ACT ONE, chapter one :
but beneath the darkness
he hides the carcass
of traumatic memories
ϟ
30 october 1981 — ten years ago.
Snowflakes fell like butterflies.
It singed his skin, each flake like an ember upon flesh, and the wind was a bitter chill against his face. It was early for winter, but perhaps even the sky mirrored the dismal world it watched over. At this hour, all was dark but the warm glow, the deep pools of light, of the castle ahead — Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
A man moved through the dark murk of night, a baby carefully bundled in the thick blackness of his robes. He was panting, wand gripped tightly in his hand, looking worriedly over his shoulder as if someone was following him. He had the wild eyes of a man in danger.
All these years later, he still knew this journey like the back of his hand, but the sounds of the night all sounded foreign. Every snap of a twig, screech of a bat, shudder of wind against stone, was dangerous. In the middle of the courtyard, the dark man stood perfectly still for a moment. Listening. Then he trudged on.
Robes whipping round him, he banged on the huge, oak front door, and was repaid with a long, terrifying silence. The man banged his shaking fist once again. Finally, with the sound of bolts being unlocked, the massive door pulled open so light showered into the courtyard. Then, came the face of a familiar old wizard, illuminated by the light cast by his wand.
"Severus."
Albus Dumbledore stood before Severus Snape, looking grim at the sight. From his last visit, Severus knew enough that his old Headmaster wouldn't kill him — probably, but his newly endowed position as a spy for The Order was still on tenterhooks. The twinkling light usually shining in Dumbledore's eyes had long since gone out. His face was dreadfully intense, utterly serious. War could do that to a person.
"The Dark Lord will be watching, Severus, now more than ever. You should not be here."
"I haven't much time."
Severus opened his cloaks, blinded by a flash of a pale face, and then swiftly thrust a bundle of blankets into the Headmaster's arms. Inside, just visible, was a bleeding baby girl, and under a tuft of jet—black hair over her forehead, her dark eyes were wide open — ever vigilant, even now. Dumbledore's arms felt heavy with the weight of the child whose destiny was already decided.
"What are you doing, Severus?"
"For the safety of my child..." Severus' breathing was shallow. His look bordered even on mad, with his eyes desperate and thick black hair flying round him. "Her name... is Lilium."
"Lily." There was disapproval, perhaps even a glimpse of pity, "You couldn't possibly have named her after—,"
The Headmaster's pity sickened him, churned his stomach. He hated it, resented it, wanted to run from it.
"You must provide—," Severus tried to get the words out, each more difficult than the last, "—sanctuary... She's an innocent, no matter my—my crimes. You've protected the boy, you must protect her, too."
At last Dumbledore began to understand, "The Prophecy..."
"With The Dark Lord, she is in danger. He has a purpose for her. I thought... I could go through with it, but I... I cannot."
The pity on Dumbledore's face once more turned to near disgust, and Severus looked stricken, the truth of his words hanging in the frigid air. There was a long painful pause, and slowly the man regained control of himself, mastering his own uneven breathing in the darkness.
"Remember your promise. Keep her safe, just as you keep safe her namesake."
Dumbledore sighed, looking from Severus' dark anguished face to the stirring child in his arms, "Severus, do not do this."
"I've no choice..."
The Death Eater dissolved into the night.
In the cold and frigid air, the bleeding child in Dumbledore's arms began to weep, not knowing she was special, not knowing she was infamous, not knowing she would grow to fight monsters and conquer destiny and fall in love. She couldn't possibly know that tomorrow night, after two brutal murders, a very select few who knew the Prophecy would raise their glasses and whisper: "To Harry Potter — the boy who lived, and down with Lilium Snape — the girl destined to kill him!"
ϟ
1 november 1981 — ten years ago.
This is how the story began: a broken man with his head in his hands, crying.
Severus was back at Hogwarts, and he was even less of a person than he was when he left it. And this was saying something. It had been two days since he had left his child here, and he was in no fit state to care for her. He was in no fit state to even live.
Lily Potter was dead, and it was all Severus Snape's fault.
She was dead, and he wanted to be dead too.
Rosier was dead. Regulus was dead. Snyde, Wilkes, Mulciber I, Avery I — all dead. Even the Dark f—cking Lord himself was dead. But none of them mattered — not to Severus. What mattered to him — only — was that Lily J. Potter was gone forever.
Severus sobbed, back to a wall in the Headmaster's office, unwashed hair loose on either side of his face. He was still dressed in his Death Eater robes, the white mask cracked and broken on the floor behind him. He still had the rubble of the destroyed home in Godric's Hollow clinging to his boots. His Occlumency shields weren't working, or perhaps he just didn't care anymore.
"Gone... dead..."
"Is this remorse, Severus?"
Severus reeled back at the near... taunting in Albus Dumbledore's voice, as if struck by a foreign spell, silent and gasping, staring miserably at the slate sky beyond the windows. Dumbledore eyed him for a long moment, his eyes twinkling with nothing other than cunning.
Remorse?
