The Law of Unintended Consequences

Chapter 54

The Lily's Tale Part Two

...You are forgiven because they were mistakes, not purposeful...

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling, nor do I own the Harry Potter Series.

Wednesday January 6th, 1976

While Lily seemed to relax for the moment in his embrace, Severus thought to himself about what he had heard from her; it seemed impossible that she would have actually gone ahead and married Potter after what had happened to their relationship in this time-line. It wasn't because Severus simply couldn't imagine Lily marrying the prat, or that ever so small feeling of jealousy in his stomach...well, not completely at least.

Severus really just couldn't understand because if Lily had married the bloke, then even Severus had to admit that the odds of her choosing to reject her 'husband' when she relived her life would be quite unlikely, even if it was a person who was as scummy as Potter. Of course, maybe she finally did realize just how much of a prat he was. Still though...

'Why would she have done it after Potter HAD changed for the better? I hate how he's been acting recently, as he's been joining in on that ridiculous witch-hunt against Lily, but even though I hate him I have to admit that for an enemy he wasn't so bad at the time...' Severus pondered this, then decided to ask the source of this information, who was sitting comfortably in his lap...

Not much wanting to disturb her as Lily seemed to have finally managed to stop crying, but hoping that this would help Lily get off of a depressing topic as well as help him understand something, Severus cradled her to his chest and asked quietly,

"I know that this might seem like a strange question, but it's something that I don't really understand; if you married Potter, then why did you break up with him and decide to pursue me? I mean, if you loved him enough to marry him in the first place, then why give it up?"

For a moment, Severus thought that she might not have heard him, but then Lily turned her head to look at him in confusion as she said, "Uh, what? I mean, I understand the question, but is that REALLY what you want your first question to be about? I betrayed you horribly and your only concern is why I decided I want to go out with you instead of Potter?"

Severus felt his face heating up as he started to stammer for a moment, and Lily looked at him skeptically for several seconds before bursting into a peal of laughter as she smiled for a moment as she muttered something about "Boys...", although it soon faded; still, Severus was glad that she had managed to stop wearing that broken look for even a few seconds...

Finally, she replied with a tired frown on her face as she looked up into his eyes with her emerald green ones, "I suppose that I can explain it, but it'll take a while, and I don't want to keep Mary waiting forever..."

Severus shrugged at this, and Lily said quietly, rather pink in the face, "Well, this isn't something that I wanted to mention before, but..." She looked at him in remorse she said with a sad giggle, a mockery of 'girl's gossip' if he ever saw one, "...I doubt you notice it much, but Potter is really, REALLY handsome, even if his personality used to be comparable to that of a horse's rear end. While I didn't like him much as a person at first, I definitely admired his appearance, even in my fourth year the first time around."

As Severus started to reconsider his topic, looking at her in utter disbelief and mortification, Lily chuckled for a moment and said, "Hey, you asked, and don't worry all that much; he might be a very physically attractive boy, but you aren't awful either. I mean..."

Lily looked at him apologetically, before saying, "...I can't say that you will ever be considered as a model or anything, and your hair isn't ever going to be that great unless you decide to give up on potions for the rest of your life, but you have a pretty good physique now that you've gotten fed up a bit. Still, there is one thing that you'll DEFINITELY grow into when you get older..."

Severus' eyes widened, then he started smirking in a mischievous grin, which had Lily looking confused for a moment before her face went red and she shouted in a clearly horrified mortification, "Not THAT thing, Severus, get your mind out of the gutter! I meant that your VOICE will be what you grow into; it's going to turn...rather nice indeed..."

She then paused for a moment, before saying coolly, although the pink on her face was still there showing her embarrassment, "In any case, that is all beside the point; the main thing is that I found Potter physically attractive, alright?"

Severus nodded as he waited for Lily to continue, jealousy that he couldn't quite manage to suppress creeping through his veins, in spite of the fact that that battle had ended ages ago...


Lily could see Severus' jealousy seething around him like a black cloud and paused for a moment, unsure if it would be such a good idea to tell him what happened, but said apprehensively nonetheless,

"Well, the thing to understand about James is that he is a very all-or-nothing kind of guy; either he thinks that you are a good person and he'll do just about anything for you and trust you implicitly or he thinks that you're not a good person and he'll make your life a living hell, OK? It's a very black-and-white view of the world, but that's how it goes. At least, that was what I had always thought..."

