Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling and the legal licensees of Harry Potter books and products. I am writing this for my own pleasure and have no intent to make any sort of profit with it. The inspiration came from Severitus, the plot came from my warped imagination, and everything else belongs to JKR and those to whom she's given the rights.
WHAT WILL COME, WILL COME. . .
(An Answer to Severitus' Challenge)
By RowanRhys
Chapter Six
July 4, 1995(Hogwarts)
Remus pushed at the partially open office door and walked in without knocking. "Severus?" He was surprised to find the professor bent over his desktop, wand in hand. "Are you all right?"
Snape finished drawing a silvery thread from his temple and dropped it into the stone basin before him, then looked up and growled, "You'd think after all these years, you'd finally remember that I prefer visitors to knock and wait for admittance than to simply barge in here uninvited."
"I am invited. You told Albus that I should come and pick up my potion before I leave with Sirius."
"Black's not with you?" Snape's eyes darted toward the fully open door and he half-covered what Remus now recognized as a Pensieve.
"No, he's in the Great Hall, having breakfast with Albus. What are you doing? You once told me you didn't believe in using Pensieves." While he knew it was rude, he couldn't help being curious about the thoughts that Severus was storing away. His amber eyes flickered toward the bowl and then back to the glittering black ones that faced him across the desk.
"Something's happened to change my mind--in more ways than one," Severus muttered. He laid his wand on the desktop and cradled his head in his hands. "Have you been having--memories--pop up unexpectedly since Peeves dropped the Glowjelly into the Wolfsbane Potion?"
"Er, no, I don't think so. Poppy's been asking me the same question, but I thought it was because she was concerned about the skull fracture from when I hit the wall. You didn't bash yourself, did you?" Remus dropped into the upright visitor's chair and leaned forward, his forearms propped on his thighs, his hands loosely clasped before him. "Glowjelly? That's what he dumped into it?"
Snape nodded. "Yesterday, Filch was complaining about how half of the flameless lanterns were empty. He accused the departing students, but I suspect it was Peeves who removed the substance. It's really the only thing of the right color and luminosity that fits what I saw."
"It figures. So, that's what caused it to blow up then."
"Partly. I believe that the instability of the mixture was the main problem. We hadn't finished adding the Wolfsbane, and until that part of the process was done, the Potion would be reactive until all the ingredients were in balance. If he'd dropped in a strand of hair at that point, it would have probably gone up." Snape shook his head. "I'll do some deconstruction on the remains over the holiday and figure out just why it's causing this to happen."
"Causing what to happen?" Remus asked. "What's going on with you? You look like you haven't slept in days, and, frankly, you look like you've gotten some rather devastating news."
"I'm remembering."
"Remembering what?"
Severus hesitated a moment, seemed to steel himself then picked up his wand and prodded the contents of the Pensieve. "Remembering Lily," he said softly. He reached across the desk and touched the werewolf's shoulder as he did so, and Remus felt himself falling--
--Into the Library. He started as he realized that Severus was standing next to him against a set of shelves, watching a dark-haired young man and a auburn-haired young woman seated on the window seat beneath one of the mullioned windows, a heavy book across his lap and a notebook on hers. He blinked and gasped as he recognized the couple. "Lily!" Snape raised a hand to hush him then folded his arms, staring across the short distance between them and the students. His black eyes were glistening, and his expression settled into lines of unhappiness. Remus looked at the pair and listened.
"When Professor Wellington told me two months ago that you were going to be tutoring me in Potions, I was so upset." Lily tickled her chin with the end of her quill and glanced sidewise at him, smiling. "But now I'm awfully glad he did! Not only am I getting good marks, I've discovered that you're nothing like Sirius and James say you are."
"I'm just hoping that the Three Musketeers and their tagalong don't come looking for you right now. I can imagine what they'd say if they saw us sitting like this."
"They know I'm here studying with my Potions tutor. They don't need to know the details, but since they'd have a fit knowing it was you, that's why I like to study with you while they're having Quidditch practice." She snuggled up against his side. "Are you going to Hogsmeade this weekend, Severus? I was thinking I could meet you behind Honeyduke's after I ditch the guys. I'll buy you a Butterbeer while they're picking up their ammunition for the Halloween Feast at Zonko's."
The Library abruptly swirled away in a flash of silver, and Remus found himself and the professor in a shadowed niche in the dungeon passageway. Stunned to find out that his school friend had been meeting with Severus without anyone else's knowledge, he was surprised when a darker shadow detached from the niche in which they stood. Then, abruptly, a shimmer appeared in the air before them and the figure of the younger Snape was taking the waiting person into his arms. The cloak that hung halfway off of his shoulders looked like a silvery waterfall in the dim light that spilled from torches further down the corridor.
"Lily, if you're caught down here, you'll be in so much trouble, even if you are Head Girl." Sev draped the Invisibility Cloak over his arm and drew her back into the niche. "We can't keep hoping that Filch won't be around here."
"Then find us a better place, one that we both can get to easily." She drew his head down to hers and kissed him so deeply that a moan of desire whispered through the shadows. "I'm tired of having to snatch moments like this. I want to spend hours wrapped in your arms."
