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Severus Snape was seven when he made his first friend. He didn’t know that he had made a friend until she asked her parents, “Can my friend Sev stay for dinner?” while she gripped his sleeve in her hand and tracked dirt on the floor. Severus was busy looking in dismay at the dirt tracks on the clean carpet when she asked and he couldn’t help but to give a startled glance at her when he heard her words.
“Sure thing, dear, but you need to take your shoes off before you go any further.” Was the reply from the kindly looking woman with soft red hair that matched Lily’s, “Do you need to phone your parents to let them know where you are, Sev?”
“It’s Severus, and we haven’t got a phone. As long as it’s not long after dark, Mum won’t worry.” Severus replied, although that wasn’t entirely true. His mum would probably worry a bit around dinnertime, but he’s stayed out after dinner before. They really haven’t got a telephone though, which he hated to tell people, so he doesn’t have any way to tell her about staying for dinner unless he goes home – and he doesn’t want to go home.
Soon thereafter, he settles into something that feels like a false life with Lily and her family. Lily is wonderful and kind and the prettiest girl in the school – they learn when school starts that they go to the same primary, but have different teachers. Severus gains passing acquaintances with some of Lily’s other friends, but he doesn’t see much point in making the effort to be friendly when they’ll leave Cokesworth behind for Hogwarts in a few years anyway. Lily, however, thinks that it’s a terrible idea to not make friends whenever the opportunity presents itself and bullies him into being agreeable whenever she can. Lily’s sister dislikes Severus because he’s poor – she never says that exactly, but he knows from the way she says things about his part of town, his clothes, his parents, and all such. (Severus hates her because she’s right about all of it.) Lily’s parents walk softly around him – they ask in quiet voices if he has everything he needs, if he wants to take leftovers home, and if his mother is doing well. (He hates their pity.)
Lily doesn’t seem to see his poverty, and he hates her and loves her for it. She doesn’t pay any mind to his clothes or his food or his school supplies. When his secondhand, threadbare backpack breaks, she helps him tape it back together. When her parents see it, they offer him Petunia’s old backpack that’s been tucked away in their cupboard. He take the girly purple backpack and hates himself for giving into their pity.
When he’s eight and Lily is just barely still seven, she follows him home despite his efforts to put her off because she’s grown increasingly curious about his parents and his house. When they arrive, his mother is tight lipped and his father ignores them and they explore the garden after Lily is satisfied with her inspection of his bedroom. He does very well at keeping her away from his home for several more months after that.
Lily never tells him what caused her to figure out it out. He knows that she starts insisting that he have dinner with the Evans’ as much as her parents let her (which is often) and starts trying to convince her parents that he should be allowed to sleep over which they say no to until one day they stop saying no. Until one day after Severus has been convinced to stay for two nights in a row, and the Evans pull him aside to ask about his parents.
(Later, much later, he’ll realize that at some point the Evans’ no longer had to be asked for him to stay over – it was only him that needed to be convinced)
Severus doesn’t say anything, and isn’t really sure what they’re trying to ask him anyway, until Mr. Evans gives up on subtlety and asks, “Do your parents hit you, Severus?”
And Severus doesn’t know how to respond to that. He’s fairly certain that no one is supposed to be told that, but he’s never really thought about what might happen if someone is told that. (He’s fairly certain that his father would be angry and he knows what his anger does, but he tries to think around his father’s anger instead of about it.) He does know one thing though, “My mum doesn’t.”
Mr. and Mrs. Evans exchange a grim look and Mrs. Evans says in a the kindest, softest voice that makes Severus anxious and itchy, “Do you think it’s safe for you and your Mum in the house with your Dad?”
Later, Severus doesn’t remember what he said in response – he thinks it must have been some worrying variety of ‘I don’t know’ (because he was 8 ½ and he wasn’t sure what safe felt like if he was being honest) and the end result was that he wasn’t allowed to go home that night.