This went far deeper than remorse. This was agonising, never—ending, all—encompassing misery. This was guilt strong enough to make him want to die, and the hole that was opening within himself made it feel like he was already halfway there.
"I wish... I wish I were dead..."
"And what use would that be to anyone?" Dumbledore replied mercilessly.
Severus' black eyes shifted to regard his old Headmaster as frigid realisation crashed over him like a wave of cold, stinging saltwater. His existence did not matter, perhaps it never did, apart from how it was of use to Albus Dumbledore and whatever plans he had.
"If you loved Lily Evans, Severus, if you truly loved her, then your way is clear."
Severus blinked long and hard to see through his haze of pain, and the Headmaster's words took an eternity to reach him. How dare he, how bloody dare he! If Severus loved her? She was his first and only friend, one who was pure and good and everything he did not deserve. And to see her child again, the one screaming in his crib beside his mother's dead body, no. He could not bear it. Finally, he flicked off his words with a painful jerk of the head.
"The boy doesn't need protection," the twenty—one year old rasped hoarsely, "The Dark Lord has gone—,"
"The Dark Lord will return." Dumbledore stressed quietly, "And you and I both know that he will have help when he does."
Severus tensed, head dropping between his hunched shoulders, tears building up a pressure on the backs of his eyelids.
The horrors converged into one. Green light and screams and a ceiling with a hole blown in. A child born out of love versus a child born out of duty; two people destined to be damaged. A mother that Severus Snape had killed, a son that Lilium Snape could... No. Like every other survivor of this bloody pointless war, Severus would need to perfect the art of dissociating.
"Because of her, the boy will be in terrible danger."
Blank, empty, Severus stared once more at the sky beyond.
Then, at last, he gravely insisted, "No one can know. This must be between us! Swear it! I cannot bear... especially Potter's son... not when my own daughter could... I want your word!"
"My word, Severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?" Dumbledore sighed, looking down into the younger man's ferocious, anguished face. "If you insist..."
Severus wanted to run, flee, bury himself into some deep hole in the earth.
He didn't get a chance.
The heavy door to the office opened, and a strange sound followed it.
Severus found it almost impossible to turn, like his head was stuck on a spike, and when he finally managed to drag his gaze across the room, he found someone he'd only seen in makeshift battlefields and old classrooms.
Professor Minerva McGonagall looked just about as well as he did, pale and drawn and deadly. Like him, she was still dressed for war. In fact, he bet she was out just this morning — hunting fleeing Death Eaters in that outfit, judging by the spray of blood on the edges of her dark tartan cloak. In her arms was a bundle, swaddled in the same black cloak he'd wrapped her in two days ago.
It was only then that he placed the sound: it was a child crying.
"No," he fairly snarled.
No one responded; his old professors simply stared at him with blank expressions. It terrified him. His fist struck hard against Dumbledore's desk, upsetting a tiny silver metronome.
"I said, no!"
McGonagall didn't stop in her approach, though she looked no happier about this than he was. He averted his eyes and backed away, fairly lurching, broken heart up in his throat, jagged pieces cutting at his insides. The memories, the humiliation, it was too much. It would make him sick to even see her — to see the signs of himself in her face, to see the signs of someone else...
"Take her away, I don't want to look at her, I don't want—,"
McGonagall said nothing, only pushed the child into his arms before he could object any further. He had no choice but to take her, if he didn't want her hitting the marble floor. She was feather—light, barely a weight in his arms, when he held her away from himself like she was a particularly unstable potion of some kind.
Instantly, she stopped crying.
This would be the second time, ever, that Severus Snape had held his own daughter.
With long awkward arms, he cradled the bundled child to his chest and cautiously glanced down at her small face. The child gazed up at him reverently — big eyes, pink gums, and full pale lips. Her wounds were still pink and fresh, though covered in bandages. She had dimples; he hadn't noticed that before. Severus lightly stroked at one with a trembling finger, which she snatched onto with a bony fist. Her skin was cold but her grip was tight, and his heart clenched with a feeling he couldn't describe.
Severus stood there in the Headmaster's office, under the intense gazes of two famous Order members — Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall, while he held his one year old child for the first time without fearing for their lives. And when she reached with her hand for his nose (of bloody course), Severus was just too d—mn tired to pull away from her.
Little fingers clumsily scrambled for purchase on his nose, and Severus, prepared for revulsion and annoyance, instead felt— peace. He felt peace, and he felt her impossibly soft, fragile, baby skin.
So soft. So fragile.
Carefully extricating her grip from his nose, Severus inspected the small hand like a particularly fascinating ingredient he'd never before seen. Missing two fingers. A small right hand, missing two fingers, mutilated during the escape from a spell he himself created. He found himself holding the hand between his own fingers, glaring like they had wronged him somehow, spreading her remaining fingers against his palm as if comparing the size.
So small. So helpless.
"It doesn't matter if you don't want her, Severus."
He looked sharply up at Dumbledore with wide, shocked eyes. Out the corner of his eye, McGonagall watched him with barely restrained judgement. The years had not been kind to any of them, and it was frightening to be in their presence, in this office, when for the last four years — they had been his enemies.
