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Dawn broke over Spinner's End in shades of industrial gray. Severus stood at his bedroom window, watching as men in uniforms wheeled a covered stretcher into a waiting ambulance. His father's body—no, Tobias's body. He couldn't bring himself to think of the man as his father, not with the weight of two lifetimes pressing against his consciousness.
"Severus?" His mother's voice, thin and uncertain, came from the doorway. "The police want to speak with you."
He turned, noting how Eileen's fingers trembled as she smoothed nonexistent wrinkles from her faded dress. Bruises bloomed like violets around her throat where Tobias had gripped her hours before.
"What did you tell them?" Severus asked, his voice measured.
"That he was drunk." Eileen's eyes flickered to the floor, then back to her son. "That I was in the bedroom when I heard him fall."
Severus nodded once. "Then that's what happened."
Something shifted in Eileen's gaze—concern, perhaps, or the dawning realization that the child before her was not entirely the son she had known yesterday.
"Severus," she began haltingly, "last night, when Tobias fell... you weren't surprised. You weren't frightened. You knew exactly what to do."
"I read," he answered simply. "Books on healing, anatomy. You left one open last month, remember?"
The lie came easily to his lips, practiced from a lifetime of occlumency and deception that existed only in his fragmented memories. Eileen seemed to accept it, though doubt lingered in the furrow between her brows.
"The police officer is waiting downstairs," she said finally. "Be... be a child, Severus. For both our sakes."
He almost smiled at the irony. The woman who had taught him to brew potions before he could properly hold a quill was now asking him to pretend innocence. But he understood the necessity. The System's text flashed briefly in his peripheral vision:
[MAINTAIN COVER IDENTITY]
[DEVIATION WILL COMPROMISE MISSION]
"I'll be down in a moment," he told his mother. When she had gone, he reached under his mattress and removed a small leather-bound journal. It had been blank yesterday, but now bore inscriptions in a spidery handwriting he recognized as his own—older, more practiced, but undeniably his.
Improved Memory Potion, the first entry read, followed by a list of modifications to the standard recipe. Brew under waxing moon. Substitute powdered griffin claw for bicorn horn. Add seven drops of dittany essence at the third stir.
Severus ran his fingers over the parchment, feeling the slight indentations where quill had pressed into paper. These were notes from his other life—knowledge he had not yet acquired but somehow already possessed. The System had begun delivering on its promise of "memory access."
He slipped the journal into the pocket of his worn trousers and made his way downstairs.
The police officer was a heavily mustached man with kind eyes that had seen too much of Cokeworth's particular brand of misery. He sat at the kitchen table, deliberately averting his gaze from the bloodstain that still marked the corner of the counter despite Eileen's cleaning efforts.
"Hello there, son," the officer said, his voice gentle in the way adults use with children they believe to be traumatized. "I'm Officer Briggs. I'd like to ask you a few questions, if that's alright."
Severus nodded, making himself smaller, hunching his shoulders in the way he remembered doing as a child. "Yes, sir."
"Can you tell me what happened last night?"
"I was sleeping," Severus began, allowing a slight tremor into his voice. "I heard shouting. Dad was... he was drinking again." He glanced at his mother, who stood rigid by the sink. "I stayed upstairs like Mum always tells me to when Dad gets like that."
Officer Briggs nodded encouragingly. "That's right sensible of you. What happened next?"
"There was a crash. Really loud." Severus looked down at his hands, letting his lank hair fall forward to shield his face—a gesture that felt both calculated and instinctive. "I came down later when it was quiet. Mum was crying. Dad was... there was blood."
The officer made notes in a small pad. "Did your father drink often, Severus?"
"Yes, sir. Almost every night."
"And did he ever hurt you or your mother when he was drinking?"
Severus looked up, allowing his gaze to linger on the bruises at his mother's throat. "Yes, sir. He hurt Mum a lot."
The rest of the interview passed in a blur of predictable questions and carefully crafted answers. When it was done, Officer Briggs closed his notepad and gave Eileen a card with his information.
"The coroner will need to examine the body, Mrs. Snape, but this appears to be an accidental death," he said, his tone professionally sympathetic. "Given the circumstances, I don't anticipate any complications with the investigation."
After the officer left, Eileen slumped into a kitchen chair, her face buried in her hands. "What happens now, Severus?" she whispered.
