand; Draco Malfoy was the one to gain mastership over the wand, then Potter defeated him just weeks ago. That's Malfoy's wand he's holding now!" Frightened, grateful he was still living, he pointed a long finger to the dragon heartstring wand that now belonged to Harry Potter.

Lord Voldemort raised a brow at this odd interaction, but nodded understandingly. Yes, he would use his first wand to kill the boy, then the Elder Wand's power would be his at last!

"Thank you, Severus. That is a tremendous aid to my defeat of the blood brat that constantly stands in my way to greatness!"

A terrible chill went through Harry at that moment: Snape was a treacherous bastard for telling Voldemort that information and that he knew he would die in this moment. There was so little hope left in him at all -- this was it, all because he had felt that he should save the jerk who just condemned him to his death. Dumbledore had left him almost nothing of what he would do next and what had been given to him had not helped nearly at all, other than finding out that he would never be the owner of the Elder Wand, completely, at the end.

He looked into the eyes of the traitor, his right hand shakily still holding onto the wand. What emotion he found within those normally vacant eyes surprised him so greatly, his attention was swept away from his enemy, and onto the other that he hated so fiercely. The briefly soulful eyes told him of something more than just an apology or a debt. It was almost too much for him to possibly determine before Voldemort drew his undesired attention once again.

"Potter! Are we to duel properly or not?! Bow!" the high-pitched voice commanded, mockingly.

He bowed, paced, then turned, slowly raising his wand, shouting an almost begging, "Expelliarmus!" to counter the Dark Lord's Killing Curse.

Needless to say, Harry Potter's efforts were fruitless -- he died the instant that the green light engulfed him, before he could scream. His body fell to the ground lifelessly, like a doll's. The last thing that he would remember was those emotion-filled black eyes of Snape's before he passed onto the other realm.

Death was interesting, to say the least, only because he met his mother. Other than that, Harry could personally care less about the others. Sirius was always telling stories about how Harry had been so very brave and how Harry was so very much like his father when they were younger.

"Am I really so much like him?" he asked his mother one time, wondering if what he had heard about his father from Snape was true. He was almost afraid of the answer when Lily finally did begin to respond.

"You are not very much like James; Sirius is right, however, you are very much like your father," she answered, leaving Harry utterly befuddled.

"What? You just... I don't understand." Harry sighed, leaning back in his chair, "am I like him, James, my father?"

"Harry, dearest..." Lily hesitated, her eyes glowing with unshed tears, but was soon interrupted by the noise that Sirius was making. "Hang on a bit, honey..." and the conversation was soon forgotten.

It seemed as though years had passed before they stumbled upon that same topic again, as Harry had completely avoided James and Sirius since then. He preferred to spend his free time in the library, reading everything that appealed to his fancy; he couldn't be bothered with messing around while Voldemort was still plaguing the world that they had all left. He just could not take his mind off of the thought about how many people were dying as of recent, although it had slowed down over time.

Lily had been looking for him for quite some time until she found her only child sitting all alone in the library, at a table, his book propped up on the table, his fingers caressing the front and back covers of the large leather-bound tome. Almost the entire table seemed to be covered with books, put into two separate categories.

"What are you reading, Harry?" she asked, her melodious voice making the other look up from the book, his glasses perched on the end of his nose, almost about to slide off his face onto the book.

Harry shrugged, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, sighing. "The Potential Solution to a Vast Problem," he reciting, almost lovingly, his face turning downward again, resuming his intent reading of the proclaimed book below.

"Isn't that... a Potions text?" Lily asked, a bit intrigued. "From what I have heard from Sirius ramble on about is how you absolutely despised Potions classes."

Harry blushed, looking a bit ashamed of himself, and a bit guilty looking as well. "I used to," he said simply, brushing back a few strands of his black hair behind his ear, habitually.

