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Little Harry
An AU story written by Kitsune no Zetsumei.
Originaly posted on Fanfiction.net on 3.10.08, under the username of Rulern Av Ost.


Sorted into the House of Ravenclaw.


Disclaimer: I'm fifteen years old, and I live with my mother. You think I own Harry Potter? Guess I should feel honored. The poem isn't mine either. I have no idea who wrote it. It's a Norwegian poem, and all I own is the fact that it says "he" and not "she", and that it says "Harry" And not "Amy". It was also I who translated the thing.


Summary: AU. No Magic. Harry Potter starts 1st grade one week later than everyone else. Going through the years with no friends can be hard on a child. The harassment seems to have no end. What's a little boy to do? Oneshot.


Extra: Based on the Norwegian poem "Little Amy". Also, due to the fact that this is taken from a Norwegian poem, and because I myself am Norwegian, the school system here is like that of a Norwegian one. This might also be because I'm lazy and won’t bother to do some research on British schools... But hey, if American authors can get away with making a fanfiction with an American school system, I don't see why I can't get away with this, right? Don't worry though, it's not so focused on the school system, so you might not even notice.


Norwegian pronunciation: If you want to know how Norwegian sounds like, and how to pronounce the poem, check here norskklassen. ce-service.biz/ sounds-t.htm


Remember to remove the spaces people!


Important: This story is also dedicated too all those that has at some point during their life, experienced any type of bullying, whether it's through isolation, beatings, name-calling or any other sort of harrasment. If you do know anyone being bullied in any way, please help them. You never know when he/she reaches their breaking point, and by then, it'll be too late.

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Alt var glede den første skoledagen.
Vi var spente, ett skritt nærmere den voksne verden.
Vi ble ropt, en etter en.
Stolte foreldre sto å så på.

Hvor var du da, lille Harry?

O O O


Everything looked bright the first day of school.
We were excited, one step closer to the adult world.
We were called up, one after the other.
Proud parents by our side, watching.

Where were you then, Little Harry?


O O O


Slowly, but surely, the classroom filled with children.


These children were going to start first grade. And with them, were their parents. The parents lined up at the wall, and talked amongst themselves, as they watched their children interact between themselves. They watched with pride in their eyes as their children gained new friends among their classmates. You could already see the bonds of friendship forming in between the children.


"I can't believe my little boy is already starting school... Imagine, my youngest son." A slightly short, plump woman with red hair muttered. Her voice filled with pride.


"Yes, it is rather hard to believe that the children grow up so fast, isn't it?" A woman with brown hair and brown eyes smiled at the red-headed woman.


"Yes, indeed! Oh, and where are my manners... I'm Molly. Molly Weasley." The red-head smiled "And that," She pointed to a red headed boy that was slightly taller then the rest, "is my son. Ronald. He's my youngest son. I’ve got a daughter that's younger then him by a year and five other boys that are older." Molly smiled.


The brown haired woman smiled at the other's enthusiasm. "I'm Jane Granger. It's a pleasure to meet you, Molly. I only have one daughter I'm afraid..." She pointed at a small girl with bushy brown hair. "That's her. Her name's Hermione. She's very intelligent for her age." Jane smiled proudly at her daughter. The two women continued to chat on about the children, and everything else that came to their minds.


A stern woman with her hair pulled back in a bun clapped her hands loudly. "Can I have your attention? Good. Thank you. We're going to take roll call now. So please, step up here when I call you. One by one the children were called up. It was eighteen young first year students that had started Hogwarts Primary School. The parents were watching, proud smiles on their faces.


Their children were growing up.


I remember that day, vaguely. What I just told you now was what my mother told me. Why weren't you there that day Harry? So much would've been different if you where there...





The first week passed, and nothing had really happened that was out of the ordinary. We had already got divided into groups of friends that played at school, and visited each other after. But then, when the first week had passed, and a new one started, something changed. Of course, no one really noticed what had changed until the teacher came into the classroom. It was then that she introduced us to you. You had green eyes and wore round glasses on your nose. Your hair was black and messy.


You were much smaller then the rest of us. You looked like you couldn't be more then four. We started to snicker at you, and whispered among ourselves. I remember the teacher sending us a stern look. We had to be nice to you, she said. Your parents had died in a car crash, when you were only a year old. A lightning bolt shaped scar on your forehead was the only evidence that you had ever been in a car crash.


Of course, by then you had started too late. We had already started to go into certain groups. There was room for no one else. None of us wanted to play with you. None of us did play with you. You gained no friends that day. You were completely alone, sitting at your desk, quietly. You didn't complain; you just sat there.


I wonder what you were doing, what you were thinking, when you sat at that small desk, all by yourself.





The years flew by, and nothing really changed. You didn't gain any friends the day you started at our school, and you didn't gain any friends later either. You were completely alone. We started to laugh at you a little more. But it never seemed to crush your facade of calm coolness. You never complained to the teacher. Never.


The groups that we had gotten into in first grade were still the same. But now we were tighter. None were to ruin our close friendships. No one was to be included. We kept to ourselves.


I wonder how you managed. I wonder how lonely you really were.





In fourth grade, Draco Malfoy had a birthday party. Everyone, including you, Harry, was invited. Do you remember it? I remember being so proud of my fine clothing. My family wasn't rich like the Malfoys, but my parents had bought that clothing especially for that day because I was going to Draco's birthday. I remember all of us laughing when you came in your ragged clothing. They looked like most of your clothing did. They were way too big for your small body. The only thing making them better then your usual ones was that they weren't horribly torn.


After a while, we sat down at the table, eating a lot of cake and candy. I remember you taking a small piece of cake. That was all you ate. Why? Why did you eat so little? I remember that we talked about a lot of things, and laughing. We laughed a lot. After all, we were small kids that were high on sugar. We laughed at every little thing. If my memory is correct, then you smiled. It was a very small smile.


It was also the first time I ever saw you smile.


We had such great fun. I remember that it was the best night I'd had for a long time. Then, being the sugar high kid I was, I wanted to play one last game before we were to leave. I said that we could do something funny. I said that we could do it on you. We got some of the remaining coke, and filled a casket with it. Then we pushed you down on your knees, and washed your black hair in it. I'll never forget how we laughed, thinking it to be so funny, while you had thick tears running down your cheeks.


However, no sobs escaped your lips. No crying sound was emitted from you. You just sat there, quietly crying, accepting what we did to you. Perhaps you hoped that if you let us do this, we would accept you?





I remember when Christmas came. I was looking forward to it so much! I had a very huge family, so I got a lot of presents each year. It was great. I loved that time of the year, and I still do. At school, before Christmas Holiday started, we decided to have a Christmas play for our families. The teacher decided who was to play which roles. I was to be Joseph, and you were to be the Jesus child. I remember that Hermione Granger played the role as Jesus's mother, Maria. Hermione was my best friend, and I'd already developed quite a crush on her.


When the show started, we played the play quite well for being in fifth grade. Everyone thought it was great! I remember my mom complimenting me on my performance for two weeks after. I got an extra present from my parents as a reward. I doubt I'd have gotten that extra present if anyone had noticed what we did to you during the play. The part I remember most about the performance was how we constantly pinched and scratched you, how we hit and kicked you during the whole performance. Even while our parents and siblings watched, we bullied you without anyone noticing. I find it very ironic now that you were the Innocent Jesus-child. It was a mockery of the Christian religion, of my religion, to treat you like that.


And I find myself wondering whether you saw the irony in that as well? Did you wonder why we mocked you, even when you were playing the role of Jesus?





One day in sixth grade, we were asked to bring an old family object. I was very proud of my grandfather's three shoe. It was very well made. I loved it. I was the one that asked if I could bring it. And my grandfather allowed me to! I was thrilled. And of course... Then you came. You had brought something that had belonged to your great grandmother. Your great grandmother that had died before you were born, you said. I wonder, did you know anyone in your family?


All the girls ogled at it. And I know that I wasn't the only boy who was very jealous of you at that moment. After all, we wanted the girls to stare at our things to. We wanted their attention. I remember one girl touching it, exclaiming that it was made of porcelain. They seemed so impressed. And when Hermione walked over there as well, I could feel my blood starting to boil. So I did what I usually did when I got mad at you. I talked to the guys, and got them to help me. We ripped the doll out of your hands, and ran out of the door.


I can still hear your small, light footsteps as you came running after us. You were screaming at us to give it back. I was ripping the silky clothes off the doll as I ran. I screamed that boys don't play with dolls. I mocked you, even as we were running away from you. I threw the clothes over my shoulder. I could hear you sobbing behind me. I laughed. I ripped some of the golden curls off the dolls head. We were now outside of the school building. We ran towards a puddle. I continued to rip out the golden locks. Every time I threw another lock over my shoulder, I could hear another sob escaping your lips.


As soon as we reached the puddle, I threw your doll in it. I started to hit it against the ground under the puddle. You had stopped running. You were just behind us. I remember you falling to your knees. No longer did I hear sobs racing through your body. But you were still crying, weren't you? As I hit the doll repeatedly underneath the puddle, the doll's head started to crack. I started to hit it harder. Only when I had completely destroyed the head, did I stop. I then threw the doll in front of you. The head was nearly completely gone. All the pieces were in the puddle. You cradled the small doll against your chest, rocking back and forth. We snickered at you, and walked away.


Did you ever forgive me, Harry? Did you ever forgive me for ruining such a beautiful memoir? One of the very few you properly had left of your family? Did you ever forgive any of us?





And then we started Junior High. I remember that I started hanging out a lot with a guy named Dean Thomas at that time. Everyone was gaining new friends. Everyone but you, that is. You were still walking around on your own. No one cared. Not even the teachers took notice of you. You were completely abandoned. This was also the time when the bullying went up a notch. We started to threaten you with all sorts of things. We started to really beat you up, and threatened that we would kill you if you ever told.


That was just the way things were. We always abused you. We hit you, kicked you, pushed you, and stole from you. It didn't matter. As long as we could hurt you in some way, we didn't care what the methods were. After Christmas at the first year, you had gotten yourself a pen. It was quite a nice pen. And I'd used up all the ink in mine, so I could use a new one. So I took yours. That was always my solution to everything. My family was poor you see. So I didn't want them to waste extra money on a pen for me. So why not take yours?


I still have it you know. I guess it must have been quite an expensive pen, since it was of such good quality.


So, who was it? Who bought it to you? Were they mad when you told them you lost it? Because I'm sure that's what you told them. You never did tell anyone what we did to you. So, what did you write with Harry? Now that I stole your pen, what did you use to write with? I wonder...





When we were in eighth grade, I remember feeling like I was at the top of the world. I was an adult now. At least, in my eyes I was. The bullying of you never ceased, no, quite the opposite. It was worse then ever. I remember that.


But one day, after class I found my jacket gone. I saw two boys running out of the hallway, carrying the jacket that I had received for my birthday. My family wasn’t rich, so my mother had saved up for it for weeks. I tried to chase after them, but there was no hope. They were long gone before I reached the end of the corridor.


I just continued to walk back and forth at the end of the hallway. I knew that recess was over, but I didn’t care. I remember that I had started crying. I was so down. I couldn’t imagine going home, telling my mother that someone had stolen the expensive jacket she had bought me. She would be so mad... And I hated it when my mother got mad at me.


But then, you came. Just looking at you, I couldn’t contain myself. I remember the sobs that shook my frame. Carefully, with your normal soft, almost soundless steps, you approached me. And ever so gently, you asked what was wrong. Your kind words and concern broke me completely.