"Only you can keep her from the Dark."
Dark. Light. Something in between.
The Dark Lord had promised power, but it wasn't the right kind. It was drifting or sinking. Severus became convinced that if he joined the Death Eaters, whatever feeling of escape, of getting toward the Light and buoyancy he could tell some other people had (like Lily and Potter and Black and Lupin and—) would finally become his. But he'd been, as always, hopelessly wrong. Whatever good that had once been in him was gone, swallowed up, merged with Darkness.
But this was Albus Dumbledore's brave new world, wasn't it.
The Darkest wizard of their age had been defeated by none other than a baby. Embarrassing, really. The war was over, and now it was time for their world to recover. It would be a bleeding, broken process, and what the hell was recovery anyway? So many were dead, and missing, and imprisoned. Severus was twenty—one years old, and almost all of the people he knew were dead or in Azkaban.
He was too young for almost all of the people he knew to be dead or in Azkaban.
How much more of himself could he possibly be expected to give?
Severus had already sworn himself to a lifetime of protection of the Potter boy, dooming himself to decades of teaching at a school that had meant nothing but bullying and intimidation to him, and now he had to be saddled with a child that he had no choice in... No, he would not allow himself to think of that, either.
But then the child looked up at him again, with those big eyes full of recognition, of trust, and he knew he was helpless against her.
Severus' breathing became heavy and shallow, each inhale and exhale a struggle. He held his child against him, burying his face into her soft black hair, and he thought for the first millisecond since he found Lily dead on the floor that it might be possible for him to keep living.
"And you must keep her from the Dark, Severus, if our world has any chance at survival at all."
ϟ
Lilium.
Her name was punishment, not obsession. Severus did it to remind himself every day of the sins he had committed and to force himself to suffer the consequence of merely hearing the name spoken aloud. His daughter been named something else... at first, a name chosen personally by the Dark Lord. But then Severus changed it, himself, right before he pushed her into Dumbledore's arms.
He had to punish himself somehow; it didn't seem like anyone else was going to do it.
Severus Snape would not be going to Azkaban as he so richly deserved. At first, there'd been some concern that he would even be able to keep the girl. A 'suspected' Death Eater — already in danger of incarceration in Azkaban, was not a fit guardian and was not to be trusted with a child. Surely they would remove her from his care, as they should.
But like Lucius Malfoy, Severus had been able to skate by relatively unscathed — with the assistance of the Headmaster of course. He didn't even have to stand before the Wizengamot and the nasty likes of Bartemius Crouch (whom he knew from speaking with Barty Junior, a fellow Death Eater, was a genuine b—stard).
But even if he wasn't thrown into Azkaban, his past remained a concern.
Like most, McGonagall — Minerva, as he now ought to call her — was sceptical to the extreme, and most often it seemed like she was contemplating snatching the child from him anytime they were in hr general vicinity.
"Given your history — secret as it may currently be, it does not seem unlikely that some will seek retribution." She said sternly, speaking to Severus even though her eyes kept glancing from the child to the Headmaster. "They may come after the girl, if they think it would harm you."
Severus watched as the child reached with an impossibly small hand to grip one of his fingers. Within seconds, she had cheekily guided his finger into her mouth and bitten down as hard she was able. Little brat. Severus sneered with disgust.
"Don't worry, Pro— Minerva. I have no intention of keeping it for long."
"Now Severus..." Dumbledore sighed deeply.
"Her." Minerva interrupted, glaring at Severus deeply, "Keeping her for long."
It was by will alone that he did not roll his eyes.
More than once, he'd heard Minerva hiss, "Why do this to the poor child, Albus?"
Severus couldn't help but agree.
Why do this to the poor child?
Severus was depressed and angry and he had no energy to care for himself — much less a child. He didn't bathe for days at a time, he smoked more than was good for him (a filthy Muggle habit), and he often forgot to feed himself anything other than potions. He certainly did not believe he was competent enough to not accidentally kill the child. It would be a true waste of all his (and Dumbledore's and Madam Pomfrey's) hard work at keeping her alive in the first place.
But Albus Dumbledore — in his infinite wisdom — was determined that Severus raise the child, for some insane unfathomable reason.
And having another person round him constantly was jarring, even if said person spent most of her time sleeping and eating.
Not to mention, Severus' severe lack of knowledge was both painful and humiliating. He hated feeling stupid, and he had never felt more stupid than when he was near the girl. Dumbledore had assured him that those able would be more than willing to share their knowledge, but Severus felt on edge, surrounded by his old professors, who all thought he was a villain, who all thought they knew better.
He refused to speak to anyone about this.
So, he had many questions.
How did he get her to stop crying? What did he feed her? What did he provide for clothing? How did he get her to sleep? How soon should he expect her to start functioning on her own? And again, how the hell did he get her to stop crying?
What he did learn rather quickly was that babies could not be reasoned or negotiated with. They ate when they wanted to. Slept when they wanted to. Shut up when they wanted to. Everyone else was forced to simply suffer in their wake. The fact that someone so small could hold so much power was nearly impressive — if it didn't make him want to drive his wand into his own skull.