Oddly enough, even in this plane of existence, Harry had begun changing in his physical appearance. He had blamed it first upon staying in the library constantly, but it had begun even before then. It had gone unnoticed at first, but even without looking in a mirror in so long, he could tell that he was changing, even if it was ever so slowly.

When he had gotten to Hogwarts again, after a long winder had finally thawed into spring, tediously making its way into the heat of summer, the back of his hair had reached just above his shoulder blades. Now, it was almost to his hips, after all the time that had passed here -- despite time passing so slowly here. Harry rather liked it longer, since it seemed to weigh itself down and taming it in the process. Another, odder thing that concerned his hair, was that, even without it being long, the hair itself seemed to feel heavier, as if it had begun to produce more oil than before. Upon feeling his hair, once, he had noticed that it defiantly felt oilier than before.

A second discovery he made was that as well as getting taller, all of his bones had begun to lengthen, including his fingers and palms. Before, they were short and small, but they had become long, thin. and powerful -- the muscles, no doubt from all the notes that he had begun to take during all of this reading that he was doing. At the same time, he noticed his nose felt different, as his glasses kept sliding down the bridge of his nose, uncomfortably. It had become annoying to constantly push up his glasses, lately, to be able to read and to take his notes.

These things were noticed by Lily, as she took in the sight of her son, reading the Potions text. The very fact that these changes had only begun when she had started to tell her son about his heritage was alarming her. Had the charms she had placed on him so powerful, only to wear off once he was in the after life, where things would be all told in full? Shaking her mind loose from all those horrid fears and thoughts, Lily placed her hand on Harry's shoulder, which was covered by his thick, raven black hair.

Looking up to meet his mother's beautifully green eyes once again, Harry focused his attention on her alone. He wanted to hear what she had to say, even if it was her disapproval of his staying cooped up in the library with only books as his company or having his hair grown out too long.

"Harry, my child, I'm afraid that I must tell you something that I don't believe even James knows," she began, intent on finishing this, this time. Sighing, she continued onwards, "when you were born, James had been out to gather some more potions from Bathilda for my contractions and the pain that they had wrought on me. One look at you, just at your eyes, told me exactly who you belonged to. I quickly cast charms to hide it before James returned. They were planned to start wearing off as you got older and capable of handling what it meant.

"Before you get too curious for your own good, as your father used to, I wish to show you some of my memories of what lead up to this..." With that said, the redhead conjured up a pensive (plain and made of stone) to suit their needs for the explanation to her beloved son.

He fell headlong into sunlight, and his feet found the warm ground, right next to his mother. When he straightened up, he saw that he was in a nearly deserted play ground. A single, huge chimney dominated the distant skyline as two young girls were swinging back and forth, a young boy about the same age as the girls hiding behind the bushes close by. The two looked very excited as they swung back and forth, one seeming to go higher and higher as the other looked on disdainfully.

Harry and his mother moved somewhat closer to the girls, as Harry watching them with curiosity.

"Lily, don't do it!" shrieked the elder of the two.

But the girl had released herself from the seat of the swing, at the top of the arc, seemingly flying into the air, laughing as she went higher into the air, soaring for far too long for it not to be the result of a bit of magic, landing lightly on her feet.

"Mummy told you not to!"

Petunia had stopped swinging altogether, dragging the heels of her sandals into the dirt, making a crunching, grinding sound, leaping up, hands on hips, the swing knocking into the back of her legs softly.

"Mummy said you weren't allowed, Lily!"

"But I'm fine," said Lily, still giggling. "Tuney, look at this. Watch what I can do."

Petunia glanced about, the deserted playground looking very empty apart from the swings, themselves, and the well hidden boy behind the shrubbery. Lily had picked up a fallen flower from the bush the boy was hiding behind, Petunia following slowly. The older was torn between her curiosity and the desire to state her high disapproval of what her younger sister was doing. Lily waited until her sister was near enough to have a very clear view of what she was doing, the flower held out in the middle of her upturned palm. The flower sat there, opening and closing its petals, looking like some bizarre, many lipped oyster. At this, the Lily standing next to Harry was softly giggling girlishly at what they were witnessing.

