Walking on a Broken Past
Words: 10,386
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Severus Snape, or any of JKR's creations in general. I do not own the theory of time travel, the multiverse, or the "oh noes, the second war lasts forever!" plot device for that matter. What I do own (I think...) is the precise twist this story has, as I have never seen anything of the sort before. I do not own nuclear winter, weapons, or the cold war.
Warnings: Character death. Gory descriptions. Child abuse. Spouse abuse. Suicide. Murder. Not completely canon, even discounting the AU it starts in. Mostly canon through books six and parts of seven (main exceptions being the very end and epilogue). Weasley bashing. Dumbledore bashing. Potter bashing. Order bashing. Hogwarts professors bashing. Glorifying of evil and Voldemort. Nerdy moments. Fake spells created on a Latin translator are also included. Occasional religious comments (but I'm an atheist, so they're kinda widespread and not from the religious perspective). Lots of angst. Coarse language. Drug abuse. Alcohol abuse. Slash pairings. Oedipal undertones. Sexual innuendo. Mentions of sex (but the actual act thereof will not be described in this story).
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Chapter 2: Lily
"Well, birthdays are merely symbolic of how another year has gone by and how little we've grown. No matter how desperate we are that someday a better self will emerge, with each flicker of the candles on the cake, we know it's not to be, that for the rest of our sad, wretched pathetic lives, this is who we are to the bitter end. Inevitably, irrevocably; happy birthday? No such thing." Jerry Seinfeld
Just as Harry Potter had always anticipated the opportunity to leave his "family" behind at school, Severus Snape waited through the summer to see his. Not that the girl he was so excited to see on a daily basis knew who she was to him, but that was irrelevant. He would be attending primary school with his mother for the next nine years of his life, after all! Both the muggle and magical variants at that. He would be damned if he were to let this opportunity slip through his fingers.
But maybe, he was damned. For that whole summer he had gone to the park and watched as a nine-year-old Lily Evans played with her ten-year-old sister, Petunia Evans. Always pretending games or the swings, but Severus soon learned quite a lot about his mum. Lily didn't have a lot of friends her age, but she flitted from group to group. Small children especially loved her for her imaginative stories and little magic tricks. She had a love of flying through the air, free as a bird, that easily rivaled his own… and there was something truly special about her magically; she had the rare ability to manipulate her magic without depending on a wand or emotion-driven accidental bursts like Severus used to be able to use. It was a skill that he had desperately hoped to cultivate, but failed to. Perhaps if he had had the skill there would have been genuine concern about Harry Potter becoming another Tom Riddle.
September had come to them at a crawl, but it had come. While other children prayed that the sunny season would never end, and had it pass too quickly, Severus had wished it to die a very painful death and been disappointed as it took eternity to bow to his whims. When the fourth year of school had finally been introduced to his miserable little life on September the second, he had been so excited that he unwittingly had sapped extra sugar from the jar to turn his soggy cornflakes into a soggy sugar cereal. It was only by luck that neither Eileen nor Tobias noticed.
Dressed in his best clothes (a slightly baggy black t-shirt with a snarky comment on it – which surprised him, as he thought that fad hadn't existed until the nineties – and some barely-too-long blue jeans), he looked smaller and paler than normal, but not too much. His hair was clean, though it still bore the unnatural sheen that could easily be mistaken for grease, and tied back to keep it from his sallow flesh. Complete with sunburn from his summer of stalking his mum at the park, he appeared as any normal child might.
The walk to school went by very fast as he too each step in a brisk, Snape-esque fashion. The old cement building stood as it had at summer's start when he had first seen it, and saw a line-up of teachers with different numbered and lettered signs above them. A long table stood in front of it, students swarming it as they searched for their nametags and hoping beyond hope that there friends would be in the same class as them for the coming school year. Finding the "S" section, Severus scanned the area, finding a bright yellow nametag bearing the legend "Severus T. Snape, 4-B". In front of the teacher by the sign in question was the person (girl) he was most intent on seeing. His beautiful, red-haired mum would be in his fourth year class! Surely he could build up the courage to speak with her by the end of the year? Befriending Lily could very well be his first step to a brighter future, if it hadn't changed already.
Class began half an hour later as the stragglers finally appeared. Everyone was seated in alphabetical order around four seated tables, leaving Severus without the object of his admiration. He sat, instead, with a girl named Alexx Sanders, a boy named Tony Terrace, and a girl who was an unfortunate bit of nomenclature called Mandy Wanker (luckily, most of the class remained oblivious to the actual meaning of her surname, or else she would be victim to many a childish taunt). The two girls were obviously very good friends as they chatted about their respective summers, and Terrace leaned across the aisle to talk so someone at the P-R table. Severus was, essentially, alone.
In all his past classes, Severus had been stood up in front of the class by his teacher for a quick introduction and to point out that he was a new students, drawing unnecessary and unwanted attention to him. This time, however, because he had started the year properly for once, it was likely assumed that he had been in a separate class by each of his fellows. He was unsure if he preferred this anonymity to the giggles he always was welcomed with for his odd name (though several name games at the start of the class remedied that one). His only consolation was that, from his seat, he could see Lily framed in golden light by the un-shuttered window.
That first day of class began as Severus assumed most beginnings of the year did. The teacher (Mr. VanSickle) introduced himself to the assembled students and then went over protocol for fire drills, earthquake drills, and nuclear warfare drills. The Boy-Who-Lived-to-be-a-greasy-git remembered from his previous classes and was resigned to the third drill remaining for some time yet, as the tension of the Cold War wouldn't dissipate until Harry Potter was in Hogwarts. The fact that there measures wouldn't actually save anyone from the dropping of a real Nuclear Weapon didn't help his peace of mind at all, but Severus did know that the actions of one wizard was not enough to bring nuclear war to Britain... well, no one aside from Voldemort, but he wouldn't let that bastard instigate shit. Not this time.