He stood awkwardly beside her, uncertain how to comfort this woman who was both younger and more fragile than the mother he half-remembered. "We go on," he said simply. "I still leave for Hogwarts today."
Eileen looked up sharply. "Today? But Tobias is—"
"Dead," Severus finished. "And nothing will change that. I need to be on that train, Mother."
"The funeral—"
"Can wait." Severus's tone brooked no argument. "Hogwarts can't."
Something in Eileen's expression hardened, a glimpse of the proud pureblood witch who had once eloped with a Muggle against her family's wishes. "Very well," she said coolly. "Finish packing your trunk. I'll arrange for the body to be held until you're at school."
Severus felt a pang of guilt at her hurt expression, but he couldn't explain the urgency that drove him. The System had made it clear: He had a mission, and it began at Hogwarts.
[PRIMARY OBJECTIVE REQUIRES STRATEGIC POSITIONING]
[HOGWARTS ATTENDANCE CRITICAL]
[NEW MEMORY ACCESS UNLOCKING...]
Fresh images flooded his mind as he climbed the stairs to his room: A green-and-silver tie knotted at his throat. The Slytherin common room, cold and elegant beneath the lake. And Lily—Lily turning away from him, green eyes filled with disappointment.
Not this time, he thought fiercely. I won't lose her again.
The late summer sun beat down mercilessly as Severus made his way through the overgrown path that wound along the riverbank. His trunk remained at home; he would return for it before catching the train to London. This errand was more important.
He found her exactly where he knew she would be—a small clearing by the river, where a large willow provided dappled shade. Lily Evans sat cross-legged on the grass, a book open on her lap, her dark red hair cascading over her shoulders.
Severus paused, the sight of her alive and young sending a physical shock through his system. In his fractured memories, he had seen her dead, had cradled her lifeless body and howled his grief to uncaring stars. But here she was, breathing, reading, utterly unaware of the destiny that awaited her—a destiny he intended to change.
"Are you going to stand there staring all day, Sev, or are you coming to sit down?" Lily called without looking up from her book.
Despite himself, Severus smiled. Of course she had sensed his presence. She always had.
He moved into the clearing, settling beside her in a motion that felt at once familiar and strange. His adult consciousness noted how small they both were, how young and unmarked by life's cruelties.
"I was just admiring the view," he said lightly.
Lily rolled her eyes, but a smile played at the corners of her mouth. "Flatterer. You're late, you know. I've been waiting for ages."
"I'm sorry. There was..." Severus hesitated. How did one casually mention patricide? "There was a problem at home."
Lily's smile faded, her green eyes—so like and unlike her future son's—filling with concern. "Your dad again?" she asked softly.
"He won't be a problem anymore."
Something in his tone made Lily look at him more closely. "Sev? What happened?"
For a moment, Severus considered telling her everything—the System, his memories, the task that had been laid before him. But the text flashed a warning:
[INFORMATION RESTRICTED: SECURITY LEVEL ALPHA]
[DISCLOSURE THREATENS MISSION PARAMETERS]
"He fell," Severus said instead. "Hit his head. He died, Lily."
Her book tumbled forgotten to the grass as she threw her arms around him. "Oh, Sev! I'm so sorry!"
The hug caught him off guard. In his fragmented memories, physical affection was a foreign country he had rarely visited. He remained stiff in her embrace for a moment before awkwardly patting her back.
"It's alright," he said. "It was an accident."
Lily pulled back, studying his face. "You don't seem very upset."
Severus looked away, toward the dirty river that sliced through Cokeworth like an infected wound. "He hurt my mother. He would have hurt me eventually. Is it wrong that I'm relieved?"
Lily's expression softened. "No," she said simply. "I don't think it's wrong."
They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of mortality hanging between them like an invisible curtain. Finally, Severus reached into his pocket and withdrew a sheet of parchment.
"I made something for you," he said, changing the subject with the emotional agility of both a child and a practiced spy. "For Hogwarts."
He began folding the parchment with precise movements, creasing and tucking with unexpected dexterity. His fingers remembered a skill his conscious mind had not yet fully recovered—origami learned during long, lonely hours of his first childhood, perfected during the lonely hours of his adult vigils.
