A tall man with greasy black hair, a hooked nose and beetle black eyes was staring out of the window, watching the falling snow. A fire was blazing, lighting the room with an orange glow. There was an empty wineglass set upon a small wooden coffee table next to a plate with a half eaten biscuit which was left forgotten.
A shadow outside the window caught the mans attention and he watched carefully as the shadowy figure revealed a small basket from inside their cloak and set it in front of the mans front door and rang the doorbell.
The man went to answer immediately but as he opened the door a crack filled the silent night as the person disapparated leaving the man with black hair standing, staring at the basket which was filled with a lumpy blanket.
He bent down and picked up the basket and used his long, thin fingers to peel back the blankets to reveal a tiny sleeping baby. He stared at the child ‘what is this?’ he muttered to himself not looking best pleased with the gift he had been left. He stepped back inside and shut the front door and carried the basket into the fire lit room where he set it upon a large table set just under the window.
He moved swiftly over to the fire and scooped a draw string bag from the mantle, sprinkled some of its contents into his hand and threw it into the fire. Immediately the flames turned emerald green ‘Albus’ the man boomed ‘I need to speak with you…urgently’ and hurried back to the baby.
He pocked around the blankets for a few more moments before he found a note which read:
Treat her well as I could not.
Written neatly upon it.
‘Severus?’ The man turned and saw an elderly man dressed in aqua blue robes, with long grey hair and half moon glasses staring at him, looking concerned. ‘What is it?’
‘Somebody left this’ he picked up the basket and thrust it at the old man who took it cautiously ‘on my doorstep, Dumbledore.’
Dumbledore cradled the basket in his arms and blinked at the child inside ‘whose is it?’
‘She’ corrected Snape automatically ‘I don’t know, the person disapparated before I opened the door, but they left this’ he held out the note to Dumbledore. ‘I don’t recognise the writing, do you?’
‘No’ Dumbledore replied slowly
‘But what am I going to do with it?’ Severus asked
‘Well for one thing’ Dumbledore frowned as he handed the basket back ‘give her a name and stop calling her an it.’
Severus shook his head ‘I’m sorry, you think of a name…I can’t keep her.’
‘Why can’t you keep her?’
‘Children don’t like me!’
‘Then maybe a child will be good for you’
‘But what am I to do with her during term time?’
‘Assuming that you take her in as your own’ Dumbledore replied ‘bring her to Hogwarts until she is old enough to attend school, I am sure Madame Pomfrey will be more than happy to watch her when you are teaching.’
‘I can’t take Lilly’
Dumbledore smiled ‘Lilly, that’s a nice name…Lilliana will be her full name’
Severus wasn’t listening, he was staring at the tiny little girl in awe ‘she can’t be anymore than a few days’ he muttered ‘who would want to give away such a thing?’
‘Some one who is scared in this day and age’ Dumbledore sighed ‘not everybody is lucky enough to have a secret keeper like the Potters’
Severus snapped his eyes back to Dumbledore ‘what?’
‘They had a son, born four days ago, they named him Harry’
Severus grimaced
‘Is something wrong Severus?’
‘You know what is wrong Albus!’ Severus snapped as he set the basket back down on the table ‘if Lily was mine, she wouldn’t need protecting!’
‘But she isn’t yours Severus!’ Dumbledore boomed ‘learn to accept that fact. Beg your master for her mercy when he goes to kill her husband and child’ Dumbledore’s eyes blazed with anger and disgust as he walked back toward the fire and threw something into it that made the flames emerald green again ‘treat the child as though it was your own’ Dumbledore ordered ‘I will check in’ he stepped into the fire, shouted ‘Hogwarts!’ and span out of sight leaving Severus alone with the child.
…
‘Dumbledore!’ Severus Snape burst into Albus Dumbledore’s office holding a small toddler who was snoozing lightly on his shoulder ‘Dumbledore!’ he cried again ‘he killed her! He killed Lily!’ Tears escaped his eyes and tracked down his cheeks ‘he promised he wouldn’t’ Severus fell to his knees, still holding tightly onto the child ‘I am yours Dumbledore’ he sobbed ‘I am yours, I will do what ever you ask of me’
Dumbledore stood above the man with pity and disgust in his eyes ‘and it took something like this to realise that Lord Voldemort is nothing but a liar?’ Dumbledore growled ‘it took the lives of the woman you love and her husband and nearly their child for you to see sense?’
‘Yes, yes! I am your man now Dumbledore, assign me anything’
‘Harry Potter’
‘Lily’s son?’
‘Yes, you will protect him at all cost.’
‘Voldemort is gone!’ Severus protested ‘what do I need to protect him from?’ He stood and wiped his face dry as he shifted the sleeping child into his other arm
‘The man that we call Lord Voldemort is not gone, I believe that he is just a shadow of a man, hiding. But he will be back and we shouldn’t be surprised when he does.’
