A WORLD WITHOUT HER

Summary: Two years after defeating Voldemort, Holly Potter can't stop thinking about Snape. She decides to go back in time in 1982, in another world where she doesn't exist but in her place there's a boy named Harry Potter. She plans on defeating Voldemort much sooner than she did the first time, so to save as many people as possible. And perhaps, along the way, gain at least Snape's respect, if she can't gain his love as she might wish to. FemHP/SS.

Pairing: FemHarry/Severus eventually.

I replaced Deja-Vu with this story. In a way, it will be similar to what I had in mind with Deja-Vu, just set in a different time. I hope you like this anyway.

This story is also an alternate version of my other stories: 'A Jump Through Time and Space', 'Changing History' and 'Through the Looking Glass, Darkly', hence why most of this chapter is basically the prologues of these stories mashed together. But the story, overall, will be different (like I said, very similar to what I had in mind for Deja-Vu, just 10 years earlier, canon-timeline).

This story will be slow-burn but not too slow-burn that it becomes annoying, hopefully.

(Also, I write this in every FemHP/SS story that I write, if you're worried about Snape replacing Lily with FemHarry, don't be.

I've already said this many times, but in my opinion, what Snape felt for Lily wasn't really romantic love in the way he thought. Sure, he probably had a crush on her while they were in school, but Lily was most of all his first and only friend.

He lost her, first with what happened in his fifth year, then again, when Lily decided to be with James of all people, and then he really lost her for good, when she died, and in all of this, he was never able to apologize and clear things up with her.

He has a lot of regrets when it came to her and a lot of guilt. But that's it, I think. He held on to this perfect version of Lily he had in his head, because he couldn't let her go, because letting her go meant letting go of his guilt and forgiving himself and he couldn't do that, because he felt responsible for her death. So, Lily became his obsession.

These are a lot of emotions, and it's all very complicated, but this is not love. He just needs to realize it for himself.)

By the way, I imagine FemHarry in this story to look like Danielle Rose Russell (aka Hope Mikaelson in Legacies), but with emerald green eyes.

Hope you like it. Tell me what you think!

Prologue

Grimmauld Place – 2nd May 2000

Holly knew that what she was about to do was probably the craziest, most foolish thing she had ever done and if Snape was there, he would tell her exactly that but that was the point, wasn't it? He wasn't. Snape was dead like countless others. She wasn't naive enough to think that she could save everybody but she hoped, by doing this, a lot of people's lives would be spared. If everything went to plan, she would have more time, at the very least, to do what needed to be done.

And yet, that wasn't the main reason why she was doing this.

She was doing this for Severus Snape. Maybe she was feeling guilty for what happened to him, because she wasn't able to save him, because she didn't realize until it was too late that Snape had been on their - her - side all along. Maybe she didn't find it fair that, after everything that Snape had been through, after everything he sacrificed, all he received in return was a painful, pointless death.

Or maybe because, in hindsight, she should have realized that her obsession with the Half-Blood Prince wasn't exactly normal. She didn't know what she felt for him, but she knew she felt something. Perhaps she hadn't been physically attracted to him – or she had never bothered to think about it before because there were so many other feelings taking precedence (hatred and disdain most of all), that she hadn't realized what she was feeling until it was too late. But she knew she had been attracted to his mind.

Snape had been so smart, going as far as inventing his own spells and improving the potions' recipes in his sixth year, maybe even before that. Before finding out about the Half-Blood Prince book, she had thought Hermione was the smartest person she knew, but Snape was on another level entirely. And he was so brave. He was without doubt the bravest person she had ever known.

Of course, by going back in the past, she didn't actually expect for anything romantic to happen between them. Snape had been in love with her mother after all. And Holly wasn't even actually sure if what she was feeling was actually romantic in nature or simply respect and admiration. But whatever it was, it had become an obsession.

It started small. She would spend hours re-watching the memories Snape had left her. But once she returned to Hogwarts for her eighth year, so that she could take her NEWTS, she noticed the changes in herself. The sudden drive to learn, to know everything. She started to study obsessively, much more than Hermione, brewing and then taking Wit-Sharpening Potions, Memory Potions and Wideye Potions to improve her memory and her concentration and to stay awake for days just so she could continue studying. Potions, Defense and the Dark Arts most of all, but not only that – Charms, Transfiguration and Herbology as well (the last one because it went hand in hand with Potions).

She decided that she wanted to create her own spells, but to do that, she needed to know Arithmancy and Ancient Runes (nobody had ever told her that before, though she had never bothered to ask either), so she started to study them as well. She took her OWLs on these two subjects during the winter holidays so that she could take all her NEWTs together. And she got Os in all subjects this time. Applying herself in her studies had certainly made a huge difference, but it was more than that. After the horcrux inside her had been destroyed, her magic – perhaps no longer bound by the need to restrain the influence of the piece of Voldemort's soul over her own – had increased tenfold. Executing spells now felt as easy as breathing.

After leaving Hogwarts, she basically locked herself up in Grimmauld Place, avoiding all contacts from her friends, just dedicating days and nights to research – creating her own spells and potions, just so she could feel somewhat closer to him.