"What is it?" Lily asked, watching his hands work.
"Wait and see."
The parchment took shape beneath his fingers: petals unfurling, stem elongating. When he finished, a perfect lily rested in his palm.
Lily's eyes widened. "It's beautiful, Sev!"
"That's not all," he said, a hint of his old pride creeping into his voice. He touched the tip of his finger to the paper flower and whispered, "Florescence."
The origami lily trembled, then slowly changed from yellowed parchment to pure white, as though a real flower had been folded into paper form rather than the reverse. A subtle fragrance—lilies of the valley—wafted from the delicate creation.
"But... how?" Lily gasped. "We haven't even started school yet! And we don't have wands!"
Severus allowed himself a small smile. "I've been practicing. My mother showed me a few simple spells." Another lie, but a necessary one.
"It's incredible," Lily breathed, gently taking the flower. "Will it last?"
"As long as you want it to," Severus said, his voice unexpectedly tight. "It's tied to intention, not time."
Lily looked up from the flower, meeting his gaze. "What's happened to you, Sev? You seem... different today. Like you've lived a hundred years since yesterday."
Severus felt a chill run down his spine at her perceptiveness. Always, Lily had seen through him in ways others could not.
"I grew up," he said softly. "I had to."
She shook her head, red hair catching the sunlight like copper wire. "It's more than that. There's something in your eyes that wasn't there before."
Before he could respond, the System's text flashed urgently:
[CRITICAL DIVERGENCE POINT APPROACHING]
[CHOICE REQUIRED: HOGWARTS HOUSE SELECTION]
[SLYTHERIN PATH LEADS TO ORIGINAL TIMELINE]
[GRYFFINDOR PATH UNCHARTED]
The implications hit Severus like a physical blow. In his previous life, the Sorting Hat had placed him in Slytherin, setting in motion the chain of events that led to Lily's death, to his own bitter existence, to Voldemort's rise. But what if...?
"Lily," he said abruptly, "what house do you want to be in?"
She blinked at the sudden change of subject. "I'm not sure. They all sound interesting in their own ways. Why?"
"I think you'll be in Gryffindor," he said, the words strange on his tongue.
Lily raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were dead set on Slytherin. You said it's the house of ambition and cunning." She grinned. "And you're the most ambitious, cunning person I know."
"What if I wasn't in Slytherin?" The question emerged before he could stop it. "What if I asked for Gryffindor too?"
Lily's face lit up. "You'd do that? Really?"
The hope in her voice made something shift in Severus's chest—a piece of ice cracking after decades of frozen stillness.
"I might," he said cautiously. "The Sorting Hat takes your choice into account, I think."
"That would be wonderful!" Lily clutched the paper lily to her heart. "Both of us in Gryffindor! We could have all our classes together, study in the common room..."
"And what about the others?" Severus asked, unable to keep a hint of bitterness from his voice. "Potter and his friends?" Names he shouldn't yet know, faces he shouldn't recognize.
Lily looked puzzled. "Who?"
Severus mentally cursed his slip. "Just... children of wizarding families my mother mentioned. They'll be in our year."
"Well, I'm sure they'll be perfectly nice," Lily said with characteristic optimism. "And if they're not, we'll face them together." She held out her pinky finger. "Promise me, Sev. Promise we'll stay friends no matter what houses we're in."
Severus looked at her extended finger, remembering another promise made and broken in another lifetime. Slowly, he linked his pinky with hers.
"I promise, Lily," he said, the words heavy with the weight of destiny being rewritten. "No matter what happens, I won't let anything come between us this time."
"This time?" Lily repeated, puzzled.
But Severus had already risen to his feet, offering her his hand. "We should go. The train leaves in a few hours, and I still need to get my trunk."
As they walked back along the riverbank, Lily cradling the enchanted paper lily, Severus felt the System's presence like a silent observer.
[DIVERGENCE INITIATED]
[WARNING: UNKNOWN VARIABLES MULTIPLYING]
[PROCEED WITH CAUTION]
I will, Severus thought grimly. But I will proceed. For her. For all of us.
The path before him was uncharted now, veering away from the destiny he had already lived. As the summer sun beat down on Spinner's End for what he hoped was the last time, Severus Snape—the boy with two shadows—walked toward a future that not even his memories could predict.
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