When recess was called to life by the great bell that all students worshipped (even on the first day of school), it couldn't have been soon enough. Severus couldn't remember any first-days from before Hogwarts, but it was rather boring, compared to the magical school. The little primary school had swings available for recess before lunch, however, and he could watch Lily playing on them easily. In a school of perhaps six hundred excitable students, they staggered the lunches play times. While second, third, and fourth forms had recess, the Kindergarteners, first, and fifth forms were eating their lunches, and vice a versa. That meant that there was not Petunia around to get on Severus' nerves, even if he was technically the uninvited party to their playtimes.
There was an art to swinging, and it was an art that Lily had long since mastered. She was perfect in every way when she flew like that, in a gentle arc to land on her feet. Grace that was unmatchable, the exact way her hair fluttered in her back wind, and, just at the peak of her swing, she could jump and land with the agility of a cat. Severus had once heard the phrase "art in motion," and this had to be it. If anyone could be so graceful in the air as his mum, Severus would eat his shoe (for he had no hat). There was always a swing clear for her, maybe because everyone noticed how amazing she was on a swing, or maybe it was magic, but that center swing belonged to Lily Evans and no one else.
It was that way every day of the year.
He couldn't build up the courage necessary to do much more than nod slightly at her, and even when Severus and Lily had been paired up for the fourth grade science fair (they made polymers out of borax and paste) all conversation was business oriented. No one ever caught him watching his mum, and Eileen never noticed that anything was off with her son (unsurprising considering the strength of her medication), or else never brought it up. Even his "father" was a bit better, though that was likely due to Tobias not wanting Severus' teachers or classmates to notice any suspicious bruises.
As Lily and Petunia approached their usual swings, Severus could hear their idle chatter from behind his usual bush. They were talking about Petunia's upgrade to secondary school after summer was over, as it was, by then, mid July; she had been accepted to the sister school of the Smelting's Academy and would be away much of the next seven years. It explained how she met Vernon, at least.
He watched avidly as Lily approached the swings, taking the plastic seat in the center, as always, and rattling the chains a bit. It was just the three in the park today, as an overcast sky and chilly winds drove away any other sane persons from the outdoor play areas. But Lily, a creature of habit, and Petunia, who was charged to keep her sister safe, and Severus, who liked to watch the younger of the two, were not in the same category as other people. So, Lily's small feet climbed the dip in the dirt below her feet and began flying until she was nearly ten feet off the ground. Then, she did as she loved best; she loosened her grip on the ice cold chains, even as her sister protested from her own swing, and let go.
Her arc was a thing of perfection, so great that even a master of Geometry (though Severus was pretty sure that, not only did muggles not do masteries, but none were dull enough to do it in Geometry) could find no fault and would fall to the ground weeping at its beauty. Hands trailed behind her as her body worked at righting itself in the air, magic aiding in her struggle as she was propelled twice as far was would be thought (by muggles) physically possible to be thrown from a swing. But, then, there was quite a difference between flight and being thrown. Delicate feet sheathed in green rubber rain boots – for it was expected to rain later in the day – touched ground too lightly to be considered natural by those not versed in the ways of magic. Even as Lily giggled at her fun, Severus heaved a small sigh of relief. Just because it was fun for her didn't mean he couldn't worry!
"Mummy told you not to!" The whining, grating tone that was Petunia Evans made Severus twitch, but he continued watching. Petunia was stomping her fashionable new sandals on the ground, crunching the dried dirt beneath her feet, with her hands on her hips. "Mummy said you weren't allowed, Lily!"
It was the usual scene Petunia made when Lily used magic, and it was obvious the younger girl was used to it as well. "But I'm fine!" She giggled, shaking an arm in example. "Tuney, look at this! Watch what I can do!" It was obvious that the bad taste in nicknames that Petunia had in the case of her own fat son (or, rather, would have) came from the Evans side of the family. If Severus were at all the laughing type, he would likely be having as hard a time to deal with the name "Tuney" as he had "Dinky Diddydums." It was positively hilarious.
Suddenly, Snape had to duck slightly as Lily approached his bush. He peered between lower limbs that before, now only seeing the girls' feet and, as Lily bent down, her hand. Deft fingers plucked a flower recently fallen from the bush, twirling the stem between her thumb and forefinger as she contemplated it. She stepped back and turned slightly to face her sister again, with the wilting blossom held lightly in her palm. As Petunia approached curiously, she – and Severus by extension – had front row seats to see Lily's latest trick: the Amazing Un-Wilting and Re-Blossoming Bloom. Severus was enraptured. Petunia was horrified.
"Stop it!" shrieked the horse-faced girl, placing her hands over her mouth as she watched the unnaturalness before her. It was a trick that Severus had long since gotten over – but still wished he possessed. This particular aspect of Lily's magic he had seen her practice many times over the past two weeks. She wanted it perfect for her sister. Her ungrateful sister who did not like the special treat.
"It's not hurting you," Lily cast her eyes to the ground as she closed her hands around the blossom, closing it off. Severus knew that, just like most every other trick she used to get Petunia to understand, she would never use it again. The flower, now wilted, brown and dead, fell to the scraggly grass beneath their feet.
