Hi! Welcome back to Wish Upon a Star! Thanks to all of those people who read the first chapter of the fic—I was glad to hear that many of you enjoyed it. I just wanted to announce one minor change that I made to the first chapter of Wish. You might recall that Severus picks up a newspaper in the old version of Chapter 1, and it says that it is dated as if it was one day after the Battle of Hogwarts. I later realized that I needed to change the date in order to support the up-and-coming plot of the next few chapters. I revised the date to make Severus arrive in December of the year before the battle. Sorry about my error! Now, without further ado, please enjoy my new chapter!
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter series. The wonderful J.K. Rowling does—I just write about her books for my own personal pleasure.
A big thanks goes out to ObsidianEmbrace, who has made my story readable once again.
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Wish Upon a Star
By Ponytail Goddess
Chapter 2: Shocking Discoveries
Silently, Severus walked up to the large portrait window in the parlor and looked outside. He appeared to be in the country; there seemed to be quite an expanse of bare land ahead of him, before a few small hills and bits of forest broke up the visual monotony. The ground was covered with an undisturbed fluffy blanket of snow, which was lightly glistening in the dull winter sunlight.
Suddenly realizing that he was sockless and freezing in his pajamas, Severus hugged his arms around his torso to keep himself warm. He suddenly felt very alone, as if he was the only person in the area for miles.
As if he was the only person in this universe that did not belong.
Deciding he really needed to sort this out, Severus crept back into the kitchen and sat down at the abandoned table. He took a deep sip of lukewarm tea and thought about what he could remember from the battle yesterday night.
The details were quite blurry. He remembered talking to the Dark Lord in the Shrieking Shack, begging for something, though he wasn't sure what. Then, there had been the damn snake—Severus remembered that part all too well. Something had happened after the bite however, something important that Severus couldn't quite put his finger on. It bothered him that he didn't remember since he knew he had laid on the hard, muddy floor suffering for a long time before death had put him out of his misery.
What was it?
Frustrated, Severus took another swig of tea and then bent down and rested his head in his hands as he searched for the answer. He remembered Voldemort looking down at him with emotionless eyes as he staggered to the ground; he remembered the smell of mold and the way his arm had slid across the floor with ease, bathed in his own blood.
Severus closed his eyes and was shocked to find intense green ones staring back at him.
"Look…at…me."
Severus' eyes shot open, and a moment later he realized that he had jumped up out of the chair. His teacup was overturned and dripping deep orange liquid onto the kitchen floor.
He had been thinking about her. That was it! He had been thinking about her during his last moments of life! Could that be why he had woken up in this new world where he obviously didn't belong?
Halting his thought process, Severus took up Lily's wand and cast a quick evanesco on his mess before sitting back down. This reminded him that he didn't know where his own wand was. While he had managed a few wandless spells earlier this morning, ultimately Severus preferred to have his wand with him at all times.
Curious as to whether it was in this world or not, Severus walked back to the room he had woken up in and looked around. His wand wasn't on the floor or on either nightstand, which really left only one other option.
Severus stuck his hand underneath the fluffy pillow he had slept upon and immediately felt the familiar tingle of magic beneath his fingers. He grabbed the source of the tingling and immediately sighed in relief when he pulled out eleven inches of ebony wood enclosed around a dragon's heartstring. The familiar flare of power shot through his fingers and up his arm; Severus reveled in the feeling for a moment before pocketing the wand in his pajamas.
Seeing the bathroom attached to the bedroom made Severus have second thoughts about returning to the kitchen. Instead of returning, he decided to take a shower before touring the rest of the house.
After closing the door, Severus stripped down and stared at himself in the mirror for a moment. He stared at himself for a moment, then gingerly touched his neck as he relived Nagini's fatal bite. There was not a single trace of the bite left on his skin, not even the slightest of blemishes remained.
It had happened…hadn't it?
Severus was confused; he stepped into the shower and closed the door before pointing his wand towards the ceiling and twirling it in a tight spiral. "Fervens Pluvia!" he incanted loudly, then watched as a dark cloud swirled into existence above his head.