I remember that I spilled everything, how those boys had stolen my jacket, even how my mother had saved up to get it for me for my birthday. You pulled me against you, and let me cry against your bony chest. Sometimes you would whisper soft words of nothingness to comfort me. They weren’t many, but they were there, comforting me, eventually causing my tears to dry up and my sobs to soften and slowly disappear like they were never there.


I didn’t understand then, and I understand even less now, sweet Harry. How could you be so gentle? How could you comfort me of all people? After everything I had said to you... Despite all the horrible things I did to you... Why were you still so kind, Harry?





After I had stopped crying, we hurried over to our class. We were late, but I didn't care. I don't think you cared either. At least if you did, you never said anything. But then again, you never did complain either.


I told you to wait five minutes outside before going in after me. You didn't ask why, and I'm glad you didn't. Though I think you knew. No... I know you knew why I didn't want to go in with you. We both knew that I would never want to be seen being friendly with you. I didn't want anyone thinking we were friends. So you simply nodded. As I walked in and sat at my desk, giving an excuse to the teacher, I was afraid that you would come in sooner. But no, exactly five minutes later, you walked in with your own excuse. No one ever suspected a thing. And why would they?


School ended three hours later. We had left you alone all day. I think it was a relief for you. But that relief wouldn't last long. As soon as we had exited the school building, we looked for you. It took us only a few seconds to see your small form among the student body. We came over to you, and practically dragged you behind the school. You didn't scream. You didn't fight. No, you just came along quietly. It was the same as every other time. After all, even if you did scream, no one would come to your rescue. There were no adults outside, and no other pupils cared what happened to you. You knew that, so you just... didn't fight the inevitable.


I didn't care about earlier that day. I pushed away all those soft words you had spoken to me in comfort. I repressed the memories of your thin arms around me in a comforting embrace. I didn't want to remember you that way. We scratched you. We hit you. We kicked you when you fell down. And then, when you were down, bleeding from the scratches we had caused on your face, an eye starting to swell, clutching your stomach that I had kicked three times, I accused you of stealing my jacket.


I actually accused you, the person that had comforted me. I even took your jacket, saying that it would be a nice payment for stealing from me... Sure, it wasn't as nice or as expensive as the one my mom gave me, but I could just tell her that me and a friend of mine swapped clothes for fun. I was sure she wouldn't mind.


After that, we left you alone on the ground. It had started raining, the wind picking up in strength. You had to walk home in a small storm without a jacket. I wonder if that was why you didn't come to school the next day. Did you get ill? How cold were you that day Harry?





One day, during the first lesson, we had a test. A bullying test. You know the kind; where you have to cross in the squares about whether you were bullied or bullying someone else? The teacher was using the rest of the lesson to rant about the wrongness of bulling. Well, that was how it was supposed to be.


The teacher just asked us some questions. We side-tracked a lot. After all, we didn’t really need this. Our class was great, after all. Everyone was friends. We included everyone in what we did. No one was left out. At least, that was how our class seemed to all of our teachers: The model class.


Poor Harry... Not ever the teachers really noticed you, except when something was wrong. That was the only time you were noticed by anyone.


One example of this was a few days later. We had a test, and like always, I hadn’t bothered to study. I wasn’t the only one that hadn’t. My best friends, Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan hadn’t bothered to either. And why would we? We knew we could just get you to help us. You always did what we told you to, after all. I have to wonder now, did you listen to us in a vain hope that maybe, just maybe, we would someday give you a thank you?


Then, without you noticing, the teacher came. You, only you were caught cheating. You didn’t cheat, we all knew that. You didn’t need to. No, the only reason you did was because we threatened you like we always did. Even though everyone knew this, no one spoke up. We kept our silence. I still remember the disappointed look the teacher gave you. I still remember his stern voice as he declared to the entire class what your grade would be.


You didn’t say anything. You didn’t protest. Never have I ever heard a single complaint escape your lips. You simply sat there, accepting our punishment. Accepting our F. You didn’t deserve it, and you knew that; yet, for some unfathomable reason, you accepted it without as much as a sound of argument.


Sometimes I wonder, did you deep down think you deserved it? Deserved it all, due to some strange reason buried deep inside of your consciousness? Or perhaps you simply were unselfish. You never did seem to think of yourself whatsoever. Which reminds me, do you remember when you were the Jesus Child, Harry?





Winter in seventh grade, I'll never forget that winter. Not only did my great aunt visit that winter, which always get me in the worst of moods, but I also took it out on you. I think that might've been the worst winter that you ever experienced in your life. I never did like my great aunt. And neither did my father. She was always pestering him about work and the likes.


I talked to the whole class. They thought it sounded like great fun. And of course, none of them ever passed up the chance to hurt you. You were just too amusing a victim for any of them to pass up. And so, when food recess arrived, we had a great time. And like always, you were the one to suffer from it. We grabbed your head, and continued to shake you until you were so dizzy, you had problems standing. I remember that me and Dean clung to your jacket as you fell, ripping it off. One of the arms was torn off, and the zipper was completely ruined.


But we didn't stop there. We were laughing, all of us. You had started crying. I still remember how the tears running down your reddening cheeks looked about to freeze to ice. You looked so cold where you lay on the ground. But that wasn't enough for us. We were on a roll, and none of us wanted to stop.


We took an armful of snow and threw it on you. You tried to shake it off, but we were so many, that by the time you had managed to shake off what one person had thrown on you, seven other would throw more snow on top of your shivering body. Even though you were crying, no sound escaped you. It never did.


After a while, all fight in you ceased, and you let us scoff all that snow over you, covering you completely from view. No one could even see that we had disturbed the snow lying there. You stopped struggling because you thought we would be done by then, didn't you? But no, we thought that was why you had stopped, so we started sliding over you, causing the snow to press against you.


Was it dark in there Harry? Could you see the white snow on top of you? Or did you just see blackness, the same kind of blackness that we all see as we close our eyes or turn off all of the lights in the house? Did you see anything at all?





When next recess arrived, you hadn't been in class. None of us were worried, and the teachers figured out you had just decided to skip. They thought you impossible. Did you know that Harry? Did you know that it took two hours of absence, before the teacher decided to look for you?


The teacher found you lying there in the snow. I can still hear the sirens of the ambulance when I close my eyes. You were driven immediately to the hospital. The teacher was so worried. The next day when we arrived at school, we were told to write a get well letter to you, one letter each. We were told that you had fainted of a headache in the snow. We all knew why, but we never said anything. I remember feeling annoyed that I had to waste my time, writing a letter to you, even though it was my fault that you were in the hospital in the first place.


Of course, being the perfect model class and wonderful classmates that we were, we wrote you the get better cards. We even bought you a box of confetti to go with it. The teacher was so proud of us, and she didn't hesitate to tell us so either. But we were ourselves even then, and we would never get caught red-handed being kind to you of all people.


I wished back then that I could've seen your reaction as you opened those letters, and saw those threats, where we dared you to tell what we had done. I wished I could've seen your reaction as you opened the already opened box of confetti, and saw that there were only a few chocolates left, the ones that no one in our class liked. What I want to know now is what went through your mind 


When you saw all those things. Was that when those thoughts started? Or had they started a long time ago?





It took two weeks before I saw you at school again. For some reason, you seemed even smaller than before you went to the hospital. Didn't you eat properly at the hospital? Or were the portions you got just smaller then what you had at home?


You might have spoken little before, but now it was even more evident. You never spoke more then a few sentences a day. And that was only when the teacher asked you a question, which wasn't often. You also avoided us more. You seemed so scared, so small- so innocent and terrified. We didn't do anything at first. Nothing; and that seemed to scare you more then anything else.


A week after your return, we struck again. You didn't find your schoolbooks in your shelf one day. Of course you didn't find them in your shelf. They were all in my bag. You were pretty much finished with all of your homework, since you never did anything else then work, you never had anything else to do. So now I wouldn't have to worry about that anymore. And neither did my friends. In our eyes, it was the most brilliant thing we had come up with until now.


How did they react at home, when teachers sent notes about you not doing your homework? How did they react at home, when they discovered how quickly your grades sunk? How was your home life at this time, Harry?





Summer came. We only had a few weeks left of school until summer vacation. The class decided together that it would be fun to take a small outing with the class to the beach one day. I noticed that you smiled a little. Even you were excited for this small trip. Were you hoping that we would leave you alone on such a day?


That day, I remember curling my lips in slight disgust as I saw you. You were so skinny, so very skinny, in your blue boxers. You were practically skin and bones. No meat on you at all. You looked like a skeleton with skin stretched over its bones. I found it disgusting.


For a while, we all ignored your existence. We had so much fun, throwing a ball back and forth in the semi-warm water. It was freezing when you took your first step into it, but we quickly got used to it. We had no care in the world, and for a while, I forgot all about the thin organism that was Harry Potter. I'm sure if someone had mentioned your name at that moment, I would have responded with a “Harry who?”


But then... we got bored. And as you know, when we get bored, you're the one who suffers. We had no reason for it. You just looked so peaceful, swimming calmly in the water, a smile of bliss on your face. We did it only for our own amusement, for fun. I remember that I jumped on your back, and someone held your head under water. We were all clinging to you, dragging you under. You had no chance against us. We were ten, and you were one. I remember hearing coughing noises coursing through your body as you swallowed water, over and over.


I wish I could ask you why you never screamed for help.





After a while, you fainted. It was Lavender who noticed and remarked on it. If she hadn't, we might have drowned you by accident. I remember laughing as Gregory and Vincent grabbed you by the hair and dragged you to shore. All of us were following, trying our hardest to stifle our snickers and giggles. We all managed to look concerned for your well-being by the time we reached the teacher.


The teacher started to give you mouth to mouth, and push on your small, pale chest. The teacher started to look more and more concerned as time went by. We had been closer to drowning you then we thought. None of us felt remorse, however, and we had to hold back laughter as the teacher put his mouth to yours. However, after a while of CPR, the teacher managed to get life into you again.


You started to cough out water. I remember how weak you looked. You just laid there for a few minutes, blinking at us before standing up, not saying anything to the teacher. The teacher asked us what had happened, and we hesitated for a few seconds before Draco saved us. Poor Harry, his leg cramped while swimming, and it was too deep for him to stand.


I think I should research whether you dream when you lose consciousness. If you do, I wonder what you dreamt about. Did you meet your parents in your sleep maybe? Was that how the thoughts started to take shape?





Finally, at the end of June we said farewell to our last day of eighth grade. A new year awaited us in two months, and along with it, new adventures and new stories to tell. We were all excited, but what we loved most was vacation. We were thrilled. I remember telling everyone about my upcoming trip to Egypt to visit my oldest brother.


None of us bothered to bully you during the last week of school. When we were happy, we had no aggression to get out. And without any aggression, we had no motivation to bother you. I guess you were happy then. When we were happy, you were left alone. Was it lonely, not being noticed at all?


During the summer holiday, I didn't see you whatsoever. I didn't mind at all. And I doubt you minded much. Did you enjoy your vacation Harry? Not only was it your vacation from school, but was it also your vacation from us, your tormentors?





The two months passed, and on the 22nd of August we started a new school year. I remember seeing you, smaller then ever before. If it was possible, you were even skinnier and even paler. I remember feeling a shiver run up my spine, and I had to wonder why you were so thin. Why did you never gain any weight? Did you dread school that much?


