Chapter Text
Based on plot and ideas by Bulship you can read them all here on AO3.
Severus Snape and the Next Great Adventure
Part One
“Severus, my dear one, wake up.”
Snape opens his eyes and immediately stands, realizing that he has no wand and is otherwise unarmed, as he cannot feel the knives he keeps sheathed inside his boots. He is dressed in his Wizarding finest, his true black raw Acromantula silk dress robes, never worn until now, a birthday present two years prior from Narcissa Malfoy.
He was lying on a stone slab, somehow not unpleasantly cold nor uncomfortable. He is not in pain, despite Nagini's devastating attack being the last thing that he remembers. His hand comes away clean from his throat, which also feels whole. He unbuttons his sleeve. His arm is as blissfully clear as if the Dark Mark were never there. The split second he reaches for his magic, it rushes, potent and full of possibilities, into his wand hand.
He now is facing a likeness of his dead mother. It would have been a good impression, except it was massively out of character for Eileen to wear pearly white iridescence or smile that widely, or to smile at all for that matter. The space they are in seems to be made entirely of light. He tries his voice, “Since you are not Eileen, with whom do I share the current misfortune of meeting?” His voice does not sound odd or like he has just had his throat ripped out by an enormous reptile.
“None of that now. I’m still a mother to you, Severus Snape. I am Lady Magic.” Faux Eileen dialed down the force of her smile, approaching him now as a trainer approaches a wild horse. “I want you to know that, despite everything, you have pleased me greatly. You are cunning in your ambition, eminently well-read, fiercely hardworking, ever loyal in your heart, and unusually brave in your magic. You are forever beloved as Headmaster by Hogwarts Castle and have made me most proud.”
"I—" Severus started, pausing to look down at his polished, often repaired dragonhide boots, which were a present from Lucius Malfoy upon the occasion of receiving his Dark Mark. He wasn’t gifted things often. He had even less practice receiving sincerity, never mind meaningful compliments. He took a deep breath and finished his thought: “-find that surprising.”
“Too few of my children, these days, explore both the pale and the dark sides of magic, yet you understand light and shadow like an artist. Too few climb to such heights as you through so many different branches of magic, getting high enough to form a complete picture, a true understanding of the tree of magic’s magnificence. Fewer still venture to create breakthrough spells, revolutionary brews, and elegant new curses—so many accomplishments at such a very young age. Had you had more time and resources, your progress as a wizard may have rivaled Merlin's or perhaps been unparalleled amongst Wixen. But circumstances were not on your side.”
“I wouldn’t have said so, no.”
“You have been impeded, most criminally so, as have many others in recent generations, whilst the spoilt and jealous baby-men claimed dominion over light and dark and did their worst to our world. You’ve noticed how children given every advantage in life may squander it all, or worse, do great harm lashing out with what they have been given. Grindelwald and Dumbledore were the second kind. I favored them both far too much. I had hoped they would heal the rifts between dark and light. They only made it worse. Neither came close to walking his true path.
“Voldemort is a danger now, too, but had so much to offer once. Like you, he lacked stable grounding and responsible care and guidance. He was Albus’ responsibility, literally. Albus never rose to meet any of the responsibilities in his own life. He much preferred meddling in the lives of others.
"Instead of becoming Tom Riddle’s mentor, as it was his literal job to do, and setting a worthy example for him, Albus made an enemy out of jealousy and suspicion while Tom was a child, a boy who knew deprivation and fear but hardly a kind word. Albus didn’t really believe that Tom Riddle was doomed because his father didn’t really love his mother—as if half the wizarding world wouldn’t be doomed if that were necessary criteria—but such convenient philosophies absolved his conscience, allowed him to continue believing that he did no wrong, and knew better than everyone else what to do on every occasion.
“Severus, I need your help to save magic, our whole world, everything in it, including the magically impaired—we all depend on your decision.”
