A/N: So obviously this is a Marauders Era fic basically it's two what ifs 1) What if Snape was sorted in to Gryffindor and 2) What if Voldemort started to get his act together a little sooner. I don't really want to reveal eventual pairings because well that spoils the fun but if you're one of those people who doesn't want to read a fic unless you know it's going to end up with your favorite ship feel free to shoot me a message and I'll let you know.

Additionally, I do realize that this first chapter is very similar to Snape's memory in the Deathly Hallows however I assure you that it deviates quite radically starting in the second chapter so…there you are. Please enjoy!

Somewhere in Surrey, when the August sun hung high in the air, a little girl was playing with a spinning top. It wasn't so much the game itself that was odd but rather the fact that the girl was spinning these tops in mid-air as if by magic. This couldn't be the case however because well for one thing she was crying and any little girl with the ability to do magic would be far too happy to cry and, for another, well, magic simply doesn't exist.

"You're getting good at that." The little girl jumped at the voice causing the tops to crash dramatically around her. A little boy had crawled up on the roof and was apparently not at all surprised that the girl could make tops spin in mid-air, in fact, this seemed to be quite ordinary. The boys black hair was dull and stringy, and his face was thin and pallid obviously untouched by the months of summer. If that weren't enough he was wearing a pair of men's tweed pants that were rolled several times at the bottom and a patched grey shirt that was somewhere between a smock and a blouse. His shy smile was kind and handsome though as were his dark black eyes.

The girl did not seem to be moved by the smile however and her green eyes narrowed as she snapped her curtain of hair around so she was no longer looking at the boy.

"Go away." Her voice wasn't particularly mean, just very, very sad. The boy's smile faded instantly but he did not heed the girl's instructions and, instead, sat next to her.

"Lily you're letter will come." The boy said encouragingly. The girl, Lilly, looked down and shook her head negatively causing her curtain of long red hair to shield her tear-stained face.

"No it won't" Lily whispered picking up one of the tops and letting it go. Instead of dropping to the group the top hung in mid-air and started to spin. "They don't want me because I'm a – a"

"Muggle-born?" The boy said helpfully

"Oh you see I don't even know what it is called. How can I be expected to go to a Wizarding School when I don't even know what I'm called." Lilly wailed dropping her head in her hands. Apparently the boy didn't expect her to be this upset, or had had very little experience consoling little girls, because he looked around uncomfortably realizing the conversation wasn't going nearly as well as he intended.

"Maybe it got lost." He offered, though his tone of voice suggested that he did not belief for a moment that it got lost.

"Owls don't get lost Severus."

"See you're learning." The boy offered gleefully. Lilly smiled at his joke, for he didn't seem the type to make them often. This smile seemed to be the boost the boy needed as he crouched forward into a kneeling position.

"Maybe it got taken." Severus sounded like he believed what he was saying this time and there was a gleam in his eye that Lilly caught on to.

"Petunia?" Lilly gasped. "You really think…She wouldn't…she's my sister and it's my private post." Severus shrugged in response. Apparently he believed that blood relation or not, Petunia was the sort to take someone's private post if it suited her.

Suddenly, a very angry Lilly turned and marched to an open window that led from the rooftop to a cozy looking bedroom with two twin beds.

"Well are you going to help me look?" Lilly called back to Severus her as she climbed through the window. Severus hesitated, a little unsure. It was obvious both from his appearance - and from the fact that he couldn't be older than 11 – that being invited into pretty girl's bedrooms wasn't a common occurrence and he wasn't entirely sure how to handle the situation.

"Severus come on!" Lilly yelled from inside. A direct request seemed to be more than Severus could refuse and he quickly scrambled up and folded himself through the double pane window.

The bedroom was painted in pastels and tidy in a cosy sort of way. The side of the room that Lilly was rifling through was more rigidly organized and covered in posters of Muggle boys from insipid Muggle magazines. Severus was much more interested in the other side of the room which was covered in drawings of fantastic mythical creatures – obviously muggle drawn as none of the beasts actually existed in the magical world – but still fascinating.