But my curiosity quickly left me, making room for more cruelty. We beat you up at the first recess, covering you with bruises. Some of us had made friends with some people from other classes during summer vacation, and we knew the people a year underneath us; so this time there were even more people then usual beating you up.


The bullying increased. It was now worse then ever. We beat you up at least once a week. There wasn't a day when you didn't sport multiple bruises across your petite body. And yet, the teachers didn't notice. If anyone else was even slightly bullied, they noticed immediately. But not with you. They ignored you. They didn't want to see.


Even the new students at the school never talked to you. You were completely isolated. No one wanted anything to do with you. We all froze you out completely. You never had a single friend during the school years; and I have to wonder, did you even have any friends that you hung out with after school? Or were you completely alone?


I remember stealing a lot from you during that time. And I wasn't the only one; we all did. If you had something we liked, if you had something we wanted, we took it from you. I remember stealing your shoes and socks once. You had to walk all the way home clad with nothing on your feet. It was winter, -5 degrees C. The ground was covered in snow. Was it cold walking all the way home with your bare feet? I can imagine that you must've had some sort of frost damage when you arrived home.


You must’ve had it terrible Harry.





But then, one day when I got to school, everything changed. I noticed that you weren't there. And that was an oddity in itself. You never missed school unless we had done something to keep you from attending school. I remember shrugging it off, thinking you must've been too afraid or something.


Then the teacher came in. He didn't say anything. He didn't tell us to take up our books; he didn't tell us what we were to do that day. He had nothing to say. All he did, was stand there, ashen pale. Then our Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore entered the room. His expression told us that it was grave news he had come to deliver.


He opened his mouth, the word 'he' escaping his lips before he closed his mouth again. He cleared his voice, squishing his eyes closed, as if it pained him to say this. "Harry Potter drowned himself last night."


I remember the chills running up my spine. I remember the horrible guilty feeling overwhelming me. I remember what flashed in my mind. 'Myfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfault' It was like a mantra, repeating itself over and over. It never seemed to end. It was silent. No one said anything. And it made the mantra in my head so much clearer, so much louder. I felt like crying. I felt like drowning myself. For surely, what I had done could never be forgiven, right?


And it was then that I realized... you had never done anything. You were completely innocent. We had tormented you. We had driven you to suicide. We had... ruined you, broken you, and torn you asunder. And as I looked around the classroom, I thought that none of us had the right to be sitting there, breathing. It was all of us that should've been found in the water, dead. Not you. You were innocent. You were pure. We were defiled. We were filthy.


And I realized that our crimes were too many to count. While the only crime you had ever committed was: You started school a week too late.


It was so quiet in the classroom that I could hear the birds outside sing. The flowers had started blooming, the spring was here fully. A thought suddenly hit me, and that was what finally broke me. It caused me to cry, tears slipping down my cheeks. Unlike my normally loud screaming when I was crying, this time it was silent. I cried the way you cried when we did something extremely cruel and/or painful. Silently.


What a perfect day you died on, Harry.


O O O


- Letter that Ronald Weasley laid inside the coffin of one Harry James Potter.

Name: TonksAsKid
House: Of the Badgers - Hufflepuff!
URL: http://ashwinder.sycophanthex.com/viewstory.php?sid=16888

AU - What if Severus Snape hadn't died in the Shrieking Shack, well not completely...



"That was an interesting experience," the spirit of Severus Snape reflected.

Nothing that one would want to repeat on a regular basis, of course, but apparently the underlying theory was sound enough, and the process had worked.

That left the minor inconvenience of being adrift without a body.

It was an odd sensation to say the least, ripped and torn from his normal fleshy abode. He was left with some vague perception of the world around him, but he lacked the ability to do anything about it. The universe was suddenly monochromatic and he drifted in it like a jellyfish in a tepid sea. He was also dimly aware that his late body was lying bloody, mangled and motionless on the floor of the Shrieking Shack.

"Too bad," he mused. "It wasn't much, but I was used to it."

He remembered the Dark Lord's killing command and the sudden lunge of the great snake, but succeeding events seemed rather hazy and distant at the moment.

With a mental shrug he searched his memory for the next step in the process.

Ah yes. Possession, that was the ticket. He needed to find some sort of corporeal entity that he could possess while he made plans for the future.

He drifted, ghostlike, toward the location that he knew the best, his home away from home. Actually, when you got right down to it, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was more of a home than the house he owned at Spinners End. He had certainly spent a lot more of his time there, he reflected grimly.

Snape felt himself moving toward a concentration of life force in the castle. His disembodied spirit was drawn to it, and one particular entity in the conglomeration seemed almost magnetic to him in his current condition. It was oddly familiar and attracted him in a way that he couldn't quite define.

He had the strange sensation of trying to fit a metaphysical square peg into a round hole, but by dint of a sort of squeezing, his spirit slid awkwardly into its new home and slotted firmly into place.

The body's eyes were closed, and its rightful owner seemed to be out for the count. No problem. As long as the body was alive--it was, because he could feel the respiration and heartbeat--and in reasonable condition he could cope.

About then, the eyelids lifted and a soft moan came out of the lips. The body blinked and looked around.

Snape saw the Hogwarts Great Hall through eyes that were not his and it was not a pretty sight. Dust and smoky fumes still drifted through the room, there was debris on the floor, and it was obvious that hostilities had not long been over. There were Death Eaters, Ministry employees, students and Order members strewn across the flagstones. Some were struggling to their feet, others were twitching, and some--he particularly noted Remus Lupin--were obviously never going to move again.

"The last of the Marauders," he thought, and was almost sad. "A good enemy is a lot more dependable than most friends. Not that I've ever had many of the latter, come to think of it."

The body in which he was ensconced stiffened.

"Who said that? Who's there? I can feel you in my mind. Ohmigod, not Voldemort!"

"No," Snape wearily assured the suddenly tense Miss Hermione Granger, "merely a traitorous minion and half-blood Prince."

"SEVERUS SNAPE?" she said, aghast, as she suddenly sat up on the hard pallet where she had been dozing.

"The very same."

"You're dead!" she blurted out. "I saw Nagini kill you. You're dead!"

"Not entirely dead. Just sort of dead."

"What do you mean, sort of dead?" She felt a tentative tug at her vocal cords, as if someone was assessing control possibilities. "Don't even think about it!" she snarled in a low voice, causing a couple of Hufflepuffs afflicted with green-tentacled warts to glance around at her.

"There is this little thing called a Horcrux," Snape said delicately, abandoning attempts to control her voice.

"I don't care about Horcruxes! I have had enough of Horcruxes to last me a lifetime! What are you doing in my mind?"

"Slumming," he said snidely.

"Well, get out! Go possess Neville's toad or something. Just get out of my head!"

"Unfortunately, that is not an option at the moment."

"Wait a minute! You have to murder someone to create a Horcrux!"

"Ten points from Gryffindor for stating the obvious," her body's cohabitant said, with as much sarcasm as he could muster sans vocal cords. He wondered idly if the hourglass in the entry hall would register the points.

"It was Dumbledore!" she yelped with sudden insight, as she staggered to her feet from the pallet where she had been catching a few moments rest. "You actually made a Horcrux when you killed Dumbledore! You horrible... despicable... rotten... "

"It seemed a shame to waste an event like that," Snape said, and Hermione could almost see him shrug.

"Oh! That's ... that's..."

"You've already used rotten, horrible, and despicable," Snape said helpfully. "And I suggest that you lower your voice. You are attracting attention."

Hermione grimaced, nodded to the nearby survivors who were looking at her with frightened curiosity, and made her way rather shakily to the small antechamber off of the Great Hall.

"How could you!" she said, slamming the door behind her and pacing angrily back and forth across the room as she swatted the palm of her left hand with her wand.

"Rather easily, actually. It was Albus who suggested it. Waste not, want not, he said."

"What did you use for a Horcrux?" she asked suddenly.

"Oh no, Miss Granger. I have no intention of telling you that. The knowledge would undoubtedly provoke you to a search, followed by the destruction of my last link with this world and my subsequent annihilation."

"I don't care about your annihilation! Just go away and leave me alone!"

"First of all, I can't. Second, I have no place to go even if I did manage to find a way out of this mess that you call your mind. I assure you, Miss Granger, if I had a choice of bodies to possess, it would not be yours."

He realized that he was lying about that, and paused to wonder what it was about Miss Granger that had enticed his wandering spirit.

"And just what is wrong with my body?" Hermione demanded, coming to a halt in the middle of the room and glowering around as if looking for someone to hex.

"In the first place, it is female, with the usual female accouterments. I am not accustomed to having jiggly bits on my chest."

"Jiggly! That's rich, coming from the Great Black Bat of the dungeons! I'll have you know..."

Fortunately, what was rapidly descending into a schoolyard slanging match was interrupted by the door opening and a very relieved male voice saying, "Hermione! I've been worried sick!"

"Ron, you're alive!"

"Oh, well spotted, Miss Granger," the voice in her head said.

Ron Weasley moved to take her in his arms.

"Eeeyow! NO! Get away from me, you redheaded pervert!"

Despite her best intentions, Hermione shrank back from Ron's embrace.

"What's the matter?" he asked, slightly offended.

"Nothing! I mean, I'm sorry but I guess I'm having a nervous reaction or something."

Ron sighed deeply. "Yeah, I understand that. This has been one hell of a day." He put a companionable arm around her shoulders and steered her out of the antechamber and back toward the turmoil in the Great Hall again. "Come on, what you need is a sedative potion from Madam Pomfrey."

"Humph," Snape said. "Since when has that idiot boy been any kind of expert on healing or potions? He's been copying your notes for six years!"

"Oh shut up!" Hermione thought snappishly. "I'm going to take a double dose of Dreamless Sleep and you'd damn well better be gone when I wake up!"

"Not a chance," Snape said sourly. "Here I am, and here I stay. At least until I can get another body of my own."

Hermione sighed, causing Ron to tighten his arm around her shoulders and mutter soothing things in her ear.

Snape's response to that was lurid and profane.

* * *


They didn't have to go to the hospital wing for Hermione's potion. Madam Pomfrey had set up a triage ward in the Great Hall itself and was processing patients on an assembly line basis. She had apparently sent a hurry-up call to St. Mungo's, because green-robed Healers were starting to Apparate into the Hall with sharp cracks.

"But you can't Apparate in Hogwarts or its grounds," Hermione said, perplexed.

"Stupid girl!" Snape said.

"Don't call ME stupid! I'm not the one who's discorporate and mooching space in someone else's body!"

"Point taken, Miss Granger. Very well. I meant to explain that the Dark Lord broke the wards and the protective spells around the castle."

"Oh right. He would have done that."

"Who would have done what?" Ron asked, looking at her with concern.

"Voldemort."

"Oh, him. Yeah, whatever. Uh, maybe you ought to have Madam Pomfrey check you for concussion while we're at it."

"Tell that moron that you are all right and send him on his way!" Snape demanded.

Hermione did her best to ignore her ex-teacher. On top of everything else, he was giving her a headache.

The matron barely had time to run a diagnostic wand over Hermione, give her a generous phial of Dreamless Sleep, and shove a small jar of healing salve at her for the miscellaneous burns, bruises, and contusions before turning back to the scores of seriously-hexed patients.

"There's one thing to be said for hex battles," Hermione remarked, glancing at a Ravenclaw fifth-year who had sprouted a wreath of bright yellow tentacles on top of her head, "they're not particularly bloody. I mean, you're either dead or you're not, right?"