Yes, he was convinced that he was in the presence of Lady Magic herself but couldn’t help but roll his eyes, “You will have noticed that I am rather dead, my Lady. Perhaps had you requested my assistance a tad sooner? What could I possibly do for you now at this late juncture?”
“I’ve spoken at length with Death. We both ask that you return but will respect your decision in this either way.”
“Return? I have given everything I ever had, everything I ever was, to defeat the Dark Lord and assure a victory for the son of Lily Evans. I failed. I never had an opportunity to communicate with Potter to tell him that he needed to let himself be killed, as ridiculous as those instructions are, as if he would have listened to a word of it coming from me. Now, I have nothing left to offer to anyone.
"Even if I were to return, even if I had my health, I would be hunted by both sides of the war. I’ve no allies, no safe house, and no resources left. I cannot defeat him with a well-played game of Gobstones. Even if I could get close enough to him, blast him into dust, somehow, still he will return. I don’t know how. There is a prophecy—
“Horcruxes, Severus. Tom Riddle made six on purpose. The Gaunt’s ring at the old Gaunt place, Hufflepuff’s cup, Slytherin’s Locket, and his own journal, which are all at the former site of the magically impaired Wool’s Orphanage at the moment, Ravenclaw’s diadem in the Elve’s stockroom in the Room of Requirement, Nagini eventually. He accidentally makes a Horcrux out of the infant Harry on the night that Lily is killed. Horcruxes keep him in the world of the living at the expense of his sanity and power. He solved the power problem with the Dark Mark. It is a leech that siphons power constantly from his slaves.”
“”Seven?”
“Harry and his friends destroyed most of those Horcruxes. Had he known to sacrifice himself, had Voldemort cast Avada Kedavra to kill him, then Harry may have succeeded in defeating Voldemort just as Albus had hoped. Harry may have “survived” and returned to the world as well because of his standing as Death’s master, having collected Death’s wand, which was used for years by Albus, Death’s cape, his father’s then Harry’s own invisibility cloak, and Death’s stone, which had been set into the Gaunt family ring, though cleverly he tossed it away again. Such a plucky one! But ultimately, Harry can’t save the world alone. He is born far too late.
“Just a few years after Harry’s largely theoretical, yet prophesied defeat of Voldemort, the magically impaired will breach our secrecy. By the year 2000, there will be no stopping this. The magical world, once exposed, can not stand against technology and vastly superior numbers.
“By 2016, most everything magical in our world, save for those living in the deep oceans, will be killed or enslaved. The magically impaired world will survive our genocides through a time of plagues, wars, threats from their own technology, and disasters on a scale unseen by human eyes before. They’ll have another twelve, perhaps fifteen years, before planet-wide collapse occurs. It will be brought about by the lack of magical anchors left on Earth that help me to stabilize and balance the world, including the Four Elements, which combine in various ways to produce the very fabric of life on this planet.”
“Muggles call it DNA. What could I possibly do to stop any of this from happening?”
“I don’t know. The solution must lie at least partially in the world of the magically impaired. I do know that you understand that world far better than most Wixen and have the necessary skills and the very best chance to save us.
“I also know that you have keen regrets, none keener than your regrets surrounding Lily Evans. I would send you back to your 5th year, just before the Marauders publicly assaulted you, before you called her that bigoted word in a frankly deranged bid to protect her. But I want us to watch that event again, together, Pensieve-style, first. After we watch it and one other of your memories that you have not examined properly, you can give me your answer about going back. Do you agree?”
Severus had examined many aspects of his life both via Dumbledore’s Pensieve and through his own Occlumency, but he had never watched his very worst memory ever again. It was like a massive wound—too deeply wrapped up in his fury, despair, and regret, too shameful to reveal, too painful to examine, a festering blister on his soul. That all-encompassing pain fueled his descent into losing himself as a Death Eater. But he is dead now. If this is to be the hell he’s earned, then he will face it. “Very well, let us watch.”