"That little…I'm going to kill you Petunia Evans!" Lilly roared, victoriously holding up a sheet of heavy parchment marked with emerald green ink. The malice in Lily's voice was cut with joy though as she flopped on her sisters bed and read the letter over multiple times.

"I'm a witch." Lilly said in disbelief looking up at Severus for confirmation. Severus' lips quirked like he very much wanted to laugh at his friend but, since he didn't know if laughing was appropriate, he merely nodded solemnly as Lily read her letter once more.

Lilly looked up, once again panicked.

"Sev? Will you teach me everything you know about the wizarding world? I don't want to look like a Muddle."

"You mean a Muggle." Severus said his voice silky with confidence now that he had a clear-sense of direction. Despite his horrid clothes, sallow skin and slightly unpleasant expression there was something slightly regal about him as he sat down importantly on Petunia's bed across from Lilly. "Of course I'll tell you anything you want to know."

It was the best 5 hours of Severus Snape's life.

XxX

Severus Snape's hand was slightly damp with sweat as he re-adjusted his grip on his luggage trolley. Despite having looked forward to this day every day since he knew it was coming, what had once been excitement had now turned into stark terror. Everything suddenly felt wrong. His hand-me-down cloaks were in way worse repair and a slightly different fashion than the cloaks he had seen other student's buy at Diagon Alley weeks before; His trunk was smaller too and, he knew, filled with second-hand textbooks and little else; while other students hugged parents and siblings or chatted with friends Snape pushed his cart through the platform alone. Father had been in one of his moods that morning, still smelling of whiskey and woman's perfume from the night before no doubt and his mother had loaded Severus up in the car and dropped him off outside King's Cross station without so much as a proper goodbye. He noted bitterly that he could feel eyes lingering on him as he struggled to load his trunk into the compartment before turning to enter the Hogwarts Express.

It wasn't that Severus wasn't used to side-ways stares and sneers both because of his family's reputation for loud, drunken arguments and his hand-me down, mismatched clothes, but he had expected Hogwarts to be different. He had expected to belong, to be around people like him.

He scanned the train for an open compartment, or at least a compartment where he wouldn't be expected to talk but all the compartments seemed full with laughing, chatting students buzzing excitedly about Hogwarts. He wondered briefly if Lily was on the train but stopped that train of thought almost instantly. With her shiny red hair, perfect green eyes and dazzling smile there was no doubt she had already made friends and had already forgotten about her the scrawny, pale boy from Spinner's End. Before he could convince himself that he didn't care however he saw a familiar head of dark red hair leaning against the compartment window.

The compartment itself was quite. Full of first years Severus imagined as the two boys seated alongside Lily looked to be about his age. One boy was looking out of the window with a grumpy, defiant expression on his face and the other was seated quietly looking torn between excited anticipation and boredom.

"Lily?" Snape said quietly though in comparison to the previously silent compartment, his voice sounded like a megaphone.

She turned around to face him, her face streaked lightly with tears and Snape felt as though someone had twisted his insides with his bare hands. He wanted to hex whomever made Lily Evans cry. She turned back to look out the window after a moment moving her bag off the seat beside her. Severus took that as his cue to awkwardly step across the bespeckled boy's legs and sit beside Lily. The boy glared at him with a mixture of dislike and annoyance but Snape didn't care, he only had eyes and thoughts for Lilly.

"Tuney hates me." Lily whispered sadly sniffing back tears. "She knows we went through her things. That we found the letter Dumbedore wrote to her." Snape was trying very hard to be empathetic but the memory of finding Dumbledore's letter -which gently explained to Petunia that she had no magical ability and was thus unable to attend Hogwarts as she had hoped - tugged Snape's lips into the beginning of a smile.

"She's just jealous." Snape offered lamely, his voice equally low, feeling uncomfortable offering any sort of reassurance with the two unknown boys in the compartment. Lilly blinked harder and Snape rapidly churned through his mind for something to say to take her mind of her shrew of a sister.