"Stop it!" shrieked Petunia.

"It's not hurting you," said Lilt, but closed her hand on the blossom, crushing it slightly, and threw it back to the ground.

"It's not right," protested Petunia, but her eyes had followed the flower's flight to the ground intensely, lingering upon it for a few seconds. "How do you do it?" she added, a definite longing in her voice.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" said the boy, suddenly jumping out of the bushes, making Petunia shriek and run back to the swings, though startling Lily, remained stationary. The boy, who could only be a young version of Snape, dressed in an overlarge coat, with a smock like shirt underneath it, seemed to regret his appearance, A dull flush of color mounted the sallow cheeks as he looked at Lily.

"Severus was such a sweet little child, then..." uttered Harry's mother softly, her hands on her chest, face alight with emotion...

The following memories that his mother showed him were full of emotion, spanning the time from the moment they just witnessed up until the point of graduation from Hogwarts. He now saw what he could not from just the one glimpse into the past through Snape's worst memory, although he did witness that event again through Lily's eyes, this time, she cried right beside him. Harry had hugged her, caressing her back, trying to calm her -- the hurt she had experienced from Snape calling her a Mudblood still very fresh, after seeing her memories like this again.

Through this, Harry saw that his mother had still cared desperately for the other boy that she had known throughout her youth and the uncaring acts of James Potter and Sirius Black against the one that she wished to protect so very much. It was later, in her final year at school, that Lily had struck a deal with Potter, saying that she would go out with him, if he left Snape alone enough to please her. It had worked out well, for the best part, even though Lily was beginning to feel her doubts about the path that Snape was going to choose for himself.

Once pulled out of the memories that carried so much emotion in his mother, he looked to her, his dark eyes glimmering with held back tears.

"It seemed as though he and I would never be together again, however, it seemed as though gate had planned something entirely different. Severus came to me, one night, James being there, I told him that I would meet him at Spinner's End, his old home. After I told James that I was off to see my Mother's grave (it had been the anniversary of her head, anyway), I met up with Severus at his place. He asked me first, if I would like to visit the grave, and I had said that we should; after all, she had been very accepting of me and my 'different talents' and he respected her for that. Strangely enough, visiting the grave with Severus made me far more emotional than usual. It ended up that we went back to Spinner's End for dinner after the time we had spent in the cemetery.

"When I was about to leave, Severus beckoned me to stay with him, that he could hold me just one last time, for memories' sake. A tad reluctantly, I agreed, although it was not a very wise choice on my own part; as soon as I had discovered that he had the Dark Mark on his arm, I could almost no longer contain myself. I ran from him, completely devastated by his choice, my trust in him destroyed absolutely." Lily stopped there, meeting eyes with her shocked son's once again before finishing her tale. "Needless to say, it was nine more months before I found out what exactly happened between us."

Silence stretched between them for what seemed like an eternity before Harry thought of a sensible reply. "So, I'm Snape's, eh?" he inquired, raising an eyebrow out of sheer habit, looking a bit like the aforementioned man.

"Lily!!" cried out a voice, from behind them. "I cannot believe this! You slept with Snape?! On the anniversary of your mother's death, to top it all off!" growled James Potter, coming from behind a bookcase, Sirius shortly behind him.

Harry scowled, seeing the situation before him. "Well, he treated her far better than you did, some times!" he exclaimed, standing up from his chair, almost yelling at the man he once respected. Doing so, however, just made things worse.

"Well, look at little Snape, Jr. ...! He already looks so much like his daddy, that it makes me want to puke. I cannot believe that he still hasn't changed back into his real self. Seeing a bit of me mixed in with someone like Snivellus makes me shudder with revulsion!" James retorted, pulling his wand out with a flourish. He pointed it at Harry, determined to make his point.