"It's not right," Petunia stated, voice wavering as she seemed to realize what her proclamation had really meant to her sister. How could that impetuous girl insult Lily like that? Magic was the most natural thing in the world, far more natural than Petunia's normality! "How do you do it?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Severus had stood up from behind his bush, speaking without thinking. Oh Merlin, he was actually doing it! He was going to talk to Lily, finally! Although it hadn't been his plan – Morgana only knew how many times he'd played the potential scene through his head in the past year – Petunia shrieked at his sudden revealing of himself and ran towards the swings a few steps. He was pleased to note that, even though Lily was obviously surprised, she didn't run like Petunia had. She was, after all, a Gryffindor.
Large emerald eyes took him in, and Severus almost didn't hear her say, "What's obvious?"
"I know what you are," he replied, again without much thought. His voice was quiet as he said this, his eyes darting toward Petunia at the swings. In all honesty, it had sounded a lot better in his head than out his mouth, but Severus needed this introduction. Lily needed this introduction. If he could teach her about the wizarding world a year early... well, he didn't know what it might mean, but it had to be done. Maybe, if his mother trusted him, there would never be a blood feud between the family's of Snape and Potter (which, considering a Potter now was the first ever wizarding Snape, would be ironic and perhaps not wholly possible). There were so many possibilities of what could happen, what could change, and Severus was determined to make it all positive. He could be Lily's best friend, get her into Slytherin, and make everyone realize not only the power that a muggleborn witch could wield, but that not all of Salazar's children (or those with his gifts) were evil by default.
"What do you mean?" Confusion... yes, Severus could deal with confusion. This was his chance!
"You're... you're a witch," he lowered his tone so that there was no way that Petunia could hear him... but Lily didn't seem to like what he said at all.
"That's not a very nice thing to say to somebody!" Lily snapped angrily and turned about to stomp her boots angrily on the dry ground just as her sister had before, but in the opposite direction. Severus could have sworn he cried "No!" to her, but he wasn't sure, as he was more concerned with scrabbling over the bush to reach out to her, arms cart-wheeling in the air. He felt warm in his cheeks, but everything was suddenly so cold. He hugged his "father's" oversized fleece jacket to himself as he got over the bush and attempted to approach the young witch. Both girls now stared at him as if he was even odder than they thought.
"You are," his tone was slightly pleading, and this time he did not hide his words from Petunia. "You are a witch. I've been watching you for a while," Severus realized just how stalker-ish that sounded – and entirely appropriate as he had been stalking the girl for a year – which made him glad that no one really knew much about creepers in the sixties and seventies and that "stranger danger" didn't really exist yet. "But there's nothing wrong with that. My mum's one," she was right in front of him, and she was a witch, "and I'm a wizard." She would understand, she had to!
Petunia's biting laugh struck at him, but he wouldn't let that bite taint him. She was only a year old than the pair of magically inclined people (Severus recalled seeing her family birthday party in November at this very park, and Lily's in March) and already she had that look that Harry Potter had been subject to and Severus already hated very much. That look that she had given to a messy haired boy with bright green eyes when he burned the bacon and she called him a freak. What she said to Severus was close enough.
"A wizard!" She snorted, suddenly brave in the face on the mad little boy in too-large clothes. "I know who you are," of course she would, and so did Lily, but had that to do with anything? "You're that Snape boy!" She turned her face to Lily, as if talking behind Severus' back and to his face. This sort of backhanded treatment was how she had dealt with things – would deal with things – for Harry Potter, if they boy ever went into her custody. "They live down Spinner's End by the river." By the way she was speaking, one would think him a little ragamuffin! But her tone turned cool and calculating soon enough. "Why were you spying on us?"
"Haven't been spying," that, of course, was a lie, but Severus wasn't about to mention it. They both knew anyway; he'd admitted to it only a minute ago! So he glared spitefully at Petunia for latching onto that one statement that might otherwise have gone ignored. "Wouldn't spy on you anyway. You're a muggle." He couldn't take this sort of abuse, not from her. Not again. He had lived with the woman – now girl – for sixteen years and heard litany after insult spouted about his "horrible, freaky, slut of a mother" and he would tolerate no more abuse from her for it!
But they left. All Severus really noticed was his mother turning an angry glare at him and leaving the park... leaving their park, with her swing and his hiding places that no one could ever find him in. When she disappeared from sight, he slumped onto the ground on his knees. It wasn't supposed to be this way! She was supposed to accept him, and then they could be best friends, and everything would be different! Because he wasn't Snape, he wasn't a greasy git who hated muggleborns, and surely that would change things. Surely... surely he could make it better.
He didn't call out. What right had he to disrupt her life, anyway? Lily didn't know, would likely never know, the truth of their relationship, and he could never let her know. No one could know, no one but him, because he had to change things gradually. Because if it changed, and he didn't know, there might not ever be any prophecy. If that thrice-damned prophecy was never made and baby-Harry never marked with Eiwahz, then there would be no reprieve from the Dark Lord's fury. The fact that Severus no longer had Harry Potter's infamous scar had potential to be problematic in and of itself; he might not be the proper candidate for the eradication. Voldemort had to almost-die and be resurrected before his horcruxes could be destroyed, lest he feel their destruction, and they had to be destroyed before the turning of the Millennium. The Y2K phenomenon that was supposed to blank out all muggle technology on earth had boosted the Dark Ritual that he had been using far too much. He would be, by then, unbeatable. And Severus knew that anyone else would change everything far too quickly. Even (or especially) Lily.
Standing from his desolate position, Severus made his way to the swings, not wanting to think anymore. His feet dug into the dirt as he shifted into the left swing. It was a position often used when he was an angsty teenager; why not when he was doomed to be a slimy git who no one, not even his own parents, would like? He could… but no. How could Severus even think consider losing himself to the winds? But Merlin he wanted to fly, to zoom and swerve as he used to on his Firebolt. Had the real Snape played Quidditch at all? He doubted it. Even as he ran through reason after reason for why he shouldn't let himself be absorbed by the sensation of the wind in his hair, long-fingered hands glided up the icy chains and his feet carried him backwards, taking the seat as far as his legs would allow, and let go.