"May I remind you, Miss Granger, that my body is presently stretched out in a puddle of gore in that travesty of a habitation that you call the Shrieking Shack?"

"Not anymore it isn't," Hermione muttered, nodding toward Harry and Seamus, who were walking in from the Entrance Hall lugging a limp black-clad body between them. Snape's wand slipped out of the deceased wizard's robes and rolled across the floor. Hermione bent to pick it up, looking at the sallow-skinned, greasy-haired, blood-drenched and undeniably moribund wizard with distaste.

"Could you try for blond and well-groomed next time?" she asked, slipping the black wand into her sleeve.

"Like that imbecile Lockhart, I suppose?"

"Hermione, you're not well!" Ron said. "Let's go up to the common room; you can stretch out on a couch and get some rest."

"Go to my office. The Headmaster's office!" Snape demanded. "I need to talk to Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore is dead," Hermione mumbled aloud.

"Ah, right," Ron said, helping her over the vanishing step in the middle of the staircase. "He's been dead for quite a few months now. Are you SURE that your head is okay?"

"His portrait, you blithering... ! I need to talk to his portrait. Albus is the one who got me into this situation. He must know some way to get me out of it."

The Fat Lady was away from her picture--presumably watching the downstairs scenes from a better vantage point--but in the confusion she had left the portrait door ajar and the two weary Gryffindors staggered into the silent and empty common room with relief.

"Ron, I've got something to tell you," Hermione said, dropping down into a squishy armchair.

"And I've got something to tell you!" he said, sinking to his knees in front of her. "You were fantastic! Magnificent!" He stretched out his arms to embrace her.

"GHHHHHH!!! Keep your frigging hands to yourself!"

"Oh bloody hell!" Hermione yelled, cowering back in the chair.

Ron stared at her, his hands still groping in the empty air.

"Did you get hexed and haven't told me about it?"

"No. Well, yes. Sort of."

"What do you mean?"

"It's Snape," she quavered. "He's possessing me. His spirit, I mean."

"Snape? I thought he was dead."

"He's mostly dead," she replied, remembered the line from a movie her parents had rented several years past.

"You mean he's here? In your MIND?"

She nodded.

Ron dropped his arms and frowned at her. "Well, tell the b*****d to get the hell out!"

"I did! He won't go. He said he doesn't have any other place to go."

Ron ran a hand through his hair, leaving spikes standing up in all directions.

"He looks like a drunken grindylow in a ginger wig," Snape commented.

"Shut up!" Hermione thought firmly.

"So, what do we do now?" Ron asked. "Look for an exorcist?"

"I don't know!" Hermione twisted her hands together. "All I do know is that this is going to put one hell of a crimp in my sex life and I haven't even got one started yet!"

"Right. I think I'll go get Harry." He nodded, scrambled to his feet, and hurried out through the portrait hole.

"Now, Miss Granger," Snape purred in her mind. "Shall we go to see Albus Dumbledore?"

* * *


The gargoyle in front of the magic escalator to the Headmaster's office was out of its customary position and looked decidedly the worse for wear. It didn't wait for a password, merely squinted at Hermione as she stepped across it with an automatic, "Excuse me."

The spiral escalator was still in working order, and the door at the top of the landing was open. She could hear a spirited conversation going on among a throng of people. It sounded like a cocktail party after the third round of drinks.

"... hit her right in the heart. I couldn't have done better myself!"

"Unfortunate lot of smoke damage, though."

"...so I went directly to St. Mungo's!"

"If we had a vantage point in the Great Hall..."

"... and then I saw Headmaster's body brought in."

The voices stopped abruptly as Hermione stepped into the room, but the portraits of past Headmasters and Headmistresses were apparently too excited over recent events to bother with pretending to be asleep. They gazed at her with bright-eyed interest.

Dumbledore beamed down at her from his gold-framed canvas behind the Headmaster's desk.

"Miss Granger! How are things going downstairs?"

"Aside from the hex damage, the fifty-some dead people, and the fact that half of the castle is ruined, about as well as you'd expect."

"Unfortunate, very unfortunate. As Everard just commented, there aren't any pictures in the Great Hall, so none of us have been able to get a first-hand account of the recovery operations. I think we really must arrange for a nice large landscape painting to hang behind the High Table, something with trees, flowers and a lawn for a picnic." He cleared his throat. "However, that is for later. Now that Voldemort is dead, the worst is over and the healing process can begin!"

"Yes, but there is one little problem."

"And what might that be?"

"I've got Professor Snape in my head."

Dumbledore looked nonplussed for a moment, then smiled broadly and said, "Severus! My dear boy! When no portrait of you appeared up here I knew that you must have survived. So it worked, did it?"

"You may tell him it worked just as we expected," Snape said, and added with irritation, "since you're too proprietary to allow me the use of your voice."

"He says," Hermione said, "to tell you that everything worked just as the two of you expected."

"Splendid! Severus is too valuable a person for me to simply allow him to die, and this way my death did serve a noble purpose."

"Fine," Hermione said. "I appreciate the sentiment, but I really would like him out of my mind."

"Oh my," Dumbledore said, looking over the tops of his half-moon-shaped glasses at her. "Really? Severus is quite a brilliant man and I would think that you, with your scholarly attainments, might enjoy the experience."

"Well, I don't! I want him evicted! Banished! There is only room for one person in this head and that person is me!"

"Calm down, Miss Granger, you're hyperventilating. If it's any consolation, I would just as soon be on my way too. I have never been the social--or even gregarious--sort of man and these quarters are rather cramped for two."

"Ummm. Yes, I can see where it would be a trifle inconvenient for both of you," Dumbledore said, stroking his long white beard. "There is a spell that reconstructs a wizard's body. It's a very old spell and from what Harry told me, it's the one that Peter Pettigrew used to restore Voldemort's body."

"Bones, blood and flesh," Hermione said, nodding. "Harry told me about that. But doesn't Professor Snape have to be alone in some kind of body of his own first, if the spell is going to work?"

"I'm not precisely certain of that," Dumbledore said. "I remember reading the directions somewhere, but memory declines after a century or so, unfortunately. The specifics of the potion ingredients might localize the spell. On the other hand, you may need to incarnate Severus in some other body first, which I believe is what Pettigrew did with Lord Voldemort before he brought him back from Albania. I'll have to refresh my mind on transference spells. I believe betony is required. Or is it dittany? In the meantime, I'm sure that the two of you can co-exist pleasantly enough until we get it straightened out!" He beamed at her.

She nodded glumly and turned to go.

"Oh, by the way, Severus! Minerva was up here and looked at your memories in the Pensieve. The poor woman was quite overcome. She'll be delighted to have you back as Headmaster. Which reminds me; don't forget about the Wizarding Education Symposium in Harrogate next Tuesday. And do see about that landscape painting for the Great Hall."

"Marvelous. Four hours dead, and he's still trying to run my life. Onward, Miss Granger!"

Behind them, the portraits continued their spirited discussion of the Great Battle of Hogwarts.

"Frankly, I don't think Dumbledore has a clue about how to solve this problem," Hermione muttered, as they headed back down the stone escalator.

"Old twinkle-eyes strikes again," Snape said in agreement. "Potions never was his strong point."

"If you ask me, he popped one too many sherbet lemons. I guess we'd better start collecting ingredients for the rejuvenation potion though, so we'll have them ready. At least blood of an enemy won't be a problem. You've got nearly two decades of Potions students to draw from."

"Funny, Miss Granger. Very funny. I'm not sure I want a replica of my old body anyway."

"Oh no you don't! If you think you're going to stay in my mind for the foreseeable future, you can just think again. And why wouldn't you want your body back? You were certainly uncomplimentary enough about mine a little while ago!"

Snape did a credible imitation of snorting; which was no small feat without a nose or a pair of lungs. "I am not looking forward to being recognizable, and open to attack by every wizard on the street, for killing beloved old Albus!"

"Not a problem," Hermione said dismissively.

"I beg your pardon? Not a problem for you, I suppose."

"Remember when the Daily Prophet printed all of those articles about Harry being a liar, and Dumbledore being half-crazy?"

"Yes, Miss Granger. I have lost my body, not my memory."

"Do you ever remember reading a retraction?"

There was silence in her head for a long moment.

"No, actually I don't," Snape said finally.

"Right. Which means that the average wizard on the street probably still believes that Dumbledore was a balmy old sod and deserved what he got. And I'm beginning to think they're right," she added in an undertone.

"Good point."

"So, what's the first step in getting your body back? Or, some kind of body back? Are we going to have to create one of those wizened little horrors like Pettigrew brought back from Albania?"

"I would rather forgo that step, if at all possible."

"It does sound sort of yucky. But I'm pretty sure that you need some kind of body to dump in the cauldron with the other ingredients or it doesn't work. And before you get any bright ideas," she added, "no, I am not going to sit in an over-sized stew pot with a bunch of Dark Magic gunk while someone chants incantations over me."

"That's not very altruistic of you, Miss Granger. You were the one leading the fight for liberation of the house-elves, were you not?"

"I was," she conceded, "but the way that I understand it, whoever or whatever gets dumped into the pot comes out as a reincarnation of the directing spirit. I am not interested in coming out looking like you. I have trouble enough with my own hair."

"Humph."
* * *


Harry and Ron pounced on her as soon as she went in through the portrait hole.

"Hermione!" Harry gasped. "Seamus and I carried Snape's body back to the castle from the Shrieking Shack, but now Ron says that he isn't dead!"

"Not completely dead, at any rate," Hermione said, sounding very tired. "When Snape killed Dumbledore he made a Horcrux."

They gasped.

She waved her hand impatiently. "Dumbledore told him to. That's what's keeping him aware, if not technically alive. Unfortunately, he decided to take up residence in my mind."

"Such as it is," Snape said.

They saw her to a chair and Harry chaffed her hands anxiously. "Have you had any blackouts, like Ginny did when Voldemort took her over? Do you know what you've been doing? Are you missing any time?"

"Harry, it's only been a little over four hours since Professor Snape was killed and I assure you that I remember every damned minute of them. Well, except for a bit of a lie-down in the Great Hall when I had to rest. I only closed my eyes for a little while."

"Aha!" Harry said.

"A typical in-depth comment," Snape said. "How you have been able to put up with these two imbeciles for six years is beyond me."

"I think it's a damned imposition!" Ron blurted out. "After all, you're MY girl!"

"Yes, Ron, but Professor Snape doesn't have anywhere else to go at the moment," Hermione said, leaning back in the chair and suddenly feeling every ache and pain that she'd acquired in the battle.

"I don't care!" Ron said "He's a killer and a traitor and he has no business possessing my girlfriend!"

Harry looked a little embarrassed. "Uh, Ron, I took a look at some Pensieve memories that Snape gave me just before he died in the Shrieking Shack, and it turns out that we were wrong all along. Snape was a nasty, bad-tempered, greasy-haired git ..."

"Thank you so much, Mister Potter!"

"... but he was loyal to Dumbledore and the Order all along."

"And just look where it got me!" Snape said. "I can't even pour myself a shot of Ogden's, and if he'd been through what I'd been through he'd know that I definitely need one!"

Tossing back his black hair, Harry looked Hermione square in the eyes and said, "Professor Snape, I hope you will accept my apology for doubting you. And I'm really, REALLY sorry that I ever called you a coward."

There was dead silence.

"Well?" Ron said, looking back and forth between his two friends.

"I'm smirking inside," Snape said.