What Severus didn’t know at the time was that Mr. Evans went to Spinner’s End to ask Eileen Snape if she needed somewhere to go. He knocked on the door, and she answered. Their children were friends and young enough that they had seen each other at school and in the shops and occasionally escorting their children (although the Snapes were rarely seen with their son – much less so than the Evans with their daughters). David Evans and Eileen Snape needed no introduction, but David provided one anyway, “Mrs. Snape, my name is David Evans – Lily’s father. Severus is at our home tonight, and we’ve grown concerned over his safety – and yours – at home. I wanted to check in on you and see if you needed anything? If everything is alright?”
(David wouldn’t have made it in Slytherin, but his daughter got her Gryffindor courage from somewhere.)
Eileen Snape, a once proud pureblood Slytherin, stepped further out onto the stoop and said just barely loud enough for David to hear, “Everything is fine. I thank you not to poke your nose into private family matters.”
“Mrs. Snape – I must ask, do you think it’s safe for Severus to return home?” Eileen Snape was a proud woman who whispered the secrets of the magical world to her son. Who whispered family lore and prestige that her child would never be allowed to claim thanks to his father and her family’s prejudices. Who whispered lessons in strength and sneakiness and pride to her son. She knew that her son longed for connection to the magical world and had told Lily Evans that she was a muggleborn witch. She didn’t know if that information had been passed to her parents, but it would in good time. She hesitated for a moment, and made a choie.
In one world, Eileen Snape lied to the muggle man who asked her if her home was safe. She lied, and the next day Severus came home to continue his whispered lessons on magic and his attempts to avoid catching his father’s wrath (until he grew older and deliberately caught it so his mother wouldn’t;)
(until he grew older still, and abandoned both his mother and father to their troubles and sought to erase any hint he had any muggle ties;)
(until he grew even older, and kept their house after they both died and She died and so many other things came to pass;)
(But, this is a different world.)
In this world, Eileen Snape told the truth to the muggle man standing on her doorstep asking if her home was safe.
“No, it isn’t.” She took a breath, “I will not be leaving, but you may keep Severus away if you wish.”
Not even in this world was Eileen Snape capable of asking for help from a muggle – despite marrying one. But in this world, she was at least capable of letting him know that her son might need help if they were willing to give it.
That night, after settling the children (and Petunia who at 14 strongly resisted the label ‘child’) into their beds, Rose and David Evans sat at their kitchen table and debated the right course of action. They didn’t believe that making any legal reports would help, but they didn’t know if Tobias Snape would eventually come looking for his son. If they made the legal report, would that just cause more trouble for Eileen and Severus? They weren’t even sure what was happening in the house – neither Eileen nor Severus had outright said anything, but the signs seem clear and what had been said was enough for the Evans to want to keep Severus away from his father. And, Eileen, at least, had given her permission to do just that.
So, eventually after rounds of discussion and questioning if it was feasible, they decided that they would do their best to keep Severus in their home and away from Spinner’s End.
Severus, who was not consulted on this decision, kept trying to return to Spinner’s End despite the Evans’ best efforts to subtly adopt him. Eventually, the Evans’ decided that subtly wasn’t working and they needed to be blunt.
“Severus, dear, we think it’s best if you start to consider our home as yours.” Rose said as they sat the boy down on the family room sofa – Petunia and Lily having been shooed away, but were actually listening at the door since they had also realized something was going on with their parents and Severus.
“I have a home.”
“We feel, and your mother agrees, that the home with your father is unsafe. She asked that you stay with us until it’s safer.” A slight mistruth, but generally honest.
“Why is it unsafe?”
“Well,” Rose hesitated – no one had ever thought to tell her how to tell a boy that his father shouldn’t beat him and his mother, “Your father is unwell and that can make him unsafe. Your mother wants to stay with him, but she thought you would do better somewhere else.”
Severus all of a sudden lost his haughty posture and sunk into his seat, “She doesn’t want me no more.”
Children will break your heart, but sometimes that’s just because their own hearts have been broken.