Lily sighed as she described her once-cherished memory to him, "...You see, after the first Werewolf incident, he told me about how you had been following him around and got yourself in trouble and how he had to save your life..."

At Severus' look of distaste, Lily hastened to explain. "Hey, it's what HE said, alright? However, at the time and in my reality, I believed that it was the complete and total truth. Thanks to the oath that Dumbledoremade you swear, you couldn't reveal the REAL truth, and I didn't believe the hints that you dropped at the time. Perhaps it's because I didn't want to believe them..."

She turned back around and pressed herself against his chest, afraid to look into his eyes but unwilling to give up his comfort, then Lily said sadly,

"Suddenly, I started honestly considering him as a 'potential', although I still wasn't all THAT interested in him. After all, he had saved the boy he described many a time as his 'worst enemy' for no real benefit. I tried to hide it from you, as you became positively raving about him, something which is easily understandable if you consider how he was behind the 'prank' to begin with and YOU had been forced to cover it up. I didn't know about your reasons at the time though, and to me you just appeared ungrateful..."

Lily could feel Severus flinch as she said this, but she held his hands close to her stomach in order to sooth him before continuing,

"Well anyway, after our falling out at the end of O.W.L.s, James stopped his bullying of anyone and became quite a bit less arrogant. This brought our similarities to the fore: our similar outlooks on the world, our equal distaste for the Death Eaters, our enjoyment of life and having 'fun' rather than thinking about serious matters. Ironically, he was very different from you and yet I was attracted greatly to him, or perhaps it wasn't so ironic...

Severus then interrupted, voice crackling with jealousy and disdain, although much less than it had been even a year ago, "I SUPPOSE I can see why that would have made you consider James I suppose, although he probably was still a gigantic pain-in-the-rear. However, I don't see what that would have to do with your dumping him in THIS time-line-"

Lily quickly interjected in sudden annoyance, as she did NOT want to drag out this topic, both because the rivalry between the two boys should be left in the past where it belonged and because she needed to tell him the thing that troubled her most... "Are you telling the story or am I?"

Severus quickly halted his questioning, and Lily continued with a sigh,

"Well, we started going out in seventh year, and I found myself falling in love with him. We continued dating after we left Hogwarts and a year later James proposed to me and I accepted...although an incident a few days before the wedding caused the wedding to be postponed when he told me what had happened in the Shrieking Shack in our fourth year. Nonetheless, I forgave him, partially because he had truly changed his ways when he had stopped attacking you in Seventh year. He even told me that he regretted it greatly because he then realized how much it hurt me."

Lily paused for a moment, before admitting,

"At that time, if you had asked me whether or not I considered him the love of my life, I would have answered 'yes' without a doubt in my mind. I truly thought that the two of us were soul-mates and that he was my 'one', so to speak. Any of the cliches about absolute, true love would have been considered true, as I truly did love James. Even if you ask me now, when I've learned that soul-mates truly don't exist and that the 'one' is a lie, I would have to say that nothing I felt before him could have matched how I felt about him..."

After a moment, during which she could tell that Severus went positively rigid although he didn't let go of her, Lily continued the tale of her love story with James Potter, "We had a son as I mentioned earlier, Harry, and we continued fighting against You-Know-Who's forces; unfortunately, as I told you before, we were completely overwhelmed."

Tears beginning to run down her cheeks, both because of the story she was telling and the memories of all the people she had watched die, Lily whispered,

"Many of the members of the Order had to go into hiding lest he kill them, only to die anyway when he found them. After I turned twenty, the prophecy regarding our family meant that it was our turn to hide... We entrusted our safety in the hands of Peter Pettigrew, only to die when he betrayed us for whatever reason; although You-Know-Who offered to spare my life for Harry's, I couldn't allow that to happen and sacrificed myself to create a blood-charm to protect my son."

In spite of the tears still spilling from her eyes, Lily smiled slightly as she looked back up at Severus once more, "I then returned to the past, where I immediately tried to save you from the path you had taken in my time-line, obviously succeeding once I got Mary's help. I tried to rebuild my relationship with the man who had been my husband, although as the two of you got closer I couldn't help myself from getting jealous, even though I resisted it as best I could..."

