FIC: If I Could Choose Again (3 of 3)
Title: If I Could Choose Again (Part 3 of 3) Author: bohemianspirit Type: Fiction (AU, Gen, Het) Length: Short Story (prologue to a novel) Pairings: Severus/Lily, but storyline centers around Severus' maturation and development. Series: Wasn't supposed to be, but has turned into one. This story, complete in itself, is the beginning. Rating: PG-13
Summary: In the wake of Lily's rejection at the end of fifth year, Severus Snape makes one small choice that leads him to make other choices that ultimately give him the life for which he yearns.
Note: I set out to chart a believable, in-character alternative course of development for Severus, one based on choices he might plausibly have made that would have changed his life. Severus as he might have been--and, perhaps, as he really was.
There was a level of hell uncharted by Dante, and it was called summer holidays at Spinner's End.
"One night of mischief, a lifetime of misery."
"Oh, stuff it." Severus was sitting at the kitchen table, reading.
"What's'at?"
"Nothing." Severus buried his nose more deeply into his book.
"Nothing. Nothing is right; you're right on that one, you are. Nothing. Nothing from nothing, and there's nothing like the nothing from whence you came."
Severus put his hands over his ears and frowned, staring at the page.
"I saw that," bellowed his father from the sitting room. "Why don't you just wave your little magic wand, there, and cast a spell on your ears, don't want to listen?"
"Why don't you just shut up," he breathed into the book.
"I heard that! I didn't hear it, but I heard it!"
Severus slammed the book shut and slid it away.
"Look at you. A damned sorry excuse for a son if ever I saw one, putting on airs with your books and your scribblings and your Dad, I've GOT to take a bath! every damned bloody day. Dry up all the river with your bathing, you will. Wallowing all the day in books and baths. Useless as the day you were born. Get me a damned drink--the normal way," he added, seeing Severus reach for his wand.
"What the hell do you care," Severus muttered under his breath, "as long as you have your damned drink." But he got it, all the same, in the normal way. "You're welcome," he said as he turned away, and ducked. Whatever had been intended for his head smacked against the wall and thumped on the floor.
"Smart boy. Such a smart one, you are. Think you're so damned smart."
Severus went back into the kitchen, in the hope of finding something to eat.
"Another useless witch, just like your useless mother. Surrounded by bloody witches. Happy Halloween, three-sixty-five days of the year. If you're so damned magical, you'd think you could conjure up a bit of money, wouldn't you? Is that too much to ask? I mean, what's the use of being a damned witch if you can't do any damned useful thing with it? Damned magic. Gives me the creeps. Your mother gives me the creeps. If I'd'a not been drinking, I'd never have sat in the same room with her, let alone got in the same damn bed with her--"
"I really don't want to hear this."
"--and sired her little hellspawn shit brat of a witchbaby. Damn drinking, damn horny, one night of mischief, a lifetime of misery. One night of mischief, a lifetime of misery. My whole damned, miserable life. I could've been--"
Severus heard a quiet knock at the door.
"GET THE DAMNED DOOR, YOU USELESS SACK OF SHIT!"
Severus cringed. The window was open. And when he saw who was at the door, he wanted to Avada Kedavra himself.
"Lily."
She glanced, hesitantly, into the gloom. "May I come in?" she asked.
"It might be better if I come out," said Severus.
Lily nodded. "We can go for a walk. If you like."
"I like." Severus stepped out, slamming the door behind him.
They walked in silence, the voice of Tobias Snape gradually fading into the background.
"Lily, I--"
"Severus." Her hand found his, and they walked on, saying nothing more until they arrived at the river.
It was enough, he thought, just to be with her. Just to know that she was with him: that she had come for him, sought out his company, if only for an hour--
Severus lay back and looked up at the sunlight dappled through green leaves. "Nunc dimittis," he sighed, smiling lazily.
Lily let out a soft, murmuring laugh. "I've no intention of dismissing you," she said. "We've only just got here."
"Mm. Good." He let his eyelids fall.
"Severus."
"Yes?"
"I've missed our conversations."
Instantly he was scrambling to set himself upright. "I'm sorry. I wasn't ignoring you, honest--"
"No, no." Her hand was on his arm, so fleetingly. "I wasn't saying you were."
"Oh." He remained sitting. His arm still felt the echo of her touch.
Lily picked up a twig and began to trace patterns in the earth. "What I mean is, it's been an awful year."
"What about Potter?"
She flinched, and he winced. Before he could retract the question, she answered, "What about him?"
"Well." Severus cast about, searching the leaves and the sky. "He's nice enough."
"He wasn't very nice to you."