"He says that he accepts your apology, and to think nothing more of it," Hermione translated, as she got wearily to her feet. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get some sleep."

She trudged across the floor, toward the doorway to the girls' dorm. Behind her, Harry and Ron were plotting ways to evict Snape. The latter was not surprised that none of their ideas were even remotely feasible.

* * *


Getting ready for bed had its own elements of interest, what with Snape being present in mind if not in body as Hermione stripped, washed off the worst of the battle dust, and stumbled toward her bed.

Snape couldn't claim that he was an unwilling observer. Hermione's seventeen-year-old body was certainly delectable, with lush creamy thighs, high firm breasts, and a curly thatch of hair..... that was just calling for someone like him to comb through it with his fingers.

Snape had never been attractive to the average witch, and the events of the last decade had kept him from forming any real relationships. Admittedly, there were a few interludes with Bellatrix and Narcissa which he remembered with satisfaction. In fact, he thought that he'd acquitted himself pretty damned well. The ladies had been appreciative and Voldemort had approved. The Dark Lord expected Snape to behave like a sensual cad, and he'd done his best to oblige -- all in the interests of staying in character, of course!

The sight of Hermione's naked body reminded him of numerous interesting things that would probably be very pleasurable to do with her, and he began making a mental checklist. If he ever got out of this situation and back into a body of his own, he intended to further his acquaintance with the buxom little witch. The war was over, Voldemort was dead--not only merely dead, but most sincerely dead--and even Dumbledore had been cured, permanently, of messing up Snape's life. Things were on the upswing for a change, even if he was dead.

Hermione was so groggy with fatigue by then that she didn't waste any time agonizing over there being an observer. She pulled on a cotton nightgown and was producing gentle lady-like snores practically as soon as she hit the pillow--leaving her cohabitant awake, aware, and plotting what to do next.
* * *


By the time morning dawned, the situation in the castle had been fairly well sorted out. The sick and injured were either in the hospital wing, in St. Mungo's, or nursing their aches and pains at home with their families. The staff members were checking out the damage to the castle, making repairs, and setting house-elves to cleaning up the mess. Grieving relatives collected the dead and made plans for funerals.

McGonagall reassembled Dumbledore's nice white tomb by the lake, remarking as she did so that he looked surprisingly good for someone who had been dead for six months.

Harry insisted that Snape's body rest in state as a hero of the wizarding nation, which presented a problem because no one was exactly sure just where that ought to take place, Hogwarts lacking a rotunda or even a chapel. They finally settled on the Room of Requirement.

"But it got burned out, didn't it?" Hermione asked at breakfast.

She, Ron, and Harry were among about thirty students scattered among the house tables, plus the faculty members, who still remained at the castle. The tables were loaded with food enough for ten times that number. Apparently the house-elves were too upset to bother scaling down, and were working out their post-traumatic distress with Monte Cristo sandwiches, Belgium waffles, crepes Suzette, and fancy omelettes.

"Nope, only the stuff in the Room of Requirement got incinerated," Harry said, pouring himself a glass of pumpkin juice. "I guess that's part of the magic of the place. Anyway the walls are stone underneath, and stone doesn't burn. I went up there with Professor Flitwick early this morning, and we asked for a proper sort of memorial room. It's really nice, with a white marble floor and columns, stained glass pictures of dead wizards I never heard of, lilies in baskets, and everything. It smells a bit of charred wood and singed drapery, but there's plenty of room for Snape, Tonks and... and Remus." His voice broke a bit on the last name.

"He wants to put my body next to the werewolf and that multi-hued clueless shape-changer? No! I won't have it!" Snape declared.

"Shut up," Hermione thought, munching a piece of toast. "You're not in a position to object to anything."

"So, how long are you going to leave them there?" Ron asked, shoveling cheese omelet into his mouth.

"At least until Tuesday," Harry said. "Andromeda Tonks is making arrangements for Tonks and Remus. It's Snape that's the problem. No one's quite sure what to do with him." He glanced at Hermione. "Sorry, Professor, but that's the way that it is."

"You can't leave any of them up there for too long," Ron said practically, as he reached for a jelly doughnut. "The weather being as warm as it is."

"That boy is an unfeeling clod," Snape said with some surprise. "I knew he was an incompetent moron, but I expected a little sensibility."

"Stasis charms," Harry said indistinctly, through his porridge.

"Wonderful. I can stay there forever and be one of the marvels of the castle for incoming first-years to gawk at."

"Can't you just shove him in with Dumbledore?" Ron asked, taking the last rashers off of the bacon dish. "It would be a tight squeeze, but neither of them would notice, right?"

"Ron!" Hermione said.

"I am entitled to my own resting place in the ancient mausoleum of the Prince family!" Snape said, radiating outrage.

"What about the Prince family?" Hermione asked, "or the Snapes. Professor Snape must have some relatives."

"We're working on it."

Hermione got to her feet. "I'm going to the library. Professor Snape and I have to look up some spells."

* * *
Hermione shut the cover on Magick Moste Foule and sneezed. "I guess that's it," she said. "We've got the list of basic ingredients for the rejuvenation solution."

"Which does not include betony OR dittany."

She smiled slightly. "We still need to get the personalized items, though, starting with blood of the enemy."

"There's always Potter."

"I don't think that will work," she said. "Harry used to be your enemy, but now that he's found out you were true-blue, loyal, and Dumbledore's man all the time, he's gone kind of soppy and remorseful. So, we've got to look elsewhere for the blood, even if we have to wring it out of a dead man's veins."

"My, my, Miss Granger. You have become quite ruthless over the past half year."

"I have learned from a master, Professor Snape." She left the library and started up the stairs to the seventh floor.

The Room of Requirement seemed to have entered into the spirit of things. The doorway was standing open, with stately marble columns on either side. Gold-filled engraving between them declared this to be the Hall of Memories, and sad slow music was playing softly from some invisible pipe organ. The light within was muted and golden.

Hermione had no doubt that everything would vanish and the door would slam shut again once the Bodies of the Honored Dead had been removed. A faint aroma of charred furnishings emanated from the open doorway, along with the scent of other crisped items which she did not try to identify, remembering one Slytherin who had literally gone down in flames.

She went inside, her footsteps echoing on the marble floor, and stared sadly at the three bodies on their marble biers. Tonk's hair had reverted to a mousy brown, and the lines etched in Remus's careworn face had smoothed out, making him look almost like a young boy again.

"A very good idea," Snape said. "Remus and I were enemies for most of our lives. Actually, it seems rather pointless now."

"That enemy business was all on your part. He told Harry that he neither liked nor disliked you." Hermione blinked back tears and turned her attention to the body of the almost-dead Headmaster, looking serene and marble-white in his stark black robes. She stepped up close to the marble plinth, tapping her wand on the palm of her hand.

"Miss Granger..."

"Call me Hermione. After all, we're in this together," she said, pointing her wand and concentrating.

"Well yes, but why are you pointing your wand at me. I hadn't counted on body snatching, even if it's my own body. Just what are you doing?"

"Professor... "

"Severus," he offered.

"Severus, anyone who ever knew you could honestly say that you were your own worst enemy. I think a quick Diffindo ... "

"Not the nose, not the nose!"

* * *




"I found that very distasteful," Snape said later, as Hermione slipped the phial containing his blood into the drawer of her bedside table.

"Tough," Hermione said heartlessly. "We need it for the spell and it's not as if you were going to need those few drops again. And since you were reluctant to let me take it, that reinforces the spell. Next, we've got to tackle that flesh of the servant part."

"There's always the Hogwarts house-elves," Severus said slyly. "They're everybody's servants."

"Absolutely not!"

"Oh come on," Snape said, needling her. "Make one of them feel guilty about too much salt in the soup and he'll probably cut off an ear for us."

"You're awful!"

"I never pretended to be otherwise. However, I do have an idea."

"Which is?"

"I wonder if anyone bothered to bury Wormtail."

"Pettigrew? He wasn't your servant, was he?"

"Yes, unfortunately. The Dark Lord foisted him off on me and I had him whining around my house for a couple of months. Totally useless and a rotten cook besides. He even burned the bubble and squeak."

"But he's been dead for days," Hermione said, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

"So? I don't recall that the spell specifies fresh ingredients."

"Ugh. But he's dead; he's not going to give anything to you willingly, not in that condition."

"He may not be precisely willing to offer up a bit of flesh, but on the other hand he's not unwilling either. The letter of the law will suffice in this case, I think."

"You're the Potions Master--or were," she said with a shrug. "Maybe you can get his other hand. Where do we go?"

"Back to Malfoy Manor, of course."

"I don't know how to get there."

"But I do. Just relax, Hermione. This won't hurt a bit. On the count of three..."

They Apparated into a lush garden, where the afternoon light glinted off of heavy-headed lily blossoms and the air was filled with sweet spicy scents. A white peacock sauntered across the flagstone path in front of them, dragging its lacy tail behind it.

"Straight ahead, through the conservatory door."

"Aren't there protection spells to worry about? House-elves?"

"The spells were lifted when everyone left the Manor for Hogwarts. As for the elves... there were three, and Nagini ate them."

"That's horrible!"

"Nagini didn't think so."

They found the body of Peter Pettigrew lying on the cellar floor, with his silver hand still clutched tightly around his throat.

"Ugh," Hermione said, with a heartfelt shudder. "Suicide by silver. But he looks like he just died. Shouldn't he be... well, sort of rotting or something?"

"He would be if he were anywhere else, but there are charms on these cellars to keep stored food fresh. Once he died, I suppose the charms extended to him as well."

"Thank you, I'll have nightmares about that, the squishy-icky kind!"

"Don't be squeamish."

"All right, if you say so. What do you want? Light meat or dark?"

* * *

This is roughly half of this one -shot story. It gets more interesting as Severus and Hermione seek to complete the recipe. The second half is here

Turayza of Ravenclaw 's Original Story, Dumbledore's Mistake.
(It's currently on hiatus)


Chapter One

Glittering and sparkly enchanted orange jack-o-lanterns hovered about in the air, traveling throughout the quiet Godric’s Hollow. Each pretty little white-picket-fence house was decorated in a bit to outdo its neighbors. In one particularly extravagantly festive house, two families were joined in celebration.

The Potters and the Longbottoms, two pureblood light families, celebrated Halloween in the Potter Manor. The enormous manor’s hallways were strewn with orange and black confetti, and each room had jerkily flying candy charmed to mob any entrant to the room.

Cheery laughter floated from the large living room as the youngest Potter, Harry, and the youngest Longbottom, Neville, had a good-natured candy fight.

The one-year-old Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom sat side-by-side, giggling as they gobbled up chocolate frogs, sugar quills, orange and black jelly beans, and many more sugary confections. Lily Potter and Alice Longbottom sat on a couch behind their sons, chatting about the going-ons of the social elite. James Potter and Frank Longbottom sat across each other over a forgotten game of chess, lost in a heated debate over Quidditch teams and the Wizarding Stock Market.

Over the din of their chatter, no one heard the protective wards falling. It wasn’t until the intruders tripped the alarm that the Potters and Longbottoms noticed, and by then it was much too late. With a bang, the front door was blasted out of existence. Alice and Frank Longbottom rushed to confront the cloaked and masked figures as James and Lily Potter tried to rush the two children upstairs.

“Crucio!” A cackling Death Eater said madly, her cruelly grinning mouth all that you could see of her covered face. From behind the white mask, her eyes glinted with maddened blood lust as she shot the unforgivable at Alice Longbottom.