"No, James! Don't!" Lily shouted, rushing to stop him.

Sirius, however, caught Lily shortly, allowing James to finish what he had aimed to do. He cast a curse, looking and sounding very nasty, at Harry, engulfing him in brilliant red light. It was painful, as it coursed through his body, hearing the man gloat, "Well, at least now I won't have to see bits of myself thrown in with Snape's awful looks!"

Before he could manage to do anything else, he felt a jerk, pulling at the center of his very being, ripping him out of this plane into another.

Hazily, through half-closed eyes, Harry saw two or three bodies approach him cautiously. What had he gotten himself into now?

When he woke again, it was to bright lights, laying under soft, silken sheets against his weary body. Harry could feel the affects of the spell had on him: even longer limbs, if his hands had anything to do with it, even thicker and oilier hair than before, and some change in his sight. He could feel that other parts of him must have assuredly changed, yet, he couldn't see them, since he hadn't seen a mirror before he had died!

"Looks like he's waking up," a rich, cultured voice announced to the other that appeared to be watching over him. A slightly blurred mass of black came into Harry's view, saying, "Dear Merlin, he looks so..."

"I know! I thought that I'd let you know before you thought of something to name him. That's what you're planning on doing, right? So that You-Know-Who won't find out...?"

"Yes, of course, but this fact alone complicates things."

"Un..." Harry moaned, almost oblivious that it was him that they were discussing.

"How are you faring, Draco? I'm sure that Blood Ritual drained quite a bit of energy from you. Are you so sure that you don't need any more rest?"

Slowly, his eyes began to focus, almost enough to see clearly, to see the blond shaking his head in a flat refusal. "No, Severus, I do not need any more rest. I must see how he is before I would be able to get any rest at all! Since we're dealing with the consequences of everything now."

"I suppose that I can relate."

Chuckles erupted from the blond, who sat the closest to Harry, still gazing down at him, with bright blue eyes. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Hurts... everywhere," Harry managed, his voice low and cracked, sounding as if his voice box and throat muscles hadn't been in use for years. "Where am I?"

"Unplottable," announced the other, who could only be Severus Snape -- the very man that James Potter loathed and hated.

"I don't understand... how long has it been?" he inquired, realizing that it must have been a long time since he had been alive, even if he couldn't tell how long.

"Five years," came the reply, this time, from Draco.

Nodding in his shock, Harry examined the other two, noticing that they both looked much older than what he remembered. It had already been five years since that day that he had attempted to stop Voldemort?

"The reason for the lateness," Draco continued, "was because it took a long time to relocate and researching through the available cants to Raise a body without the remains or the soul in our possession. Luckily, we found it so soon. Otherwise, it might have been up to twenty years, and by then it would be almost impossible to raise someone, even with that sort of ritual."

"You're a Necromancer!" Harry proclaimed, a bit taken back.

"Yeah, I am..." replied Draco, his pale face flushed a bit. "You seem a lot different than your normal self as well, you know."

"I... I know," the other, looking down at his hands again, said softly. "My mother told me about what happened when you two went to her mother's grave," he directed at the eldest of all of them present.

"Did she, now?" Snape said, after a bit of time had passed, raising an eyebrow, examining the boy intently.

He had definite grown much taller and much more like himself than when he had last seen him. His face was a good mixture of both his and Lily's, as well as was his build, and his mannerisms in speech. Snape was very glad that his son had not looked exactly like he had when he was younger, since he had gotten ridiculed often for being that way. The boy's stature would surely rival his own, if not passing it – since Lily's father had been the same height, if not taller than himself. The long hair was one thing that made the boy look so different than him, the most. It was wizarding tradition for the oldest male in the family (that had been dignified heir of the household) to wear their hair past the shoulders, starting to grow it at the age of 17, only if their father had died. In this circumstance, the young man would have to cut his hair, now, since he was no longer the only one left in his line. It would be best to tell him as soon as possible, to get the whole ordeal over with, without someone suspecting that something was off-kilter.

