AN: This is my first foray in fanfiction in quite a while, and my first published HP one... I wrote it in a deluge of Snily feels after viewing this incredible picture on a Tumblr account ( post/7887130571/really-awesome-image-had-to-post-immediately ).
I'm not sure of the author (if you are, comment!), but whoever they are, they're a god, and I wanted to put their beautiful pic into writing...
I did embellish beyond the scene they created, and if you take issue with anything I've added, then it's me you should bombast.
And yes, I'm sure someone has done this already, and better. I don't get much time to read fanfics, though.
... But yes, this is intended to be a good, long Snily romp that doesn't disregard the canon story we love. Hope you enjoy.
The tunnel was long, and the darkness heavy; he was moving through quicksand, he was striving for something of which he wasn't entirely certain of. Why did his soul feel so heavy, what was this grief and where had it come from-
He wasn't anything but an iron ghost, fighting a pull that strove inexorably down...
He was lying in a bed.
Before he remembered he had eyes, Severus Snape remembered a flowery smell that seemed to have come from a long ways away. It was all around him, the sheets redolent with it; it danced on the tip of his long nose, begging to be named, enveloping him in calm…
And then he realized he was being watched.
Lying as still as a stone, Snape opened his eyes. The bright morning sunlight still overwhelmed him, despite the dampening of a pair of sheer, celadon curtains that moved lazily in the breeze. The window was tossed open, but the dank smell of what had to be a grim-looking river was all but drowned out by that light, flowery perfume; it hung like a spell in the warm air, and he could not think why its presence was so comforting.
The bedside table immediate to his view was cluttered with a mass of parchment, a few books, several quills and ballpoint pens in various states of ruination (they seemed to have been chewed). A lotion pump, a squat lamp with a too-tall green shade under which blue flames hovered, the limp sleeve of a discarded Muggle blouse- this looked like a Muggle bedroom, but with touches of familiar wizard trappings. Snape wasn't sure what to make of this, or anything else.
Especially not the little girl who was leaning up into his face now, having crawled on top of the bed.
"Are you awake?"
His hand went out before he was really aware of it, reaching out to her. What seemed to be occupying every inch of his active mind was the brilliant, dark red hair spilling down her tiny shoulders, dark against her white nightgown. She seemed still a toddler, with pudgy cheeks, but her skinny legs were long; she was going through the growth spurt that changes babies into children, and was just as tall as the bed.
And her eyes were a startling green, the shade of which in even such an uncertain place, he would have known anywhere.
"Yes," he answered hoarsely, cupping the girl's head and brushing a loose, long tress behind her shell-like ear.
She smiled, a dazzling miracle, eyes crinkled with happiness.
"Mummy says pancakes are ready."
And then she was gone, hopping off the bed, darting across the wooden floor and out the door, bare feet slapping down the hallway. Snape watched her go, and debated whether he should follow- but only for a few seconds, because something like the gravity he had felt in that dark place was drawing him after her.
He was wearing a Muggle T-shirt and sweatpants- not his preferred attire, but Muggle clothing seemed to be the norm here. He was hardly curious as to the rooms he passed (a child's room done in patchwork colors, the bathroom who's sink was crowded with crystal vials), and instead stumped after the girl. The hallway opened on the partition of a kitchen and living room; the corner of a couch was visible, and two shimmering flashes of orange as one person disappeared from view behind the hall wall, and another appeared.
The little girl was haltingly climbing off a barstool at the breakfast counter with a piece of toast in her hand, setting after a snow-white cat that had suddenly jogged into view and was just as quickly fleeing from the oncoming child. Celestina Warbeck was crooning on a wooden wireless somewhere; the windows were open here as well, and as he rounded the corner, he saw her: thin, back to him, her pale wrist flicking a blond-wood wand distractedly as she scolded the little child-
"Bella, love, Artemis doesn't want any breakfast-"
He covered the small kitchen in two great strides, and lifted her off the ground with the force of his embrace.