“No! Don’t touch her!” Frank yelled, pushing Alice out of the way. Frank fell to the ground, convulsing in pain. As Frank lay there, unconscious, Bellatrix turned the curse towards Alice, who had been dueling another Death Eater.

Meanwhile, the Potters had carried Harry and Neville into a hidden room that Lily had made several years ago. The room’s entrance was behind a small porcelain vase, and the door was child-sized and warded with a multitude of dark-repellant spells. Hearing the stomping footsteps of Death Eaters, James Potter whirled around and tried to lead the Death Eaters away.

“Avada Kedavra”, Voldemort said calmly, after easily deflecting the ‘stupefy’ James had shot at him. James Potter slumped down as soon as the jet of green hit him, dead.

Unknowing of her husband’s very recent death, Lily Potter shoved Neville into the little alcove. Neville was scratched by a pair of two nails sticking out, which gave him a small but deep x-shaped wound on his cheek. Before Lily could hide Harry, Voldemort appeared before her.

“Move away, mudblood”, he said, sniffing disdainfully. “You may live to see another day.”

“No!” Lily cried out, sobbing. “Don’t kill Harry! Kill me instead!”

Lily threw herself out in front of her son with her arms spread out.

With a brief ‘Avada Kedavra’, Lily Potter was dead as well.

“Foolish girl…Avada Kedavra!” Voldemort said, pointing his wand at Harry. The jet of green light shot towards the one-year-old’s head…and was absorbed by a glowing golden orb of light. The light grew in intensity until Voldemort was forced to turn away. All of a sudden, the light shot a burst of green towards Voldemort and Voldemort was gone.

As the light faded, Harry began to laugh, thinking the colorful lights were pretty and happy. He poked his mother’s corpse curiously, and sat down looking slightly upset, knocking over and shattering the porcelain vase.

Neville peeked out nervously from his hiding place and grabbed Harry’s shirt, alerting Harry to his presence. The two sat in silence, as if waiting for their parents to return and shout ‘Happy Halloween!’

Loud disruptions filled the house as the Order charged in. Upon reaching them, a horrified Remus Lupin scooped up the children and apparated them to Order headquarters.

--

Dumbledore regarded the children with a frown. One of them had most definitely defeated Voldemort that night. Both of the boys suited the prophecy. Why did he, Dumbledore, always have the difficult decisions to make? Dumbledore stared at the two for a while more, examining the x-shaped scar and comparing it to the lightning bolt shaped one. Finally, Dumbledore came upon a suitable theory and prepared to tell the world.

--

The Order sat around a massive circular table. All the pairs of eyes were facing Dumbledore, expecting important news. The whole Order had been called that night. Dumbledore, smiling grimly, announced,

“Voldemort has been defeated!” Then, holding up Neville Longbottom, Dumbledore added, “And this child was the one who did it!”

The members of the Order burst into cheers and they immediately went to crowd Dumbledore and Neville. A din broke out as people cried, laughed, questioned, and much more. Many rejoicing Order members left to spread the good news. Neville was coined the nickname “The Boy-Who-Lived”, and Harry was left, forgotten, by all but Dumbledore.

--

Dumbledore held two little squirming bundles. One was Neville Longbottom, the Boy-Who-Lived, and the other, Harry Potter, was a newly made orphan.

Dumbledore flooed Augusta Longbottom, Neville’s grandmother, and handed the hero of the wizarding world to the shocked witch. Smiling sympathetically for Augusta’s loss and congratulating her for Neville’s achievement, Dumbledore bid her goodbye and apparated to Private Drive.

--

The aged wizard with a long, white beard and bespeckled glasses held up the small bundle that was Harry Potter. They had appeared in a very ordinary looking neighborhood filled with very ordinary looking houses.

With a wave of his wand, Dumbledore blacked out the neighborhood. He slowly approached one of the very ordinary looking houses, pausing only when he stood right before the door.

Giving Harry Potter one final, slightly sorrowful glance, Dumbledore, set the little bundle down and disappeared.

Minerva the Bookwyrm of Gryffindor submits



There was a flash of green light and pain like nothing she’d ever known before.

Lily Evans woke with a scream.

“Lily, are you up yet? You don’t want to miss the train on your first day!”

Lily looked around the room of the London hotel. It was the same hotel she and her family had stayed in every year the night before she returned to Hogwarts. She hadn’t been back in years. What was she doing here now?

“Mum?” Lily asked in shock.

What was happening?

He’d found them. Despite all their plans Voldemort had tracked them down in Godric’s Hollow.

She stumbled across the room to the dresser and gazed into the cracked mirror.

The face staring back at her in the mirror was one she hadn’t seen in ten years. She was eleven years old again and about to travel to Hogwarts for the very first time. She’d meet James again for the first time in just a couple of hours.

None of it had happened yet.

She didn’t question why the unbelievable had happened. There would be time to figure it out later. She just had to make sure that there was a later.

She had another chance…only this time she knew who it was who’d betrayed them.

Peter wouldn’t sell them to Voldemort this time…she’d make sure of that.

---

Don’t change too much, don’t change too much, don’t change too much.

It had become a mantra over the years.

Lily had watched events unfold as they had done the first time around, first with a sense of shock and later with an eerie feeling of Déjà vu.

She and Severus were best friends again. They had been sorted into separate houses again.

As much as she might have wished otherwise, she needed James to trust her judgement more than Sirius’s when the time came to decide who should be their Secret Keeper. If she remained friends with Severus, James wouldn’t trust her judgement.

The one thing she had tried to do was to try and convince James and the others of Peter’s perfidy whilst they were still in school. Unfortunately she’d had virtually no success in her endeavours.

She and James had never been close during their first few years at school and this time around had been no different, despite her best efforts to change that.

And so it was that by the time she and James went on their first date, this time early in their sixth year, Peter was well in with the group, liked, trusted and poised to betray them once more.

---

It was the moment she’d been waiting for.

“We bluff them,” Sirius declared from his seat near the fireplace in the cosy living room. “Let everyone think I’m the Secret Keeper and I’ll draw them off. Meanwhile Peter will be the Secret Keeper and can go into hiding himself.”

“No! He’s a Death Eater,” said Lily.

“You’ve never liked Peter,” Sirius pointed out. “You just don’t want to think Remus would betray you.”

“Why are you two so sure to think that Remus would?” Lily countered. “He’s one of your best friends.”

“Voldemort’s recruiting werewolves,” said James in a sad voice. “Someone’s betraying our movements to him and Remus is the most likely suspect.”

“But you’re wrong,” Lily cried. “Peter’s a Death Eater.”

“That time of the month?” Sirius asked with a wicked grin that earned him a swift, sharp kick to the leg.

She’d hoped to avoid telling anyone how she knew that it was Peter who would betray them. With little more than a week left she knew she had no choice.

“I’m reliving my life,” she began. “Last time we used Peter as Secret Keeper and he sold us out to Voldemort. On Halloween night his master will track us down here and kill us all.”

“Lily…” James sat down beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. “You can’t be reliving your life. It’s just not possible.”

“Wizards would have managed it long before now. You do trust us, don’t you?” asked Sirius in a concerned voice. “We’d never risk your life or Harry’s if we weren’t sure.”

By showing how much she distrusted Peter all these years she’d ruined her only chance of saving them all.

---

The crash of the door bursting open came right on time.

She’d failed.

James was gone.

She held her wand aloft. She’d go down fighting this time.

Lily Evans woke with a scream back in the hotel room again.

She had another chance…only this time she’d try things differently.

James and Sirius hadn’t believed her because of all the times she’d tried to convince them of Peter’s duplicity when they’d been at school. So this time she’d not try that method.

Just maybe she could keep him from ever joining Voldemort.

“Lily, are you up yet? You don’t want to miss the train on your first day!”

“I’m up,” Lily called back absentmindedly as she busied herself with gathering her belongings whilst simultaneously considering how best to go about her plans for Peter.

Even before she was friends with James, Sirius and Remus, Lily was friends with Peter.

She spent almost as much time with him as she did with Severus, though she was careful to keep the two boys from becoming too friendly. She didn’t want Peter to be any closer to the admirers of the Death Eaters than she could help.

She wasn’t so lucky with her efforts regarding Petunia. Lily suspected that unless she refused to go to Hogwarts at all then there was nothing that she could do that would entirely repair their relationship.

---

Lily was enjoying the last months of freedom before Dumbledore told her and James about the prophecy. In the meantime she’d returned to the childhood playground where she’d once played with Petunia and met Severus.

They’d grown apart once more…Even though this time around she had forgiven him after his late night apology following the incident after the DADA OWL, Severus had never understood her decision to start dating James.

Before she’d even had time to consider what she was doing her feet were carrying her in the direction of Severus’s old home and she was banging on the door.

“Lily!” There was an expression on Severus’s face that he wasn’t sure whether to believe she was even there.

“Aren’t you going to invite an old friend in?” She walked past him and into the familiar living room. The young man looked paler than he’d ever been and she could see his hands were shaking slightly as he closed the door and gestured to one of the seats. He sat down opposite her, stiff-backed and frowning.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“Did you become a Death Eater?” she finally blurted and saw the familiar expression of guilt on the face of the man before her.

“Is Peter one?” she asked, even as she resisted the urge to bolt for the front door. She was sitting in the house of a Death Eater, but he was her friend…wasn’t he?

“I don’t know,” Severus replied with a shake of his head. “I don’t…we don’t…there are many I’ve never met." He seemed to look at her then and realised her slight discomfort. “Are you unwell?”

“No,” Lily replied with a smile. “He’s moving about, that’s all. He’s due in July,”

“You’re expecting a baby boy in July? I was the one who reported the prophecy to the Dark Lord,” Severus whispered, dawning horror in his eyes.

She felt dizzy with shock before everything went dark.

She felt the cold dampness against her cheeks as she came round after her faint. Severus was leaning over her with the wet cloth, concern on his face. She recoiled from his touch and ignored the hurt in his eyes as she staggered to her feet.

“Lily…” he faltered. “Please…I didn’t know…”

“All this time I blamed Peter for betraying us to Voldemort when it was you who gave him the reason to kill us,” Lily shouted.

She hurried down the road as fast as she could.

Severus was the reason her family had died.

---

When the time came for the Fidelius Charm to be performed and the Secret Keeper to be chosen Peter seemed less confident than he had been previously. She hoped that his lack of eagerness might be an indication that he was not Death Eater.

To be on the safe side she still expressed some doubts to James and Sirius when they announced their plan. They took even less notice of her than they had done before, pointing out that of all of them it was she, Lily, who’d been most friendly with Peter all along.

He’d still betrayed them.

Lily felt the pain of the killing curse, saw the flash of green light.

She woke with a scream.

---

“What did I do wrong?” Severus was standing over her with an unreadable expression on his face. She wondered how long he’d wanted to approach her and how much courage it had taken him. They’d barely spoken two words to each other in the last two months, only when forced to work together in class.

What could she say to him? How could she explain that she’d pushed away his friendship because of things he hadn’t even done yet?

“Just stay away from me Severus,” she replied. She stood up, brushed the dead leaves from her robes, then turned and walked away. Severus didn’t follow her and she didn’t look back.

---

“Don’t you want to help defeat Him?” asked James in surprise. “You’re so against dark wizards, I thought you’d be all for it.”