Cold air nipped at pale cheeks, making his blouse (borrowed from his mother as she'd forgotten to do laundry the day previous) billow as he flew. Dark hair blew around his face, obscuring the plains of gray that made up the dreary summer sky. He didn't mind if his clothes billowed (they would when he was older) nor if his hair was keeping him from the clouds, because every time he might have touched them he fell back to the earth. But for those few moments, he touched the sky. And that was enough.
He didn't leave that swing until his legs were burning and the sky had let loose a torrent of water. It was always warmer after the rain.
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Lily didn't come to the park for a week after that. Even though Severus came every day, he didn't see the one person he craved to view all that week, even for a moment. That was longest stretch of time since she had gone to her Grandmother's for the Christmas holidays in Surrey that had gone with seeing neither hide nor hair of his mum. He didn't like it. He had to know she was okay, that everything would be alright.
So, when Lily came up to him as he sat on a limb of the willow over the swings, to say he was surprised would be an enormous understatement. Just like a squirrel, his delicate flower of a Mum-to-be scurried up the trunk of the large tree to rest on the long, crooked branch that had been chosen as Severus' throne for the day. The limb was jounced slightly as she crawled forward, using the next one over to balance, before delicate feet were dangling over the side and Lily was seated beside him. He stared. Surely… it was an illusion, right? He was hallucinating, that much was quite obvious. Lily had already denounced him, sided with her nosey giraffe of a sister, and denied the path and future that he represented.
"Am I… am I really a witch? Is what I do really magic?" She whispered quietly, the lilting voice of ten-year-old Lily Evans drifting pleasantly between them.
Severus looked at her sideways as she sat on his left, legs swinging and causing the branch to waver slightly. First he saw her small, delicate nose, but this was quickly ignored in favor of her eyes. People said that Harry Potter had his mother's eyes, or they would, but Severus disagreed. Harry Potter's eyes had been hardened by tragedy, glowed with anger, and had long since forgotten how to smile; Lily's eyes were completely innocent of all that, her eyes glowing with childish optimism and curiosity, and it was obvious she did little but smiling with her face. To say that such a warrior could have those bright green eyes was an insult to her memory. Harry had never been innocent. Severus had never been innocent.
Realizing that he was meant to answer, Severus nodded. "There's a whole magical world out there, hidden from muggles – non-magical people like your family and my father – and we're a part of it. I mentioned that my mother was a witch, didn't I?" He hadn't. He'd mentioned his mum, who he was telling this to, not his mother, but she nodded anyway. She didn't know, after all. "And I'm a wizard. Next year, you and I... we'll be invited to the best wizarding secondary school in Europe, maybe even in the world. I'm not really sure. But, everything there is so magical..." He sighed, turning away from the girl to face the sun high above him. The blue was uninterrupted by even a single cloud, the perfect image of a Summer's day, unlike the last time they had met.
"And how do I know you're right?" It was not a statement that would be expected from someone so innocent, so pure, as Lily, but rather someone a bit more world weary, but, then again, Severus had so much experience with muggles that he knew most children didn't adjust well to the knowledge of magic at their first introduction. "Maybe I'm just different. Did you ever think of that? I know I'm not... normal like Petunia, but I'm not evil like a witch, either! And you can't convince me otherwise." Those smiling emeralds shone with a fiery defiance that was familiar, but Severus didn't care to place it. This was Lily; pure, innocent Lily. He would teach her all he could about Hogwarts and the Wizarding World.
"Have you ever done something you couldn't explain, when you were angry or scared? Bigger even than when you fly off of the swings or opening and closing a flower like the other day... like disappearing and reappearing instantaneously..." he drew on experience from when he apparated onto the school roof in Surrey as Harry. Could she understand? He hoped so. "I once turned a teacher's wig blue when we were going over the history of the war with the Americans." There, something funny to break the ice... well, Ron and Hermione had found it funny when Harry told them. It had been so long ago, he hardly remembered, but he did, and he hoped it would help. Just a bit.
"Well..." Lily paused in thought, gnawing on the right side of her bottom lip, "Mum says that, when I was a baby and I used to gnaw on her hair, she got it cut to save herself the split ends... but I made it grow back. And when Da' kept sweets from me on Halloween once, they whizzed right by him into my hands... I can't really explain it. There was nothing I really did before; I wanted and I received. Everything just sort of happened. But nowadays I can do this stuff whenever I like... can you do it like that? If you're a wizard, and I'm a witch, how do we do what we do?"
There was a sudden eagerness about her. Not the cautious curiosity, but a mood that reminded Severus very much of Hermione. It was familiar, and endearing, really, and he loved that about the past. When he saw a precocious in those last few years, he didn't mourn that they were born into the world when and where they were; he imagined what sort of future they could have. What was ahead of Lily, if Severus could save her? Teaching? Perhaps she would be an Unspeakable. With this small outreach of kindness, he could give that to her.
"Only really powerful witches and wizards can do magic the way you do," Severus waved his hands about a bit, shaking his head to the same rhythm, simultaneously hoping for a more eloquent way to phrase what he was saying and denying that he could do as his mum could, "that... wandless power that you have. We need a focus, a magic wand – used to be staves I think – that is linked to our magic and can tell about our baser natures and our very souls. A completely innocent person might have a wand made of Holly –" like Harry had, " – the Holy Wood, while someone with a killer's potential might get Yew, the tree of death, life, and rebirth. And there' the cores... those can be even more telling. I've heard of wands changing themselves as their owners grow, if the bond is strong enough, but usually wizards will simply outgrow their wand.