Severus then broke in, asking in confusion, speaking slowly as if to a child, "You gave up a relationship with the man you considered the 'love of your life' because you got jealous of Mary and me? Excuse me Lily, but even considering that it's Potter, that is more than mildly insane."

Lily chuckled, realizing how absurd she had made it sound, before continuing with a sigh,

"If it had been that easy to get me to change my mind about James, then I would never have married him in the first place. No, what happened was I tried to change this time-line's James to be more like his future incarnation, realizing that I couldn't have my husband and my best friend keep fighting like the two of you were... If I did, then eventually I would have to give one of the two of you up, for all intents and purposes. It was problematic at first, but I thought it would get better over time, at least I did until when I went unconscious after you told me you loved me..."

Lily then sighed once more, saying simply,

"I can't tell you how, but I found out from my original James that he had never actually stopped bullying you, and had only been lying to me about it when he said he regretted it. My feelings for this James started to fade soon after that, as I realized something subconsciously: James' love for me was not and might never be as important to him as his hatred of you. In simple terms, to him I was second-best to you..."

Lily looked into his eyes deeply, trying to see what emotions he might be hiding in them as she continued, "I probably would have broken up with him well before the end of last term, having realized that, if it weren't for the fact that I still had no idea as to what you had done for me in my time-line. Nonetheless, I was falling for you very hard, even though I tried to deny it."

Pausing as his eyes seemed to spark slightly, she then said simply, watching his reactions as she did so, "My original James revealed what your counterpart had done for me to me right after the second Werewolf incident, when I was unconscious after you and Mary had left to see the Headmaster..."

As Severus looked at her in surprise, Lily twisted around so that she could hug him. While doing so, she sat up so that her emerald green eyes were staring straight into his shining black ones, barely even whispering as she said,

"It was only then that I realized the truth: in your counterpart's eyes, I had been more important to him than anything. His dreams, his hatred of James, his near-lust for power and respect, all of that had been worth sacrificing to him so that I could be safe. Even though I had rejected even his FRIENDSHIP, he loved me enough to change sides just to try and protect me."

Sensing the obvious objection, Lily said quickly as her world shrunk down to Severus' eyes,

"Don't misunderstand me, I don't love you because of what he did for me, as truly incredible as that was. It just showed me what I had blinded myself to in YOUR feelings and actions, how much you truly cared for me, and just what sort of incredible person I was missing out on because I thought YOU didn't care for ME like I did for you."

Severus seemed to think for a moment, then he asked skeptically, his eyes blank for the moment, "Lily, if that was the case, then why did you wait until August to break up with Potter? Did it really take you that long to change your mind?"

Lily, remembering that Summer, then looked at him with a hurt look in her eyes as she said, "I couldn't break up with James over the first part of the Summer because I was too busy sending my owl over to you in order to try and get you to forgive me, otherwise I would have told both you and him the same day that I woke up again just how much I loved you..."

Severus looked at her in embarrassment, then muttered, "Er...Mary was kinda screening my mail at the time; after all, we thought that you had just tried to kill me and all..."

Although it had been a long while, it did feel good to have that mystery cleared up after so long; however, that happy feeling went away as Lily started to explain her biggest regret of all...


Although Severus did feel good to have a few things cleared up, and his feeling of jealousy was mostly assuaged, he couldn't help but feel a little unhappy at the wriggling thought in the back of his mind that he had been second choice for Lily. Nonetheless, he tried to comfort himself by pointing out that he might have been second chosen, but he was likely best...although it would have made his internal debate between the two girls FAR easier if he had found out he wasn't the best in Lily's heart.

Before he could get back to that particularly confusing topic though, Lily said, "Severus, there is one thing that I regret most of all about everything: how I refused to even listen to your thoughts on the matter, absolutely sure that I was the only one who could have been right. I refused to accept your friends as REAL friends because I didn't want to think of them as anything about evil..."

Pausing, Lily then said after shaking her head, causing her red hair to swish gracefully in Severus' peripheral vision,

"No, not just your thoughts, everything that didn't conform with what I wanted to be reality I ignored; I allowed myself to become willfully blind because it was SOOO much easier than actually having to think about your arguments and consider them. Instead of trying to debate with you like we used to enjoy doing, I simply tried to tell you what was right and didn't listen to any counter-arguments."