Rain started to pour down on Severus as he thought about what Lily had said before she stormed out. She seemed to think he belonged in this world and had not panicked strictly over his appearance in her house. She had also mentioned that he had his own potions lab here—she had even made a trip to it while in his presence. Clearly, he lived here. Had he simply forgotten that?
And what was this about him taking experimental potions? Experimenting with potions was a very dangerous job! Even after one ran the proper diagnostic tests, no one could ever be completely certain of what would happen when a person took an experimental potion for the first time. Why was he risking himself? What sort of potion was he trying to create? Why would he need to create one in the first place?
Severus sighed as he grabbed an unmarked, clear bottle from the shower rack, screwed off the lid, and took a deep whiff of the mauve-colored contents inside. "Let's see," he murmured to himself, "an unknown cleaning agent, doctored up with essence of clover, sheep's fat, bobotuber puss, orange extract, and…cinnamon?" It seemed like a good shampoo, in theory; Severus squeezed out a generous amount and slathered it in his hair.
What really bothered him about this whole situation was that Lily had thought it was normal for him to be here. If he had really died and just appeared here, wouldn't Lily have been alarmed? She had acted as if he had been acting normally the night before, and had even seemed to hold grudges against him—grudges that must have been previously formed.
However, the more Severus thought about how he could have forgotten about his life here, the more irrational he found the idea. After all, Lily had asked him about what he had forgotten and he didn't feel as though he had forgotten all that much, with the exception of his death, of course. Why would he even have memories about his own death if he had taken a potion that made him forget things? He would have never died in the first place, which would make those memories new and unreal, as he was clearly very much alive here.
Therefore, he must have died. Severus felt quite certain of this, which was a relief in some ways. It was the first thing he had felt assured of all morning. In turn, it made him uncomfortable because that meant he certainly didn't belong here after all, which raised more questions as to why he was here in the first place.
Still befuddled, Severus stepped out of the bath and searched through several drawers and bathroom cabinets while water dripped off his cold body. Eventually, he found a fluffy white towel and cleaned up his mess after drying himself off. With the towel now adorning his waist, he walked back into the bedroom with hopes of finding some fresh clothes. Figuring the large wooden wardrobe was the best place to start, Severus headed over to it and opened the doors.
Severus' mouth opened in shock. A large assortment of colorful items certainly wasn't what he was expecting. Perhaps they were all Lily's…
That hypothesis was shot down the moment he noticed there were both women's and men's shoes in the bottom of the wardrobe; evidently, it was a shared piece of furniture…
…but where was all his black?
Frowning, Severus started to rummage through the crowded closet area for something he could tolerate wearing for a while, starting with the tiny amount of black items that did exist. The last thing he pulled out was a black robe, which made him sigh in relief. However, Severus could not find any black pants or shirts and had to settle for a pair of dark grey slacks and a dark green turtleneck sweater.
"Bloody hell…" he said to himself as he put the clothes on with a sneer of distaste on his face. "What did Lily do to me?"
As Severus got dressed, he started to notice that something else was a bit odd about his attire: it was about two sizes too big!
"What in Merlin's name…" Severus started to say, trailing off as he thought about this new problem. He found himself perplexed by this new discovery. It was almost as if the clothes belonged to a different person.
Had he taken the place of someone else?
No, he didn't want to think about that—he was already overwhelmed without the help of additional irrational theories.
Severus looked at himself in the mirror and frowned. The overly-large attire made him look slovenly, which was something he disapproved of. He hadn't looked this shoddy since he had been forced to the wear second-hand rags that his disturbed mother had somehow come up with.
"Honey, that is not a good look on you," the mirror said emphatically, stating the obvious.
A shrinking spell was definitely in order.
After a little spellwork, he was finally looking decent in his clothes and easily gained the mirror's hearty approval. Severus went back to the bathroom to comb his wet hair and brush his teeth. Finally ready for the day, and feeling a bit more confident because of it, Severus slipped his wand into his pocket and went down the hall to the first door with the hopes of satisfying his growing curiosity.
Severus tried to turn the knob, only to find it locked. Taking out his wand, Severus called out, "Alohomora!"
