Severus Snape and the Folly of Hope

Chapter 1: The Potion

Severus opened his eyes and let out a deep groan. It was August 12, 1975…again. He didn't even have to look at the calendar. The potion always sent him back to the instant his magical core reached maturity, which just so happened to be while he was sleeping in the early morning hours of August the 12th. Just before his fifth year was about to start.

The potion…how many times had he drunk it now? Twenty? Fifty? A hundred times? He always brews it the day after Lily Potter dies…will die? Has died? Merlin, her damn Gryffindor pride has killed her in literally every life, so much so that he no longer knows in what grammatical tense to describe it in. And then he brews…will brew…has brewed that damn potion…again. And every time he swears that this time he will save her…that this time he will see her pass away peacefully in her sleep of old age. He has yet to be able to keep that promise. She always dies…horrifically, violently…The pain of seeing her glassy eyes staring into nothing never gets any lesser, no matter how many times he sees it.

The potion was of course of Severus' own design. Its creation was inspired shortly after the Granger girl had abused a time turner for the better part of a year. The idea crystalized when she and the boy saved the criminal Black from his justly deserved end. The Time Turner's potion actually did involve the use of a winding time turner at the midway point of its brew. Which is probably the reason why no one had ever thought of it before Severus did. After all, who would be desperate enough to risk an exploding cauldron with an active time turner inside it?

The first time Severus drank his highly experimental potion he had assumed it was an immediate failure. Nothing had happened and the years went by much as they always had. Then as he lay dying in the shrieking shake with Nagini's venom coursing through his veins; as he looked into Lily's green eyes inside of Potter's damnable face he felt it. The most peculiar sensation; it was like going to sleep while wide awake. He had blinked and when he opened his eyes again he was staring at his bedroom ceiling in Spinner's End. He recognized the crack above him immediately.

It took a lot of retrospection to figure out that the potion he had brewed was actually a dark potion; one that required sacrifice to activate. His death was the sacrifice necessary to activate the magic trapped inside of the potion. So every night that Lily dies, he brews it again and then proceeds to devote his life to studying arcane arts waiting for his always violent death to trigger the potion. Lord Voldemort never disappoints: in every life he finds a reason to murder the half-blood prince.

Of course, he could have speed up the process by kidnapping a sacrifice in his own life's stead. But no, he may be Snivellus the slimy Slytherin, but he wasn't that evil. Nor was he that desperate, if his violent death would trigger the potion and his violent death was guaranteed then murdering a hapless stander by was unnecessary.

Severus sighed, meditating on all his numerous schemes to save Lily from Voldemort, from Potter, and even from herself. That's what they were: schemes; pathetic, useless first year Slytherin schemes. He had first tried remaining Lily's friend. He never uttered a single slur or cuss word no matter how bad the marauders got. Lily still cut Severus out of her life, married Potter and got murdered a few years after that, much the same as the first life.

Then Severus tried telling her the truth; that he had travelled through time to warn her about the danger she was in. She had cut him out of her life immediately. She told him that she couldn't tolerate lying Slytherins anymore.

Then Severus tried being a Gryffindor's Gryffindor. He publicly broke ranks with Slytherin and sided with the Gryffindors on almost every matter. He defended muggleborn students in all altercations and even went so far as to turn in so-to-be death eaters for "pranks" that had gone too far.

It changed nothing. Lily cut him out of her life when he defended her friend Mary MacDonald from a serious injury by using Sectumsempra against the attacker, Evan Rosier.

But maybe it was the violent nature of the spell that scared Lily? Next life, Severus used a Stupefy instead. Lily cut him out a week later anyway.

Life after life, it was all the same. No matter what he did, Lily always leaves Severus' friendship behind, joins the marauders, marries Potter, births Harry, and then dies.

It occurred to him that by fifth year Lily was actively looking for a reason to be rid of him. No time for that disgusting Snivellus when there were rich, handsome Potters to be shagging, right?

Isn't that hilarious? For decades—no, for fucking centuries, Severus had thought that if he didn't say the word, if he was a better man then maybe Lily would remain his friend. And maybe, just maybe she could learn to return his ardent affections.

What a fucking fool he was, is, will be. Who could ever come to love a giant, hook nosed bat? No one, that's who. Especially not a woman who was so exceptionally beautiful and intelligent like Lily fucking Potter.

Lily's don't love Severus's. They befriend them when young and there isn't any wizard better around, but when a rich, pretty boy wizard shows up then its game over. Really the only thing that should surprise Severus was that it took Lily five years to decide that she wanted nothing to do with her hideous, bad tempered friend.

The worst part was even after that epiphany broke Severus' soul beyond repair yet again; he still loved her. In retrospect, Severus wished that the revelation that Lily was looking for any reason, any excuse to drop him would allow him the luxury of hating her just a little. But instead his own self-loathing grew and his adoration of her remained untouched.

Not good enough for her are you, Snivellus? Not rich enough, not handsome enough. Just the poor son of a muggle drunk and a broken witch. The only reason Lily ever even tolerated his presence was because he was the only wizard around that tiny spit of God forsaken England. But then they went to Hogwarts and she was surrounded by all sorts of witches and wizards.

Funny, he thought Hogwarts would be the start of his grand adventure. Instead it was the start of Lily ending her friendship with her ugly, little Snivellus. Why hang around Snivellus when there were other, more pretty wizards all pawing after her robes? And of course she would pick the prettiest, richest wizard of all.

James Potter, the fucking king of the lions and destined martyr for the light.

And so Severus stared at his ceiling: desperate for any way that he could save her. Then a thought occurred to him.

If being the lightest wizard of all time wouldn't save her then maybe he had to be the darkest wizard of all to do it.

If Lily always chose to die as James Potter's wife then maybe he would just have to take that choice away from her.