"Well... no." There was no use lying about it. "But I thought you said I was worse."
She was watching the river, now. "It still doesn't make him nice. Or me."
"No, Lily, you are--"
He had seized her arm without thinking; before she could react, he snapped his arm back to his side, feeling a furious heat engulf his face. He couldn't bear to look at her.
There followed a silence so deep that he wondered if she had slipped away, somehow, without making a sound. Then she spoke.
"You don't hang out with Death Eaters anymore."
He shook his head. "No."
"And not just because of me. Even when I still didn't speak to you, you still didn't go back."
He shrugged. "I didn't want to. Lost interest--in them," he hastily added, and cursed himself as he felt the warmth return.
"I never understood why you wanted to be with them."
Severus closed his eyes and inhaled sharply. "Because they wanted me to be with them," he said.
There was her hand again; there, and gone.
"And power. Or what I thought was power."
He opened his eyes, and saw she was smiling at him.
"That's what I mean. You think about things. Have you ever tried to have a real conversation with James?"
Severus grimaced. "Has he ever tried to have a real conversation with me?"
Lily drew a sharp breath through her teeth. "No," she quietly concurred. "No, I don't suppose he ever has."
A light breeze rippled the leaves, lifted wisps of red hair, brushed over her skin and his.
"I guess he was nice. To me, at least. And all right to talk to. But..." Lily picked up the stick again, started to draw, then threw it halfheartedly into the trees. "He wasn't you."
Severus couldn't breathe.
"Of course," Lily blithely went on, "you haven't been you--or maybe you've been more you than you ever were. If that makes sense."
He nodded, but she wasn't looking at him.
"I'm tutoring Potions, now," he said.
Lily smiled. "Yes, I've heard."
"Some of them give me money--because they want to. I don't make them."
"Of course not."
"Of course not," agreed Severus. "But it comes in awfully handy. For clothes, and things."
She looked at him, letting her gaze linger. "I've noticed that. You look nice." A bit of pink rose in her cheeks.
He leaned back and grinned. "Yeah, dig my new threads, do ya, baby?"
Lily burst out laughing. "Oh! Oh--Severus, where on earth did you get that?"
"I don't know," he said, himself again, "but I think I should throw it back."
"Yes, I think you should."
He loved to watch her laugh.
"So," he asked. "What should I keep?"
"The clothes," she replied without hesitation.
"All right."
"And the hair. I like what you've done with your hair."
Severus laughed. "Washed it."
"Trimmed it, too, haven't you?"
"Had it trimmed. If I had trimmed it, you'd be telling me to throw that back, too."
"Well, I like it. I like the way it settles around your face--" And she stretched out her hand, and her fingers were, so delicately, tracing the line of his hair around his face; and the skin of her hand brushed the skin of his face; and he leaned towards her that she might, dare he hope, run her fingers through all of his hair; and she leaned towards him, and her lips were on his.
When she pulled away, he looked into her eyes. "I am definitely keeping that," he said.
"But what if I want it back?" she said.
"Then," he said, letting his arms go over her shoulders, "I will be a gentleman and do as the lady bids."
Had he loved before? Had he thought, before, that he had truly loved? That tight-fisted greedy clutching in desperation and fear, that was nothing compared to the expanding floating freedom that now filled his heart and flooded his body and carried him forward on wave after wave of light. He no longer had to have her--and so, now, he had her. Easy. Light as air, soft as night.
Several weeks into the summer, Severus was sitting in the grove overlooking the river, Lily at his side. He was watching the river, watching the water flow, watching the rippling patterns shimmer in the afternoon sun.
"You're quiet today, Severus."
He drew up one knee and draped one arm over it.
"Penny for your thoughts."
He wondered how many pennies lay at the bottom of the river, cast away by careless people who had never known how precious they could be.
"Severus. Is something wrong?"
He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. He let it out again, opening his eyes.
"Is it really me, Lily? Or is it just that my clothes and hair now meet with your approval?"
He waited.
The water flowed, the patterns rippled, he waited, he could not see...
He hugged his knee to his chest, grimacing against the inevitable, damning himself for being vulnerable.
And still the water flowed.
The silence, it was answer, it was all the answer he needed, all the answer he would get...
"I'm sorry."
A quaver, that voice; and hands, gentle, brushing his face; and he could see, and her eyes were full of tears as she faced him and murmured again, "I'm sorry." She tried again to speak, and couldn't, so she pulled him to her with all her strength, as if continued separation were more than she could bear.
So this was love: this calm, quiet certitude, this stillpoint at the core, a point around which all the universe must quietly revolve, all the while going about its business with no great show, just doing what it does because it can do no other.