Lady Magic takes his hand gently and leads him over to an enormous Pensieve, carved with a repeating pattern he recognizes as the plant Dittany of Crete cried upon by mirror image sets of twin phoenixes. It looks very old, settled in place for centuries, but somehow he knows it wasn’t ‘here’ for longer than a minute, if it had existed previously at all.
Watching the events unfold is surprisingly easy. The players are all just children, the same as any other Hogwarts students he’d dealt with on a daily basis. Seeing the Marauders doing their worst inspires in him no pain, no hate, no fear, just a powerful urge to assign them all truly unpleasant detentions. In the boy they target and attack, Severus scarcely recognizes himself. He empathizes with an outnumbered victim, of course, yet also sees his younger self's glaring mistakes—the tactics he doesn’t employ, spells he never casts, and opportunities that he wastes.
When Lily arrives on the scene, fiery, self-righteous, and wand out, he realizes that she too is but a child walking into danger, and his heart clenches. But he also remembers that she is a fifth-year Gryffindor prefect, just as Lupin is. Were they always so ineffectual at keeping order, or were they both simply shirking their prefect duties? Then Lily, still pointing her wand, a deadly weapon, at Potter's chest, seemingly forgets about Severus’ young distress and smiles exasperatedly yet fondly at Potter, who is constantly primping his perpetually messy hair.
He asks that the memory be paused, reversed a few seconds, then restarted. It is no mistake, no trick of old eyes. Lily definitely smiles at Potter, her body leaning subtly toward him just as a real lily leans toward the sun. Severus sees that though her wand is out, she has no intention of using it to defend ‘her friend.' She waves it foolishly, posturing, rolling her eyes as Potter—what a charmer! - extorts her for a date, but she does not make a single move to magically challenge his bullies. He sees that there was no truth to support his former assumption that she had been in danger, needing him to quickly dissuade her from fighting Potter and Black on his behalf. Calling her “filthy Mudblood” had seemed like an elegant solution at the time, a drastic yet effective tactic to drive her off, out of a bad situation, like he had done so many times before for her in Cokeworth. He believed he was saving her and could explain and apologize for offending her later, which only indicated his state of mind at the time. But he sees now that on this occasion, she never required any sort of protection that he could provide for her.
This is just a love game, a mating display, an excuse for two hormonal Gryffindor teens to bicker and flirt. Hadn’t he seen plenty of the same from Granger and Weasley over the years, as he watched over Potter like a protective hawk pretending to be the only predator for miles? His own humiliation and suffering, his and Lily’s shriveling acquaintanceship, for he can no longer properly call it a friendship at this point, are but sparse background scenery for the main event here, which is Potter and Lily’s blossoming romance that would lead inevitably to the birth of Harry Potter and the death of Voldemort.
He knew, even back at that time, that Lily had become too entangled with that pack of bullies who she so passionately defended to him to the point that he, Severus, their favorite victim, had become the true villain of the narrative in her mind, because if only Severus would stop standing up for himself, if only he would stay quiet instead of antagonizing them with his unwanted facts and opinions, if only he would renounce all the other members of his House in public, if only he would take great pains to stay out of the Marauders’ way and hide better, (she probably didn’t know, as he hadn’t, that they were using that blasted map they’d made of Hogwarts to hunt him at every turn), but if only he could stop breathing their air…
Not that he was blameless in school or ever. He’d always had too sharp a tongue, too hot a temper, and an inability to suffer fools. Yes, he had laughed when Mulciber cast Levicorpus on Mary McDonald’s ankle. It wasn’t as if he were amused. If anything, it was nervous, very uncomfortable laughter. He was fully cognizant that McDonald just as easily could have been Lily Evans in that moment—both Gryffindors, both Muggleborns, both pretty redheads—but he hadn’t been willing to start a war with Lyle Mulciber outside of the Slytherin Common Room to help defend any Gryffindor other than Lily Evans, either.