He knew her as well as he ever had, Lily mused. She’d never before questioned his resolve that the two of them join the Order of the Phoenix. But now it was the only way she could see out of the mess they were in. If they hadn’t defied Voldemort three times then their son would never be targeted.

“I do want Him defeated, but I want our family to be safe. I want our children to grow up without having to fear for their lives.”

“If He isn’t stopped then no one will be safe,” James pointed out.

She’d known it was a long shot and James was right.

---

James insisted on choosing Peter as Secret Keeper again. Lily argued. Sirius and James overruled her.

As Halloween approached she found herself thinking more and more of Severus and his decision to join the monster who was planning to murder her. She’d finally accepted that she’d not tried to help him because she’d been so afraid of failing him as she had done Peter.

She faced Voldemort much as she had done before. She waited for him to offer her the chance to step aside but it never came.

She wouldn’t have taken the chance to live. But as she woke up in the hotel room she couldn’t help but wonder why he’d not made her the offer this last time.

This time she’d do it right, she resolved as she scanned platform nine and three quarters for Severus’s familiar face. She saw him arrive and ran from her parents to greet him. This time she wouldn’t give up on him.

Severus was still hanging out with the same detestable friends he had always had in Slytherin and she still couldn’t make him see what a bad influence they were.

Her efforts with Peter weren’t much more successful.

---

“Why are you even speaking to him?” James asked with frustration. It was an old argument and one she was heartily sick of.

Ironically it was one she also had with Severus on a very regular basis. Neither of the two boys could understand why she even bothered with the other.

“You’re going out with him?” Severus hissed with rage.

“Please don’t make me choose between the two of you,” Lily begged. “I love you both and I don’t want to lose your friendship.”

Severus scowled and paced the floor his temper silently simmering as she pleaded her case.

Eventually it seemed that she’d found the right words to keep his friendship, she only hoped it would be enough.

---

“Is it true?” Severus shouted as he burst into the room.

“I see you’ve heard,” Lily replied. She supposed it had been a small miracle that she’d managed to keep her engagement from him for as long as she had.

“Why can’t you see what he is?” Severus shouted. “He’s the same bullying git he always was.”

“Sev, please,” Lily pleaded.

“You’ve made your choice." With that he turned to leave and Lily could do nothing but watch him go.

As determined as he’d been, Lily had no intention of letting Severus forget her entirely. She wrote to him regularly by owl post telling him all her news and tried not to feel disheartened when he never replied.

---

“I don’t know why you’re bothered about him?” James commented over breakfast one morning when he’d watched her smile disappear at another owl delivery that didn’t contain any missive from Severus.

“I’m going out, I’ll be back later,” she announced, her mind made up. Whether he wanted to see her or not, she wanted to see him.

Spinners End looked much as it had the time she’d visited when she’d discovered for sure he was a Death Eater.

“You didn’t reply to my letters,” Lily said once he’d let her into the house.

“I’ve been busy,” Severus replied curtly.

“Did you really join them?” Lily asked. “The Death Eaters?”

She watched him closely as his right hand moved to grip his left arm.

“Why?” she asked in a quiet voice. “Why did you join a group of wizards who kill people like me? Does my friendship mean so little to you?”

Severus looked up at that and she saw the sheen of tears in his eyes. “I just…I wanted…I thought…”

“What?” Lily whispered, squeezing his hands in reassurance.

He pulled one of his hands free from her grasp and pushed a stray lock of hair back from her eyes.

She wondered how it was she hadn’t known. He’d never said anything but Sev had never been articulate and even now she knew he’d never say the words. She’d chosen James’s love over Severus’s friendship, never realising that her best friend felt so much more for her.

His lips touched hers before she’d even entirely gathered her thoughts.

Soft, tender and unskilled, the kiss was slightly salty from his tears and for a moment or two Lily couldn’t help but kiss him back.

“I can’t,” Lily said as she pulled back. “I’m married to James. I love him.”

“You chose him long ago,” Severus said sadly. “You should leave.”

She stood up, kissed him lightly on his still damp cheek and turned to leave.

Suddenly she knew why it was that Lord Voldemort had always given her the chance to live, and why he hadn’t the last time.

It was because Severus had asked for her life.

He’d always loved her. It hadn’t mattered to him that she’d pushed him away, he loved her anyway. He’d asked for her life to be spared and his master had offered her the chance to live.

The last time she’d pushed him away so soon he’d never fallen in love with her.

Lily returned home that evening and breathed a sigh of relief that James had gone out.

When he came home from the Order’s meeting she greeted him with a bright smile that she hoped would not betray her inner turmoil.

“So where did you disappear to today?” James asked as he helped Lily to clear away the dinner pots with a wave of his wand.

“I went to see Sev,” Lily replied after a moment of hesitation.

“Why do you bother with the greasy little git?” James asked with a scowl.

“You continue to call Severus names that you know I don’t like. Try and break the habit. You managed to stop hexing him at school, so I’m sure you can manage to stop the name-calling now.”

James remained silent at her words and she looked at him curiously.

“You did stop hexing Severus, didn’t you?”

“It’s not like he stopped hexing me and Sirius."

“You told me you’d stopped!” Lily accused with a glare.

James shrugged but didn’t look at all contrite and Lily shot him a look of disgust before storming out of the room.

Lily shut herself in their bedroom and was thankful that James had the sense to give her the space she needed to think things through.

She briefly wondered how many other lies he might have told her over the years.

For the first time she wondered if she’d made the right choice when she’d chosen James and she wondered if she would make that same choice again if she were given another chance.

---

Lily faced Voldemort and refused his offer to live. This time she knew why he’d given her that choice and she felt a small surge of gratitude towards Severus.

She woke up with a scream.

---

Lily looked at Severus as they sat together on the train. He’d just finished telling her about the different school houses. She’d chosen a compartment far away from James and Sirius and the journey had so far been much pleasanter than the previous ones.

“So why do you want to be in Slytherin?” Lily asked with a frown. “It sounds to me like Ravenclaw would be better for you. If all the really smart kids go in that house then that’s probably where you’ll end up.”

“Ravenclaw’s all right,” Severus replied. “But Slytherin’s better.”

“I still think you’re likely to be in Ravenclaw,” Lily suggested. “You’re so clever. Look at all the stuff you already know about magic and spells.”

Severus flushed at her words and she smiled at his embarrassment. Severus really was one of the most intelligent people she’d ever known. Now she thought about it she had to wonder why he hadn’t been sorted in Ravenclaw in the first place.

With this idea in mind Lily carefully and skilfully flattered Severus through the rest of the journey, securely planting the idea in his mind that Ravenclaw was the house he was most suited for.

Lily sat on the stool with the Sorting Hat hanging down around her ears. She listened to its commentary as it decided where best to place her.

A sharp mind that has already learned much. Brave too but I sense a thirst for knowledge.

Lily crossed her fingers as she chanted Ravenclaw in her mind over and over. Finally the Hall called out ‘Ravenclaw’ and Lily jumped down from the stool with a smile.

She caught Severus’s eye as she made her way to the Ravenclaw table and hoped that he would be placed with her.

She watched as Remus, James and Peter joined Sirius at the Gryffindor table. Finally Severus took his place on the stool.

She saw him looking in her direction and she willed the Hat to sense in him what she already knew was there. She hoped he wanted to be with her more than he wanted to be in Slytherin.

It seemed like forever before the Hat finally called out ‘Ravenclaw’ and Severus hurried to join her. She jumped to her feet and clapped louder and harder than anyone else in the room. She moved aside to make space for him on the bench beside her and squeezed his hand in congratulations.

It was the first of what she hoped would be many changes.

---

At first it seemed strange to be in a different house to the one that she had known for so long. Many times she found herself wandering up the wrong staircase towards the Gryffindor Tower that had been her home for so many years.

“Lily, where are you going?” Severus asked with a grin.

She shook her head at her herself. “Come on or we’ll be late.”

“You could get away with being late any time,” Severus pointed out. “You’re Slughorn’s favourite student with the way you’re successfully brewing every potion he sets on the first attempt.”

Lily smiled to herself.

---

Lily was curled up with a book in the corner of the Ravenclaw common room when Severus came into the room and sank onto the sofa beside her.

“Have you heard?” he asked breathlessly.

Lily looked up from her book and smiled at her friend’s excited face. It seemed strange to see him like this after so many years of watching him grow into the hard and bitter young man she had known.

She was delighted to find that away from the influences of the Slytherins Severus was a far more amenable person. He was still the smartest person she knew but now he was also one of the nicest.

“I just heard from Slughorn that this year the school is throwing a Yule Ball. It means I’ll have an excuse to stay here during the holidays.”

“You really don’t like going home do you?” Lily asked sadly, knowing the answer already.

“At least this Christmas I don’t have to. You are staying for the ball aren’t you?”

Lily nodded. She’d stayed for the ball every year though she couldn’t say that she’d always enjoyed it.

“So has anyone asked you yet?” Severus asked.

“It hasn’t even been officially announced yet. Probably less than a dozen students know about it.”

Severus replied, “I heard Potter telling Black that his dress robes had arrived this morning. You know nothing stays a secret for long in this place.”

“You’re right about that,” replied Lily, though privately she was thankful that this time around Severus hadn’t discovered one particular secret. He had no idea that Remus Lupin was a werewolf and had never ventured into the Shrieking Shack.

Severus and James still loathed each other and hexed each other at every opportunity but somehow things weren’t so bad this time around.

"You didn’t answer my question,” Severus pointed out. “Has anyone asked you to the ball yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Good…I mean…I mean I don’t…”

Lily smiled as Severus stumbled over his words in an endearingly familiar manner. Shedidn’t make him struggle to find the words he was so desperately searching for. “I thought we could go together." She watched his face light up at her suggestion.

---

“Potter at ten o’clock,” Severus whispered into her ear as she handed him a cup of fruit punch.

“It’s only just after nine.” Lily looked blankly at Severus, who rolled his eyes at her reaction. “Let’s go outside for some air. He won’t follow us into the grounds.”

The grounds were cool on the winter’s night and were far quieter than inside the Great Hall.

“Let’s go sit in the courtyard,” Severus suggested.

Lily shook her head, recalling that the previous year she’d gone with James to that very same spot on the night of the ball. “I’d rather walk down to the lake."

Severus didn’t argue with her and instead turned in the direction of the lake.

Lily sat down on the grass that was already showing the first signs of frost.

“It’s kind of romantic out here, isn’t it?” she asked with a wicked grin, wondering how long it would take before he made a move on her.

“I guess,” Severus muttered as he looked out over the water.

“We’re all alone.” Lily edged a little closer to him and turned so that she was facing him. “You know what would make this night really perfect?”

“What?” Severus asked suspiciously.

“This,” Lily whispered as she leaned forward to kiss him.

She forcibly tried to push from her mind all thoughts of James in order to concentrate on the young man next sitting next to her. She knew it was no good comparing the two of them, just as there was no use in her feeling guilty for choosing Severus over James.

After a moment or two she pulled back and looked at him with a half smile. “You’re supposed to kiss me back."

“Erm…” Severus looked back at her with a somewhat stunned expression on his face.

“Do you want to try again?” Lily asked as she moved towards him once more. Severus smiled in response and this time he met her part way. When his tongue met her own the last lingering thoughts of James flew from her head.

She’d made her choice.

---

“Congratulations, you have a fine healthy girl,” the nurse said with a bright smile.

“A girl?” Lily asked in surprise.

“I guess you were wrong,” Severus said with a smile. “I still don’t see why you were so sure it was going to be a boy.”