“Oh, son, no. She loves you and she wants what’s best you – which isn’t your father or Spinner’s End right now.” David said fiercely and demandingly. He has no idea if his words are true, but he would will them into truthfulness if he could.
Severus leaves abruptly and runs into Petunia and Lily on the way. He pays them no mind, and slams the door to the office with a cot that’s been his guest bedroom, but David and Rose see the girls through the now open door.
“Girls, come here.”
“Is he staying then? Forever?” Petunia demands as she takes a seat primly on the sofa.
“I don’t know about forever, but we want to keep him here, safe, as long as we can. I hope that both you girls will do your part in welcoming him into the family and the house. His home life hasn’t been the best before, and we need to work together to change that.” Rose instructs her girls – Lily nods fiercely and Petunia sullenly nods as well.
“Remember, girls, we do for family.” David reminded them, “And Severus is family now.”
In many ways, it would end up being forever. One of the things that makes Lily and Severus such good friends in many worlds is that they are both fiercely capable of holding on to grudges. One year, they both get angry at Mr. Lickenson, the school librarian, and write letter after letter to the school principal and school board detailing why Mr. Lickenson was a horrible librarian. (He had refused to allow them to check out books that he thought were unsuitable for their age.) This is a grudge that they would remember and carry for years in every world that they were friends in. In this world, Severus Snape also gets very angry at his mother because he believes that she no longer wants him. Lily Evans doesn’t understand his anger at the time, but she picks up and carries his grudge all the same. A friendship partially built on shared grudges is a friendship that lasts, right?
All this to say, Severus never goes back to Spinner’s End in this world. At some point, his mother gives some of his things to David and Rose. Severus puts them in a cupboard and doesn’t touch them again for many years. When he is a young man and he receives notice that his parents have both died, he hires someone to clean out the house and sell it for him. Of his many regrets, this is not included among them.
Lily Evans and Severus Snape grow up as many children do. Severus represses his trauma and Lily isn’t aware enough to know that he’s anything but happy to be her brother. It takes very little time for her to begin calling him her brother, and she is thrilled to claim him to all her school friends. David and Rose will call Severus ‘son’ and ‘dear’ and ‘love’ and they do their best to treat him the same as their daughters. David and Rose aren’t perfect parents and they have no idea how to help a child heal from abuse or who to ask for help – but they try to show Severus that he is loved. Petunia was never thrilled to share her parents with Lily and less so with Severus, but family does for family and she accepts the declaration that Severus is family now.
When the Hogwarts Letters arrive and all the Evans’ are finally let in on the secret of magic, they’re mostly astonished that Severus and Lily already know. Petunia is angry that her little sister (and brother) get to have this fantastical ability and adventure. She’s barely been out of Cokesworth and they’ll get to go to London and then to Scotland and learn magic in a castle.
(Like so many other worlds, Petunia wants to join them. And, like so many other worlds, she can also hold a grudge to the ends of the earth. Severus will joke many years later that the grudge he held against Muggles for his father is nothing compared to grudge Petunia holds against magic for daring to exist without her.)
After learning about magic (and blood prejudice), David and Rose will be horrified at the clues Severus will let slip about his home life. A proud pureblood who somehow ended up married to a Muggle – both hating who the other is. His mother whispering pureblood doctrine to him while his father reinforced every bad word spoken against muggles.
The middle of the story is in many ways similar to the middle of another more familiar story from another world. Lily and Severus go together to Hogwarts and develop a distaste for James Potter on the train ride there. They have a mixture of new and secondhand school supplies – Severus is somewhat better off for being a ward of the Evans materially, but Lily is somewhat worse off materially because there’s a third child to provide for now. Their things are of equal quality though, and Severus’ pride is better off in this world.
A change in living arrangements for a few years doesn’t fully change someone’s personality though – Lily is still sorted into Gryffindor (Severus warned her away from Slytherin, even though she longed to be where her brother/friend thought he would be) and Severus is still sorted into Slytherin (He asked for Gryffindor, but he won’t grow into bravery for a long time yet).
