yyy, Fanfiction, Harry Potter
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THE APPRENTICEby Deborah PetersPairing: Severus/LilyRating: PG-13, with the occasional burst of RGenre: DramaSummary: In 1998, Severus Snape was given a second chance. In 1976, he has to figure out how to take it.PROLOGUE : EARLY JUNE, 1976And then, suddenly, the pain cleared, and all his blood rushed to his head.As previously all his blood had been gushing out of a ragged wound in his throat, this could only be considered an improvement.And then he opened his eyes, and saw that he was being dangled, in midair, by his ankles, courtesy of Harry Potter, who seemed to have lost his glasses.Harry Potter, who seemed to have gained the company of a two-years-dead, twenty-years-younger Sirius Black, as well as a less-scarred Remus Lupin and Wormtail?That wasn't Harry Potter. And this was all too familiar. And a young redhead who was not, in fact, Ginny Weasley, said, "Let him down!"Severus Snape groaned, muttered, "For Merlin's sake, not this again," and wordlessly Summoned his wand, which smacked satisfyingly into his hand. He countered the jinx and righted himself, floating to the ground with as much grace as a hallucinating dead man can muster. He landed in front of?well, he might as well admit it?the late James Potter, who was staring at him, mouth open.Severus pulled his wand on him. Potter froze.How satisfying."Potter," he spat, fifteen years' teaching instinct kicking in. "I have had quite enough. You will immediately stop this nonsense. If you attempt to surprise me again in such a manner, you will immediately find yourself in multiple pieces with no hope of restitution and as I can only presume Mr and Mrs Potter would, for whatever reason, miss you," he sneered, "let us both strive to prevent that unfortunate, but by no means inevitable, scenario, shall we?"Potter's mouth hung open stupidly. He barely managed to muster a weak, "Whaa?"Severus stared him down over the tip of his wand. Potter didn't move. Neither, strangely, did Black, Lupin, or Pettigrew?or any of the other students gathered for the spectacle. In fact, every single person on the shore of the lake was staring at him in silence.It was disconcerting.Severus nodded at the still-gaping Potter, tried (and failed) to avoid glancing at the young redhead, and stalked off towards the castle with a customary flourish of his (worn, graying, too-short) robes.This was the strangest dream (near-death hallucination?) he had ever had.He had almost reached the castle when the voice he'd never managed to forget called out from behind him. "Sev?"He stopped."Sev, wait a second."Severus turned around, and there she was."What the hell was that?" she demanded.Severus raised an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?""You know very well what I mean," Lily said. "How did you?since when could you put Potter in his place like that? What happened to you?" She gestured vaguely at his face. "?all red faced and sputtering and 'bloody' and inappropriate suggestions about his mother and everything? How are you so calm? Did someone cast a soapmouth hex on you? And that's putting aside the wandless accio?where has that been hiding all this time?"It had been twenty years since he'd heard one of Lily's disjointed speeches, and yet his subconscious was still somehow capable of providing one for him. It was almost amusing, really.Unless?Unless somehow?"Lily?" Severus asked, before he could stop himself."Yes, what?" Lily replied, a little testily."It's not actually you you," Severus said slowly. "It's not. Is it?""What?" Lily repeated. "Severus, you didn't hit your head when Potter flipped you upside down, did you?"The response was so perfectly Lily, so completely outside anything he would ever think to say, that Severus did something he hadn't done in at least five years. He laughed. Lily blinked at him."I am exploring new depths of my subconscious," he said by way of explanation, and he couldn't help himself?he reached out a hand to her.She took it.JUNE 1976, PART 1When Lily took his hand, the amalgam of shock, amusement, and?Merlin forbid?hope, these long-forgotten emotions that were all battling for supremacy in his not-empty mind?did one find emotions in the mind or elsewhere?where were emotions? They were intangible, but they exploded all the same into a thousand tiny particles that ran up his fingers and along his arm straight into his spine.She was real. He was touching her.Circe, she was so young.Sixteen, to be precise, and given the state of his unstained, even-bonier, shorter (but still fairly long) fingers (he hadn't dared to look at his left forearm), he was physically the same age. And, more importantly, not at all bleeding to death from a gaping throat wound.And he had put the ever-entitled Potter the elder quite firmly in his place.He wasn't dead. He wasn't dead, unless this was an