With the girl still wailing in his ear, Severus had almost returned to his Slytherin dormitory out of pure instinct before he remembered old Slughorn's recently unoccupied office and chambers awaited him as the new Potions Master. He practically dropped the girl onto the mattress and surrounded her with spare pillows. The very last thing he needed was for her to start walking and then do something stupid like fall off the bed and crack her skull (he had no idea how he'd explain that to Dumbledore). Still, Minerva insisted the girl shouldn't start that particular motor movement for a few months yet.
But, honestly, he wasn't at all convinced that the Gryffindor Head of House wouldn't purposely misinform him out of sheer spite.
The child was miserable. Too small. Too sickly. Every part of her seemed to hurt, the powerful magic in her veins thrumming with a need to release. When her bouts of accidental magic eventually came, he already knew it'd strike down anything within her vicinity. She didn't want to go to sleep, she didn't want anything he fed her, and she most certainly didn't want to stop crying.
From what he noticed of the time Before, the girl had been an impossibly quiet child. She hardly ever cried, or screamed, or showed any kind of emotion at all. But since arriving here, it was as if the child had cut loose. As if she'd been bottling up all the tears that she hadn't felt safe to release before. The child cried constantly — only ever stopping when Severus himself picked her up.
And most often, he refused to pick her up.
Still, it was rather gratifying that she screamed anytime anyone else came remotely close to her. At least someone was on his side. This clearly meant this child was deranged. Since entering his care, he hadn't dropped her on her head even once, but surely someone must have at some point.
Staring down at the crying child on the bed, Severus attempted to be reasonable.
"Stop that," he told her firmly.
She just cried harder.
"You must stop." He insisted, a tad desperate now, even resorting to saying: "Please."
She did not stop.
Severus put his head in his hands, and he cried with her. No more. He couldn't do this. He would rather be subjected to ten rounds of Cruciatus at Mulciber's hands than endure another moment of this. Tangled in blankets, the child was still screaming herself hoarse, and those ear—piercing wails grated and grated at his nerves 'til he thought he was going to lose his mind. He tried covering his ears, but even that didn't help. He wanted to hate this child.
"Enough." Severus suddenly roared, "Enough!"
The girl startled, hiccuping once and then falling silent.
It was the first (but not the last) time he had raised his voice at her, but for some reason, she did not seem afraid. Lilium only watched Severus curiously, as if eager to see what would happen next. The baby blinked through heavy tears, saltwater trailing down her rosy cheeks and disappearing into the collar of her transfigured clothes.
Severus drew in a slow, unsteady breath to orient himself. Then, "Right, then. See? Now, that wasn't so difficult."
The child sniffed rather disapprovingly, as if even she didn't agree with his parenting methods.
"We will have no more of that tonight. Are we agreed?"
The girl blinked those huge watery eyes up at him. Sniffled a bit again. He took that as a yes.
"Agreed."
He stared at the child on the bed (he did not yet have a crib for her) and he thought...
I could just leave.
No one would know, not until too late. He could be in another country by then. He could walk out of this room, stride past the front gates of Hogwarts, and then Apparate away. He spent the last few years as a spy; he'd learnt enough to know how to disappear without a trace. Not even Dumbledore would be able to find him, at least not for a while.
The child was fine — with or without him.
Since she'd arrived at Hogwarts and been under the care of Madam Pomfrey — Poppy, that is, the girl no longer looked so wounded and pale and sickly. The gashes on her face had healed, and her right hand no longer looked too mangled. She'd gained weight, and she no longer looked so frail and breakable. In fact, she'd gained some colour — a fresh glow to her cheeks that made her look 'as pretty as a peach' — according to Poppy, anyway.
Personally, Severus thought his child looked a bit like a scraggly wisp of a creature someone had left out on the front doorstep.
His daughter was fourteen months old. Poppy had an endless supply of questions that he had no answers to. Does she have any allergies? Does she require any potions? What is her sleep schedule? And always, his answer was the same: 'I have no d—mn clue'.
He felt their judgement like a brand on his forehead, as obvious and d—mning as the Dark Mark on his arm. They could think he was an absentee father all they bloody wanted. He could not and would not explain that he had nearly no contact with the child before, when in the Dark Lord's inner circle. She was not his responsibility, nor his to take care of. In fact, he was barely permitted to even look at her. He hadn't held her, hadn't picked her up, hadn't even truly touched her until the night he gave her to Dumbledore.
Now, suddenly, she was all his to care for.
And all the while, those big solemn eyes followed him wherever he went as if she knew, already, that he would fail her.
So, with this realisation, Severus came to a decision: I cannot keep her.
And yet...
ϟ
After the Wizarding War, Severus Snape had become many things, but a dreamer was not one of them.
He stared at Lilium, the child that he had saved, the child that he had created, and he dreamed that it could be different.
Later, he'd blame it on Firewhiskey and lack of sleep and being bloody twenty—one, but he could see the whole future stretching out before him.