"Good lord, Sev! You made me drop the bacon!" she was saying. It was her voice, this was her trim waist and her curtain of sweet-smelling hair-
"Lily", a thick voice not unlike his murmured. He said it again, and again and again, daring this world to fade around him, to fall away like the cruel dream it must be-
"Yes, that's my name. Don't wear it out." She shifted in his grip and waved the package of bacon from the floor as though being embraced was the most common occurrence in the world. Apparently immune to his shock, she levitated fluffy, steaming pancakes onto a paper towel, and then tilted her head back onto his shoulder and grinned up at him. Intimate, noses inches away, Snape must have looked quite disturbed, for now her smile folded into a look of benign concern.
"You alright, dear?"
He released her, and she didn't drift away or fade from sight; his heart was leaping in his chest, which felt very real and very warm from the closeness they had just shared- or was it the blazing fire in the living room, before which a tawny owl warmed itself with outstretched wings? Her cheeks were red- her freckles, her high cheekbones and eyes crimped in eternal anticipation of laughter; the same Lily, different from the specter she had so long been in his mind in small ways, but her. Solid, very real. Her.
"I'm so sorry," he burst out. His eyes were suddenly stinging, and not from the smoke of the lit fireplace. "I've been- you don't know how I've-"
"Sorry?" she quipped, looking perplexed and beautiful and so alive. "What, you mean about what happened at the McKinnons' last night? I already told you, Sev, it's fine if you want to feel that way-"
"M-Mary McKinnon?" fell stupidly out of his mouth, as his mind raced with images: a girl of twelve with curly, brown locks and sharp eyes- the girl now a woman, her body slumped before Voldemort's outstretched and those eyes dead-
"Yes, those McKinnons," she said, looking amused. "You must still be waking up… Cop a seat until you're back on the planet. Coffee's right there."
She turned back to the stove, taking for granted that he would do as she said; instead he continued to stare, dumbfounded at both her and her casualness. Only now did the presence of the child reassert itself, as something umber bumped at his elbow.
"Daddy, can Artemis have some of my bacon?" the girl asked. She was holding onto the now-squirming cat, a look of determination set on features that he now saw were a blending of two faces he knew very well: one because he had always seen it in his regrets, and the other one that so often stared back at him in the mirror.
"No, Artemis can't eat any more, ducky-" the woman answered for him. "She'll get diarrhea all over again, and I've quite enough of cleaning up after you-" Lily lunged downwards and pinched the child's cheek good-naturedly, which caused her to squeal and drop the cat. "- without any messes from the cat. Now go on, your pancakes are getting cold."
Snape watched the child set about climbing back onto the barstool, tongue poking out of her mouth. She climbed into the booster seat perched atop it and sat, swinging her legs. She was now singing the word 'diarrhea' as she set about her breakfast.
"Lord, done it again…" Lily sighed. "Got to watch it around her, she loves a new word... Last time it was 'sodding' she couldn't say enough of, remember?... Sev, really, snap out of it."
These last words broke through his reverie, and he turned back to Lily, who was now eyeing him with a blazing sort of look and shoving a plate of pancakes and bacon at him. He took it, blinking.
"I- I'm sorry."
"Daddy, will you show me the spell that makes things grow?"
"Belladonna Eileen Snape, let you father eat in peace." Lily scolded, grinning at her daughter.
"Belladonna?" he repeated numbly.
"Oh, yes, I wanted a flower name, but you just insisted she had to be a potion ingredient…" Lily sang over her shoulder. Snape sat down, seeing the girl through new eyes. He suddenly felt like a traveler setting down to a meal at the end of a long day's journey, and took a bite of Lily's cooking. Nothing had ever tasted better, in his opinion.
"I'm going to Hogwarts this year!" Bella declared, smiling radiantly up at her father.
"You have to be eleven, to go to Hogwarts," he said gently- to which the red-headed girl mumbled "Hmmph!" and swung her head imperiously, some hair dipping into the puddle of syrup at her elbow.
"Every September since she learned to talk…" Lily was suddenly against his side again, scooting up next to him with her own plate. " 'When is it time to go to school? I want to go to Hogwarts! I want to do magic!' " she cried, imitating the little girl.