afterlife. And for all Severus' faults, blind optimism could not be said to be one of them. As a) a terrible person, who b) had enjoyed mocking the adherents of any and all religions for many years (twenty-three), Severus had no doubts that, if there were an afterlife, he would not be getting an invitation to the good sort. And here he was, sixteen years old with the sixteen-year-old love of his life. So.Which serpent venoms have hallucinogenic properties?Ophiophagus hannah and Naja naja may be hallucinogenic when dehydrated and inhaled, but the Indian alchemists tended to mix the venom sacks with potent cannabis, so their reports were somewhat less than reliable.And he'd done so many tests on Nagini under the guise of caring for her health that hallucinogenic properties would surely not have gone undetected?A Time Turner? (The Time Turners had been destroyed in 1996.) A Pensieve malfunction brought on by ill-executed memory extraction? (He had already diverted from the original memory.)Perhaps?perhaps he was truly there.But why?"Why?"Severus blinked rapidly. "I beg your pardon?" he murmured, Occluding his face to a safe neutral.Lily was waving her free hand in front of his face. "Why are you staring at me? Sev, are you quite there? You haven't said anything for a whole minute."Severus allowed her hand to drop. "My apologies, Lily," he said smoothly. "Please forgive me. I've been rather lost in thought."Lily was looking at him askance. "I can see that. Sev, are you going to explain to me what happened out there?"Severus ran his fingers over his wand?not so smooth as it had been twenty-two years later?and shook his head. "What can I say?" he said mildly. "Potter needed to be put in his place.""I'll say. But how did you possibly?""It's amazing what one can do when one distances oneself from one's baser emotional reactions," Severus said. "Which I have resolved to do."Lily blinked at him. "What?"Severus swallowed. "I'm trying to think before I act," he said."Well, it worked." Lily smiled at him. "I've seen you do a couple of wordless spells here and there, but I've never seen you do wandless before."Severus shrugged."It's not?" Lily bit her lip. "It's not something you learned from?your other friends, this year, is it?"Severus snorted. "Those imbeciles? I think not." Seeing the relief in her eyes, he added, "Incidentally, I don't believe I'll be spending further time with them. They add nothing to my academic career and their social company leaves much to be desired.""That's?that's great," Lily said. "That's really wonderful. You know I?I worried?""I know," Severus said. "I should confess that I?appreciate. Your concern."Lily smiled. "Thank you, Severus.""If you'll excuse me. I'm sure there is studying I yet need to do."Lily's mouth quirked. "We've only got one practical exam left.""Yes, well, one can never?learn too much." Severus inwardly scoffed at himself. Two decades a spy, and he couldn't hold a conversation with a 16-year-old girl."That's?wise," Lily said. She grinned at him and added, as though quoting, "You are such a Ravenclaw.""Better a closet Ravenclaw than a shameless Gryffindor," Severus replied, the customary retort coming to his lips as easily as it had when he'd been fifteen. Lily looked as though she was likely to burst into either laughter or tears?Severus wasn't sure."Well, secret son of Rowena," she said at last, "You'll probably want this." She held out a bedraggled object Severus belatedly recognized as his own schoolbag. "I can't believe you left it out there. You're usually so protective of it."Severus took it from her with a slight bow. "My thanks," he said.Lily smiled wryly. "Say whatever else about those Slytherins you've been keeping company with," she said, "but at least they've improved your manners."Severus blushed?he blushed, for Merlin's sake?and nodded to her. "Good day, Lily," he said, and turned to enter the castle."Severus," Lily called. "Are we?I mean. We are friends?"Severus glanced back at her. "As I've never had another," he said, feeling bolder at that moment than he had when he'd willingly gone to his death, "I certainly hope so."Severus collapsed onto the green-curtained four-poster bed that he was fairly certain was his?at least, it was where he'd remembered and was surrounded by stacks of advanced Dark Arts and Potions texts?and closed the curtains around him with a flick of his wand. A few?well, several?privacy spells later, and he was able to relax (as much as he ever relaxed).He was, he decided, in 1976. To continue to consider other scenarios?that he was dead, or locked in a hallucinogenic dream?would only drive him mad. So, until he was given concrete evidence to the contrary, he would operate under the assumption that he had gone back to the end of his fifth year at Hogwarts.Severus lay on his back in the darkened room, closed hi...
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