His parents had f—cked him up. He'd take responsibility for the sins that were his own (and there were so very many), but d—mn it, his parents really hadn't given him a chance. Beat and bullied and neglected him 'til he got twisted, and didn't know how to make friends — certainly not how to keep them, and was so tired of being powerless that he went to the last person he should.
But if he let this happen now, if he let Dumbledore convince him to follow through on this, Severus would be able to do all the things that he secretly dreamed his own parents would've done as a child — nighttime stories and genuine attention and the lack of a belt leaving scars against skin.
She would go to sleep every night with a full stomach, and she would have clothes that were not bought off the secondhand rack (that always had too many holes to keep out the cold). She would have a father that was unashamed of her magic while she would have no mother at all. And she'd be better off for it.
And surely, if he'd wanted those things, his own child should want the same.
Severus had sworn to protect the Potter child, when the boy came of age and went to school, but for this girl... he had made no such vow. He had already done his best by her — he had gotten her out. Now, he could send her away. Far, far away. She'd be better for this, too. Wasn't there some nice Half or Pureblood family out there who'd been wanting a child?
Professor McGonagall... Minerva... had even provided him with a few names.
Weasley's... Prue's... Bones'... Haywood's...
After all, what the hell was a twenty—one year old Death Eater doing with a baby? He was a liar, a spy, and a traitor. He was not fit to associate with most others; he hated people, and they hated him. Such a man had no business being a parent, much less a parent over a child like this.
So, even drunk on Firewhiskey as he was, Severus knew such dreams were stupid. They were impractical. Frankly, illogical. Completely mad. He'd be too impatient, too ungentle, too unkind to raise a child. And he had no money and no prospects, except that he was now a servant to a different master than he was before.
Children made a mess, and a baby would only be worse, nevermind the inevitable annoyance over the noise and the child's need for attention and his own lack of sleep. He'd muck it up. Of course he would. She didn't ask to be born, certainly not into conditions like these, and it would only be cruel to punish her with his fatherhood.
In the end, Severus knew that the main concern to affect his decision should be:
Who would monitor her, watch over her, if it wasn't himself?
But mostly, he knew he was being selfish.
Before, the thought of children had repulsed him, and then when it'd been... suggested, he'd wanted to say no. But now that the child existed and was in front of him, he couldn't allow himself to follow through with the alternative. Her presence was... comforting, he supposed, in a way that he could not fully comprehend. It was strange and uncomfortable, but not altogether bad, that he would have someone to take care of. Someone to invest in. Shape.
Severus would still be himself — distrustful and angry and cruel, but he would not be alone in this world.
ϟ
Severus would keep Lilium.
Suddenly he became inseparable from her, hating when anyone else acted on his behalf, resenting anyone else's closeness with his daughter, all the while maintaining some sense of emotional detachment between them. Besides her everyday care, he was determined to enact a certain level of distance in raising Lilium. Despite his thoughts about his lack of paternal skills remaining largely unchanged, something about keeping his child made him worried he might be softening.
Severus worried that, later, she would discover how close he was to giving her away.
While raising Lilium, Severus realised that having a child was a bit like brewing an ill—tempered potion, if said potion constantly ran the risk of driving its brewer utterly insane.
The trouble with vowing to teach at Hogwarts, and deciding to keep the child, was that it opened up the door to opinions. And loads of them, every single one of them unwanted and given against his will. As if having a child suddenly meant he wanted intervention, everyone sticking their ugly faces in on their lives.
The professors that he had grown up with now determined themselves his child's stewards.
Pomona buried him alive with muted quilts, impossibly small hats, and something horrifying called 'booties' while Filius charmed a cot mobile for the child, small lilies and twinkling lights and stuffed stars, all levitating safely above her crib no matter how much she reached for them.
Hooch had the audacity to gift Lilium with a beginner's broom which he promptly threw into the fire. No child of his would get anywhere near a broom before the age of eleven (or ever) if he could help it. Charity insisted that one day Lilium might enjoy that insane Muggle contraption called 'roller skates' (the Muggle Studies professor would be proven wrong of course; his clumsy daughter could barely keep upright when standing on unmoving, solid ground).
Dumbledore certainly had plans to rot her baby teeth with sweets, saying 'yes' even when Severus said 'no', sneaking her sugar quills and fizzing whizzbees and liquorice wands all while his back was turned.
Of course Hagrid adored the girl immediately. It took everything in Severus' power not to react violently every time the half—giant put her on his tall shoulders, tossed her in the air, or hung her gleefully upside down by an ankle. His daughter was typically a very serious child, but anytime she was in the presence of Hagrid and Fang (that coward of a dog), her ringing laughter could be heard across the castle.
Still, Severus found himself flinching every time — even if the growing girl did giggle wildly.
Minerva acted as a steadying influence who often checked in with stern support and fierce opinions which he both appreciated and resented (the latter of the two he made more expressly known). Yes, of course Severus wanted to know how to raise her weight, and what should he do if Lilium got a fever? When would her teeth finish coming in, and would it cause her any pain? If it did, what should Severus do to soothe her? When would the child walk? When would she talk?