"Everyone gets their first wand when they're eleven, because wandless skills are rare, so no one teaches them at any of the Secondary schools. Every kid has bursts of accidental magic – like summoning sweets – but hardly more than that. What you do... that's something special. The good kind, I mean..." It was a minor miracle that he had stumbled along so far already without dropping his train of thought, even if he had practiced this speech a million times. "You'll probably be the best witch of our generation."
They sat in silence for a while, Lily playing with her feet. Severus watched her carefully, wishing he knew her train of thought. He could use his increasing talent at Legilimancy, and he often did on unsuspecting muggle passerby, but he couldn't breach his mother's trust like that, even if she didn't really know him. There was a difference between practicing gathering intelligence and doing something that was so morally repugnant as spying on his own mum. What did he care of he was spying on people he didn't know? He might be doing just that after Hogwarts, even in it, but never to Lily. So her thoughts remained in her head.
"Wanna play tag?" She asked suddenly. Severus blinked, then nodded, and dropped with an ease born of practice from their throne to land on the sturdier branch below. His knees bent just right, as always, and he dropped the five feet without any adverse affects but the need to reach out to a limb at shoulder height to steady himself. He looked up at the red-haired beauty with a smile, already seeing that she was eager to try that particular fall herself, and he thought he felt his lips twitch upwards. Almost like a smile. Maybe... maybe this could work.
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Fifth form called into being something that Severus had sorely missed: free seating. Gone were the days of the seating chart and the dreaded "alphabetical order", for now, as he was in the final year of Primary school, Severus could sit where ever he wanted in the classroom. So he was in the front, sharing a desk with Lily. He would have preferred the back, as he mostly knew what was being taught (though the science lessons were different, sometimes flawed, and history always felt incomplete), but Lily had an insatiable thirst for knowledge and felt front and center was the place most conducive to her learning. He couldn't bring himself to argue with her over something so trivial, nor to part with his only company in all of the small town for something so simple, so he stayed. There was no way that he would let anyone steal his Lily; not even the fact that she didn't know she was his could stop him, because no one would take her away. He needed her, not only to change the future, but for his own peace of mind to know that she was safe.
"Sometimes, Sev, I think you might be a genius," Lily sighed. The math tests from two days previous had just been handed back, and Severus hadn't missed a single equation while dealing with the one hundred multiplication problems; Lily had only managed to get thirty-nine out of them completed in the allotted minute, and three of those had been wrong. They had the first and third topmost scores in the class for that particular test and Severus had received a "gold star" on the top of his. He merely shrugged in response to Lily's praise. He'd never been good with compliments as Harry Potter, which had only gotten worse after the war. By the time Severus had come to this point in his life, with the added insults and various disparaging remarks of his "father" in the mix, the man-turned-boy could not take compliments in the normal fashion. "I'm being serious! It's like you know everything sometimes."
Again, Severus shrugged. "You know I was home schooled until halfway through second year," as if that explained everything all by itself. "I read ahead a lot. It's not hard." In reality, he had been hoping to skip a few grades when he first started, in hopes of learning more from a muggle education on the sciences (particularly Chemistry and Physics) than most (if not any) wizards. With Lily alongside him, he didn't want to skip a year at all, it was merely second nature to do well, to surpass the rest of his class in silence. While one would have been hard pressed to call Harry Potter a fast learner outside of dire circumstances, Severus Snape, the real one, had been one of the brightest minds of his generation, as proved by his Potions Mastery at age 18 (a record after education became standardized). Even if that man no longer existed, Severus would do his name justice. If the greasy git of the dungeons had survived the Purge, Severus had little doubt that the two would have gotten along splendidly. By that point, their personalities were quite similar. Even in a child's body, he knew himself to be near identical to his nonexistent, ex-to-be Potions Master, both in attitude and appearance.
"Reading ahead doesn't cover you knowing everything we're taught, let alone being able to do the entire 'Multiplication Minute' exercise exactly right every time! You didn't even have problems with the algebra lesson last week," Lily huffed indignantly. In the future, the Little Whinging Primary would use the one hundred problems in a minute program almost religiously from third form on. "You'll help me study for the next one, won't you?" The nod was automatic. Who was he to deny her when he owed her so much, including his life? The teacher, Mrs. Reynolds, didn't like their talking, however, as class returned to session.
An hour later saw them both out of the school, away from the closed walls and into the open winter air, barely escaping detention for talking in class. They were already en route to the park, their park, the one they met at every day for roughly six months. It was only a few blocks away, and neither could be bothered to worry about much at all. What was there to worry about? To Lily, the world was beautiful and magical. Indeed, it was much the same to Severus, though he often imagined that perhaps he had spent a night here before, broken and bloodied, or perhaps seen some survivors, huddled for warmth but dying.
There weren't even things outside the future to worry about for him, as Tobias would be out of town to work with some logger buddies of his (for no man such as that, Severus ascertained, could have real friends) while Eileen was at an appointment with St. Mungo's to see that her medication was adjusted. She had been forgetting things lately, like laundry (he'd had to wear one of her blouses for the third time in a month because she kept forgetting that her son wore clothes), but Severus didn't have to worry. Not until she returned home with the new recipe and he had to brew her new medication least ways; now he could go to the park and have a nice talk and play some games with his best friend. There was no better way to spend an afternoon than with Lily at the park… even if it was terribly cold out.