Especially in this time period when a war is brewing and fear is growing, it’s difficult to be muggle-raised in Slytherin. Even Lily in Gryffindor has trouble with her muggle-background. Many students assume that Severus is lying about being a half-blood, so he stops protesting that he’s not a muggleborn and starts trying to prove that he knows as much about the wizarding world as any pureblood. He tries to help Lily learn too, to help her fit in better, but she doesn’t see the point in the knowledge.
Their school years follow a familiar pattern. Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and Remus Lupin are wildly popular and believe that everyone thinks they’re as funny as they think themselves to be. They cause mischief and trouble and find a wonderful target in mostly friendless Severus Snape. Being muggle-raised with no known wizarding ties along with having an acidic personality does not help with making friends in Slytherin. Lily, as she has always been able to, easily makes friends with anyone she considers worthwhile – those who don’t pick on her brother or look down on her muggleborn heritage primarily. Oh yes, Lily still claims Severus as her brother, but he tries desperately to get her to stop so that the Slytherins won’t have any more evidence that he’s a muggleborn instead of a halfblood (it doesn’t work – Lily is fiercely loyal at the best of times and family does for family).
Their summers pass as they did before Hogwarts. Lily, Severus, and Petunia are carefully balanced by their parents (although Severus is still reluctant to claim the Evans as his parents) and they don’t quite always get along, but they don’t quite not get along either. Petunia never embraces magic the way her parents do, and Severus doesn’t help by doing things like giving her chocolate frogs without a warning that they might hop away. Lily practices magic easily and gracefully (the Trace wasn’t as strictly enforced back then) in a way that Severus envies. Lily, in turn, envies his skill with potions and how he seems to just intuitively understand magic. During those summers, Lily and Severus push each other and experiment with magic in ways which takes them well beyond their peers in school. Lily’s skill wouldn’t exist without what she learned from Severus, and the same is true in reverse. Their envy of each other’s skills leaves them blind to the fact that they are both extremely talented – they can only see that their closest peer (their sibling) surpasses them in certain ways. David and Rose encourage their learning and experimenting as much as they can – as long as they are assured that it’s perfectly safe.
When fifth year comes, and I’m sure you’re heard this story before, Lily and Severus have a falling out. Despite never believing that he isn’t a muggleborn, older Slytherins have noticed Severus’s skill with potions and spellcrafting. They want that skill for themselves and their cause. Despite years of a loving family trying to do their best, it takes remarkable little kindness to attract Severus. Five years into Hogwarts, and he hasn’t ever been able to make any real friends. Isolated from Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws by the green in his tie and isolated from Slytherins by his muggle-background (combined with his strong personality) – his only friend remains Lily Evans and occasionally other friends of hers bullied into niceness. Severus has always, since he was a small boy, longed to be accepted and appreciated in the magical world – and now that’s being offered to him.
Words are said, insults are thrown, and friendships are broken.
Family is harder to break though. Lily greets her parents alone after leaving the train following her fifth year.
“Severus made other arrangements for the summer. He’s staying with his friends.” David and Rose exchange a worried glance at how much Lily sneers on the word friends.
“He hasn’t said anything to us – I thought he didn’t have many friends?”
“He made some new ones and made it quite clear that he doesn’t want anything to do with Muggles or Muggleborns.” Lily’s parents can easily see how angry she is and that a grudge has been festered (and they know how strongly their children can hold on to grudges), and so they decide to table the discussion until they get home.
Lily never does open up about whatever happened with Severus. David and Rose can’t figure out what they can do – they aren’t legally Severus’s parents or guardians and he’s hiding from them in the magical world – a world that they have limited access to. They use the muggle owl postal service to try to send Severus a letter – asking for a visit, an explanation, a reassurance that he’s okay. They get back an owled letter – the owl leaves before they can even open the letter – it’s their letter enclosed in another piece of parchment that simply says, “Please don’t write again. – S”
Rose cries that evening.