A small clicking sound issued from the doorknob, which Severus immediately turned. He opened the door just a crack to be safe, and peered in.
His eyes instantly widened. "Merlin…" he breathed as he pushed the door open in shock.
It was a teenager's heaven: every inch of the walls and ceiling were plastered with moving posters of wizard bands, each actively jamming away to a drunken audience. There were also magazine cutouts of models, who strutted up and down the catwalk in the latest outfits, each trying their best to look appealing and sexy. The floor was littered with clothing and high-healed shoes, in every color imaginable, carelessly tossed into an empty corner. The large, unmade bed also had a few abandoned shirts hanging off of it. A couple of headless manikins stood in the corner near the closet, both adorned in flashy, outrageously short green and black mini-dresses.
Severus found himself wandering into the foreign territory as he tried to wrap his mind around it. As he got further in, he found several rolls of fabric laying on the ground and a small bookcase that was filled with Witch Fashion Today and Magical Fashionista magazines, as well as a scattering of makeup cases.
This was definitely the room of a teenager, though what it was doing here was beyond his knowledge. After all, if there was a teen here, it meant-
Oh.
Dear.
Merlin.
Severus shot out of the room like a bat out of hell and slammed the door behind him.
A teenager lived here!
Lily had created a child with him!
A child.
Severus' first inclination was to panic and so he did. He leaned against the hallway wall and fell into a sitting position, instantaneously drawing his legs up to his chest and embracing them tightly.
How could this be? This had never been part of his fantasy of living with Lily! After all, he had never gotten to the whole dating part, let alone marriage! He had never thought this far ahead in his imaginary plans for her, and now he felt as though he had been smacked in the face with unimaginable force.
He needed a calming draught and he needed it now!
Reaching his hand out, Severus called out, "Accio calming draught!" with the hope of receiving a vial from somewhere in the house. He was not disappointed; the door at the end of the hallway immediately flew open, and a full vial of lavender liquid zipped into his outstretched hand. With a pop of the cork, it slid down his throat like liquid gold and made him feel so much better. He sighed with relief.
Standing up, Severus decided it might be a good idea to disregard the other doors for now and check out the one at the end of the hallway which had so kindly provided him with the draught. He really didn't need any more surprises at this point, and figured his draught had surely come from the lab that Lily had referred to earlier.
Refusing to think of himself as a father for one moment longer, Severus walked to the last door and reopened it to reveal a dark stairway that he immediately fell in love with. "This sets the mood for potion making quite well," he muttered to himself with a smirk as he descended into darkness, casting an easy lumos with his wand to light the way.
It was amazing.
Severus found himself shocked at the beautiful lab that met his eyes when his feet hit the cement floor of the cellar. There were eight large cauldrons set up in a row, each containing different potions which were at various stages of completion, as well as a large variety of smaller simmering caldrons on a long counter that stretched around three sides of the room. A complex ventilation system was sucking the fumes off each cauldron to prevent the members of the house from suffocating upstairs. Row upon row of shelves sat above each counter containing every ingredient necessary to make even the most obscure recipes. There was also a large safe which most likely contained some of the more volatile and dangerous ingredients that were occasionally needed for highly advanced potions. Above the safe was a large bookcase full of shrunken books and journals, presumably in alphabetical order, as he preferred them.
In short, it was his own personal paradise. Feeling almost giddy, Severus found himself examining each potion, identifying them and their current stages. A few of them were unidentifiable, which led him to think that whoever had brewed them had created the recipes.
Had he made these potions or had someone else?
Curious about the unidentifiable potions, Severus walked over to a section of the counter that seemed to be the home of a messy pile of books and notes. Memory charms, memory charms, and more memory charms it seemed, as Severus looked over the titles of the journals and books that were laid out and marked up with notes.
"Someone has a one-track mind…" Severus murmured as he examined the notes in the book, "…and that someone appears to be me."
Indeed, much to Severus' displeasure, the notes all seemed to be in his own angry scrawl, and were organized in a way that was very understandable to him. He had no idea why he had been studying such a thing though.