"Because the entire wizarding world believe you to be dead, it would not be wise to say that you are Harry Potter. It has been my decision that you will have a different, new name to go by of my choosing. This will be the name that you will go by from now until the time when the Dark Lord is defeated."

"I understand," Harry replied, softly. His vocal cords were beginning to adjust to the new strain, sounding lower and deeper as they did, starting to remind himself that he was indeed Severus Snape's son.

"This means that you will act completely as my son, Thomas Caesar Snape," the man announced, seeming to pull the name out of nowhere. "Being that you are my son, I will not tolerate you having your hair worn in that manner."

"Because of traditions, eh?" Ha – No, Thomas, said softly, sounding deadly, much like his father's did, when threatening students.

This threw Severus off, since he had not known that his son had been so interested in matters of wizarding traditions before, nor that he could manage to manipulate his voice in such a way. "I am delighted to know that you have finally learned a few things about the world around you."

"They all happened to be older books that were in the library. Apparently, it doesn't update very often, as the newest book was printed in 1860," came the knowledgeable retort.

"1860's?" Draco gasped, a bit astounded. "That must mean that some of the books from –"

"Yes, from the Great Salazar Slytherin," intoned Thomas, who was beginning to hate his more formal name. "There were a few books, mostly written in Parseltongue, but only about three of them altogether, really. I had much more interest in going through the books written by some of the older writers of the time. For instance, Gregory Iudicium was a fascinating man, the way that he wrote his books – I think he wrote a total of five, if I'm not mistaken. There were quite a number of books concerning Necromancy, Mind Arts, and the Blood Arts, as well as a few books on the Shadow Arts and some other, lesser known magical arts that seem to all be either banned by the Ministry or forgotten."

Looking astounded, both of the Slytherins gazed at the recently dead young man, with such a jealousy that Thomas could feel.

He raised his face to look into his father's eyes, not having meet them since five years before, in the Shrieking Shack, facing Lord Voldemort. "I don't understand, why did you just let him kill me like that?" he asked, suddenly, surprising himself that he had let such a thing slip over his tongue like that without thinking of the circumstances.

"Ever the Gryffindor," was muttered, then, "It was because if I proved my disloyalty to him, and he returned through his Horcruxes, I would not be forgiven and killed before I could find Draco to ask him to Raise you. After thinking through the situation through so many times, and in such depth, I could think of no other way than to go ahead with that plan, rather than damning us all to death with the rest of the world."

"I understand that, now that you've explained it. I just didn't think the question through before it slipped out," Thomas whispered, ashamed that he had any Gryffindor left in him. From all of the books he had read about the past, it seemed the ones that were head-strong and brave often died at a young age. He had proved that much true when he had died the first time! He had promised himself that he would not let some emotion like that to overpower him enough to jump in front of a Killing Curse again. No, he would need to embrace his Slytherin part of himself completely, especially now that he knew what that meant. Despite knowing why he was any bit Slytherin at all, he was willing to nurture it to it's utmost capacity. If that meant that he would become vicious and power-hungry, so be it.

Thomas Snape knew that growing part of his very soul was being consumed, almost parasitically, by Tom Riddle's piece of broken soul. A part of Lord Voldemort, himself had latched onto his when he had used the Killing Curse against him as a child, splitting his soul yet again, as it had become so unstable after killing two others in such a short period of time. Once latched on, it began to feed and grow, devouring the other soul that resided in his body. Which became more and more evident as time went on, year after year in Hogwarts – beginning with just the familiar circumstances that they both tended to end up in, evolving into a corruption of the mind through magic. Near the end, as Harry Potter, Thomas had begun to use the Unforgivable Curses : first the Imperius Curse, then the Cruciatus Curse, then, what was surely to follow, the Killing Curse.