Severus pulled his oversized coat, black naturally, tighter around himself, blowing a puff of warm air on his hands. The sky threatened rain as it had the first day that he had dared to approach the girl who skipped merrily along beside him, gloved hands swinging at her sides and a single red braid bouncing lightly on her back. It was ridiculous, he realized, how they must look. A bright eyed girl, the picture of an affluent girl, all set to go to a private secondary school, skipping along without a care beside a sullen boy, dark, greasy, and wearing too large of clothes, without proper winter wear, the very image of a young pauper. With the small hole in the clouds above them, simultaneously lighting the way and releasing heat into the atmosphere, he supposed it could make for a good commercial for a "help the poor" advertisement.
"Happy Birthday!" Severus snapped out of his thoughts and stared at Lily incoherently. What did she mean "Happy Birthday"?
It wasn't his birthday, was it? And since when had anyone actually said those words to him anyway? Perhaps once or twice, when he spent his birthday with the Weasleys, but not to Severus. Never to Severus. Not in his memory, because not even Eileen had ever mentioned his birthday, though he knew it was on January ninth. As they had just gotten out from Christmas Break that week (Petunia would be leaving again for school in two days) it almost made sense… but how could Lily know? He imagined that he must have said it aloud, because Lily answered.
"Mrs. Patterson, you know, the attendance secretary, told me," she murmured, teetering forward and back on her feet as she held her hands behind her back. Her backpack, curiously, lay open at her feet. "I knew you wouldn't say anything… and if I'd asked you wouldn't have told me, because… well, you're so closed off, Sev! So I asked her in September since no one else would know probably." Severus furrowed his brow. Did she really know him so well that she would know he wouldn't tell her his own birthday? He might have, really, had she asked; she was the undeniable, after all, his mum. "Oh, please don't be mad at me! Please?"
"Mad?" He blinked owlishly at the sight of Lily's bright eyes, seemingly enlarged as if to coerce him. But why on earth should she feel sorry? Why should he be mad at her? "I… I'm not mad, Lily, I promise. It's not like you did anything wrong. I'm not mad… just… surprised is all." But he was angry. Severus didn't know what he was angry about just yet, but he was regardless. As he looked down, ready to brood, he realized that Lily had a package held tight in her hands which had moved in front of her at his declaration of not being mad. A birthday present. Well, such a thing wasn't so surprising. He'd given her a beginner's potions set for Christmas a few weeks ago (after convincing Eileen to sell some of his brews to an Apothecary under her name) and the girl had given him The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He'd read through the series twice already since receiving it. But still he stared, dumbfounded, at the bright rainbow wrapping paper.
"I hope you like it," Lily murmured, pressing the squishy package into his hands. The paper crinkled loudly as it changed hands, though Severus held it delicately, probing it with long, thin fingers. It felt like… well, like clothes. He wondered, momentarily, if he had been mixed up with a house-elf and that Lily might not want him anymore; it wasn't an uncommon mistake in his lives after all. "I had Petunia help me pick it out. As soon as I mentioned it was for you, she started trying to get me to buy everything that she knew you wouldn't like, so when she said you wouldn't… well, I think I did alright enough." She prodded him to open the paper, which he did mechanically. Sell-O tape was peeled away from the crack in the wrapping with utmost care, so as not to rip the delicate paper. He pulled back the edges and saw green.
A scarf, long with light gray stripes, was pulled delicately from the brilliant wrappings, looking as if it had been made particularly for the Slytherin who it had been gifted to. He unfurled it quickly to look at properly, and saw two green gloves with silver trim fall out onto the ground. These, too, he picked up, staring at them in wonder.
"I... I'm sorry! I should have known you'd not like it! I... I'll take it straight back to the store and... and – !" She looked so heartbroken, and Severus stared at her as she made her tirade, finally stopping her as he understood.
"They're wonderful!" The scarf went immediately from being played with to wrapped double about his neck and the gloves had his fingers sheathed within them in seconds. He allowed her a slight smile, a rare gift from him, but it was given regardless. Now Lily stared. "They're very warm. Thank you, Lily."
It was the first birthday gift his mother had ever given him, just as the Lord of the Rings had been her first Christmas gift to him. While she would have no idea what it meant to him, he did. These were things that he would have forever, even if he did become a grumpy old grouch like the real Severus Snape. They continued their walk to the park in silence, but both content. Severus fingered the fringe of his scarf the whole way. They finally arrived at their usual spot, under the tree where they had first had a real conversation, and sat crisscross.
"Hey, Sev," Lily smiled widely, glancing up at where the sun was breaking through the clouds, "tell me more about the magical world. Please? We'll be starting at Hogwarts next year, right? And I don't want to be behind. Oh, I'll probably be worst in the class!" She giggled a bit. "But you'll help me through all of that, won't you Sev?"
"Of course I will, Lily, never think otherwise," he tugged a bit on the scarf, noting that it crashed horribly with the cream blouse his mother had given him to wear. How anything could clash with cream, he would never know. With the sun shining, he knew it should have made the winter day cooler, but he felt oddly warm and removed his coat, keeping the scarf and gloves firmly in place. "Well... when you first get on Diagon Alley, it's like seeing a rainbow when all your life you've been blind. There's so much to see! Flying broomsticks, apothecaries selling all sorts of potions, the book shops, sweet shops, stores for pranking. Although, because of the secrecy acts or whatever, muggles can't buy anything that isn't to be given to a witch or wizard, so that other muggles who don't know about our world already can't find out. It's illegal to show magic to muggles who aren't in the know, and the Ministry can punish you if you do magic outside of school, you get letters."
Lily's eyes suddenly widened in panic. Where before she had been smiling and listening with rapt attention, now she looked horrified. "But I have done magic outside school!" She shrieked, obviously appalled that she might be expelled or thrown in jail before she would even start learning how to perform magic properly. It was a horrific concept indeed. Luckily, it was also false.