"I've never had any interest in working with something so dangerous," he reasoned to himself. "Why would I study it and why don't I remember studying it?"
That was the irony of the whole thing though: if he had in fact been studying memory potions and had been testing them on himself, then obviously he had every reason not to remember studying memory potions.
What an obnoxious paradox.
However, the other side of his mind asked if it was possible that he had never studied the potions in the first place. After all, he knew he had forgotten a few things, but he didn't honestly think he had forgotten this much; the counter full of books held several years worth of research, and the only thing that was blurry in his head was his supposed death. He did not feel as though he had forgotten several years of his life.
If this was correct though, that meant he had taken the place of someone else—someone else who had his handwriting and who looked like him. Someone who Lily recognized as her husband.
Himself. What if he had replaced another version of himself?
But that was absurd! How could something as illogical as this be happening? People were not supposed to replace each other randomly in the universe! What if this meant that he could disappear from here at any time and end up elsewhere? The thought of being thrown somewhere else that was just as unfamiliar as this place, if not more, was undeniably alarming.
Severus quickly took a seat to prevent his shaky knees from collapsing. The stress of this new scenario was more than he knew how to handle. Feeling distressed, Severus leaned forward and rested his head in his hands for a few minutes.
"Stop it," Severus finally said to himself resolutely. Panicking would only make the situation worse and he refused to allow himself to do it. Using all of his occlumency skills, Severus pushed these thoughts behind the wall that was already blocking the intrusive fatherhood thoughts. He sighed as placid, safe thoughts flowed through his mind once again. Thank goodness for occlumency; what would he do without it in this situation?
Not knowing what else to do at this point, Severus decided to lose himself in the delicate art of potion making. The chopping and creaming of ingredients soothed him with their familiarity and Severus truly lost track of all time as he set about working on the half-finished Draught of the Living Dead.
He was pulling the pine nuts off of a Siberian Dwarf Pine's cone when he first heard someone calling. The unfamiliar voice had startled him so badly that he had flung one of the nuts across the room; luckily, it had not dropped into any of the other potions.
Grabbing his wand off the counter of his homey lab, Severus silently scaled the stairs and snuck down the hallway with a stealth that even Mad-Eye Moody would have been proud of. The voice continued calling…a male voice, Severus could now make out. The more he thought about it, the voice did seem vaguely familiar too, though he couldn't immediately place it.
"Lily…Lily! Severus! Anybody home?"
The yelling was coming from the parlor, presumably from the hearth. Severus snuck to the side of the fireplace and tried to decide if revealing himself would be a good or bad thing in this situation. Anybody could be calling from that fireplace and Severus had no idea where anyone's allegiances laid in this world. What if it was someone who was dangerous to him and his wife?
Worse yet, what if Lily had sent this person to lure him into a trap meant for a Death Eater?
Despite all of Severus' morbid suspicions, he quickly became annoyed with the obnoxious voice that didn't show signs of stopping any time soon. Severus was armed and could potentially take down one person quite easily, as long as it wasn't a trap of some sort. Deciding it was worth the risk, Severus quickly turned in front of the fireplace, his wand pointed at the fire below.
Oh, bloody hell! All that fuss and it was just the wretched werewolf.
"Lupin," Severus sneered, annoyed from his pointless sneaking.
"Lupin?" the wolf echoed back, sounding genuinely confused, "What happened to being on a first name basis? Oh bloody hell Severus, you've had a memory potion today, haven't you?"
"So what if I did?" Severus scoffed, royally sick of the whole memory potion business already, despite its helpful alibi for his predicament.
"How much did you forget?" Lupin asked, looking a bit concerned.
"That's none of your damn business, wolf." he sneered, making the word wolf sound as derogatory as he could.
Lupin sighed at this, obviously frustrated. "You're wrong Severus—it is my business when I'm about to bring Mabel back through the floo."
"Who is this Mabel and why would you be sending her to me?" Severus asked, his eyes narrowing dangerously. He certainly didn't need any company; anyone from this odd place would manage to muck with his mind, he just knew it.
