Hello readers!
Sorry for the delay. Thanksgiving is quite the spectacle for my family, so things were drawn to a standstill until I could find the time to upload something. And now the time has come. I feel like I'm onto something good with the premise of this story, so hopefully my writing skills are enough to keep up with my ideas. When I write these OC main character stories of mine, I try to use angles that aren't often seen in the piece of work's fandom but could be great and entertaining to read if pulled off correctly.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving (or whatever you celebrated this last week), I hope you enjoy the first actual chapter in this story, and I hope I'll see you all in the next one.
Bye~
Adeline sat across from her younger brother, watching him with vested interest as he ate the breakfast she'd made for him. She hadn't seen Severus like this in such a long time. Since before he went to Hogwarts, in fact.
Which, technically, he hadn't yet. A fact that she continuously reminded herself of for the last two years.
He looked so…young. So untainted by the poison that was James Potter and his friends. It was, in Adeline's opinion, almost entirely their fault that Severus had lost the only friend he'd ever come to have. Lily Evans was all Severus had outside of Adeline and their mother…and they took that from him.
But the blame didn't solely rest with those Marauders. Adeline felt that Lily herself was also at fault. Severus had called her a Mudblood, yes, but he'd also spent the next two years trying to make up for his mistake through every possible way. It was damn heartbreaking to read about his failed attempts when he wrote to her during the school year.
Adeline had never understood why it was such a big deal to Lily in the first place. So what if she got called a Mudblood by Severus of all people? After spending how many years watching the poor boy being beaten and bullied and, subsequently, utterly reliant on their friendship to remain stable, she should have known better than anyone that what he said was not something he'd say unless he was at a breaking point.
And what did he get for his efforts? Nothing but scorn and rejection. Well, not this time. This time, Severus would get what he's desperately longed for. Who he's longed for; even if it was someone who had hurt him in another life. She'd see to it herself and made sure Severus remained happy.
It was why she had come back in the first place, after all. Well, one of several reasons she'd planned to address in the coming days.
Unlike the other Death Eaters who followed Lord Voldemort, Adeline wasn't subservient to him. She did as he commanded, to be sure. But she did not cower before him like the others often did; except for Bellatrix who seemed to follow in Adeline's footsteps in reveling in the displayed power rather than fearing it.
Not even when he was in one of his rare, but violent, rages did she back down.
Instead of following Voldemort to reap the monetary and political benefits of his victory against Magical Britain or satisfy some deep rooted need to kill inferior peoples, Adeline followed him to elevate herself to a level of witchcraft that rivalled the likes of Dumbledore and Grindelwald.
Killing Muggles, Muggleborns, and sympathizers was, to her, just a part of the role she had to play to get what she wanted. She considered her near non-existent moral code to be one of her greatest assets while she worked for Magical Britain's next apparent ruler.
And after sixteen years of service to him, she was making significant progress towards achieving that goal. Thirty years old and able to take down everyone that came across her short of highly experienced Aurors and the like, Dumbledore, and Voldemort himself. Her life was going well up until then.
Of course, the prophecy that Severus overheard had gone and thrown that all out of the window. And while it was incomplete, what Severus had heard was enough to convince Voldemort to start hunting down couples whose child would be or had been born at the end of July.
Only a select few from within his inner circle, the Dark Lord's most trusted and loyal servants, were aware of the prophecy's existence. This inner inner circle was limited to Adeline Prince, Severus Snape, Bellatrix Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, Rabastan Lestrange, and Lucius Malfoy.
As time went on, Voldemort's efforts in areas outside of the search became less focused than they had been, resulting in several major losses. And with the steady downward spiraling of the Dark Lord's movement, came doubts of his abilities and a sudden surge in the Ministry's confidence to handle him.
And once this became apparent, Adeline made plans to jump ship. She learned many incredible spells and powerful magics while under his guidance and made many friends during that time…but that wouldn't stop her from doing all she could to survive his self-destructive obsession.
Knowing that running would only keep her out of Azkaban for so long, Adeline focused on rumors she'd heard from her personal contacts in the Department of Mysteries of a powerful Time Turner that had the ability to turn the tide of the war in their favor.
Not the best lead in a means of escaping a sentence to Azkaban once Voldemort fell, but the only one she could find that she could look for without raising any flags. Of course, she'd have to kill, or at least obliviate, anyone who knew about the Time Turner and also knew that she knew it existed.
Including her contacts.