Slytherin House rules had always dictated that Slytherins must present a united front to the school and to the world at large. Their unity was their strength. If they couldn’t have true unity, at least they could have the appearance of that strength. Infighting, grudges, power games, and rivalries all paused as soon as they left Slytherin House through the common room door. No one outside of Slytherin should ever see even a hint of their deep divisions and constant power struggles, or know that he, as a disinherited, dirt-poor half-blood, lived as a despised outcast even within his own house. Few Slytherins ever bothered to acknowledge him, never mind back him up in a fight against the Marauders. Lucius and Narcissa, and later her cousin Regulus, all prefects, had been amongst the rare exceptions.
Mulciber didn’t strip off McDonald’s knickers the way that James Potter had removed his old graying pants for the amusement of the crowd that day, but Severus wouldn’t have put such a despicable act past Mulciber, either, no, not at all. In fact, Mulciber may have done far worse to McDonald had Slughorn not happened upon the scene when he did.
But it wasn’t Mulciber that the Marauders held responsible and decided to punish like deranged underage vigilantes. He was always the convenient whipping boy when they had a problem with someone else wearing green, not that they ever required any excuses just to amuse themselves by making his life more hellacious.
As for Lily, he now could see their shared past with perfect clarity. When they were young, Lily had clung to Severus, for he was her only source of hope, her only whisper of magical knowledge, her only glimpse of the beautiful magical future awaiting her at Hogwarts Castle. As far as he was concerned, Hogwarts was meant to be their escape from their pointless, painful, dead-end Muggle existence in Cokeworth and the start of a brighter, more magical future. Hogwarts was theirs to share, their reward for surviving eleven years of Muggle childhood in bleak poverty, the happy ending ever after to their fairytale, with actual fairies.
But as soon as they set foot on the Hogwarts Express, Lily became entirely surrounded by other Magicals, many of whom, like purebloods Potter and Black, knew far more about the inner workings of the magical world than Severus had carefully gathered from Eileen’s occasional stories, and none of the other first years seemed to be as ugly, as poor, as disagreeable, as dirty, or as greasy and threadbare as he was—always. He didn’t realize it, but he was not at all in any way special to her anymore. If anything, he was the perfect representation of what she should be leaving far behind her—the last remnant of her poverty-stricken childhood in harsh, filthy, rude, stinking old Cokeworth. Their sortings only helped widen a gap that, unbeknownst to him, had already started splitting their childish friendship apart.
He still had his value to her, though. He still existed entirely for her convenience. Both of them seemed sure of it. He was always overjoyed to do it when she needed books or cauldrons carried, a taller reach for the higher shelves in the library, an able potions partner, or a willing study companion for those long hours spent in the library. He was the one person who knew exactly how to explain Golpolott’s Laws so that they finally made perfect sense to Lily. Apparently, he was also a convenient trigger for sending Potter into jealous fits of romantic stupidity.
In summer, it was a different story. Petunia had pulled away from Lily permanently by the end of the first year. Even more so than Lily and himself, Petunia was aces at holding a grudge. Lily really only had him to help her stave off the boredom and oppression of being too young, too poor, and far too clever in a bleak industrial backwater wasteland revolving around a floundering linen mill during a stagnant British economy. Cokeworth sucked the marrow out of people even at the best of times, never mind in a time of cutbacks, closures, strikes, out-of-control inflation, plus record-breaking crime, heroin addiction, and alcoholism.
It wasn’t a good thing to be as pretty as Lily Evans in such ugly surroundings. Even though he was thin, he was always wiry. He was good at Legilimency, misdirection, and using other sneaky magics to discourage roving gangs, desperate addicts, mean drunks, and… far worse. When all else failed, he could take a hell of a beating in order to give Lily the chance to run home unscathed.
He remembers once in the late summer after 4th year picking some bloke’s pocket while getting punched bloody by him. He spent half on a stash of tinned foods—soups, sardines, lard, corn, and beans—for Eileen and him, but she had insisted on sharing it all with Toby. Her husband predictably exchanged the lot for drinks down the pub. Severus spent the rest of his nicked dosh treating Lily to Pink Floyd’s The Darkside of the Moon that she had badly wanted. He never listened to the album until after her death.
