Summary: AU, SSHG, Crack, In a world where Lily lived, life was not perfect for Severus Snape. Hope came with the arrival of Hermione Granger who first became his apprentice, friend, and then so much more. But old friends are not happy with his happiness, and one spell changes everything.

Beta Love: Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01

Barely

"We long to find the splendid light

that will cast a revelatory beam

upon the meaning of the human dream."

The Book of Counted Sorrows

It was the feel of having someone in his arms that had broken him, he realised. Someone who cared.

It had completely shattered his world. Broken him into pieces. Put him back together again both different and perhaps even a touch improved.

Hope had come calling in a way he had never expected, ignoring his walls, his defences, his denial.

It was the feel of her curled up next to him in the pure vulnerability of sleep, tucked against his body, sharing his warmth, pulling closer to him rather than away.

Snuggled up against his fur.

Nestled into his inhumanness.

Caring not a whit for how normal it might be for other people but only for how natural it felt for her—

Had anyone told him that this would be possible back when he was pining over the loss of his supposed best friend, he would have cursed them into Oblivion. Nothing could eclipse the radiant image of Lily Evans in his mind.

Nothing that he had seen or experienced could prepare him for Hermione Granger taming the cursed beast that rose the night Lupin had come galavanting across the moors to attack him, his trusted Animagi best mates at his side.

He'd had permission to be out there at night to collect the rare moonflower with Horace Slughorn.

They had not.

And his cursed blood has risen to the occasion of his terror and consumed him in an even more terrifying transformation—the like of which no one in the Wizarding world had a name for let alone any idea of its species or significance.

It had been Slughorn's preemptive planning that had, in the end, saved his hide from what he'd come to realise was Dumbledore's desire to sweep things under the flying carpet. Slughorn had filed the paperwork for the outing with officials at the Ministry in order to cover his own posterior because nothing Slughorn ever did was not deliberate. The flower was protected by the Ministry for harvest in very specific healing potions, so the Ministry and St Mungos had both been waiting for word on the harvest.

Just one flower would power an entire year's worth of superior healing potions, and the personal renown for having provided said potions would be, as was to be expected, astronomical.

So, when the werewolf had attacked, Slughorn had hurriedly turned himself into a couch and landed on Severus to protect him, but Lupin could still shred Slughorn in his eagerness to get to the panicked student underneath him.

And he did.

Horace, unable to turn back lest he leave Snape even more exposed, left his unfortunate student with a rapidly dwindling number of options.

And the unknown curse hidden within Snape's lifeblood, a "gift" from his mother's magical line and the main reason she'd chosen to run off to marry a Muggle in the hopes of quelling the monstrous line, promptly rose up in its full, bestial glory.

As if to prove that magic didn't care one iota what sort of blood it was born into or how "diluted" it supposedly was, Snape had transformed into what Potter, Black, and Pettigrew called "the demon" and had then proceeded to tear them all to bloody screaming pieces.

The only reason Snape had eventually learnt it was them was when, sometime later, the animals that had seemingly goaded the werewolf and helped it along were captured, stunned, and dragged off to the Ministry holding cells to be "put down" when the accompanying Auror investigation revealed that they were, in fact, all unregistered Animagi.

Well—

Animagi and a werewolf.

So, said Animagi and one werewolf were then transferred to St Mungos to be treated, Snape himself was registered as the victim of a stress-induced "cursed" transformation, and Hogwarts had quickly come under scrutiny for "harbouring a rogue werewolf."

Snape became the first officially registered "thing" under the Animagus registry thanks to there being no possible description of a natural animal even close to his beast, Potter and his cronies were charged with reckless endangerment and attempted murder with a werewolf, said Potter and the gang were promptly disowned by their families (though apparently Black had been burned off the family tree previously), and a horrified Lily Evans promptly went into premature labour and had given birth to a son in Mungo's neonatal intensive care, all in the course of the same week.

In the meantime, the sickeningly sweet attempts to lure Snape off to join the cause of a rising Dark Lord abruptly came to a screeching halt, and most of Slytherin had given him a very wide and cautious berth.

Magical families knew the curse of the Prince family all too well, even if he hadn't.

To get too close to him was to essentially court Death.

So, Snape had gained his mastery in Potions a few short years after graduation, enjoyed what may have been his first years of true peace from the relentless gang of tormentors, and opened up an Apothecary in Hogsmeade the likes of which had even Slug and Jiggers coming to him for advice, had the strange discombobulation of being both less popular amongst various social circles but very popular in professional ones, and having the dubious honour of being able to watch Lily Evans' life come crashing down all around her as a single unwed mother in the rather Victorian Wizarding world.

The Department of Mysteries had arranged many contracts with him as did St Mungos, but none were as complex as the role of potioneer to both sides of the war. To one side, officially, he was providing potions to the Unspeakables and Aurors. Unofficially, he was filtering off potions to be stolen by the underground war movement that was stirring amongst the purebloods—potions with magical trackers in them that would start working the moment they were used.

Pureblood or not, there were very few out there who had gone potion-less throughout their lives, and the Aurors and Unspeakables, as well as the Hit Wizards and Witches, were soon picking off the Dark Lord's elite like a child playing gobstones.

Some charlatan of a diviner had started spewing prophecies at Hogwarts, and a certain well-known family of Aurors had been quickly moved to another country under the cover of one of Snape's most formidable but quite expensive disillusionment potions until the prophecy was either resolved or dismantled, and Snape enjoyed being left alone save for tending his own business.

He'd settled for success over companionship, and it wasn't like he'd believed he'd ever have a real chance at the latter.

Until Hermione Granger waltzed into his life as a young potions apprentice and turned his life upside down along with her familiar, orange-furred monstrosity of a half-Kneazle that dearly loved to shed all over his pristine black robes.

Outcast from her peers in every way which he understood all too well, she'd soon taken over his life with her enthusiastic everything, soaking up everything he could teach her before diving headlong into a pile of books to learn everything else that wasn't already expertly nailed down.

And then, in a strange mirror of a time when he himself had been tormented, two of Hermione Granger's tormentors from Hogwarts attempted to steal away the precious plant she was harvesting for one of their shared projects.

Apparently, Mr Harry Evans was the absolute spitting image of his biological father and was two hundred percent following in said father's footsteps in malicious "prank" bullying with his ever-faithful cur and fellow slacker, Ronald Weasley, at his side.

So determined to save the plant that was so very precious to the healing world, Hermione hadn't hesitated to wrap herself around it in a foetal ball, protecting the rare and delicate plant as a wide array of vicious spells wracked her slight body with waves of searing agony.

Something inside Severus had instantly snapped.

He transformed on the spot, savagely mauling the two young thugs in his ensuing rage, and scooped up his injured apprentice into his arms before flying home, tending her wounds, and calling the DoM via Floo to the HBOY, Amelia Bones, to report the incident.

He'd felt utterly guilty for having been on the other side of the hill when she'd been attacked. It had been, to his knowledge, the most desolate of areas. They should have been safe.

She should have been safe.

In his haste to treat her, he hadn't managed to calm down enough to revert his transformation, and Hermione had tightly clung to him in her pain, to his fur, fangs, and whatever else all even as the DoM healers had come to make sure she was properly healed from her experience.

His obvious differences hadn't mattered to her, not one bit, and he had ended up with a clinging bramble of recovering witch slumbering in his arms until morning.

And she hadn't left.

No.

Even after gaining her own mastery, she'd accepted a partnership with his apothecary—the only one he'd trust to brew something without vulturing over her like some hungry sphinx hoping they'd trip up so they had an excuse to eat you.

She found him comforting.

Him?

Really?

After finally admitting to himself that he couldn't possibly imagine a life without Hermione Granger in it, even if it meant tolerating that bloody pest of a feline of hers, he began what would be his very first terribly awkward courtship.

It wasn't like he'd had any actual experience in such things.

The supposed love of his life had been one Lily Evans, and that had not even begun, let alone been concluded.

Well, perhaps it had concluded the moment she'd given birth out of wedlock to her bastard son by Potter—

And the cursed beast seemed to highly approve of her, always emerging at night to bring her into a cuddle that she never seemed to mind.

Even her damnable cat didn't seem to mind the beast, choosing such moments to pad righton over and nestle between them like it was the most perfectly normal thing to do.

Truly, the world had gone mad.

At least Granger had.

Or he had.

Severus moved some of her curls away from her face as she slept, a slight softening of the wrinkles around his eyes formed as she pushed her face more closely against him.

He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead as she snuggled up against him, thanking his cursed state for at least recognising that she was someone to protect and not rend to pieces as it had already done on multiple occasions. He wasn't a werewolf, forced into an excruciatingly painful change that made him roam the moors in search of people to bite or other werewolves to form a pack with.