They talked. Endlessly, they talked. One summer could not begin to contain all the things that needed to be said, and long before summer's end they knew that their conversations would continue well beyond summer's end. The well, so long neglected, filled again with cool, clear water, upon which it seemed they could draw endlessly without ever running dry.
"Do you think I'd make a good teacher?"
Lily, lying next to Severus on the grass, glanced over at him. "You already are, you silly man."
"That doesn't count."
"Of course it counts."
He reached for her hand and held it lightly, by the very tips of his fingers. "I meant a real teacher. A professor."
"Potions master of Hogwarts?"
Severus smiled to himself. "Maybe. I'd not mind working at Hogwarts."
"Dumbledore would have you. I'm sure of it--as long as you do well on your N.E.W.T.s."
He sniffed. "I'm not worried about my N.E.W.T.s."
"Well, then what are you worried about?"
"Money."
The silence fell between them.
"I'm sure Hogwarts pays enough to get by."
"Yes, but enough to--" He hesitated.
She was on her side, her face directly over his. "Why are you blushing?"
"Oh, don't."
She pulled his hands away from his face. "Come on. I'm not stupid, you know."
He looked into her eyes. "Then why don't you have mercy on me and tell me what you already know I'm thinking."
"Very funny." Lightly she tapped the end of his nose and rolled away, out of his sight.
He rolled over and stared down at her. "So what do you think of Hogsmeade?"
"Hogsmeade?" She rolled her eyes, pretending to watch the clouds, and considered. "It's a good place to buy butterbeer."
"I mean, as a place to live."
"Well, a good place to live ought to have good butterbeer, don't you think?"
"And good houses. Good neighbors."
"And be convenient for a Potions master of Hogwarts to go home to his family at night."
His jaw dropped.
Lily grinned up at him. "Well?"
"Well." He took her hand and pulled gently, helping her to sit upright. Still holding her hand, he asked, "Will I have a family to go home to at night?"
Her eyes sparkled in the sunlight. "Yes," she said.
"Good," he said, and he kissed her. "Next summer?"
"Next summer," she agreed, and she kissed him.
"There's one thing," he said.
"What's that?"
"Well." He squeezed her hand. "I've heard of it being done, at least among Muggles; I'm not sure if it's been done in the wizarding world..."
"What?" asked Lily.
He drew a deep breath. "I want to have your name. If I may."
"What?"
"I don't want to be a Snape," said Severus, rushing in. "And I don't want you to be a Snape. Please, Lily. Please don't insist on becoming Lily Snape. I would much rather be Severus Evans: wholly yours, Lily, for the rest of my life."
Lily looked stunned. "I--I don't know what to say, Severus. I've never..."
He sighed, letting go, and looked away.
"Do you think I'm ridiculous?" he asked, very quietly.
He felt her hands on his shoulders, turning him back to her. "I think... I think you're..." She smiled and drew him into a kiss.
"All right," Lily said, looking into his eyes. "If it means that much to you, then we will be Mr. and Mrs. Evans."
He beamed at her, and kissed her again.
Severus nearly flew through the corridors, striding up the stairs two steps at a time.
Dumbledore, in nightshirt and dressing gown, answered the door. "You rang, Severus?"
Severus grinned. "You are looking at the world's happiest man."
"Is that so, Severus?"
"Yes. That is so."
Dumbledore smiled. "I suppose that means congratulations are in order."
"Oh, you should see! He's got my hair, but otherwise I think he takes after Lily, so he might have a chance at being handsome--"
"Really, Severus."
"Come see for yourself!"
"I will, I will," Dumbledore assured him, "but not at four in the morning."
"Friday, then," urged Severus. "Friday evening, for dinner."
"Friday evening," agreed Dumbledore, stifling a yawn.
"I'm sorry. I should have waited until morning."
"It's quite all right, Severus. Oh, and Severus."
Severus turned back.
"You've done well."
Severus shrugged, feeling the warmth rising in his face. "Lily did all the work," he muttered, staring at the floor.
"You know what I mean."
A gust of wind blew into the house as the door opened just long enough to let Severus Evans slip inside and slam the door behind him. "Ah, there's my boy!" Books, papers, and wand fell to the floor as Severus scooped up his son into his arms and kissed him. "You didn't see that."
Lily looked up from where she sat in the kitchen, a book in one hand and her wand in the other, orchestrating the night's meal.
"Of course not," she said, smiling. "What would your students think if they heard you were acting like a doting dad?"
"You work too hard," Severus told her, giving her a kiss. "Oh, go on, then," he said to his son, who was wriggling and twisting and trying to break free. He set the baby back on the floor. "Is it against the rules for a Slytherin to want to be with his father?"
