I know it's been ages and this chapter isn't very long at all but my mind has been elsewhere recently. I do want to keep at this but it will be a very slow process probably. This chapter is basically filler and felt rather stuck with it but hopefully I can move on now.

"How does that clear anything up, Albus?"

Severus was truly thrown for a loop and was left feeling more than a little off balance. He half staggered towards a chair and sunk heavily onto it. The mother of all headaches was eating its way across his temples as he tried to wrap his head around any of this.

"Well I assume it was not you who made that projection."

"Of course not! I would bloody well remember something like that." he uttered, trying to recall what the image had said. The only thing he could focus on was the fact that he'd called Selena his daughter.

A daughter.

That was just insane. More than insane, it was impossible.

Severus had only ever had sex the once. It was with a stranger just after graduating Hogwarts. He'd done it to see what it was like and found it very much lacking. Sure it had felt nice but he didn't see the point in it when he could produce the same results himself. Without a true connection to the person it felt like a very meaningless endeavour.

That was five years ago and he had taken all of the proper precautions. There was no way he could be a father.

"Yes, Severus, I imagine you would definitely recall something like this," Albus continued "Tell me, my boy, what do you know of the multiverse theory?"

That drew Severus to straighten in his seat. "The multiverse?" he frowned, that sounded more like Unspeakable territory. They were always experimenting with something like that. "Not much. Just that there may be other worlds running parallel to ours."

"Indeed. I would say that theory would explain our current predicament." Albus said, casually.

"You're saying that she appeared here from another world?!"

That would take insane amounts of magic. No one could produce that much power. Not even the Dark Lord. If the Dark Lord had discovered how to travel between worlds he dreaded to think of the destruction he would have wrought. Not only to this one but to infinite other ones. He barely suppressed a shudder.

At his outburst, Selena stopped playing with Albus' beard. She looked between the two men with uncertainty on her face, clearly picking up on the tense air.

"Yes. A world, it seems, where you and Lily resolved your differences and had a daughter together."

Albus' words hit him like a physical blow. A blade to the chest that carved out his heart and left him feeling hollow.

Lily.

The projection had called her mother Lily and he only just realised what that meant. She was the daughter of Lily and him. That's why she had Lily's eyes. That's why her glare had looked familiar: it was his. This little girl was a symbol of everything that he had ever hoped for and everything that he had lost.

Everything that he could never have.

This was cruelty. To provide him with a glimpse of what could have been. Like a twisted reflection in the mirror of erised. Undoubtedly, this too would be torn away from him and he would be left with nothing once more.

"She can't be," he whispered. "This must be a trick."

Someone must be trying desperately to convince Severus this was his child. Perhaps it was a sick form of a joke or revenge or-

-Dammit he could not think of any other reason that would make even the smallest amount of sense.

Albus looked down at Selena, who smiled brightly back at him. "You can't deny there is a resemblance, Severus" he said, before tickling her neck. Selena gave a high pitched squeal and started giggling.

The sound got caught in his chest and made it seem marginally less hollow.

"Though I hardly get to see it, I think she has your smile."

Poor girl.

He'd always hated his smile. But when he looked at her he altered that thought because she was undoubtedly adorable. Even he couldn't deny that.

Selena appeared to be done with the tickling though because she reared back up with a glare "No, stop now."

"Okay, I'll stop," Albus obliged. With an amused twinkle in his eyes he turned to Severus "And she definitely has your glare."

Severus couldn't help but roll his eyes at that.

"There is a simple way to find out for certain," Albus said "Try casting Invenio Paturnum."

Invenio Paternum was a spell used by many wizarding families. Mostly when a child would wander off and their parents were trying to find them. The spell would make any child related to you by blood glow a bright blue. A nice little beacon for neglectful parents to find their little brats in a sea of people.

It wasn't particularly used to determine the true paternity of a child as most purebloods were related in some way. But Severus was a half-blood and the prince line had died out. If the spell worked then there was very little doubt that the child was his.

Severus swallowed thickly and nodded. His wand shot into his hand and he took a deep breath. He was strangely reluctant to utter the spell. It felt like he was on the precipice of something; like nothing would be the same after he cast it.

He inwardly cursed himself for his foolishness and cast the damn spell.