She looked away for a moment, then her pleading eyes looked back into his as she spoke,

"I think that I WANTED James to be a good person, suitable for me to date so I wouldn't feel guilty for being attracted to him, so I ignored all of the warning signs. In hindsight, I could have seen them every time I mentioned the incident in front of the rest of the Marauders, as Remus would glare as Sirius and he would look mildly abashed. Hell, you were practically spitting out warning signs with everything you did, and I ignored them rather than seriously consider them."

Lily paused, then said quietly, shifting uncomfortably on his lap as she did so, "It was the same way with your Slytherin friends, as I WANTED them to be evil, so I refused to listen to you when you told me about their good traits. It was just convenient for me to believe of them as pure evil, so I did, rather than going for a logical argument."

As Severus thought about this, realizing that she had a point there and not just in her own perspective on his friends, as he had found that he had made his own misevaluations about them. For example, he had ignored just what Avery and Mulciber were capable of, much to his detriment... Lily then said with a slight smile, "Still, I'm glad that I didn't make that mistake in this time-line..."

Thinking of the time-line she had previously described, Severus had to agree with a shiver. Meanwhile, Lily continued with a wry smirk,

"In some ways, having lost your friendship then going back beforehand was the best thing that ever happened to it, as I was forced to listen to you in order to be able to persuade you you were wrong. Ironically, in listening in order to prove you wrong, I also found that you were right in some ways! Your friends DID have good point, and really WERE good friends, not just evil monsters! Mind you, I think that Avery should burn in hell now, but I can see why you wanted to be friends with him at the time."

Lily's eyes then started to blaze as she started to speak more passionately, making Severus feel like he had been suddenly caught inside of a thunderstorm as he couldn't help but stare transfixedly into her shining eyes, the tempest's heart,

"Because I had to listen as well as preach, I realized that a simple Black-and-White view of the world just. Couldn't. Cut. It! I had to learn to understand blue, green, grey, yellow, red, all those colors and many more! In doing this, I found myself changing just as much as you and Mary changed! I was finally able to see the true depths of my best friend, and how he SHINED in spite of the darkness that he cloaked himself in! I saw his sufferings, his dreams, his aspirations and realized that they made him far more than the simple white and black I had always believed in!"

She then slowed down, before saying just as passionately, but a touch quieter, "You broke me out of the trap which I had made for myself, a trap of illusions and denials, lies and false beliefs. I believed that it was truth incarnate, but you showed me that it was only a cage which I had crafted for myself, a cage that cost me my sister and best friend and caused me to marry a man who put his desire to have me over being honest to the woman he loved. Out of this cage, I saw something that I hadn't anticipated discovering, but am glad I found..."

Lily's voice then dropped to a whisper as she continued, "...I saw YOU, and I found that YOU were someone who I loved more than anyone, past, present or future..."

For one perfect moment, Severus Snape would always swear his entire world consisted of nothing more and nothing less than Lily Evans, for he couldn't see, hear, smell or feel anything but her sitting on his lap and gazing fiercely into his eyes...


After revealing so much of her thoughts and feelings to Severus, Lily was sure that she should be feeling very embarrassed indeed, but she found that she couldn't quite manage it. After considering it for a little bit though, she had a bit of an epiphany as to why it wasn't embarrassing at all.

It wasn't embarrassing to have confessed her love to him and her reasons for it because it was more than mere feelings or emotions of love, instead being nothing more than a simple truth: Lily Evans loves Severus Snape. Somehow, over the past year it had become a certainty to the level that it was comparable to saying that Lily Evans is alive and exists...

Unfortunately, her contemplations were interrupted by Severus shifting his legs beneath her uncomfortably, as existing also implied having a body; the problem with that was that her weight was clearly starting to become rather uncomfortable for him, although she had a rather slim figure...