"Plus never mind all that, we're going. We're actually on our way to Hogwarts!" Snape exclaimed faking excitement. In truth he still felt the sting of his peer side-ways glances and an awful apprehension that he was going to fit in at Hogwarts just as poorly as he had fit in everywhere else. His exclamation seemed to work on Lilly however and she slowly began to smile at the mention of the magic castle she had been dreaming about all summer.

"You'd better be in Slytherin." Snape added knowing that she was still unsure of all the Houses and that this would give him something to talk about for at least another 30 minutes. It was a long train ride though and the desire to not have Lilly bored by him was making him anxious. He was so busy trying to anticipate what to talk about after they fully discussed sorting that he hadn't noticed the gangly boy in glaces turn around, his interest suddenly piqued.

"Slytherin? Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd just turn around and go home wouldn't you?" The boy directed this comment to the surly, curly haired boy sitting across from him. The expression on the boy's face darkened, if possible even more.

"My whole family's been in Slytherin." The curly haired boy replied somewhat disdainfully. Snape turned to look at this boy with more interest. He seemed unhappy about his family being in Slytherin but perhaps he was just unhappy that this arrogant prick sitting in front of him had just insulted his future house.

"Pity." The bespeckled boy replied with an easy smile, non-pulsed but the boy's response. "You seemed alright." The curly haired boy smiled at this.

"Here's hoping I defy tradition. Sirius Black." The curly haired boy said extending his hand to the gangly boy who took it happily.

"Potter. James Potter."

"Where are you headed if you got the choice?" Sirius asked the darkness lifting from his face rendering him quite handsome. Snape glanced at Lily who was listening to the conversation with interest and immediately felt a spurt of jealousy.

"Gryffindor" Potter replied looking directly at Lily who blushed slightly and lowered her eyes before turning back to Sirius "Where dwell the brave at heart" He continued proudly pretending to cut the air with an invisible sword. "Like my Dad."

Severus suddenly felt a rush of intense, irrational loathing for this arrogant ego-maniac. From his brand-new, perfectly tailored robes to his confident smile that made Lily blush, Severus felt a familiar burning emotion he refused to call jealously. Snape snorted.

"What you got a problem with that?" James snapped at Severus, obviously unimpressed that Severus had interrupted both his conversation with his shiny new friend and the show he was so obviously putting on for Lilly.

"Not if you'd rather be brawny than brainy." Severus snapped back with false bravado.

"Where are you headed then seeing as you're neither?" Sirius sneered. Any interest that had previously been one Lily's face was immediately replaced by cool impassivity.

"Come on Severus let's go find a new compartment." She said hotly. Snape saw James' leg move to trip him and managed to stumble over it without actually falling, his face burning as he followed Lilly from the compartment where the two boys were laughing.

"Don't mind them." Lily said reassuringly noticing the stony look on Severus' face as they sat down in a compartment that housed only a white-haired, pale girl with lavender eyes. The girl only glanced briefly at the intruders before looking out the window, non-pulsed.

"I'm not bothered by it." Severus snapped defensively at Lily who looking startled then nodded briefly before looking out the window. A small wave of guilt coursed through Severus as Lily remained quiet and withdrawn until the sweet cart came.

"Wow." Lily said her mouth agape. "Did you see that Sev" Lilly said pointing excitedly to a chocolate flower that was changing from white, to milk to dark chocolate.

"Two of those." Snape said fishing out 2 sickles and knut from his school robes. This was virtually the last of his gold but if it would make Lily smile again.

"Severus you don't have to –" Lily started but stopped when she caught Snapes glower. Despite being poor he was proud and Lily knew better than to tread on his pride. "Thank You." She said with a smile and Severus nodded shortly in response.

As the Hogwarts Express approached the grounds Severus was content to sit quietly as Lily rambled on about Hogwarts. He barely heard a word she said he was to busy watching her eyes sparkle and her hair flip as he marveling that even though there were so many other student's worthy of her time and attention, she had still chosen to sit and talk to him. A happiness that had nothing to do with Hogwarts washed over him as the train slowed to a stop and he exited the compartment beside Lilly.

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Thanks

PF