Today was the second anniversary of his death. It felt appropriate that, if she meant to do this, that she would do it today. Perhaps if he knew that she didn't really mean to go back in time, but more like jump into another world – just 18 years earlier than her present time –, not risking to destroy the very fabric of time by changing her own timeline, he would forgive her – but most probably not. He would call her arrogant and self-centered and foolish and perhaps he would be right. But it didn't matter. She was determined.

She had found a world almost completely identical to her own that really seemed perfect for what she had in mind. The only difference was her, or rather, the person in her place. It seemed in this universe she was born a boy: Harry James Potter, the boy-who-lived. The rest was exactly the same.

She intended on appearing in 1982. That would be the second year of Snape as a teacher; a year after her parents' attack and Voldemort's momentary defeat. She had wanted to choose 1981 at first, but she knew the temptation to try and save her parents would have been too strong so she had decided not to, in the end. Who knew what would happen by messing up that night? It was too dangerous. As painful as it was, Halloween night of 1981 needed to go exactly as it had in her own world, because that night Voldemort would fall and he would only manage to return 14 years later. She couldn't take that decade of peace away from the Wizarding World, even if the price was the death of her parents. And more than ten years would give her time to plan and prepare. She would do things differently this time. She would destroy the Horcruxes. She would find a way to save Snape, Sirius, Cedric, Dumbledore, Remus, Fred. Everyone really.

In fact, if she could only manage to find a way to destroy the horcrux inside her counterpart – Harry Potter – without him having to sacrifice himself to Voldemort, the war could be stopped before it'd even begin.

There was a forbidden ritual that would help her establish her place in this new world, creating a history and an identity for her where there would have been none otherwise. It wasn't difficult either, she only needed to write on a piece of paper and bring it with her once she would cross the portal. Of course, both paper and pen would be spelled beforehand and the paper would disappear once she was in the new world. The really complicated thing was finding a background history for her that would be believable and that would allow her to keep her bloodline, her half-blood status, explain her parseltongue ability and keep her abusive muggle upbringing (not something she particularly wanted but it was a communality she had with Snape that she didn't want to lose – she was one of the few people who could understand Snape in that way, something that her mother, with muggle parents that loved her and that had accepted her as a witch, could never understand).

Fortunately, the solution appeared in front of her one day while observing the Black family tapestry. There was a Charlus Potter who had married Dorea Black and together they had one son. After some research and Gringott's records she had been able to find out that Charlus had been Fleamont Potter's first cousin – son of her great-grandfather Henry Potter's younger brother, Matheus – and he had been sorted into Slytherin with Dorea – something that had surprised her since she was led to believe that all Potters had been sorted into Gryffindor.

The son, Hardwin, had gone to Hogwarts as well but he had been sorted into Ravenclaw and met his future wife Maia, a witch whose father had been a squib from the Sayre family and whose mother was a muggle (technically not a muggleborn by blood but still considered as such at school – and that had, too, being sorted into Ravenclaw). Both Hardwin and Maia died during the first war with Voldemort (Hardwin was a Auror and Maia a Healer, and they were both openly against Voldemort). Of Charlus and Dorea, she didn't find how they died, but she knew they both died in 1977. If she had to guess, Voldemort had killed them too to set an example, perhaps because they had refused to join his cause.

Naturally, she decided on 1970 as the year of her birth, the 31st of October as the date (it was morbidly ironic), so she would start Hogwarts in 1982. She would return to look like a twelve-year-old, something she did not relish, but it was necessary.

She planned on attending Hogwarts again because, first, she needed access to it for obvious reasons – especially to get to the Horcrux in the Room of Requirements, but to also get rid of the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets; second, because she needed time to study and prepare as much as she could and there was no better place to learn what she didn't know than Hogwarts. But, most of all, she missed Hogwarts – Hogwarts was her home, after all – and she wanted to remain close to Snape.

She knew he wouldn't even notice her, or, if he did, it won't be in a positive light, since her name would still be Potter – even though she wouldn't be that Potter anymore – but she didn't care.

Everything that she could carry would appear in the other world too. She would bring with her only what she absolutely needed (inside the mokeskin pouch Hagrid gave her for her seventeenth birthday and that she brought with her during the horcrux hunt): her invisibility cloak, the marauders map, a few thousand galleons (just in case), all the books she owned (those that came from the Room of Requirements and all the books from the Black Library as well). After much internal debate, she decided on bringing her holly and phoenix feather wand with her (she fixed it after the final battle with the Elder Wand – no other wand would ever fit her as well as this did, she was sure), though she had to make sure no one would realize she had it (especially not Ollivander or Dumbledore).

The only thing left to do was for her to spell the mirror that she would use as a portal for the other world. It had been a tedious job, carving all the runes needed but after days it was finally ready.

After a rotating movement of her wand and a muttered spell the mirror in front of her started to glow, obvious sign that the ritual had worked. She put the spelled paper with her name, her new 'parents', her new date of birth, in her pocket and in a single step she was walking through the mirror. A moment later, feeling like she was falling from a great height, she closed her eyes and landed on asphalt, right in front of the Leaky Cauldron.