But, the problem was, Minerva wouldn't leave him alone.
As a researcher and an aunt to many nieces, she had advice that stretched beyond basic needs of child—rearing to the sort of toys Lilium ought to play with, what kind of magic he should expose her to, how to manage his apparent 'bad language' in her presence, and whether or not he should restrict her from his private potions lab. But Severus did not want her meddling. He would not tolerate it.
Most often, their little spats ended up before the Headmaster who seemed rather entertained by Severus' misery.
During one such session, Severus burst, "If you do not trust me to care for my own daughter, perhaps you should not have insisted that I retain custody of her!"
"Severus..." Dumbledore replied placatingly, only slightly patronising, "Of course we trust you to take care of your daughter. We simply wonder if you trust yourself to take care of her."
And... and d—mn it, he wondered the same thing.
Severus wondered if he would wonder this for the rest of his miserable life.
In any case, their most recent spat centred round moving the girl into a room of her own.
And shockingly (horrifyingly), Severus was the one against it.
Minerva expressed that children ought to be taught independence from a young age (and 'While Minerva f—cking McGonagall may be an expert in pompous little Gryffindor brats, what the hell does she know about bloody toddlers?' he had snarled more than once). The Gryffindor Head of House further believed that it would be beneficial for Lilium to learn to settle into a safe space of her own, for her to become less dependent upon her father.
And, frankly, Severus didn't want independence from his own child.
Wasn't that the whole bloody point of this ill—defined disaster? He had kept her because Dumbledore demanded it, because Severus was tired of being alone, because someone who knew the truth had to watch over her. He already kept himself largely emotionally distant, what was the point in enacting physical distance? How could he make sure she didn't blow herself up, then?
Besides, Severus had grown accustomed to Lilium's presence.
He hated all children, but eventually he'd come to realise that individually they may perhaps be... tolerable.
Most of the time, he found himself talking to the child, reading aloud The Prophet, describing the steps of whatever potion he was making, or sharing his complaints about the d—mn twinkly Headmaster.
On nights neither of them could sleep, Lilium could be found seated in Severus' lap, supported with her back to his chest, chattering at her father in her strange infantile babble. Severus, for his part, worked by the light of a candle through a pile of student essays (other people's children were idiots, he decided), but occasionally he responded to the girl as though carrying out a genuine conversation. 'Is that so?' he drawled, and 'I see, how utterly fascinating,' and 'What do you think of this, my girl?' and each time Lilium giggled some high—pitched rasping noise back at him, absolutely delighted.
Something about that struck him. This was his child, not Minerva's or Dumbledore's or even bloody Hagrid's.
He felt different with her. Severus was easy with Lilium in a way he wasn't before, not with anyone else, not even Lily — his first friend, his greatest regret. He felt the most like himself since before the war and all his Death Eater compatriots ended up in Azkaban. He had become a dutiful father — still begrudgingly, of course — but now there was something almost... instinctual about the way they interacted.
How he pointedly pushed food across her plate, which she obediently (if not a bit clumsily) shoved into her mouth. How he sat patiently with a book in his lap while he helped her learn to walk. How he put a Sticking Charm on her rump so he could watch her play while working in his potions lab. How she babbled away as though he was the only person in the world, 'Sev, this' and 'Sev, that', and how he nodded and made the occasional grunt to indicate he was listening.
If there was anything one could say about his fatherhood, it was how gentle he was with his child.
He was trying his best to ensure the girl never feared him the way he did his own father.
Tobias Snape was a b—stard and Severus Snape would be the same, but what he could give her was the fearsome truth:
"One day, you will have to kill a man."
It didn't matter that she wouldn't be the one to utter the Killing Curse, the blood would be on her hands just the same.
Because the Dark Lord would return. But unlike the Headmaster, Severus was not willing to leave his defeat in the hands of an infant simply because of a prophecy foretold by a mad woman in a pub (especially not the son of James bloody Potter). If and when his old master did return, Severus planned on doing all that was within his power to stop him.
So, he would make sure the girl could protect herself when the Dark Lord called for her. Until then, she needed stability. She needed someone strong enough to protect her. He could provide that.
Severus raised Lilium safe within the confines of the castle, hidden by the wards of Hogwarts, hidden from the world for both her safety and theirs as well. She grew like that girl from some Muggle fairytale, with the long hair and the tower that imprisoned her (the one that Lily used to love).
His daughter knew which moving staircases to avoid (and that there were precisely 142 of them), always what the passwords were to Dumbledore's office, and which portraits would keep her secrets, about the doors that would squeak traitorously when trying to sneak away from a midnight snack or a particularly forbidden adventure, and which potions to never, ever touch unless she wanted to die a most painful death.
Lilium was strictly forbidden from interacting with the students, and instead was privately tutored in subjects such as mathematics, chemistry, and literature by the various professors round the school. She consumed the written world with a hunger like he'd never seen, reading books by the armful, all the margins decorated in ink—drawn flowers and little scribblings. She loved any and all plant—life, and when she was angry with him, he could find her hiding away in a greenhouse or in a tree or behind a bush.