Desires that he had never known before had also begun to fill his mind, corrupting the innocence that he once had. It had started with rather innocently wished ones, like being able to get away from his Aunt and Uncle's house, slowly becoming rather dangerous ones, such as wishing that he could attain the three Deathly Hallows. Remembering what clues Dumbledore had left him, he felt sickened to know that Voldemort now most likely had two of the three, unless he had left the Cloak with S– his father. This dark craving for absolute power disturbed a part of him, although the rest of him just revealed in it, eagerly wanting to fill his intense lust.

Finally, pushing down the headiness that was getting to him, Thomas looked his father in the eye, "Do you have the Invisibility Cloak, or did Vol–"

"Do not speak his name aloud!" came a hissed reply from the blond, interrupting him. "He'll know where we are if you do that!"

"Or did the Dark Lord keep it for himself?" Thomas finished, a bit awkward.

Snape studied him oddly, his eyes gleaming after a few moments of a stare. "No, the Dark Lord did not think that he would need to use such an object as that. Knowing that it must have come from one of your ancestors, he gave it to me, to let me have a bit of victory for himself."

"May I have it returned to me, then?" After attaining a nod from the Potions Master, he then knew what to ask next. "And was there a Snitch on me at the time that you found?"

"Yes," came the reply. "I also kept that, as well as Draco's wand. He is the one who keeps the wand, now, however."

"I no longer need that wand, since I have already lost my power over it. I will need a new wand, since I am no longer Harry Potter, as you said. The wand that I had before was one that chose Harry Potter, not Thomas ...Snape." Thomas's heart was pounding: he had almost said Riddle, and with the way that he had said his previous name – it almost made him sick to his stomach. He now swore that a part of his own soul had died when his physical body had, either that or it had corrupted so badly during his stay in the after life, consuming knowledge the entire time of his stay. "I would also like to have the Snitch, if you don't mind... please, Father."

The surge of overpowering hunger for the third and final object spread like a wildfire when he touched the familiar objects once again. "I am about to die..." he uttered to the golden ball, softly, smiling when it opened, revealing the cracked Resurrection ring inside.

"Is that...?" Draco said, excitedly, actually standing and walking over to Thomas this time.

"Yessss..." Thomas replied, gazing upon the stone hungrily.

For a second, the two Slytherins could almost see his eyes shining crimson, albeit briefly. Feeling the cold stares of the others, Thomas lifted his eyes back to theirs, almost daring them to look at him funny then.

"You should rest, your body is still becoming used to living again," was all he remembered hearing before the others left the room, extinguishing the candles, then shutting the door behind them with a soft click.

Thomas feel easily into a deep sleep that consumed all of his senses.

To be Continued...

End Notes for the Chapter:

The short flashback that occurs in Lily's perspective is taken quite closely from the text of the actual book. Since, you, the reader should know better to finish the book, I imagine that you should already know what happens in the flashbacks, and did not feel like re-writing all of them to fit Lily's point of view.

Another thing -- Snape is known for being very exceptional at Mind Arts, right? So, since he had meet eyes with Harry (although not stated) before he answered the Dark Lord, he must have seen the things that Harry knew, so that he could work this all out to suit the needs of himself and stay true to the orders from Dumbledore. Assuredly, he must have been punished for knowingly letting Draco take the Elder Wand after Dumbledore died, and helping the old Headmaster out by killing him. All's well that ends well, however, since he did get rid of the old man that the his "Master" was so afraid of...

Please, be kind and review? I will be more likely to write better, longer, well-thought out chapters if I find my inbox filled with wonderful reviews of all sorts. It doesn't matter if you just say "It's cool!" or the standard "I cannot wait to see what you write next." used as a review. The mere thought that you all care enough to drop in and say something means a great deal to me, even if it's just one or two words. Of course, I greatly appreciate those that go in depth, helping me, as a writer, improve myself. Is that not what we all wish for?