Severus Snape had become their son in their hearts over the years, and now he’s decided that he don’t want to contact them again. Lily explains in drips and drabs how there’s a blood prejudice war brewing between the purebloods and the muggle affiliated. How Severus has chosen the purebloods despite being raised in the muggle world.
Children will break your heart.
David and Rose continue to send letters to Severus every now and again. Every time, the letters are returned to them with a small note that says something to the effect of ‘stop’. Rose likes to believe that the responses mean he’s willing to let them know that he’s still alive and well enough to return letters. He could just throw the letters away and never respond.
Petunia gets married and moves away with a man named Vernon Dursley. Lily graduates from Hogwarts in love with a man (a boy) named James Potter who comes to their house and doesn’t understand how a toaster works. He asks permission to ask her to marry him, and they say yes. The wedding is planned quickly – Lily and James have both gotten caught up in the blood war that they won’t speak much about. Its a few days after the wedding while they’re still recovering from the excitement that they receive an owl at their window.
“You’re in danger. Leave your house now. Go somewhere safe.”
The note is unsigned and the handwriting is unfamiliar, but Rose feels dread pool in her stomach. She shows the note to David, and they know enough about the war their daughter (and their son) is involved in to take the words at face value. They throw clothes and food and camping supplies into their car, and leave less than thirty minutes after the note arrives. They drive aimlessly, just hoping to go far. They were once outdoors people – before Petunia and Lily (and Severus) made it clear that they were not – and so they take their twenty year old camping equipment to a spot they once knew when they were young and camp for a day while they figure out what to do next. Luckily, they aren’t such high priority targets that anyone tries to find them right away when they aren’t at home.
Except for their daughter who finds out that her parents’ home has been set on fire, burned to the ground, and no one knows if her parents were in there or not. The Ministry Oblivators have to erase the memory of the dark mark hanging in the sky above their home from their neighbors.
Its two days later that Lily and her parents are reunited – a combination of tracking spells and the Evans deciding to travel towards where Lily and James live. The tears are plenty and the loss of the house is deeply felt, but the joy of finding each other alive is overwhelming in the moment.
(In another world, no such note arrived. In that world, Severus felt no need to keep a close eye on muggles who might be targeted by his associates. James and Lily had made themselves somewhat known, but they weren’t being targeted any more than others. Severus in that world felt no strong ties to the muggle world, and so never gave the information on raids more than a passing glance. In this world, as much as he tried to ignore it, he still felt strong affection for the muggles who took him in. Enough to respond shortly to notes asking if he was alive and to pay attention to the location of Death Eater raids in muggle towns. When he hears of one for Cokesworth, he sent a warning and hoped that it would be enough.)
“We got a warning, an owl-“ David pulled the crumpled note from his pocket to show Lily and James, “The handwriting – does it look like Severus’s to you?”
“Oh, Dad, he wouldn’t do that. He picked his side.”
“He still responds to our letters – hasn’t completely written us off.” Rose argues.
“You think Snape warned you?” James askes – he knows that Snape lived with them for several years. Knows that there were dozens of photos of him with the family in the poor burned down house. Knows that he hasn’t been to see them since he was 15. James, though, doesn’t understand why the Evans hold out hope that Snape will come back one day (he considers it good riddance) – he isn’t a father yet, so it makes sense that he doesn’t understand.
The Potters and the Evans never agree on who warned them, and the war quickly overcomes all other concerns. The Evans move in with Petunia and Vernon for a time, before finding a new place nearby soon after Petunia is expecting their first grandchild. Lily then tells them that their second grandchild will come soon thereafter. The Evans are able, for a time, to forget the war in the midst of the joy regarding their grandchildren.
Then, Lily and James tell them that the Potters, including little Harry, are being targeted by the leader of the war. A dark lord. They’re in terrible danger, but they have a plan to go into hiding. Letters can’t reach them anymore, and a telephone refuses to work in their house, so David and Rose receive updates about the Potters through their friends. Rose throws herself into helping Petunia with her new baby Dudley and David takes an insurance job even though they had planned on an early retirement.