Lupin watched him with an obvious sense of unease and was silent for quite a while before replying. Putting his hand up to his forehead with a look of complete disbelief, Lupin replied, "Sweet Merlin Severus, only you would manage to improve your potion at an inconvenient time like this! For fuck's sake, Mabel is your daughter!"
Suddenly, all of the Occlumency lessons in the world couldn't have kept his previously blockaded thoughts from crashing through his brain like a 10-meter tidal wave. He was a father in this strange world, something he hadn't the slightest clue about. While drowning in a flood of thoughts, Severus managed to ask the dumbest question of his life.
"I have a daughter?"
The moment the question escaped from the safety of his mouth, Severus regretted his folly. Lupin chuckled nervously at him at him before replying in a quiet voice, "Not just one; you have three daughters Severus."
Severus somehow managed to grab the edge of the mantle before he fell.
"Look…Severus, is Lily there? I need to drop your daughter off at your house so I can go about some Order business." Lupin said, trying to look for Lily from his spot in the fire.
"She's not here right now, Lupin." Severus said softly, trying to ignore the weird, unidentifiable feeling that was associated with his own personal creation of life.
"Well…do you think you can handle Mabel in your current state, Severus?" Lupin asked cautiously. "I hate to ask this of you right now, but James and I really need to get going soon or our Portkey is going to take off without us."
"I don't know anything about this child, Lupin!" Severus exclaimed with horror. "Does she even know that I've lost my memories?"
"Let me tell her…just a sec," Lupin said, then disappeared from the hearth for a moment before flashing back up amid the flames. "She says she's helped you when you forgot things before and she promises to be on her very best behavior. How about it Sev, do you think you can handle a six year-old?"
"Don't ever call me Sev again, you overgrown mongrel," he growled back at the face in the fire, then took a second to think. Could he handle a six year-old? Severus wasn't quite sure. Though he had plenty of experience with the first years at Hogwarts, eleven was quite different from six. Severus wasn't even sure how big a six year-old was… Were children even house-trained at that age?
"I've never watched a six year-old before, but I suppose I can give it a try," Severus replied, his dignity unwilling to say no despite the fact that every aspect of this made him deeply uncomfortable.
"It's quite easy really, all you need to do is read a few books and play a few games with her—just don't let her touch anything which might hurt her, and you'll do just fine," Lupin said with a smile.
"What kind of idiot do you think I am, wolf? Of course I won't let her get hurt!" he snarled. "Go on then, bring her through! I haven't got all day!"
Unfortunately, Severus was not ready for the little creature that was spat out of the Floo along with the werewolf. Severus could only see her backside because Lupin was still holding her, but he automatically recognized her as his own. The tiny black pigtails and pallid skin were dead giveaways.
"Bye-bye Uncle Reemee! I had lots of fun with you and Uncle Jamesie! Can we play with the fanged frisbee again next time?" a soft, high-pitched voice asked.
Severus quickly employed his Occlumency and acting skills once more to keep himself from panicking in front of the wolf—he had a daughter, for Merlin's sake!
"Of course we will, little Miss Mabel. Be good for your daddy, okay sweetheart?"
Daddy?! Oh sweet Merlin…
"I will Uncle Reemee, I promise!" the little girl said excitedly to the wolf, holding up her pinky finger to him. Lupin promptly set her on the ground and held out his own pinky, which was swiftly latched onto by the smaller pinky. The two shook on it and then Lupin dropped a small pink duffle bag he had been holding, and the little girl jumped back into his arms for a hug.
During the hug, Lupin met Severus' eyes and mouthed, "Are you going to be okay?"
This snapped Severus out of his stupor and he glared back at the wolf with determination in his eyes—of course he could handle this! He did not answer the wolf, but his glower seemed to be answer enough because Lupin smiled at him before standing up.
"Very well Severus, good luck," he said, then disappeared into the Floo a moment later, leaving him face to face with his young offspring.
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What do think of the new chapter? I hope you enjoyed it. I realize some readers don't like reading about original characters, but I would ask that you give them a chance in this instance. I have a lot of experience writing original characters in fanfics. They will not take over the story—the story will mainly focus on Severus and Lily. Thanks for reading! Have a good one!
-P.G.