"How do you know he won't be a Gryffindor?"
Severus stopped short. "I don't, do I," he admitted, toying with the novelty of the notion. "Then again, he might end up in Hufflepuff and--"
"Severus, the wand."
He leaped over to the boy and snatched the wand just as the child was about to curl his fat little fingers around it. "Damn, you are crawling fast, aren't you!"
"He's listening to every word, you know."
Severus rolled his eyes. "There are a lot worse things he could learn than 'damn.'"
"True. And he'll learn them soon enough without being taught by you."
"Oh..." He dropped into an armchair and started tracing trails of sparks in the air. His son giggled.
"You like that?" Severus glanced over at the boy and grinned. He waved the wand again, creating spirals of green and red and gold and silver, entwining and untwining and entwining again. "Look, Daddy's an artist."
An ill-muffled snort erupted from the kitchen.
"Hm. Let's see." Severus frowned, then held up his wand again. "What'll it be for you, my boy? Gryffindor?" From his wand a stream of glittering gold formed itself into a fierce, proud lion. "Or, Slytherin?" A silver serpent slid forth, spiraled into increasing strength, and reared in challenge to the lion. They circled each other, hissing and roaring; then, abruptly, they halted, regarded each other, and shook hands.
"I've never seen a snake with a hand," remarked Lily from the kitchen.
Severus was smiling broadly at his boy, who was chortling with delight. "One does what one must."
"All right. Put down your quills, and hand in your scrolls."
And that, thought Severus, was that. His first year of teaching, completed. He gathered the scrolls and dropped them in his office on his way to see Dumbledore.
"You wanted to see me?" he asked, closing the door behind him.
"Hello, Severus. How's the baby? Have a seat."
Severus halted for a moment, then slowly walked over to the chair opposite Dumbledore, who was seated behind his desk. "The baby is at home, where I left him early this morning when I came to class," he said. "I somehow suspect that you did not call me up here in order to inquire about the baby--whom you saw yesterday evening."
"You're right. Slipped my mind." Dumbledore gestured towards the chair; Severus was still standing beside it. "Have a seat."
Severus seated himself, keeping a wary eye on Dumbledore.
"Well, Severus." Dumbledore smiled at him. "Now that classes are over, I'd like to ask of you a favor."
Severus' eyes narrowed. "What kind of a favor?"
"I need you to do a bit of... research. Research for which you are uniquely qualified."
"Uniquely qualified." Severus looked sharply at Dumbledore. "And would my unique qualifications, by any chance, have to do with my scholarly inquiries into the Dark Arts?"
"Well, certainly that is an advantage, Severus, but what I have in mind is not so much your studies of the Dark Arts as your, shall we say, previous associations with certain practitioners of the Dark Arts."
"I never took the Mark."
"No. No, you didn't--although that certainly was a near miss, was it not."
"You know, Dumbledore, I would rather forget that any of it ever happened."
"Ah. And there's the rub, Severus. There's the rub." Dumbledore folded his hands and leaned forward across the desk. "Perhaps you would like to forget them, but they have not forgotten you. He has not forgotten you. And his power grows, attracting other young men and women who are vulnerable to his promises of power and greatness. Would you see them fall into the abyss from which you stepped back only just in time?"
Severus stared impassively at Dumbledore. "And what power," he softly asked, "do I have to change what others have chosen?"
"Not yet chosen, Severus," Dumbledore quietly countered. "You surely recognize the role that guidance at a crucial moment of choice can play."
Severus smiled, but the smile did not reach his eyes. "I am already in a position to play that role, am I not? As a teacher?"
"Indeed. And I would have you continue in that role--and, just between the two of us, mind you, I also intend to appoint you as the next head of Slytherin, when the time comes."
Severus gave a single nod. "But that time has yet to come. What is this favor that you wish of me now?"
Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, keeping his eyes fixed on Severus. "I want you to do a little intelligence work for the Order. Just for the summer. You should be back in time to prepare for your classes."
"You want me to be a spy."
"For the Order, Severus. Do you find that objectionable?"
"Oh, not at all! I can't think of a more splendid way to spend the summer holidays than to go about the country eavesdropping on Death Eaters. Shall I bring the wife and child along? At least they'll be on hand to give me a proper burial after my former friends have done with me."
Dumbledore remained calm. "I have the utmost faith in your ability to avoid detection, Severus. Of course there is risk, but it is a risk I believe you are eminently capable of meeting, or I would not ask."
Severus slowly shook his head, closing his eyes.