It took weeks of frantic searching and obliviating, but she eventually stumbled across an Unspeakable that worked in the Time Room. And through her, several more Unspeakables that worked on the Time Turner were found and pressed for information. This went on until she came across a certain time travelling pocket watch hidden away in the depths of the Department of Mysteries.
One that, according to the very last Unspeakable she came across, focused on sending back the soul rather than the body to any point in the user's lifetime. In essence, Adeline had obtained her means of escape in a way that she hadn't ever imagined possible.
"Are you excited, Severus?" He looked up from his eggs, confused. "About going to Hogwarts this year?"
Severus eyes widened in understanding, and he nodded enthusiastically, "I am, and I can't wait to start learning more about potions from whoever the potions master is this year. I've already read all the books mother has in her library and I think I can do most of first year potions without too much trouble."
Getting up, she made her way around the table and gave him a kiss on the head as she walked by. Taking the skillet from the stove, she scraped the last few pieces of bacon onto his plate and then placed it in the sink.
She'd get to the dishes later.
It was a little surreal to see him so expressive after dealing with five years of him repressing all the hurt he's endured. Speaking of him being hurt,
"So, have you told that Evans girl yet?"
"No. I…I'm afraid she'll…" He trails off.
Adeline nods. "I get it…"
"If that's the case, I think you should take me to her. The family, too I suppose. Today's good for me. Right now is even better, actually. That way we can explain it together. You know, to get it out of the way." Severus looks blown away by the idea of explaining it to her family as well.
Just explaining it to Lily seemed hard enough without the overbearing presence of her parents and, even worse, her sister. It unnerved him just how pushy his sister was being about this. She'd never shown much interest in his friend or his friend's family before this moment.
So why?
"Besides, I have a feeling that if I left it up to you, Severus, she'd have to spend at least an hour and a half listening about what books you've been reading on potions instead of the more…relevant details." His cheeks turned pink.
"Okay. Breakfast has been eaten, dishes are" She silently and wandlessly makes the dishes clean themselves, "being cleaned, boy is getting dressed" She points to Severus who then starts running upstairs to get ready. "and all that's left for me is…"
She walks towards the back of the house, down a small hallway, and into the only room on the right side of it. Moving quietly, she walks to the bed and sits on the edge. Placing a gentle hand on the still figure,
"Mother, Severus and I are going out. We'll be back later tonight to have dinner with you. Do you need anything from the store?" It takes a moment, but the woman slowly shakes her head. "Alright. You have a plate of food waiting for you on the stovetop and something I think you'll really like for lunch in the fridge. Heat them up once you feel up to getting out of bed, okay?"
Another couple of seconds go by before she nods again. "Th..a..nk Yo..u, Ad..d.i..e.." Her voice sounds broken from misuse, but Adeline understands and gives her a smile. With a kiss on the forehead, she heads back out into the living room, ready to leave for the Evans house as soon as Severus was done getting dressed.
In the last two years, in which many detailed plans on how to influence the outcome of the war in her and her family's favor had been finalized, Adeline had come to understand that sometimes old, forgotten magic was far more useful than any of the common-place magics that prevailed in the modern wizarding world.
For instance, the all but abandoned ritual magic that ancient witches and wizards used to solve a great many of their problems; most of which are still prevalent today.
An example of such a ritual would be the Blood Inclusion ritual to induct non-blood-related family members into that family's gene pool. It was how purebloods managed to produce more purebloods while still being allowed to marry those who weren't originally born into the family.
Something that Adeline found to be much more practical than causing a rift between purebloods and non-purebloods by segregation. Discrimination had kept the global wizarding world, as a whole, little more than stagnant for the last several centuries.
It also upset her that such a useful ritual, tragically among many others, had been all but abandoned because of the inconveniences that came with its preparations. Things like specific timing, rare ingredients, and the high level of skill needed to actually perform the ritual became reasons for pureblood families to stop using them unless absolutely necessary.
But these problems are non-issues for her and anyone else who might develop a sudden interest in rituals. With her skills, crafted through the repeated use of just about every ritual she had spent the better part of a decade studying, and the nearly limitless amount of patience she had been blessed with, rituals weren't any more difficult to her than potions were to Severus.
Older Severus, the potions master, that is.
As for the ingredients, most were only considered to be 'rare' because at the height of their popularity, rituals created too much of a demand for the necessary components of potions that aimed to speed up the recovery and take away the pain that often came afterwards.
Changing the body on such an intricate level was an ordeal that required pushing a person to their physical limits. Potions were needed before, during, and after Alteration Rituals had been completed in order to limit healing time to just a week rather than the six months it would have taken otherwise.