‘I will protect the boy, but it does not mean that I have to like him’
Dumbledore sighed and then seemed to notice the child for the first time since Snape’s entrance ‘how are things going with Lilly?’
Snape’s face hardened and his arms stiffened around the girl who seemed to notice the change of emotion and stirred in her fathers arms ‘I wish that wasn’t her name’ Snape said coldly
‘Well, it is and you need to cope with it. This child is yours now and you accepted that when you took her in, you named her Lilly. Be a man Severus and be a good father to this child like Lily can’t be to Harry’
‘Was she a good mother?’ he asked quietly
‘Oh yes’ Dumbledore nodded ‘the very best, she did everything she could to protect her son and because of that, she died’
Severus set the child down on the floor. She swayed slightly in her all in one babygrow with sleeves and feet. She clung to her pink blanket and a small ragged rabbit and blinked sleepily up at her father.
Snape stared coldly down at the beautiful child, she was absolutely beautiful. She had a pale face and silky blonde hair that if it was not in a pony tail would come just above her shoulders.
‘She is an exceptional beauty’ Dumbledore complimented ‘are you sure that she is not yours?’
Snape turned to glare at Dumbledore as though he had just been called beautiful ‘the only woman that I ever loved was married, so no, that isn’t possible.’
‘There is an uncanny resemblance’ Dumbledore muttered ‘she looks so much like you did…’
‘I have never had sex’ Snape admitted as heat flooded his pale cheeks. But he knew that this was not technically true…there had been a moment, a weak moment of his that he would not care to admit, not even to Dumbledore.
Lilly had toddled across the office back to Snape and was tugging on his trousers and whining with her hands held up in the air but Snape ignored her.
‘If that is all’ Dumbledore blinked ‘you may leave. As I recall you have a class in one minute’ Snape nodded once and went to pick up the girl but Dumbledore muttered ‘leave her with me, I will return her to you when you have finished for the day’
Severus nodded once and all but flew from the room.
…
Severus Snape peered around the door of his daughter’s small bedroom and watched her small form stir lightly as she slept. He trod carefully across her bedroom and knelt down to stick his thin arm through one of the gaps in the crib. He placed a long finger in her tiny palm and she instinctively closed her small fingers over her father’s long finger and gripped it in her sleep.
Tears fell like a stream from Snape’s obsidian eyes as he whispered to his sleeping beauty ‘I love you Lilly’ but to whom he was talking too, he didn’t even know.
…
I opened my eyes to find sunlight streaming through my shabby curtains, warming my room with its light rays and I smiled. ‘Today’ I muttered ‘I am going to Diagon Alley!’
I have never been there before and had begged and begged dad to let me go but it wasn’t until now that he had to take me. I got out of bed and quickly got dressed into a pain of jeans and a t shirt. It looked to warm for a jumper so I just left it at that.
I walked over to my mirror and frowned. My chest was still annoyingly flat…my friend Ellen, from school is already wearing a bra…I haven’t even asked dad about getting one…
‘Lilly’ dad popped his head around my door ‘I made you toast’
I blinked at him ‘you, made toast?’
‘Yes’ he snapped ‘why?’
He never makes toast, when I get down he is sitting at the table with a newspaper and a cup of tea, scowling at the headlines. ‘You never make me breakfast…’
He scowled at me ‘hurry up, I want to leave soon so that the whole day isn’t wasted’
I nodded and hastily brushed my long blonde hair before grabbing my bag and running down the stairs. I slipped halfway down them and fell headfirst into the landing with a massive bang that caused my father to come running. ‘Are you ok?’ He forgot himself for a moment and actually looked as though he cared by kneeling down beside me and hovering his hands over my body.
I sat up, blinked and then did something that I hadn’t done since I was seven. I sniffed and then began to cry loudly.
‘Lilly!’ My dad wrapped his arms around me ‘what hurts?’ he asked as I howled into his shoulder
I didn’t know why I was crying but it took me a while to calm down. Dad seemed to have remembered that he didn’t like me; he had gotten bored and left me to cry alone in the hall.
‘Lilly’ he called from the kitchen as soon as my crying had subsided ‘eat your toast so we can leave please!’
We left half an hour later by floo powder; this again was new to me. I knew what to do but it wasn’t until now that I had gotten to use it. It was such a weird sensation, like being sucked down a long slide.
I shot out of the fireplace and skidded halfway across the street where as dad, he appeared standing up and with that all too familiar scowl on his face ‘come on’
We split up, I went to get my wand and my robes and dad went to get my books, quills, ink and other stuff that I needed.
I don’t really think that he likes spending time with me.