Then, one day, Petunia calls and gives them the worst news of their lives.
The funeral is loud – Petunia had begged off. She’d not been herself since waking up to that note and baby Harry on her doorstep. She and Lily had been fighting and tense for years, and Rose didn’t think Petunia could stand to go to the funeral of a sister who had died mad at her. David and Rose take baby Harry – scarred and fussy Harry – but they can’t justify why later except that it feel right that he should be at his parents’ funeral. They regret that decision though when fifty odd people crowd them and reach to touch Harry’s scar. Apparently the wizarding war thinks Harry is some sort of hero or messiah because he survived and the dark lord didn’t. Privately, Rose thinks that it’s more likely that Lily or James did some sort of special magic. She doesn’t know much about magic, but she knows that Lily was good at it.
Now, Rose helps Petunia with both boys – and tries to smooth things over when Petunia or Vernon are unsettled by Harry’s displays of magic. Lily never displayed magic so young or so obviously – but then, Lily didn’t grow up in a magical household. Dudley is delighted when his younger cousin make the mobile spin or toys float, and that just seems to make Petunia and Vernon more nervous.
Rose’s letters to Severus grow more desperate and pleading – she’s lost one child forever, but she’ll reclaim her son in a heartbeat if he’ll let her. One day, they get a response,
“You wouldn’t ask me to come back if you knew what I did during the war. I gave the Dark Lord the information that caused him to target Lily. It’s my fault that she’s gone. I can’t ever fix that no matter what I try. I’ll keep her son safe when he comes to Hogwarts.
I’m sorry. – S”
It is days before David and Rose can decide what to do with that. Finally, they decide that they need more information. (It should be noted, that so much as all their children are well capable of holding long and detailed grudges – that’s not a trait that came from their parents directly.)
“Severus,
Please come to tea or dinner and tell us the whole story. Our children have glossed over information long enough, and you’re the only one who can fill us in now. We’ll make our decisions after we have all the details.
With love,
Your parents”
It’s the ‘with love’ and ‘your parents’ that brings Severus to their little house in Little Whinging. Severus still wants to be accepted and appreciated, and he still hasn’t truly found that – but he remembers what being their foster son felt like.
So he goes, and he tells them everything with no regard to secrets or appearances. These people saw him when he was a child, he’s scorned them for years, he told them that he caused Lily to be targeted, and they invited him to dinner. He tells them every horrible thing and action, because he might as well make sure that there’s nothing left to find out. If they let him back into their lives, he doesn’t want to risk them sending him away if they find something out later.
Lily had never been as forthright or honest about the war to them. David and Rose are horrified to learn the depths that the war went and the choices that Severus made. When he tells them about his realization that the prophecy he brought the Dark Lord would cause Lily to be targeted and how he begged both the Dark Lord and Albus Dumbledore for her safety, Severus begins to weep and David and Rose weep with him. They weep for the lost life of their daughter and son-in-law, for the pain this will bring their grandson, and for the pain their son has been facing all these years. Rose kneels next to Severus on the sofa and pulls him into the strongest hug she can muster.
“You’ve done bad things and made bad choices, but you didn’t forget your family and this doesn’t made you a bad man.”
“You can still be a good man, Severus, we believe that you can.”
Having a family doesn’t fix everything – you can still make very bad choices. But, having a family that believes that you can make amends for those bad choices and be a good person, that can go along way with helping you to believe the same thing about yourself. David and Rose heard the bad that Severus had done, and they gave him the opportunity to be a different person. Thirteen years ago, when Severus was eight, they chose to make him a part of their family and to treat him as their son – and they never forgot that.
When Harry and Dudley’s second Christmas came around, David and Rose brought Severus over to Number 4 Privet Drive and introduced him as “Uncle Severus”. The children promptly mangled it into “N’cle Sev’us”.