Eventually, they stopped being used altogether and then forgotten until she scoured one of the vaults of the Prince Family and found a forgotten collection of rituals. It seemed as though her ancestors took to preserving as much information as they could about the now long-forgotten art of rituals.
There were other tomes in other vaults that had detailed information on a broad variety of subjects. But to Adeline, none were more valuable, or interesting, than the ones detailing the inner workings of rituals.
It was finding these ancient tomes that gave Adeline the incentive to proudly use the name Prince rather than Snape. She hated her fath- the man- no, the prick behind the name, anyway, so no significant loss of sleep there.
Now, Adeline had plans for these rituals; or rather, the altered versions of them she created through painstaking research and re-development. Plans that would help to place her and her family in the good graces of a lot of soon-to-be witches and wizards.
And the very first of her many plans that involved rituals, because there were other plans that didn't involve them too, was to make good use of one Petunia Evans.
From what Severus had often told her during the previous timeline, Lily's sister hated the fact that Lily had magic. And she hated even more that Severus was constantly teaching her about what their world was like. So, every chance she got, Petunia made sure to call them freaks and weirdos and an assortment of other cruel names.
Petunia wanted to be able to do magic too, but because she couldn't she took it out on her sister. Understandable, but still not something she should take out on Lily with enough intensity to ruin their relationship. This would lead to, according to older Severus, them staying out of each other's lives for what could possibly be forever.
Adeline had the feeling that, rather than a strict sense of hate and maybe fear of what she didn't understand, Petunia was jealous of the fact that her little sister was going to get to be a witch and she wasn't. That Lily was going to get to go to this amazing school and learn all sorts of magic, and she herself would only be going to a regular muggle school to learn how to live a boring muggle life.
Which is, of course, where the Bestowment Ritual comes into play.
This ritual was originally created through the collaboration of the Nott, Greengrass, Bones, Black, Prince, and Potter Families in an attempt to prevent Squibs from remaining Squibs all their lives. And while some of the families did so to spare themselves the embarrassment of having Squibs amongst them, other did it to give Squibs a way out of an otherwise pitiable existence.
As for Adeline's interest in such a ritual, she expected the population of witches and wizards in Britain to be greatly decreased after the war had finished and was looking into alternative methods to prevent that number from going any lower. This looked to be a solid temporary fix to the problem.
The original efforts resulted in nearly a decade and a half of consistent failure. And because of this, research into the topic was considered a fruitless endeavor. So much so that all of the notes and other research material had been carelessly discarded afterwards. At least, they were thought to have been discarded until Adeline discovered a copy of them in a journal in the main Prince vault.
During her time as a Death Eater, she pooled together all of her personal resources and used the incomplete ritual to successfully create another similar, yet completely different ritual to reach the same goal of giving magic to those who lack it. The altered version of the ritual, however, wasn't designed for Squibs.
Quite the opposite, the ritual was designed specifically for the families of Muggleborns. As such, it couldn't be done without a sibling, a first cousin, an aunt or uncle, a parent, or a child they may or may not have that is magical.
See, Adeline believed there was more to Muggleborns than people thought. She theorized that the reason Muggleborns existed in the first place was because they were the descendants of Squibs from hundreds of years ago.
These Squibs, having been kicked out of their homes by their ashamed families, went on to create families of their own with Muggles and probably even other Squibs. And, after several generations have passed, whatever defect they have that prevents them from using magic disappears.
In addition to this, she also believed that Squibs were, as unfortunate as it may seem to them, a necessary part of keeping wizards from inbreeding themselves to extinction.
So, rather than trying to bother helping the Squibs, Adeline focused on helping their descendants. The result of her work allowed for those in Petunia's situation to use magic when they otherwise wouldn't be able to. And this was achieved through strengthening the almost negligible amounts of magic that was already there.
Because even if someone from a Muggleborn's family had the ability to use minute amounts of magic, sometimes it wouldn't manifest strongly enough for the requirements that magical schools often had.
So, once Petunia spends a few years hating Lily, Adeline would step in. She was positive that Petunia would jump at the opportunity to be a witch. And if, in the process, Adeline gained a loyal witch who would do anything she said to regardless of what was asked…then it would be a win for everyone involved.
Adeline watched as Severus came down the stairs wearing some of the new clothes she'd made him for his last birthday; he wore much better clothes in this timeline than he did before. She'd almost forgotten how horribly they both used to dress because of their father's drinking. Not that he was much of an issue anymore.
Or would be ever again. That was the very first thing she took care of after getting there.