"I'll ask Dumbledore," Belladonna growled back. "He'll let me in because he's Daddy's friend-"
"Dumbled-" he began, but halted. Yes, the tower that dark night, the great man falling past the parapets, the mission sealed with the curse Snape had set on all of them-
"Oh goodness, we're getting a call!" Lily exclaimed, bolting upright. The fire in the small living room was glowing green, and as Snape glanced over, a face suddenly appeared within the hearth.
"L- Lupin!?"
"Morning!" Remus' disembodied head chirped; his face was younger, and much less lined. But the real difference was in his eyes; they looked happier than Snape remembered, as though they had seen much less sorrow.
"Sorry to interrupt- hullo, Bella! … But Severus, I've got a quick question about this report you sent in-"
Moving towards the fireplace, Snape crouched down. His own hands were younger, too. The adults all seemed in their mid-twenties.
"James and I together couldn't make sense of your writing-" Lupin continued.
"Potter!?"
It came out a little louder than he would have liked; Lilly started, but Lupin seemed to think Snape was only trying to make himself heard over the crackling of the green flames.
"Well yes, James. He's been put on record-keeping after that incident with the enchanted dishwasher in Castlebury… Alastor's idea of a punishment, you know." He smiled at the antics his friends were still getting up to. "Of course if you'd just become an Auror like you should have, I'm sure you'd be able to keep a handle on him- Tonks doesn't know him like you do. He and Sirius get up to quite a bit of trouble still, but as long as they haul in Death Eaters Moody could usually care-"
"Know… Potter…"
"Aye, Sev, you know he respects you. Much more than he ever did me!" Remus shrugged, still grinning. "Mind you, I thought for a while you'd hex him into oblivion back in school, but after Pettigrew… Well, you were a good role model. Smart, but he just needed direction… Still does, apparently."
Snape was silent at this revelation, his head spinning. Respected by James Potter, and a friend of Remus Lupin… But something more pressing came to mind-
"Voldemort," he blurted out, and was unsurprised to see Remus shudder. "What's he-"
"No news yet, although of course I still think you and Dumbledore are being a tad paranoid. Whatever happened with the young Longbottom boy did something, Severus. Everyone wants to believe that he's gone… But, anyway, just wanted to ask you what the last sentence on page seven is saying. Your handwriting is still terrible, Sev…"
He uttered something, anything, and Lupin departed cheerfully. The fire burned yellow once more, and he drifted back over to the table. The Longbottoms. The prophecy; this improbable time and place that was so alien because it was so right...
"Potter's still a bit of a toerag, if you ask me," Lily chimed in, seeming to want to reassure him. She was cleaning up their plates, and Bella had leapt off her stool and set off on some errand. He felt her eyes on his back, kind and concerned.
"Dear, you're starting to make me worried…"
And now it was her embracing him, her white arms wrapped around his waist and her cheek against his back; the past and the future colliding behind his black eyes, and all was chaos… But this was different. This was a world where all wrongs had been righted; and suddenly it all clicked into place. Her. He had chosen her that night, with the word 'Mudblood' still hanging between them; he had told Mulciber and Avery to shove off, and turned his back on the power of the Dark Arts. He had chosen the light instead- her light. Her sanctuary… and this was his reward.
His neck still ached, though the snake's gaping bite was gone; Lily's breath fluttered in just that spot as she held him.
He had walked one path, and was now getting to walk the other.
"You were like this when I was pregnant with Bella, too," she murmured. "I know the first one is always a trial, but we've had our practice, Sev." A light laugh there, now. "Mary was right, it does get easier the second time around. I know you were worried about us having another, but-"
His eyes were streaming now, and would soon drip down onto Lily's head.
"You're a good father to Bella. She loves you… So do I. And so will this baby."
They stood in silence for a few long moments, in the airy little house on Spinner's Lane that was nothing like he remembered, because it had never known a family who loved one another. The dark crags had been vanished, swept away like the smell of the river, by the presence of lilies in his life.
"Say," she said happily, clapping him on the stomach. "If it's a boy, I'm getting keen on the name 'Harry'. What do you think?"
That tunnel, and that world in which he had chosen wrongly, seemed so very far away.
"I... I think Harry is a lovely name."