Training Tuney

Severus Snape regarded Lily's sister as she ranted about freaks.

The thought occurred to him that her jealousy was what drove her, and that she hated the attention to Lily. An idea occurred to him.

"You know, Petunia, I've been thinking," said Severus. "You may not have enough magic to get much out of a wand, but I wager you would be a pretty good potioneer. It doesn't take as much extrinsic magic, and you can do almost as much with potions as with spells. You're a good cook so you would have the feel for it."

The flare of hunger in Petunia's eyes was enough to show him he was on the right track. Then she schooled her face into a sneer.

"Oh, sure, you are setting up some horrible joke, aren't you?" she said.

"I swear on my magic no joke intended," said Severus. "I don't know if you do have enough magic, but I see no harm in trying. I can set up a test potion and when you stir it the way I tell you, if you have enough magic, it will change colour. If it does not, what have you lost? Half an hour? I can tell right away, you know, and if you do have the talent, why waste it? With potions, you can brew fame, bottle fortune and stopper death," he added, passionately.

"If you can brew fortune, why are you such a ragamuffin?" asked Petunia, scornfully.

He flushed.

"Because my father hates magic worse than you do, and if he catches mother brewing, he does something to spoil it, and if she has saved up to buy ingredients, that comes expensive. I am saving up to do my own brewing, but I have nowhere to do it. If you can learn, I was hoping to make a deal with you to brew in your house, whilst teaching you."

"Isn't it against your secrecy statutes?" asked Petunia. Severus smiled.

"That's the beauty of it; the trace for underage magic is on your wand. No wand, no trace. Potions are exempt."

"Very well, then," said Petunia. "Set up the test potion."

It was a simple pepper-up; and as Petunia stirred, it changed colour to a rich purple.

"Tuney, that's marvellous, you have more than enough power!" said Severus.

"Why didn't you ever tell me that it wasn't under the trace?" demanded Lily. "I would have done a lot of brewing if I had known."

"I assumed you knew; sorry," said Severus.

"Well, we can brew together now," said Lily. "In my room."

"Sorry, but I have to teach Petunia enough so she can work on her own while we are back at school," said Severus.

Lily left with something of a flounce, and Petunia stared at Severus.

"You upset Lily to help me?" she asked.

"You and I ... we have parent problems," said Severus. "Lily is favoured over you and she has no idea what it is like never being good enough, or having the wrong talents. For me, it's having magic for my father, and for you it's not having magic for both your parents. I hadn't thought about it before but we have a lot in common."

Severus distanced himself from the other Slytherin; they would kill him if they knew he was training – and later, going out with – not just a muggleborn, but someone they would see as a muggle. He asked to be re-sorted and moved into Ravenclaw, which had a schedule sufficiently different to that of Gryffindor that he rarely encountered the Marauders.

It was a shame, perhaps that he also rarely encountered Lily, but she was most put out by him giving time to Petunia and settled down to court, of all people, James Potter.

Five years later, as the youngest Potions Master in Britain, Severus Snape took his wife, Petunia, as an apprentice and with a loan from Gringott's they opened an apothecary shop and did very well with it.

Their son was called Tiberius Severus, and when Harry Potter was left on the doorstep of Petunia Evans – the house was in her name, and Dumbledore had no idea whether she was married or not, and certainly not to whom – they removed the curses of despite on the letter and changed his name to Hadrian Jacobus Potter Snape and reared him as a twin to Tiberius.

And as Severus quietly removed the blood wards and placed them around the favourite necking spot in the park, their side effect of lowering fertility did not affect them, and Tiberius and Hadrian were joined in due course by Rosa Lily and then Dahlia Lilac.