Though, she'd decided to let him keep the greasy hair until after the first year of Hogwarts was over, maybe even the second, so that those Marauders had a reason to tease him and Lily had a reason to dislike them. She had thoroughly planned out just how she would manipulate Lily's affections to not lie with the Potter boy at the very least.
"Ready to go?" He obviously wasn't eager to leave the house. Not for the reason they were leaving for, anyway.
Adeline placed a hand on her hip. "It took you thirty minutes to get dressed, Severus. Are you ready?" She took immense joy in seeing her little brother squirm under her glare. It had been years since she managed to get anything other than a glare right back.
"…yes." He walked towards the door with his head down and a worried expression on his face.
She placed a hand on the back of his head and walked with him. "Come on. I promise you that everything will be fine. I'll even bet you a Galleon that she'll be happy you told her about what she is. Okay?"
He nodded, the anxiety he felt lessening. "And if not, we'll just Obliviate them and try again later." His nodding comes to a halt and he snaps his head in her direction. "Hehehe~ Calm down, I'm just playing with you. Besides, I'd only do that if they forced me to." She feels him bump into her reproachfully.
"What? You know how muggles can be. They're always so…muggle about everything." She grumbled. "Really, it gets tiring after a while. You'll see when you get older."
Severus waited for Adeline to lock the front door and then began leading her down the street. "So where do these people live again? You've mentioned before that they were relatively close by. And I hope they are because we're going to be walking there."
There was no car they could drive and apparating was out of the question because Adeline had never been to the Evans' home before. Also, it would scare the hell out of them for two people to just show up out of nowhere like that.
It was a ten-minute walk to Lily's house. Along the way, Adeline and Severus talked about what they would need to get for him before he went to Hogwarts.
The letter hadn't come yet, but it would in just three months' time. If they got most of what they needed before then, usually she could get the list of materials before it came out from her old professor since she was a member of his Slug Club while in school, then it would be easier to get in and out of Diagon Alley when they went for his wand.
Wands were usually issued to Hogwarts students only, so they had to wait until the letter came. Though somehow Ollivander always seemed to know even without being shown the letter. Otherwise, they would have gotten everything done in one shot. Adeline wondered what kind of wand Severus would get now that she had played a more active role in his life this time.
Or rather, what kind of wand would choose him.
Ordinarily, no one outside of wandmakers cared about wands beyond the fact that they were needed to perform magic. But knowing more about the wand means knowing more about the person holding it.
Among other things, wandlore was a hobby, of sorts, she had recently taken the time to study and understand. It made encounters her previous encounters with other witches and wizards much more interesting, regardless of whether it was a conversation or a fight, to look back on. And it certainly made Ollivander seem much less like a crazy old man who liked wands a little too much.
During her time as a part-timer working with Ollivander over the last year, he often mentioned how she had an appreciation for wands that was rarely seen anymore. Something she was immensely proud of.
At seven and three-quarter inches with a Swishy flexibility, their mother's wand was made of Pear wood and a Unicorn Hair core. A fitting wand for her from the length right down to the core.
It was on the shorter side, reflecting her various semi-crippling insecurities and overall submissive personality. The Unicorn Hair core went well with Eileen's gentle disposition, its trusting nature and reliability complementing hers. The Pear wood it was crafted from usually found its way into the hands of the warm-hearted, the generous, and the wise.
As for the flexibility…it was an aspect that was hard for Adeline to determine without knowing the person. For a stranger, Swishy could mean the person was able to be swayed towards one side from another just as easily as it meant that they were very indecisive or any other number of possible character traits.
But for Eileen, Adeline had the feeling that it was more about her maternal side being the most dominating part of who she is. Of course, she could be wrong with only a year of an informal apprenticeship under her belt.
Wandlore, while interesting, was a tricky subject.
As for Adeline, she had made sure to get her hand on a second wand as soon as she could make her way to Knockturn Alley. One wand was meant for general use and the other wand was meant for fighting against any annoyances that might try and take her.
The first wand, the wand she'd gotten from Ollivander's as a child, was made of Yew wood to symbolize the users hold over life and death, had a Unicorn Hair core that paired with her reliability and dedication, and was eleven and three-quarter inches with a Solid flexibility that spoke volumes of her unbendable will.
This was what Ollivander had rambled on about, anyway.
She remembered feeling so happy, even if she didn't visibly show it, when she found out her wand's core was the same as her mother's. As if sharing the same wand core made her closer to the only person in her life that cared about her.