Lilium became a witty child, sardonic and harsh, lacking in most manners that would be considered socially acceptable. She was both fiercely child—like and strangely mature, having been surrounded only by professors and raised by a man who refused to treat her like a child. She learned to barter and trade and deal like a Slytherin, a glint to her eye and a smirk on her lips. She had nightmares like no one he'd ever met, consumed with a paranoia she no longer had any reason to possess. They did not say they loved one another, as if they didn't know the words.
Lilium's magic came in early, strong and fierce and uncontrollable, when she was not even two years old.
When she was angry, windows shattered and books went flying and things fell off shelves. When she was happy, lights burned brighter, furniture levitated, and hordes of lilies bloomed through the floorboards. Those first few years, every time she giggled, a new bloom burst through and Severus spent a painful amount of hours brewing Weedkiller Potion.
Lilium just laughed and laughed, and the flowers wouldn't stop growing.
Her magic was brilliant, beautiful, and terrifying.
She was also intensely shy, rarely spoke unless spoken to, and even then, only when she felt like it. In her silences, one could see a great pain in her — one that had no name or place. She flinched at most human contact, though no one had raised a hand to her in anger (not since... Before, during a time she shouldn't even remember). And sometimes she got a strange dreamy look in her dark eyes, like she came from a wiser and darker place.
"Who's the man I'll have to kill, Sev?"
"You'll know him when you see him."
Severus had turned her into a fearsome little girl, or perhaps she always had been all on her own.
'She's a Dark child'; people said that about her. He heard them talking about Lilium more than once. It was an insult as much as it was a whimper. A Dark child. Severus had raised a dark child, and no matter what happened, there was nothing he could do to change that. He didn't put much faith in Divination, but perhaps the prophecy was true. Perhaps it was already too late. 'She's a Dark child,' people would say, 'There's something very wrong about that one.'
And they were right.
ϟ
Severus kept up his work at Hogwarts, no matter how much hated it.
He had made a vow, and he wasn't about to go back on his word. No matter how much he hated children, no matter how much he was certain to hate James Potter's brat — now four years old, just a month older than Severus Snape's own brat. After a long day of suffering in the presence of dunderheads, he was summoned to the Hospital Wing where no doubt some idiot First Year got themselves poisoned or some such bullsh—t.
As if he didn't have enough to do.
Lilium was surely getting into further mischief every minute he was away from her.
Shockingly, Dumbledore was waiting for him. Immediately, Severus knew something was very wrong. He hesitated in the wide doorway of the Hospital Wing, an instinctive sneer taking hold of his features because he knew whatever was about to be said was going to make him want to commit murder. It was a shame. He almost believed he was going to escape the clutches of Azkaban after all.
The Headmaster must've followed his line of thought because he said, "Now, Severus. I must ask you to remain calm."
His black eyes narrowed suspiciously, drawling, "Why?"
"Hagrid is very upset—,"
Severus went rigid. Hagrid was supposed to be watching Lilium this afternoon (as if it wasn't actually the other way round). Really, he only agreed to it so the child would stop pestering him, and he could have a moment's peace. But if he'd been summoned here to the Hospital Wing, and if Hagrid was distraught...
"—And he wanted for you to know that—,"
"Where is Lilium?" Severus suddenly interrupted, voice practically a snarl, "Albus, tell me now."
Dumbledore's mouth looked thin, lips pressed tight, "Severus..."
"Where — is — she?" He practically seethed, each word spat viciously through his teeth.
Dumbledore's expression was solemn, hands folded in front of himself. "There has been a terrible accident. Lilium was playing outside the hut, and one of Hagrid's creatures got loose of its bonds—,"
I'll kill him. I'll kill myself. I'll kill... The walls were throbbing like they had a heartbeat of their own while his heart was busy pounding like it was trying to beat out of his chest. Panic ate away at his throat, like he was trying to swallow acid, and he felt a terror he hadn't felt since the war, thought he wouldn't ever feel again.
Dumbledore was still talking, but he could barely hear a word.
"—unable to get to her in time. I'm terribly sorry, Severus. There is nothing Poppy could do—,"
No. No, no, no, no— Severus tore away from the Headmaster and sprinted as fast as he could to the opposite wall of the Hospital Wing. It was only just now that he realised they were nearly alone here, as if all had cleared out to give them the privacy of a final goodbye to a dying child.
Poppy could not save his daughter, but Severus could. He would pour all manner of potions down her throat. He would brew something entirely new, burn his hands raw and work them to the bone to create a cure. He would sell his soul to the Dark Lord again, wherever the hell he was, just for that child with his eyes and his hair and a foreign laugh to live another moment on this wretched earth. He would do whatever he must, or he would go back down to his lab, find the deadliest potion he possessed, and he would drink every last drop like he was parched for it.
Vow to protect the Potter boy be d—mned.