"We're all right," Severus assured her, realizing his slip. He probably should have said that first. "We haven't got wands yet. They let you off when you're a kid and you can't help it." He paused here, then nodded in a grave manner. She had to understand not to do anything over the summers, or else she might end up like he almost had; unable to finish out Hogwarts. It was a bitter prospect, "But once you're eleven and they start training you, then you've got to go careful."
Lily seemed to have calmed down, smiling at him slightly before looking down and picking up a small stick from the ground. It wasn't as long as a wand, but Severus had no doubt that she was imagining that it was one as she waved it in the air in some of the wand movements that she had seen Eileen use the one time she had come over to his house. After a moment she sighed and let it drop back to the ground and looked Severus in the eyes. There was something forlorn about her expression, but the man-turned-boy couldn't place it. He'd seen too many such expressions to bother figuring out what they meant after a while. "It is real, isn't it?" She whispered, pleading. "It's not a joke? Petunia says you're lying to me. Petunia says there isn't a Hogwarts. It is real, isn't it?"
Anger swept through him, but Severus shoved it behind his occlumancy walls just like every other time Petunia would make him mad. That girl dared to deny the reality of magic when it was so plainly in front of her face? Not that he'd expected better, considering how she had treated the son of the girl before him, but really, that was monstrous. Petunia was a horrible person.
"It's real for us," said Severus. She had to understand. She had seen his mother's yearbook even! "Not for her. But we'll get the letter, you and me." And they would. It wasn't too long 'till summer, not to the forty-seven year old, even if six months was eternity to a child. Five minutes was forever, but a year could pass by without him even noticing. The wait would be worth it for both of them, because even if the entire world turned their backs on the pair, Severus would keep going to make sure that his only friend lived. Some would call that loyalty. He, however, considered it his duty, something owed, and something more. Maybe it was because he saw Lily as the wizarding world's only hope. And she was.
"Really?" it was hardly even a whisper when she asked, but Severus saw that she truly believed him. She just needed another push.
"Definitely," he breathed, splaying his legs out in front of him as he felt the pins an needles start lancing up his right leg from having it in one position for two long. They can't have been sitting down for more than two minutes! But then, he supposed, he always seemed to get the pins and needle treatment faster than others.
"And will it really come by owl?" It seemed a silly question; Lily seemed to ask a lot of silly questions. But, wouldn't he have too, had he grown up like a normal child? Not that he had any idea how normal children grew up of course – his childhoods had been ones of gross neglect and violence and the only one he could compare it to was Dudley the Whale-Boy.
"Normally," he replied, recalling when Hagrid had finally given him his letter. He recalled Hermione mentioning that Professor Sprout had visited her house a few days after she read her first letter and had escorted her family about Diagon Alley. "But you're a muggle-born, so someone from the school will have to come explain to your parents." It tended to paint a target to the old Pureblood families, but he didn't mention it. Only muggle-born students were led about by teachers, so the Slytherins (the bad ones) present on the Alley on those days would know who to pick on. It was awful, but things happened. Lily would just have to persevere.
"Does it make a difference, being muggle-born?" Severus looked at her dead on. Had she been reading his mind? But he shook the thought away. It made a world of difference, but... but this was Lily. She (or a version of her) had stood up for the true Snape, because she didn't care what anyone thought about blood. She would stand up for or against anyone for what was right. She couldn't have the stigma of thinking others would look down on her before she even got to Hogwarts.
"No. It doesn't make any difference," Severus assured her. This was not, strictly speaking, a lie. It didn't make any difference to him.
"Good," Lily leaned back against the tree grinning at her friend. She played with the ends of her hair, which she had taken to wearing in a ponytail in the past few weeks (he suspected it was due to Petunia's influence), so the bottom only barely reached below her shoulders. Still, she seemed unsure, so The-Boy-Who-Was-Once-The-Boy-Who-Lived (and just so happened to have half a dozen other hyphenated names) thought to reassure her.
"You've got loads of magic," he piped up. "I saw that. All the time I was watching you..." He paused and blushed. They didn't talk about that. Sure, Lily understood that Severus was very shy unless he was insulting someone – though he tried very much to tone that down – but it was still an awkward topic. How many little boys stalked little girls home from school every day? Very few.
"How are things at your house?" asked Lily, obviously trying to change the topic. It didn't help much, as Severus seized up on principle.
"Fine." Which was a lie. Things were progressing downhill... but they would get better, wouldn't they? As soon as Eileen gave him the recipe for her new medicine she would be better, he wouldn't have to wear her clothes anymore, and Tobias would have less to snap about. Besides, saying they were bad to Lily... well, he wouldn't lie if she directly asked. Given the lives he had led, the current state of things could be considered downright heavenly by comparison. She wouldn't see it that way though.
"They're not arguing anymore?" It was a tone of disbelief that followed this, and already Severus knew the jig was up. He could lie to his mother, his father, his dad... but not Lily. Not his mum.
"Oh, yes," he started, looking away and sneering, "they're arguing." They always argued. They did little but argue... but with the adjustments to Eileen's medicine, things would be better. He noted idly that he had picked up a few leaves and was tearing them to bits. "But it won't be that long and I'll be gone." 234 more days... not too long. Less than a year. He could deal with that quite easily. Yes, 234 more days and then they would be at Hogwarts.