That also happened to be the moment, the feeling, that Adeline used for her Patronus. One of the few truly happy memories she has from her childhood.
The second wand, a custom wand she picked up as her primary dueling wand, was crafted using the raw materials she personally handpicked from an underground, both literally and metaphorically, shop hidden in the depths of Knockturn Alley. A little place she'd been visiting for years. Even before becoming a Death Eater.
The Red Oak wood, which the shop owner had claimed to be a wood that was perfect for dueling, and the Dragon Heartstring core, which would apparently be much less resistant to her inclinations of using darker spells, had both felt right in her hands. It was like the very first time she held her Ollivander wand, but the connection felt much more primal.
Intimate, even.
With the second wand, however, the length and flexibility changed. It was longer than the first wand, at a comfortable twelve and a half inches, with an Unyielding flexibility that accurately depicted what kind of person she turned into when fighting another witch or wizard.
She's fought Aurors, Order members, other Death Eaters, and even her own brother once or twice. And each time she did, she fought like a madwoman with absolutely nothing to lose. Unyielding to even the likes of Alastor Moody; an impressive Auror who was just as skilled with a wand as she was.
'If I had to guess what his wand might end up being now that I'd gone from being his distant but present sister to the sister who's always subtly meddling and influencing how he grew up,' She thought.
'It'll probably be Pine, Dragon Heartstring, somewhere around ten inches, and a Pliable flexibility. With his creative ingredient alternatives while helping me make potions, his penchant for "secretly" studying the more dangerous spells in my notebook, and his overall obedience to our mother…I'd say I'm close to what it might end up being.'
"Are you sure about this, Addie?" Severus spoke up as they walked up the steps to the front door. "I-" Adeline gave him a reassuring smile and knocked on the door, cutting him off as he spoke. "-have nothing to worry about, I promise. Everything's going to be fine."
She waited a minute before knocking once again. This time, the door opened mid-knock. A woman who looked remarkably like Lily had shortly before she was killed, but visibly older, answered.
"Hello, Mrs. Evans, sorry to bother you like this. I believe you know my little brother." Adeline gestured to Severus, who meekly waved his hand. The older woman nodded to Adeline, making sure to smile and wave back at the little boy half hidden behind his sister's leg. "Good. Would you…would you mind if we came in? There's something you need to know about your daughter."
The woman looked a little surprised at the request but was more concerned about whatever it was they needed to tell her about Lily. But since she knew Lily and Severus were friends, she saw no reason not to let them in.
She nodded. "Please, come in. We'll sit in the living room." Stepping aside, Mrs. Evans let Adeline and Severus make their way into the house. Severus was a regular presence, so he was able to lead his sister to where they were going.
As he began to walk away, Adeline snatched his hand and held it tight. The boy looked up, confused and slightly embarrassed by her behavior. "It's an awfully big house, Severus. Don't want me getting lost, do you?"
He hummed in annoyance at her attempt to embarrass him before sighing in resignation.
Smiling as they passed her, she thought to herself that it was quite an amusing sight to see the little boy leading his sister in such a childish way; even if it wasn't by choice. A sentiment that his sister appeared to share with her.
As far as Mrs. Evans could tell, Lily was the only person Severus fully expressed himself around. And because of this, she'd often wondered what kind of home life he had. As a mother, she couldn't help but worry that he was being mistreated in ways that pushed him towards being withdrawn.
But with Adeline's appearance and her 'older sister tendencies' that Mrs. Evans remembered having when she was younger, that didn't seem to be the case.
"Are you here by yourself?" Once they were sitting down, the younger woman wasted no time in trying to gather them all in one room. The situation would take some time to explain and, seeing as how she promised their mother they'd be home in time for dinner, Adeline wanted to say everything that needed to be said in one go.
She shook her head. "My husband's in the kitchen and my daughters are upstairs playing, I believe."
"I think…it'd be better if you were all here for this," Adeline spoke in a solemn tone of voice. "because what I'm about to tell you is something that will change your lives forever." Her penetrating gaze lingered, silently forcing Mrs. Evans to keep looking her in the eyes.
She kept this up for several seconds before looking away and releasing the older woman from her hold. After blinking away the tense moment the two women had just shared, Mrs. Evans distractedly called out to her family.
Adeline could tell from the cautious and increasingly bold glances being sent her way that this would not be as smooth a conversation as she had hoped. And she wasn't expecting much to begin with.
It seems that the apple didn't fall from the tree if this was where Lily got her demeanor from. One can only imagine how much of a pain Petunia was going to be when she finally takes her on as an apprentice.