At first nothing happened, Selena just stared at him with those big green eyes of hers. The rush of disappointment was incredibly surprising. He had not realised how much he had been hoping for it to be true. But then a slight glow began to radiate from her skin until she became an incandescent blue.

Selena's eyes lit up and she let out a small gasp. She held her hands up to her face in wonder. "Daddy look! I look like a patonus."

Yes she did look like a patronus. The embodiment of pure happiness. Severus had to turn away and cough around a lump that had inexplicably formed in his throat.

She was his.

Though the logistics of that were far more complex, the fact of the matter was that Severus Snape was her father.

"So she's mine. From another world," his voice sounded somewhat far away "But then why is she here?"

"If what your counterpart said was correct, then I fear that it was Selena here who Voldemort targeted."

Severus flinched at the name and then blanched as he caught up with what Albus meant. Even in a world without Harry Potter, Lily Evan's child was still targeted?

Severus felt his muscles tense and his stomach twisted nauseatingly. He may have only just met her but the idea of the Dark Lord going anywhere near this little girl made him feel ill. Then he froze as he recalled the wound he had helped to clean up.

Severus shot up in his seat "Albus, her forehead"

Albus shifted her hair until it revealed a freshly healed scar in the shape of a lightning bolt. He gasped, softly enough not to alarm the girl. "Oh yes, I see."

"Selena do you remember what happened before you came here?"

Selena looked away and hugged Demitrious (He refused to call it Dave) to her face. Her bottom lip quivered. "There was a bad man."

"Do you know who the bad man was?" Albus' voice was gentle yet prodding.

She nodded.

"Can you tell me who it was?"

"Can't say his name," she whispered, fearfully.

"It's okay, you don't have to say it." Severus found himself trying to comfort her. He gave Albus a glare for his pushiness.

But Albus ignored the look and urged on. "And what did the bad man do?"

"It was dark outside and scary green and, and, and…"It started with her lip curling. Then her nose scrunched and her eyes turned glassy. Within a second a full sob broke through. "H-he h-hurt daddy!"

Severus was out of his chair in an instant, a previously unknown paternal instinct making itself present. Though when he finally reached her he did not know what to do from there. Instead he tried to pat her back in hopes of calming her down.

"Now look at what you've done, Albus!"

Selena began to clamber out of Albus' arms and into his own. An act he was wholly unprepared for, which caused him to nearly drop her. Selena didn't seem to notice and instead buried her head in the crook of his neck and clung on with her surprisingly sharp nails.

She also may have stood on Albus' beard in her bid which would only serve him right.

Severus had to take a moment to compartmentalise his thoughts. As touch starved as he was, this simple hug was a little overwhelming. He couldn't remember the last time he'd shaken someone's hand, nevermind having a small human hanging off his neck.

"Is daddy okay now?" she hiccuped.

He could not bring himself to say anything other than a tight "Yes,"

"Is the bad man gone?"

"Yes!" quicker to reassure her this time. "The bad man is gone. He can't hurt you."

Severus glared at Albus again who remained as nonplussed as before. "So it seems that we now have another child who has survived the killing curse."

So she was what? The girl-who-lived? Merlin, how could this get any more complicated.

"And it was your sacrifice this time Severus. Well a version of you at least." Albus said in a deliberate manner.

Severus shifted Selena until she sat more comfortably in his arms and eyed him with suspicion. "What are you saying?"

"Like with young Mr. Potter I expect such a sacrifice would leave a mark. He is protected by the presence of Lily's blood so, in turn, Selena here is protected by yours," He said "The projection mentioned a ritual that would lead her to whoever would keep her the safest. Which is probably how she came to be here in the first place as only you can provide her that protection."

He had never been anyone's safe place. Yet somehow this magic had found him and bid him a worthy protector. Surely there was someone better than him. Another Snape who had not fucked up as much, who had not destroyed every chance of happiness they'd ever had.

Any of them would be better than him.

But the magic had chosen him instead and there was nothing he could do about it.

One look into her impossibly green eyes was all it took to convince him that he could not hand her over to anyone else either. Not when the sight of her made his chest feel less empty. He may be wholly unprepared but for better or for worse he had a daughter now.

Merlin's beard, what am I saying? I don't know the first thing about kids! What the bloody hell was he going to do?