The very last bed in the room was occupied, and Severus fairly lurched toward it — his boots scraping against the flagstones when he slid to a stop. He expected to find his daughter mangled, tiny body broken and covered with blood, crushed and battered and absolutely twisted out of shape until she was unrecognisable.
But... no.
There Lilium Snape lay, happy and healthy and safely asleep, curled up in the small cot located in the Hospital Wing (because she could sleep anywhere). Absolutely nothing wrong with her. Not even a bruise on her soft, pale skin.
He'd been tricked. He'd been manipulated.
Severus crumpled down to his knees at her bedside, utterly exhausted, falling like a drunkard unable to get past his own doorstep. The word 'relief' was not powerful enough to explain the feeling tearing through Severus' heart, whatever little was left of it.
Then, slowly, to not wake her, he leant down to pick Lilium up, one hand under her fragile body, the other supporting her head, and he cradled her to his chest. Before, in the life where he was a Death Eater, he had never, ever held Lilium. Never so much as touched her in all her short little life, not until he brought her here. Now the Dark Lord was gone, and he was free to hold her, and yet, for so long, he just... didn't.
How f—cking stupid could one man be?
Severus' expression was one of pure devastation, and he could not breathe. He thought he knew personally the depths that pain could reach. He thought he knew how much he could survive, because he had already survived it, and now that the very worst was past, nothing could hurt him anymore. But he had been wrong, just like always.
And he had barely even scratched the surface.
Severus sensed more than heard Dumbledore's presence, and he seethed in an absolute fury:
"You old, malevolent, vile b—stard!"
"Please, Severus. There are young ears present."
There were much worse things Severus could think of to say, but he did not — not because he didn't want Lilium to hear them, but because he didn't want to wake her. He knew Albus Dumbledore could be a manipulative old man, but he was horrified that even he could stoop so low. That b—stard, that absolute b—stard.
He stayed on his knees beside the cot, halfway holding her. His rough fingers brushed through the soft locks of dark hair, his own face halfway hidden by the top of her head. His thumb stroked along her long lashes and the sharp curve of her cheekbone, and he hovered his shaking fingertips over her pouty mouth to feel those soft breaths each time she exhaled.
He'd nearly forgotten Dumbledore's presence until the old man spoke again.
"All these years later, you have kept a distance between you, Severus. Why is that?"
His shoulders hunched nearly to his ears. He hissed, "Because no Death Eater should be raising a child—,"
"And yet there is Lucius Malfoy," Dumbledore countered simply (as if any of this was simple).
Severus nearly laughed — a cruel sound, "And look how Draco's turning out. Four years old and already hexing peacocks and house elves and anyone within reach—,"
"And see the difference in Lilium. Already, you've done well. A thoughtful, inquisitive child; overly shy and a bit contentious, no doubt, but she is content, and healthy, and she has a future ahead of her."
"Yes! Some future, designed and manipulated by you, by prophecy, by the f—cking Dark Lord! Why must I suffer hope when I already know that she will have no future worth living?"
Severus' breathing was shallow. Dumbledore showed him no mercy.
"What are you so afraid of, Severus?"
"You know!" He snarled at him, voice rising, nearly enough to wake the sleeping child. "You know already what I am afraid of!"
"Yes. But you must say it."
And so Severus crumpled just as he had so very long ago, in the Headmaster's office, shattered because the love of his life was dead and it was all his fault. This was all his fault, too. Again, Dumbledore stood over him, looking familiar in his grimness. Severus could not see through his haze of pain, unable to let the old man's words reach him for a time. Some terrible sound was escaping from the depths of him, ripped up from his shriveled remains of a heart, a horrific mix of a sob and a groan like a wounded animal.
His child.
His flesh and blood.
The only good thing he'd ever created in the whole d—mn world, and he didn't even get a choice.
After a moment or two, Severus lifted his dark head, and he felt like a man who had lived a hundred years of misery since that day he learned Lily Potter, his best friend — the love of his life — the namesake to his child, was dead.
"She will be their villain."
Dumbledore stared at him, cold and unrepentant and unchanging.
"Yes, Severus. She will."
So, this is how the story will end: a broken man with his head in his hands, crying.
annie speaks
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and that is chapter one, my dears, woooo!!! there was a lot happening and it was a bit lengthy but that will be about the length of all my chapters that i post for y'all, hope that's okay. in any case, what did you think of this chapter? i know a lot of this was setting the scene as well as giving you some insight into dad!snape (big yikes - so much growth is needed) and introducing my little baby lilium. i hope you love her as much as i do. she's precious and angry and i'm nervous for your thoughts.
on another note, i wanted to say i know snape is a super unlikeable character to many, many of us hp fans, and i intend to respect that and hopefully develop him more than jkr ever did. he will remain a dick for a bit, but i have every intention of having accountability and hopefully what you see as real redemption for him. i hope you have the patience and the trust in me to work with these characters. i can't wait to hear your thoughts and theories!!!
IMPORTANT NOTE: my update schedule will be every wednesday!! i look forward to going on this journey with you :)
also, here is the start of the memes that i made for this book (i'm posting two because i'm so excited!!):
and number two: