James sprinted up the hill to the stones, Sirius on his heels. Earlier in the evening, with Lily at his side, it had seemed like a very small hill. Now, it seemed to have doubled in size, at least.
"James, why didn't you apparate us to the top of the bloody hill?" Sirius panted.
"I remembered this part better," James said. "I didn't want to get splinched."
Sirius muttered something under his breath, but James ignored him.
Of course he remembered this part of the hill better, James thought. After Lily had started talking to him, he had entirely forgotten that he was a scenic hill in Scotland. He had forgotten to look around at the scenery, because its beauty couldn't compare to Lily. Nothing every could. She had a way of making him forget everything. For a moment this evening, he hadn't been newly-orphaned James Potter; he had just simply been a man deeply in love with a beautiful witch.
He could hear her crying, and he ran even faster, but when he reached the top, he skidded to a stop.
There was no one there.
Lily's sobs had been silenced; now the only sounds were the distant sirens mingling with the wind rustling in the trees.
"Lily!" James shouted.
He ran through the stones, expecting to see a glimpse of her. It was strange to imagine her hiding so resolutely from them at a moment like this, but stranger was to accept reality: she had disappeared.
"She must have apparated," Sirius said, watching James search.
"We would have heard it," James replied.
He paused in front of a stone. It looked old, its surface worn almost smooth by time. Moss covered its crevices. It looked unremarkable, but there was only one answer to Lily's mysterious disappearance.
"She's gone back in time," James said quietly.
Sirius groaned. "James, that's just a muggle fairytale. There's nothing magical about a bunch of rocks."
James put a tentative hand towards the stone. A strange ringing filled his ears; James froze.
"Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
Sirius watched him, looking alarmed.
James moved his hand closer, and the ringing grew louder-
"Stop!" Sirius jerked him away from the stones.
"What- Sirius!"
"If those are magical stones that take you back in time, are you really sure you want to go?" Sirius snapped.
James shot him a crooked smile. "Come on, Padfoot. I didn't think you were the sort to avoid adventure!"
"There's no guarantee we'll end up where Lily went, and there's no guarantee we'll be able to get back. Are you sure you want to risk that for some girl?"
James stared. "It's not just some girl. It's Lily."
"Who may not feel the way you feel about her," Sirius said, his voice unusually sharp.
James shrugged. "The past can't be any worse than the present, can it? And even if Lily doesn't have feelings for me, I can't just abandon her."
He breathed out a quick breath. "Okay…"
His hand shot out and touched the stone, and just like that he disappeared.
Alone on the hilltop, Sirius stared at the place where his best friend had been. James, the person he cared about more than anyone.
"You idiot," Sirius muttered.
If James would follow Lily anywhere, then Sirius would follow too.
"Shit," he said.
He placed his own hand on the stone.
The first thing Lily noticed was the silence. Her shuddering breaths seemed magnified in the quiet, which was suddenly absolute. Sirens had pierced the night air only seconds ago, a horrible reminder of the utter carnage Lily had fled from. Even the trees had gone silent; the breeze that had been pulling at her hair all night had stopped.
She climbed to her feet, her legs trembling. She had never seen so many stars. No distant lights bled into the night sky.
Her heart sank. These were no small changes, but rather the changes of decades at the very least.
She wiped at her damp cheeks with shaking hands. A sob caught in her throat.
She could try to go back through the stones, but what good would that do her parents? Perhaps there were some witches and wizards nearby who knew more about the stones, in whatever time this was. Perhaps they could help her travel somewhere with more accuracy, and then she would be able to save her parents.
"Lumos," she whispered.
In the pale wandlight, she could see that the ground, which had been so muddy only minutes ago, was now perfectly dry. She looked out at the trees, which cast long, sinister shadows down the hill. They seemed thicker than they had in her own time.
She took a deep breath, and began to walk down the hill. She would go towards the town where her parents had died—would die?—and hope that it existed in this time, and that there were wizards and witches there. If there weren't, perhaps she would be able to find Hogsmeade, although she didn't dare try to apparate there. Not knowing when in time she was, she had no idea how different these places might be from her own time, which made apparating risky. She didn't want to get splinched, especially when she was all alone.
A fresh tear slipped down her cheek, and she quickly brushed it away. It was her own fault that she was stranded in a strange time utterly alone, and there was no point crying about it. She had to focus on her goal; if she thought about what had happened tonight, or about the mess she was in, she would fall apart.
Suddenly, a footstep sounded behind her, and she whirled around with a gasp. Her wand illuminated a very familiar man. At first, she could only stare, disbelieving, but relief soon replaced her shock. What did it matter if they were no longer friends? Here was a familiar face in a world where everything else was foreign.
"Severus," she breathed.
Before she knew what she was doing, she had thrown her arms around him, and she was crying into his bony shoulder.
He shoved her away, hard, although he kept an iron grip on her wrist.
"Let go. You're hurting me," she said, trying to extricate herself from his grip.
"How do you know my name?" he said coldly.
"I've only known you since we were kids," she said. "Come on, Sev, this isn't funny…"
She was starting to panic. How stupid of her to greet Severus as if they were still friends, just because she was scared.
"I've never met you before, Miss…"
"Lily."
He continued to look at her, his dark eyes flat and cold.
"Lily Evans," she said angrily. "Which you know. Now let go of me, or I will hex you into-"
"Expelliarmus," he said.
Her wand flew out of her hand and landed somewhere in the grass behind her.
She felt the blood drain from her face. She hadn't actually intended to hex him, because she had never imagined that he would hurt her, despite his fascination with the dark arts. Evidently, she had been wrong.
He was still holding onto her with a tight grip, and now he was starting to smile, a cruel expression.
"Well, well," he said quietly. "I was beginning to think I'd been set up."
For the first time, Lily really looked at him, beyond just the features that so resembled her former friend. His hair, while still oily, was tied back in a style more similar to Sirius than Severus. His face was older, marked by lines that hadn't been there when she saw Severus only months ago. Strangest of all was his clothing, which looked like they were out of a period drama, but with muggle graduation robes thrown over top.
"You aren't Severus Snape," she realized.
He sneered. "No, I'm Severus Prince. What sort of name is Snape? Muggle, I presume?"
The way he said muggle made her shiver. It was filled with an intense hatred.
She brought her knee up between his legs, hard. With a groan, he finally loosened the grip on her arm as he doubled over. Lily ran towards her wand, but Severus Prince recovered too quickly. She felt her limbs snap together, and she fell to the ground face first.
A foot hooked under her torso and turned her onto her back. Severus loomed over her, his expression murderous.
"Evans. I don't know any witches or wizards with that name."
She looked up at him with frightened eyes.
"I'd like you to tell me where the others are," he said, kneeling beside her.
He brushed a stray hair from her cheek, and even in a magical body bind, Lily felt herself shudder.
"You're very pretty, Lily Evans," he said. "Such a waste on a filthy mudblood like you."
He looked towards her feet, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Even have mud on your filthy shoes. How on earth did you manage that?"
In a sudden flash of movement, he brought his boot down hard upon her arm. She screamed as she felt it break.
"I will say one thing for muggles, though," he said conversationally, as if he hadn't just broken her arm. "Their torture methods are far more interesting. I mean, I could use crucio…"
He flicked his wand, and she screamed again.
"Where are the others?" he snarled.
"I don't… know what… you're talking about," she gasped.
"The other mudbloods trying to flee to Scotland!" When she didn't answer, he said, his voice cold and calm once again, "Would you like me to break your other arm?"
"Well, I don't see Lily," Sirius said, looking around in an exaggerated gesture. "At least we got to the same time."
James looked around as well, his heart sinking.
"She has to be here," he said.
Sirius raised his eyebrows.
"She does," James insisted.
Sirius sighed and crossed his arms. "Can we go home yet?"
James moved towards the trees, lighting his wand with a quiet incantation.
"When do you reckon we are?" he asked.
Sirius shrugged. "Who cares?"
A scream of pain pierced the still night air. Without thinking, James ran towards the sound.
"Lily!" he shouted.
Another scream followed the first, much closer now. Finally, his wandlight fell upon two people, and his blood ran cold. Lily lay very still on the ground, so still and stiff that he was afraid that she might be dead. A figure stood over her, straddling her, his wand pointed directly at her.
He murmured an incantation, and suddenly Lily was trying to crawl away, one arm cradled to her chest.
"It's more fun to see you squirm," a voice said, the cold baritone strangely familiar.
He lifted his wand arm again.
"Expelliarmus!" James shouted.
The man's wand flew out of his grasp, and he whirled around. James could only stare, because the hooked nose in that sneering face, that greasy hair, those eyes—flat and emotionless like a shark's—were all too familiar.
"Snape?"
Quickly, his surprise at seeing his old nemesis was replaced by a cold fury. He had always suspected that Snape harboured some attraction for Lily, and to see him standing over her like that, in such a repulsively predatory way, turned his stomach. To make it even worse, this was Lily's former friend, someone she used to trust… and he had hurt her, when she was at her most vulnerable after losing her parents. If Snape was here, it was possible he had even been involved in the attack on her parents.
With a shout, James threw a spell at Snape. With no wand, Snape didn't stand a chance. A cut blossomed across his arm, and blood darkened his robes to an even darker shade of black. He brought his hand to the cut and took it away, looking almost surprised to see his fingers stained scarlet.
James didn't want to see surprise. He wanted to see some sort of proper reaction: fear, perhaps. With a flick of his wand, he turned Snape upside down, then dropped him to the ground, where he crumpled in a heap. In this case, James realized that magic wasn't enough for him. Snivellus Snape deserved a solid punch in his ugly face.
And so, James knelt beside him and hit him, hard. When Snape only smiled, James hit him again.
"James, stop!"
Lily's voice drew him away from Snape and back to the present. He raised his head to see about a dozen wands pointed towards him, Sirius, and Lily. It was a number impossible to win against, and so James dropped his wand. Beside him, a low laugh rumbled out of Snape's throat. When James turned to look at him, he could see his nose was swollen and his teeth were stained with blood, giving him a particularly feral look.
"I am going to destroy you, mudblood."