But any time they spent together while at Hogwarts was for Lily’s sake, instigated and dictated by Lily. She was never there just for companionship any more and was never there as a special favor to him or because he was important to her. He remembers now that in second year he had asked her several times for her help in figuring out a tricky advanced charm, hoping to expand the space available inside Eileen’s old potion’s case. Lily said she would help but never was able to find the time. Eventually, he had stopped asking her and figured it out all by himself. The next time he asked anyone for their help with anything, he was desperate to save Lily from dying.
“There is one more thing I want you to watch.”
“Very well.”
It was that night when he met Dumbledore, asking for him to save her. Did the old man try at least? To be fair, Albus was never any good at protecting anyone, not his sister, not the Longbottoms, not Lily, not her son. He observes now how Albus plays him like a fiddle, how amused he seems whenever Severus isn't directly watching his face. How old and cruel Dumbledore looks when extorting him for a price for keeping Lily safe. He notices in contrast how very young and earnest he looks, pledging that, in return for Lily’s safety, he will do ANYTHING, which he, in fact, did do quite a bit of, for the rest of his life, despite the fact that Albus had never upheld his part of their bargain, which never had a single thing to do with Azkaban, as far as Severus was concerned.
“Do you see?”
“Yes, I can see everything far more clearly now.”
“How do you feel?”
He takes a deep breath, considering the question, but not because he actually believes that he is breathing at the moment, “Free.”
“Will you return, Severus?”
“I will. But I require real resources, actual assistance this time. If I call—"
“I will come. You may access extra magic as you need it. You may also swear on my name with no fear of being stripped of your magic, no matter what. As my agent on earth, you may use my name to make bargains and recruit allies to our cause as well. I stand with you in this endeavor, Severus. You have other advantages also. You can claim your Prince Heirship at Gringotts immediately.”
“Heirship? I think you are mistaken, my Lady. My mother was disinherited from the Prince Family, years before I was born, in fact. I very much doubt that she was reinstated posthumously.”
“Above all else, the Prince family magic rewards power and ability. You are all your Prince ancestors’ wildest dreams made flesh. Your mother’s status never disqualified you, and neither does your father’s lack of magic. Ask for Ragnok. He is trustworthy and can become an invaluable ally.”
“Why was I never informed?”
“Your mother closed her trust vault right after her seventh year, just before she officially refused to marry Archibald Selwyn. She had the Galleons she owned converted by Gringotts into pounds sterling. She was a babe in the woods with no qualifications, history, or identification. Like many Purebloods, she was discouraged from Muggle Studies. She was unfamiliar with the currency. Her nest egg didn’t last long in the world of the magically impaired, but meeting and marrying your father was no mistake on her part. You prove it by your very existence. You came to the magical world with a Muggle family name. You never had your inheritance status tested then, a mistake even some Purebloods and nearly all Muggleborns make. When you finally opened your own account the year that you started teaching, no familial identity or heirship claim was attached to your vault. The Prince Lordship means wealth, independence, and a seat in the Wizengamot. But Dumbledore knew.”
“Of course.”
“Your trust vault won’t be a panacea but will help you at the start. You’ll need to find ways to grow those existing funds quickly. Don’t be shy about using your magic and knowledge of future events to set up lucrative and mostly passive income streams both in the magical world and in the Muggle one. Again, Ragnok can help. Remember that you will be gathering wealth for the very best of reasons, Severus, that what you are doing will benefit us all.”
“Lady, I wasn’t poor because I am against owning wealth. I was poor because I was often forced to buy expensive ingredients, ones that I couldn’t acquire in any other way without extreme risk, some for the purposes of experimentation, but most just to satisfy the limitless demands of one master or the other. I know this will shock you, but neither one was terribly conscientious about reimbursing me.”