"You think I don't want that?" He tasted her lips again. "I'll find a place for us, that no one else can see. I only wish you could stay for the Christmas holiday."
Glee filled her voice. "That's why I needed to see you tonight, I couldn't wait until tomorrow to tell you! Petunia is going to spend Christmas with her fiancé's family, and Dad is taking Mum to Italy on a second honeymoon. So I'll be here after all!"
Again there came a swirl of silver and Remus fell into another memory. He couldn't wrap his mind around what he was seeing. He remembered that people had teased Severus about his crush on Lily back in their Seventh year, but he certainly had no idea that it was more than that, and that the red-haired Gryffindor reciprocated the affection with the Slytherin.He looked at Severus and saw the sallow color go out of his face, leaving him even paler than usual. Snape's hand on his shoulder clenched tightly and Remus winced even as he looked at the new scene. It was a tower room, furnished in usable cast-offs and a pile of red and green cushions, illuminated by stubs of candles. A slightly older version of Lily was standing in the middle of the room, tears wet on her face, and the counterpart of Snape, garbed in worn and tattered clothing stood before her, holding her hands, one of which had a gold band on it.
She jerked her hand from his and retreated from him, backing away. "They said you were dead," The tear tracks on her face glistened as fresh tears renewed them. "Severus." Her voice was full of pain.
"I told you before I left that I'd return to you. And THIS is how little faith you had in me? Who is it? Black? That damned werewolf? Potter?" He advanced on her angrily. "What's your new name, Lily?" Enraged, he cornered her against the window seats and trapped her there with his arms on either side of her body.
"You don't understand!" She gasped as he grabbed her left wrist in a bruising grip.
"I understand that you are sealed forever to someone else with unbreakable vows. Were all those words of love you gave to me lies? How many others have you been stringing along like me?"
"No one!" she cried out. "Severus, I'm pregnant!"
He stared at her for a long moment then released her wrist, before striding toward the door.
"It's YOUR child, Severus. I'm three months along." Her sobbing voice dragged him to a halt.
Without looking at her he asked, his voice as cold as ice, hollow with lost hope, "And if it is?" He whirled around again. "Why get married to someone else? Why just cast me aside? Why?"
"I was afraid!" Lily cried out. "Three days after you left Dumbledore told me that you were dead! Caught in that Auror's trap and killed by a stray Aveda Kedavra curse! I DIED that day!" She took in a deep gasping breath. "Then two weeks later, I missed my period. I did the Conceptio Charm and found out I was pregnant. I was alone, and afraid, and I didn't want to go on. I just wanted to join you. James found me on top of the Astronomy Tower and talked me down." She buried her face in her hands. "I didn't mean to tell him about the baby, but it just came out, and he told me that he'd make it right. He didn't even ask who the father was. He told me I needed to live for the baby's sake. He went to Albus, and I found myself married within the week." Lily looked up sniffling. "We leave tomorrow for his ancestral home. I came up here to--to say--goodbye."
Remus watched the nineteen-year old Snape fling himself from the room after telling her goodbye in an expressionless voice then was abruptly back in the Potion Master's office, the Pensieve between them..
Severus looked terribly shaken as he laid the wand down again, covering his eyes with his other hand and bowing his head.
Lupin opened his mouth three times before he could make the words come forth. "Harry is your son? Not James'? But-but why haven't you told him? All these years he could have had a home with you instead of those Muggle relatives of his!"
"I didn't know." The Potions Master's voice was tired.
"What do you mean, you didn't know?" Remus snapped. "I saw her tell you!"
Snape slammed his hands down on the desktop on either side of the Pensieve. "I didn't have that memory until after the potion blew up. Something about it broke down walls I never knew were there."
"But--"
"All I knew before this came back was that I'd had a crush on Lily and I hated it that she spent so much time with you four. I remember tutoring her the first term of Seventh year, but nothing more than that. All the rest of that year, and the first year of our apprenticeships--anything to do with her wasn't there. And then I came back from that botched mission right after New Year's in 1980, and she was married to Potter. I assumed--" He broke off suddenly.
"Severus, you need to tell Harry."
"Tell him what? That he's the bastard offspring of an ex-Deatheater? 'Oh, by the way, James Potter isn't your father. I, the man who has made your life living hell for the past four years, hold that dubious honor.'" Snape snorted. "As if I would just pop up on his doorstep and admit to sleeping with his mother--oh, I'm sure that would go over well.
"Well, you've never seemed to worry about other's reactions to you before. You've got to tell him! You know how he is. If he gets the notion to snoop around this office, he'd probably find this Pensieve and learn it on his own. Just imagine what a mess that would be--"
"As if I'd leave this out where he could access it. And it would be just as bad a mess, as you put it, if I were to tell him." Snape shook his head. "Can you imagine what would happen were he to find out? Me? His father? You can't honestly expect that he'd be happy in the least. I am not the type of person that can be a father."
"Oh, so that's it."
"What?"
To be continued