“A girl?” Lily repeated before breaking into a smile of her own. “That means it’s over. It’s really over.”

She flung her arms around Severus’s neck and hugged him tightly.

“What’s over?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter.” Lily grinned as the nurse passed the new born baby into her waiting arms. “We need to think of a name for her,” she said.

“Lily,” Severus said quietly.

“Hmm?”

“I meant for the name,” Severus clarified.

Lily smiled back at him as she realised her family was finally safe.

---

Lily watched as Severus lay sprawled across the floor reading from one of the muggle children’s books as their daughter pointed happily at the pictures.

It was Halloween and Lily breathed a sigh of relief that this time she and her family would live to see tomorrow.

Severus looked up at the knock on the door. “Who can that be?"

Lily said. “I’ll go and see.”

“May I come in?” Dumbledore asked a stunned looking Lily who waved him into the living room.

“Is there something wrong?” Severus asked.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Dumbledore replied. “I presume you both know of the man who calls himself Lord Voldemort? There’s a strong possibility that he is coming here tonight.”

Lily collapsed into the armchair as she looked at the Headmaster. She and Severus weren’t in the Order of the Phoenix; they hadn’t defied Voldemort; they hadn’t got a son. She shook her head dumbly. This couldn’t be happening.

“Why?” Severus asked as he held his daughter protectively.

“There was a prophecy made,” Dumbledore explained. “I’d have been here sooner but you weren’t easy to trace. Finally I located you through the records of the muggle hospital where your daughter was born.”

“Sev, would you take Lily upstairs?” she asked. Severus nodded and took their daughter from the room.

“The prophecy can’t be about us,” she began. “We don’t have a son, we have a daughter. She wasn’t born at the end of July either; she was born at the end of May. Nor have we defied Voldemort…ever.”

Dumbledore looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face. “I haven’t told you the prophecy yet,” he finally said.

“I know the prophecy,” Lily replied, her voice rising slightly as she rattled it off for the older man.

“That’s…erm…interesting,” Dumbledore commented after she’d finished. “But the prophecy concerns a girl born in May to parents that are a muggle-born and a half-blood.”

“But how does he even know about the prophecy?” Lily asked. “He can’t know about it because Sev never heard it and he never joined the Death Eaters.”

“I’m a little confused,” Dumbledore said.

“That makes two of us,” Severus said from the doorway. “Why would you think I’d ever join the Death Eaters?”

Lily looked from one man to the other and back again before finally throwing her hands up in the air in defeat. “I’m reliving my life…” she began before explaining everything.

“You’re saying you're living your life all over again for the fifth time?” Severus asked when she finally finished.

“Sixth time, including the first one,” Lily corrected.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before,” Severus commented. “I’d have said it was impossible.”

“You believe me?” Lily asked in surprise.

“Just because James didn’t believe you, it doesn’t mean I’d react the same way,” Severus replied sternly. “James is an idiot. I’ve always said so. Though I don’t know why you didn’t tell me sooner.”

“I didn’t think I’d have to tell you at all,” Lily pointed out. “Everything’s so different this time. And I thought…”

“You thought I might be jealous of James?” Severus suggested.

“Aren’t you?” Lily asked curiously.

Severus looked at her quietly for a few minutes before he replied. “Not any more,” he said with a shake of his head. “So how did He find out about the prophecy without my assistance?” he asked Dumbledore.

“The Death Eater he’d sent to ask for the teaching post, and to spy on me of course, overheard the prophecy. I’m just grateful that I won this race to find you and that Voldemort didn’t beat me here. I believe the Fidelius Charm is our best option."

“Will you be Secret Keeper?” Lily asked.

“Of course,” Dumbledore assured her. “Shall we begin?” he asked as he rose to his feet.

“Avada Kedavra,” a voice said from the doorway.

Lily turned in horror as she saw Voldemort standing in the hallway. Dumbledore was dead at her feet, hit from behind before they’d even seen the murderer appear.

Severus went down fighting but he was no match for the other wizard.

Lily gripped her wand in her hand as she faced Voldemort. There was no offer of a chance to live, the man who’d asked for her life had not been in a position to do so this time.

The killing curse hit her once more and she woke up with a scream.

Lily rushed around the hotel room, gathering her things as she tried to think of the best plan of action.

They’d believed her.

She could hardly believe it, but it was true. Both Severus and Dumbledore had listened to her and believed her when she’d told them what had been happening to her.

This time she’d tell Severus sooner, she decided. Not right away, she told herself, he was still too young to understand. She would however speak to Dumbledore at the first opportunity.

---

“Ah Miss Evans,” Dumbledore greeted her. “Professor Flitwick said you wished to speak with me. Please take a seat.”

“It’s like this Professor,” she began. “I’m reliving my life over and over again.”

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair with a thoughtful expression on his face as Lily finished her explanation. “You don’t talk like an eleven year old girl would normally speak to the Headmaster of a school.”

Phineas said from his portrait, “I say she’s making it all up. What is the form of your patronus? If you’re telling the truth then you should know what it is and be able to produce it for us right now.”

“It’s a doe,” Lily replied without hesitation. “Expecto Patronum!” she called out and she watched as the silvery doe sprang from her wand.

Gasps came from the portraits that lined the walls of the room.

“Well Miss Evans,” Dumbledore said. “If you don’t mind my asking, which of your two young men are you planning on marrying this time around?”

“Severus,” she replied without hesitation.

“Because you love him, or because he believed you?” Dumbledore asked.

“Both,” Lily replied.

“Good, good,” Dumbledore said. “Now for the moment I think you should be heading back to your classmates. I imagine young Severus is waiting for you in the Ravenclaw common room and wondering where you are.”

---

“Why does Professor Dumbledore keep summoning you to his office?” Severus asked. “You’re not in trouble are you?”

Severus was sitting across from her in the Three Broomsticks and Lily looked at him in surprise at the unexpected question. She’d only been called to see Dumbledore three times since her initial meeting with him and she hadn’t realised that Severus had noticed.

“It’s complicated,” Lily replied. “A long story.”

“We’ve got all day,” Severus pointed out. “And it’s not like you need to get back to study for your NEWTs, you know it all already.”

Lily smiled at his comment. She wondered what he would say if she told him she knew a lot more than that, including what was going to be asked by the examiners.

“Maybe I should tell you. I always thought I’d wait until after we’d left school.”

Lily looked around the room and once she was sure that no one was listening to them she quietly explained everything once again.

“I knew Potter fancied you,” Severus muttered in disgust. “You’re not going to marry him again are you?”

“Of course not,” Lily assured him. “I’m going to marry you next summer. We’re going to elope.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because that’s what we did last time."

“So how about we do it properly this time?” Severus suggested.

“I’ll see,” Lily replied as she finished her butterbeer. “I still can’t believe you believe me.”

"Potter really didn’t believe you?” Severus asked in astonishment as they began the long walk back to Hogwarts.

“No.”

“His loss,” Severus said as he put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

---

It was Halloween night and they’d both been on edge all evening.

They knew they were under the Fidelius Charm and they knew that Dumbledore wouldn’t betray them. But it didn’t stop them from worrying that something else was going to go wrong. Something they hadn’t taken into account…something unexpected and disastrous.

“Lily, wake up,” Severus whispered. “Look.”

Lily groaned and rubbed at the pain in her neck, caused no doubt by the position she’d been sleeping in.

“What is it?” she asked sleepily as Severus provided his own ministrations to her neck.

“It’s morning,” Severus whispered. “November the first. It’s November and we’re still alive.”

---

“He’s getting more powerful, isn’t he?” Lily asked as she poured Dumbledore a drink.

“Frighteningly so,” Dumbledore replied grimly. “I’ve been doing research into what has been happening to you. I found mention of a similar occurrence nearly five hundred years ago. It finally ended when he lived a far longer life than he had before. Unfortunately it took him many, many lives before it was finally over. He was almost insane. Each life would start to blend into the others.”

“Sometimes I’ll forget to tell Sev something because I remember telling him before. I used to walk to the Gryffindor quarters so many times I still did it after I was sorted into Ravenclaw.” Lily shrugged. “I’m just waiting for the day I accidentally call him James without thinking. It seems like no matter what I do, I’m condemned to watch as my family are murdered.”

“The wizard in question had noted his wife believed that he was reliving his life because he was expecting his life to start over.”

“But I didn’t even know it was possible when it first happened,” Lily pointed out.

“Did you wish you’d done something differently?” Dumbledore asked.

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Of course.”

---

The phoenix patronus flew in the window. “He has found me. Time is short. Prepare yourselves.”

“What is it?” young Lily asked her mother as the phoenix faded out of sight.

“You remember what we told you,” Lily said as Severus immediately began to reinforce the protective spells that surrounded their house.

Lily nodded and hurried upstairs to check on her younger brother.

“This is it, isn’t it?” Severus asked as Lily wrapped her arms around him. “Do you think you’ll get to try again?”

“Probably.”

“Will you choose me again?” he asked hesitantly.

“I love you Sev,” she whispered.

“I love you too,” he replied as he hugged her back.

---

Lily woke up in the hotel room once more.

Her family had been destroyed yet again and she sobbed into her pillow for several minutes before the sound of the voices in the next room forced her to rise and face her first day at Hogwarts for what she hoped would be the final time.

“You want me to what?” Dumbledore asked in astonishment.

The eleven year old Lily sat across from him in his office and after revealing finishing her story she’d made her request.

“It’s not as if I like the solution,” Lily said. “But it’s the only way out I can stop watching my family die repeatedly.”

“You realise it may not work,” Dumbledore pointed out. “You could find that you still harbour regrets on the night you face Voldemort and it starts all over again.”

“I have to take that chance,” Lily replied.

“What about Severus?”

Lily hung her head at his questioning gaze as the tears started to fall.

Dumbledore nodded understandingly. “We’ll apparate back to the hotel and then I’ll use this little time turner to get you back to when you should be.”

Lily jumped as Petunia poked her head round the hotel room door. “Mum says to hurry up.”

Her sister disappeared a moment later and Lily looked at Dumbledore in astonishment. “She didn’t see you.”

“No, I thought it might be best not to have to explain to your parents what I’m doing here. You’re absolutely sure about this?” Dumbledore asked. Lily nodded and the Headmaster pulled out his wand and pointed it at her. “Obliviate!”

---

“What’s that you have there?” James asked as Lily opened the parcel on the morning of Halloween.

“It’s a potion from Dumbledore he says I’m to drink today.”

“No time like the present,” James suggested.

Lily opened the vial and after a brief moment of hesitation she drank the contents in one swallow.

“Well?” James asked.

Lily shrugged. “I don’t feel any different or anything. I should go check on Harry.”

“Do you ever regret the way things have turned out?” James asked.

Lily hesitated in the doorway. Yesterday she’d been wondering that exact thing, contemplating whether she’d made the right choices in her life. Now she felt a strange sense of peace.

“None at all,” she replied as she smiled at her husband.

---

Lily stood her ground as she faced Voldemort later that night. She refused his offer to live and the last thing she saw was the flash of green light as the killing curse hit her.

The memories of all her lives came flooding back to her as she opened her eyes.

This time there was no familiar hotel room. She didn’t know where she was but she felt a sense of peace.

Harry was alive. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she knew it with a certainty that surprised her. She knew that Harry was going to live to fulfil the prophecy that had dominated her life for so long. He was going to survive and she knew that one day she’d see him again.