“There is also an enormous Basilisk inside the Chamber of Secrets. You can find the tap marked with the snake that opens it in the girl’s bathroom on the second floor. You’ll want to fly down there instead of sliding.”
“Which may have been worth mentioning if I spoke Parseltongue and could access it.”
“Now you can speak to snakes. You’re familiar with role-playing games, I presume?”
“Spy.”
“Let’s say that starting out in life, you had a full ten points in Temper, but now due to personal growth and Occlumency, you have only seven. I suggest that we take that down to a cool-headed three and place the other four points somewhere more beneficial to your quest. You only have one point in Self-care.”
“I believe that I’d rather be attacked by Nagini again than waste an available point on Self-care.”
“How about this then? You promise to shower carefully and wash your hair thoroughly every day and put at least an additional half hour every week into something that I would recognize as self-care. In return, you can place the four points wherever you think best.”
“All four go to Intellect.”
“Somewhere else.”
“Is intelligence always underappreciated everywhere?”
“Your intellect is already maxed out, Severus.”
“Unlikely.”
“It only means that your potential for thinking, learning, and applying your knowledge is unencumbered.”
“Has anything else of mine reached its maximum?”
"Survival
“Clearly. Not.”
“Consider that ending you required attacking you with a monstrous magical venomous Horcrux snake paired with your own decision to die viewed as a loyal Death-eater in order to give Voldemort false confidence in Death’s wand, which you knew wasn’t his, in order to give Harry an advantage and, of course, to continue protecting Draco. Not to mention that you are getting restarted even without a Horcrux or a set of Hallows. Your Persuasion and Agility are nines, by the way.”
“Another point to both then.”
“Your empathy is at five, up from three.”
“Adequate considering what I’ve been forced to witness and will likely witness in the future. What am I most severely lacking?”
“Charm began at one; now it’s at three. You can be quite charming, but the effort required gives you a stress headache.”
“Make it a four. I will endeavor to stop clenching my jaw when attempting to be less abrasive. I don’t suppose that there is a category for getting a full night of natural sleep?”
“That falls under endurance, which is already at eight. You might benefit from working some magic in or out of your mattress and pillow.”
“Max it.”
“May I remind you that you only have one point remaining, not two?”
“Call it an endurance bonus for having lived and died quite horribly once and agreeing to do more of the same.”
“Oh, very well.”
“Hmm, it would seem my one extra point in Persuasion did not go amiss.”
“You’ll need to get a custom-made wand as soon as you can. Your old one won’t recognize you. Garrick Ollivander won’t have a worthy replacement waiting for you in a box somewhere, either.”
“Shall I pickpocket Dumbledore’s wand when I shove him down the moving staircase, my Lady?”
“I think I’m going to enjoy working with you, Severus Snape.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
Lady Magic resizes his former life’s black silk dress robes and dragon hide boots to fit his newly resized sixteen-year-old frame. Fussing unnecessarily as any mother may be tempted to do, she transforms his hair to be less uneven and more free from split ends, foreign particles, and knots. She whitens and straightens his teeth, which he thinks should hurt somewhat but doesn't.
The Lady mentions that he will return on Saturday morning, a week before the start of OWLS, about three weeks before the event that had formerly ended his ‘friendship’ with Lily Evans. Snape did well enough on all his OWLs but didn’t put as much effort in as he should have in the classes that he cared less about. He looked forward to giving OWLs his all this time. Yes, he’s had more experience but will also have almost no study time to refresh his memory on the courses he took, quite literally, another lifetime ago. That seemed to make things as fair as anything else in life ever is. Lady Magic gives him a motherly peck on the cheek and gestures to a shadowy hallway that turns out to have a rather steep drop-off.
Severus wants to land on his feet like a cat and hit the ground running. He wills himself to fly down rather than just freefall since he’d rather not return to life impaled through the chest on a whimsically decorative cast iron fence post. That would be just my luck. Luck! Surely, I can’t have more than a single point of that?
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