So was it a cursed state?

He'd thought so—at least until recently.

The magical world seemed to think he had to be cursed. After all, who in their right mind would actually want to be a bestial demonic monster?

But that very same monster had protected both his life and the life of Hermione Granger, so was it truly a curse?

Or a blessing?

His mum had obviously believed it a curse or she would never have run away from home to marry a random Muggle in the hopes of escaping the terrible legacy of the Prince line—or rather putting an end to it.

Yet, the Prince line had been an ancient one up until more recently. Obviously, they had for the most part believed it was something beneficial enough to keep in the family.

The jingling of the shoppe bell signalled someone all too desperate for whatever potion or reagent they wanted from the apothecary.

Snape sighed, shaking his head, deciding he'd rather pull his snuggly witch to him than answer whatever emergency was forming in the depths of a desperate mind. Usually, it was after dark customers wanting the Late Night Wizard's Tonic to help their horrible sexual prowess, which they would buy, not follow the directions, and end up in St Mungos with a painful many-hour erection.

And since wizards were even dodgier about their bits, they wouldn't go to Mungos until it was dire, and often the treatment required even more intervention thanks to their delay.

Idiots.

Crookshanks meowed loudly, having decided that since the bell was up that he was up, and if he was up, they should be up and feeding the cat.

Obviously.

Snape considered silence-hexing the cat, but Hermione muttered into his chest and sighed. She was awake, and like any brainwashed cat-parent, she felt that feeding the menace was better than having her kidneys stood upon or a cat paw shoved up her nostril.

"I'll get it," Hermione said, smacking her lips in sleepiness as she slid out from under the warm covers and his leathery wing. She placed a tender kiss on the side of his muzzle, unfazed by his monstrous appearance.

She knew it would take him a few minutes of meditation to put himself back into a more human state. It wasn't that he wasn't relaxed, but he had to convince the beast that she was safe and it was okay not to be fur, fanged, and otherly. It had become easier, he had to admit, now that he was sure she was truly okay with his cursed other half, however unlikely he had believed it possible.

He lazed about in the warmth of the bed, his nose snuffling the area Hermione had vacated. Her scent had become a comfort and something natural in his life. While younger than him, Hermione had the kind of student that seemed far more mature than her age. By the time she had gained her mastery of her own, she was well and truly her own force to be reckoned with and long past the age of majority.

He wondered, though, what it would have been like to have someone like her as his friend back when the entire drama with Lily had come about or when he'd been attacked by Lupin—

Lily had blamed him for the downfall of her relationship with Potter, and he had no earthly idea how she had gone from "toe-rag Potter" to eagerly shagging him in random broom closets. She'd obviously done more than just a little snogging if her bastard child had anything to say about it.

Maybe, he figured, they had planned to get married as soon as they graduated, but then Potter was outed as an unregistered Animagus who intentionally let a werewolf loose on the general public and his parents had subsequently disowned him for bringing such shame to the family name.

While Severus was sure they could have married in disgrace, Lily had always hated not being on top and in the right.

She'd accused Severus of being a Dark Wizard and being tainted by the likes of Avery and Mulciber, but then she'd promptly gone off and gotten pregnant out of wedlock by a sodding criminal.

Dumbledore had tried his best to mitigate and play down the incident to keep his favoured House out of trouble, but that had spectacularly backfired on him. His reputation, while still far better than Snape had expected, was a bit tarnished after Hogwarts was found harbouring werewolves at his behest. Had Potter and his friends not brought attention to Lupin, his secret may have very well remained so, but somehow they had found out about Lupin's secret regardless.

Gryffindors were not exactly known for keeping secrets, even amongst themselves—being shady and even sadistic in their pranking, perhaps, but not so good in the fine art of holding important secrets close.

Hermione, on the other hand, was far, far better than the typical example of Gryffindor house. She even possessed the patience when it came to customers that he lacked. He'd never been one for patience with other people.

Potions, yes. People—not so much.

It wasn't to say she didn't occasionally get frustrated with people but compared to him, she was a bloody saint. He'd have unceremoniously hexed a number of his customers straight out the shoppe's front window long before he'd managed to find himself with stability and a—an actual witch of own.

Fortunately for him, his top quality potions had a much better reputation amongst the masses than his admittedly cantankerous personality did.