Realizing this, Lily quickly got off of him and offered him her hand to help him up while standing up herself. Severus being Severus, he looked at her hand with a frown for a moment before taking it and allowing her to help him to his feet. He then said with a touch of embarrassment,

"Lily, you might be right about your mistakes, but you aren't the only one; although it wasn't until March that I admitted it to myself, I knew that you were right about the Death Eaters long ago. It's just that I didn't want to accept it. You weren't the only one who preferred to live in illusions and denials... As such, I forgive you for your mistakes, because you weren't the only one and you didn't mean to make them."

Lily chuckled with him, feeling a warm feeling as he admitted this to her, and she hugged him in gratitude. After a few seconds, he appeared content, but then his face took on a serious cast. For a moment he simply looked at her, then he said quietly, his dark eyes almost hiding the slight trace of fear and insecurity in them in them,

"Lily, I know that you are grateful to my counterpart and me for what we did, but how do you know that you love me and aren't just thankful for what we have given? I don't want you to love me just because you want to thank me for what you have given me, so are you sure that it's really love that you feel and not merely gratitude?"

For a moment, Lily considered answering with something simple like "Yes, Sev, of course I'm sure. Don't be silly!", but dismissed such an answer as unworthy of the seriousness of the question. Taking a moment to think it over, she said slowly, her voice gaining in strength with every word spoken,

"Sev...I know because everytime that we're doing something together, even when it's something as simple as working together on a Potions project, I feel like my day has lightened somehow just because it's you. I know because everytime you and I talk, I feel like I've somehow become a better 'Lily' than before that moment. I know because every time we're alone together, finding the nearest solid object and pressing you up against it to kiss you while pushing myself up against you seems like a bloody brilliant idea..."

Lily then paused, looking him directly in the eyes and placing her hands on his shoulders while saying, "Sev, I am glad that you have shown me so much love, but that is not why I love you; I love you because I feel affection for you, because I feel desire for you, because I feel that my days are better because you're around! I know what it feels like to love someone so much that you want to spend the rest of your life with them, and I KNOW that I feel that way about you!"

As the two of them seemed to lean closer with each word, almost as if drawn by a force of gravity, Lily said quietly and clearly,

"Severus, the person I was was a girl who only saw things in black and white and cost herself the greatest friendship I ever heard of because she wasn't able to look beyond those two colors; she loved James. I have seen so much more because of my best friend, and want to always be beside him so that we can learn more from and about each other. Even if I had been right about James, and he had been what he claimed to be, I would still choose you now..."

Lily looked at Severus' face, his lips no more than a few inches from her own, and slowly pushed forward while pulling him toward her; as she pressed her lips to his, she saw a flicker of doubt run through his eyes, but it passed as he deepened the kiss...

As her body pressed up against Severus', in spite of all the many mistakes she had made, Lily felt redeemed...


"...don't care about what he's done to make himself 'immortal', the Dementor's Soul will still end the life of that monster! THE DARK LORD WILL FALL!"

Mary woke up, then stretched in a yawn, having fallen asleep before while Severus and Lily were still talking. She didn't know what the dream meant, but if it was like the rest of her dreams...

She quickly ran over toward the shed door where she had left Severus and Lily inside; night had fallen while she was sleeping, but she doubted that the two of them were in any real danger. Opening her mouth and filling her lungs with air as she prepared to inform them of her discovery, she opened the door, only to halt suddenly.

Dumbstruck in horror at the sight she had witnessed, she slowly shut the door behind her before walking back out into the dark, tears of betrayel filling her eyes as she mentally replayed the scene she had just witnessed again and again: Severus and Lily in a tight embrace, fiercely kissing each other for everything they were worth...

As Mary's tears rained down from her face, only one thought could make itself heard in the sheer hurt that filled her heart and mind, 'H-how...? It was s-supposed to be me...'

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay, as my computer ate the last third of this chapter right as I was about to post it last night, but I hope that it was worth the wait. I still don't know how the chapter became a love-confession from Lily, but it somehow seemed right, so I went with it.

As for Severus' self-promise and the kiss...while Severus might be very good at keeping his word, I doubt that even a saint could keep himself from doing anything when a woman he loves is kissing him after she confessed his love to him. In spite of the kiss, the love-triangle isn't over...

I hope that the sappiness of most of this chapter doesn't go over too badly. I have a general distaste towards sap, but sometimes you have to include it; I'll just make sure to kill a Gryffindor or two to make up for it=).