"Doesn't your dad like magic?" They'd been over this before. The one time Lily had come over and seen Eileen do magic, she had squealed excitedly. Tobias had just been arriving home to here the little girl (who he later found out was Severus' only friend, and had since decided that the boy must be gay if he couldn't make friends with boys) gushing over how amazing magic was. Severus hadn't left the house for a week after, too busy nursing his mother back to health with potions he barely had funds to make after the spare ones he managed to make were sold. That was when he realized why the real Snape had been so good at Potions; he needed to be to help his halfway insane mother.
"He doesn't like anything, much."
"Severus?" He smiled sardonically, though he didn't show the nature of the smile to her. If she said his original name like that... he would have liked that.
"Yeah?" He responded lazily, still hiding his smile a bit.
"Tell me about the dementors again."
He remembered the first time he had explained. She had asked, back in August, why she couldn't meet his mother. He told her about his family situation then, about how Tobias didn't like magic and how it occasionally drove him to madness. He had to tell about her short stint in Azkaban for protecting him from the mad muggle when she couldn't raise her wand to help herself, when half the time magic hadn't even worked for her since she married his father. How she had never been more beautiful before, standing defiantly even as she was dragged out of the courtroom. How she had become vapid and forgetful since she did "hard time."
"What d'you want to know about them for?" A fair question on his own part. Dementors weren't nice. He didn't want to have to tell Lily about the ugly parts of the magical world. Shouldn't she be asking questions about unicorns, dragons, fairies, and all that? Shouldn't she ask if leprechauns are real, or if he'd ever met a vampire? Something like that? But she asked about dementors of all things. How he hated dementors.
"If I use magic outside school –" Oh, of course that would be her reason.
"They wouldn't give you to the dementors for that!" Severus protested. Why would she think a little thing like underage magic would send her to Azkaban? He paused that train of thought for a moment, recalling the summer that Sirius had broken out of prison. Hadn't he decided to run from the law when he became scared that he would be arrested for accidental magic? Maybe it wasn't too bad. "Dementors are for people who do really bad stuff. They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban. You're not going to end up in Azkaban, you're too –" He stopped and picked up another leaf, shredding it as he fought down the passionate words he couldn't think of. Wonderful? Good? Innocent? None of those fit what he wanted to say.
A rustling above caused Severus to jolt his head straight up at the bows of the tree. Petunia was grasping a low-hanging branch in a vice, obviously having lost her footing. What was she doing there?
"Tuney!"
"Who's spying now? What d'you want?" Severus snapped, already on his feet, leafy scraps falling from his trousers. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recalled Petunia telling Vernon, when he was still Harry, of course, about Dementors. Somehow, this was supposed to happen, or perhaps she had stolen one of Lily's books one year? That made a lot more sense.
Petunia looked furious as she dropped properly onto the ground. Her eyes searched, for what he didn't know, until she stuck her finger straight forward within a foot of his chest and sneered at him in a way he recalled from his first childhood. "What is that you're wearing, anyway? Your mum's blouse?"
It was too much. All his life, Petunia had said bad things about his mum straight to his face. Called her a whore, slut, freak, show-off, preferred child, anything to make Harry mad so her great Walrus of a husband could abuse him some more. He'd seen the looks she gave Lily, heard the whispered mutterings of "freakish things" even in his new life as Snape... but she had crossed the line. This was where she had been when she died, spiteful and cruel. Severus wouldn't let her get away with insulting Eileen like that, or him.
Before he even realized what was happening, he felt his magic bubbling up inside him, and he tried to tamp it down. He didn't want to hurt her physically! He wanted to scare her, yes, insult her, maybe even make her cry, but he would do it in the way of a regular muggle child, not... not in a way that would prove her right!
But it was too late. With a loud crack, the limb that Petunia was standing under snapped off, landing heavily on her shoulder. She wailed in pain, clutching what would surely be a bruise later on, if it hadn't been dislocated. Severus stared in horror. If only he had inherited Lily's talent... he could have controlled it, maybe, but it was as out of his control. Why couldn't he control his magic?
"Tuney!" Lily rushed the two steps to her sister's side, trying to check her over in the ways a child would know, but Petunia was off and running, crying. Lily turned wide eyes to Severus. "Did you make that happen?"
"No." It was his magic. It was his magic! He tried to stop it.
"You did!" She was retreating from him. He hadn't meant for it to happen! But his voice wasn't working. He couldn't say it. "You did! You hurt her!"
"No – no I didn't!"
She glared at him in only the way Lily could and took of running in the direction of her house. Severus slumped to the ground and glared at the fallen limb. Stupid tree... stupid Petunia... stupid magic!
Roughly three weeks later, Severus watched as Lily stepped onto her porch. A box was waiting there for her, with her name written in a tiny, neat scrawl, so she picked it up. The ribbon, a bright green, was removed from the plain brown box, and three small tubes were removed as she looked at them oddly. One was a strange greenish color, Murtlap essence: the second was straight-out white, a Perk-me-up: the third was forget-me-not blue, a calming draught. She pulled a sheet of plain muggle paper from inside the box before setting that aside with the small bottles on a porch chair and pulling out a small jar. A bruise balm.
Slowly, she packed each item back in the box and smiled. The ribbon was used to tie her hair back in a ponytail before Lily stepped back inside her house. Severus smiled.
"Happy Birthday, Lily," he whispered, wrapped his scarf tighter around his neck, and disappeared going back down the street to return to Spinner's End.
X.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.X
A/n: Parts of this chapter (mostly dialogue with regular text based on the scenes that dialogue occurs in) are pulled from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, chapter thirty-three: The Prince's Tale pages 663-668. Yes, I realize that the last scene ought to have been in spring or summer, and no, I don't care. I wanted it to happen on Snape's birthday, gosh darn it! (Did I actually just fake swear? Ugh.)
Hm... this chapter is the longest I've written on this site... sweet :)