"Severus." Dumbledore spoke in a tone so conciliatory that Severus knew he would find himself agreeing with whatever was to come. "You, better than most, know what is at stake. You know with whom we are dealing. You know. And while I cannot, and will not, force your hand in the matter, I will say that if you choose to take on this work, my confidence in our ultimate success will be greatly strengthened."
Breathing in deeply, Severus looked up into Dumbledore's eyes. "All right," he conceded. "I'll do it."
So much for the summer holidays. He should be spending them with his family, and instead he was chasing after Death Eaters.
His son was about to have his first birthday. What kind of a father was he? He should have said no, he should have said, send someone else, he should have... he should...
But there will be other birthdays, he said, bracing himself. This is important, too. You are doing this so your son, and others, will have many birthdays to come. And so he mustered the courage, and the determination, day after day, hour by hour, to persevere.
Then came the message from Dumbledore.
Severus stood where the door had been. Somewhere, somewhere in the scorched rubble, there had been a home. Their home. Dawn was breaking, but there was no sun.
"I should have been here... I wish I had been here..."
His voice failed him. In silence he wept.
"Had you been here," Dumbledore's voice was gentle, "you probably wouldn't be here."
Severus snapped his head up and stared. "You knew?" he croaked. "You knew! You sent me away on purpose, you--"
"If I had known," the elder wizard sternly cut in, "I would have sent all of you away."
It took a moment for the words to sink in.
"It was luck, Severus, merely luck, that you were away when Voldemort struck. Luck, good or bad, as you will. And still the boy lives."
"My boy," whispered Severus, tears streaming down his face as he wrapped his arms snugly around the sleeping child in his arms. There was a scar on the child's forehead, a bolt of lightning that had miraculously missed its mark.
"How...?" Severus blinked. "How did he--a baby--when--Lily..."
"That," said Dumbledore, "is something we all would like to know."
Severus paced the ruins: This had been the living room; that, the kitchen.
"The stairs," he said. "Are they...?"
"Anything that can be salvaged has been salvaged."
Severus nodded. He looked down again at his son, who was beginning to stir.
"He is in danger, still," murmured Severus, brushing the child's silken black locks with his fingers. "As long as he is with me, he is in danger." He choked down sobs, willing himself to be calm and disciplined, to do what he knew he must. "He must be kept safe."
Dumbledore nodded. "That can be arranged, Severus," he quietly assented.
"Lily's sister. She has a home. A quiet, safe home--nothing to do with wizarding. Take him there. Protect him." Severus squeezed his eyelids shut, pressing his mouth into a twisted line and breathing raggedly through his nose as he wept. Finally, with a shudder, he gasped, "Keep him from me."
Severus felt the familiar hand on his shoulder.
"Until he returns," came Dumbledore's gentle voice.
Severus nodded. The boy was wriggling in his arms, and, reluctantly, he let him go. "Until he returns."
Severus looked at himself in the mirror. Silver, Slytherin silver, glinted here and there in a curtain of black. It was far too early for silver to be putting in an appearance, and far too late to do anything to change its course. But there were things that yet could be changed, and by all the force of skill and will he was determined to see them changed; the eyes only deepened with each passing year. He knew what his students thought of Professor Evans: a grim, unbending taskmaster who had never cracked a smile in his life.
It did not matter what they thought of him. Grim days were coming, and they needed to be ready.
He ran a comb through his hair. Lamplight glinted off the thin band of gold on his left hand. He looked to one side, beneath the mirror: On the mantel rested a photograph of Lily, silently mouthing the words, I love you, over and over.
"Tonight, Lily," he whispered to the image, wishing it were a portrait.
His glance shifted to the photograph next to it. Lily had taken it, knowing he would not notice in time to object. In the picture, bearing witness that once upon a time there had been a happily ever after, a much younger and much happier version of himself leaned back in an overstuffed chair, lazily tracing sparkling patterns in the air with his wand while the baby on the floor giggled with delight.
"Well, Severus, the day has arrived."
"Yes. It has."
"And here they come."
Severus looked up, willing himself to appear indifferent as the first-year students filed into the Great Hall and lined up in front of the High Table where Severus sat with the other teachers.
There he was. Beyond all doubt, there he was: his boy. The black hair of his father, the green eyes of his mother, and a fair, thin face that somehow blended the best of both of them into what promised, with time and care, to be almost handsome.
But he had not been given care.
It struck Severus with the force of a curse, and it took all the strength he owned to remain still. Even so, he felt his dismay and pain become manifest in his face.
It was exactly then that the boy looked over at him. Apparently mistaking dismay for loathing, the boy scowled and turned away.
Severus almost sighed, but he steeled himself and sat straight in his chair. Courage. Patience. Determination.