Hell, even his lowest quality potions had a far better reputation than him with his well-known dislike of, well, pretty much everyone.

His body finally relaxed enough for him to shift back into his cold and quite naked human self, and he shivered as the chill air had him seriously contemplating diving back under the warm covers. He had to admit that the otherly beast never succumbed to cold, and much to his chagrin, seemed to get the best cuddles from his mate.

Maybe it was because the beast insisted that it be there to cuddle said mate, but it wasn't like he was taking the back seat mentally. Whatever instincts he had were wholly his own, but it was easy enough to compartmentalise the stronger and more protective nature as some "other" entity than the boy who had grown up with a harsh alcoholic father and a sad distant mother.

The beast form allowed him to be protective, warm, even unspokenly compassionate, and the irony was not lost on him.

He slipped on his dressing robe and cracked his neck as he swivelled it back and forth. The strangely monstrous slippers hopped onto his feet with a gleeful squeak, and he rolled his eyes. They were superiorly comfortable, but had it not brought Hermione such joy to see him wearing them, he'd have probably cast them into the fire, comfort be damned. It was rather stupid to be jealous of Hermione's attention to his slippers over him, right?

Right?

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. He was a pathetic mess of a man who was hopelessly in love with his witch. There was far too much he tolerated from her that no one else could have ever claimed for themselves. He wouldn't trade it for the world, but he had to admit if someone would have told his younger and more bitter self there was something better than Lily Evans out there for him, he'd have probably cast them into the sea as a boulder.

Crookshanks was licking his chops with great satisfaction as he rubbed himself all over Snape's calves, having apparently been appeased by that morning's canned offering of that horrible smelling fishy pate that he loved so much. It was good, otherwise Crooks would be an utter pest underfoot and all up in everyone's business as he yowled that his ribs were obviously sticking out and by the gods someone should immediately help because he was being cruelly abused and so never got so much of an ounce of love or care from anyone.

He'd practically gone home with about fifty-odd random people who "took pity" on his act of starvation only for him to return looking utterly smug that he'd conned yet another dumb human into filling his already full belly even more.

The cat was a furry ginger menace, most assuredly.

But somehow, Hermione loved the obnoxious fuzzbucket, so he, begrudgingly, tolerated the ever-annoying feline and all of his stupid fur.

Crooks was not allowed in his brewing area, much to the feline's initial displeasure because the last time cat fur had gotten into one of his potions, it had turned the half-Kneazle into a sphinx cat—and no, not the riddling desert monster.

Hairless Crooks never set one paw into his potions lab again.

"I'll go check and see what we have in stock, ma'am," he heard Hermione say from the shoppe floor.

"Oh, no need, dear," Snape heard a very familiar voice reply. "I have what I need right here."

"What—ow! What are you doing?!"

Snape was immediately scrambling down the stairs with all due haste.

"I want you to suffer just as much as I have suffered, girl," the voice hissed. "I want you to have walked in my shoes!"

"I don't even know who you are! What have I done—?"

"He didn't even talk about me!" the voice screeched. "Well, it really won't matter now. Ambulate vitam vixi!"

There was a roar of powerful magic as Snape stumbled into the shop, his body falling into the force so strong that it pushed him back into the wall behind him. He could hear Hermione's shriek of what could only be terror—

The blinding flash of light in the room stunned him completely, even as he heard the cracks of multiple Apparitions nearby.

"Ms Lily Granger," a voice snarled. "You are under arrest for performing unauthorised Dark blood magic. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."

"What?! NO! This is all a big mistake!" Lily screeched as Severus winced. His head was pounding with stabbing pain behind his eyes.

"Master Snape," a voice greeted. "Our apologies for barging into your shoppe this early in the morning, but we had to apprehend Ms Granger at once. We were hoping to catch her before she set off her spell, but she had eluded us until this last burst of magic."

Snape looked up, and the shoppe looked different. Or did it? His head was throbbing, and his grey matter seemed to be having a severe disagreement with its lodging arrangements.

A loud, painful disagreement.

Granger.

Lily Granger.

Lily.

Granger was his apprentice.

No.

He didn't have an apprentice.

He winced, the room seemingly spinning.

"Master Snape?" one of the Aurors called out.

Severus let out a groan and fell to the wall and slid down it in a slump as total darkness closed in around him.

End of Chapter One