Chapter Text
I. THE JUSTICE
(Meaning: Cause and Effect)
He woke up with a gasp and his hands went to his throat immediately. He expected blood on his neck, but he felt nothing, and he tried to focus his eyes. As he did, he didn’t recognize the place at first… He was sure that he had been in that damned house, the Shrieking Shack, but the ceiling didn’t match what he remembered. In fact, it matched more with a place he only had set foot in when he needed to meet with people he didn’t desire to see in general.
“It can’t be–” he murmured only to close his mouth the next second at the sound of his own voice.
He got up in a flash, faster than what he thought he would be able to. He opened the door of his bedroom, trying not to think of the possibilities, trying to keep his mind shields in place… He opened the bathroom door and looked into the mirror. He tried not to gape at his form and pinched himself on an arm, almost expecting… He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it hurt anyway.
He stared at the mirror for another minute, but he couldn’t deny the truth. Staring right back at him was his teenage reflection, his dark eyes as frantic as he himself felt.
He took a deep breath. Then another.
A bang at the door made him jump “BOY! You be’er come out already! I wanna piss!” He gulped. Him. Him again. He tried to control his breathing before opening the door and raised his eyes slightly to the figure of his father. For a second, it looked as if he had gone to grab him and he stiffened… But his father just pushed him away a bit and went towards the toilet, almost tumbling on his steps.
A short glance told him that he wasn’t paying attention and so he slipped away to his room. He breathed once again, almost as if he didn’t have enough oxygen in his lungs.
“Severus…” He heard a whisper and the door opened revealing his mother. She looked just the same, all her long hair stuck to her face and as thin as ever “You have everything packed, yes?”
He opened his mouth and his eyes traveled through the room, landing on the trunk in his room in the deep corner.
“Of course,” he answered and as he licked his lips, he opened his mouth again “Are we going out now?”
His mother nodded, nervous. “Yes, yes… Your father… Well, he’s… and… It’s as good a moment as any, as he works later. Come on.”
As Severus nodded, he took a jacket, checked that everything was in the trunk and followed as his mother looked from side to side before pulling her wand and levitating the trunk slightly to avoid hitting the stairs. As soon as she did that, she put it down immediately and hid her wand, her eyes frantically going from one point to the other, as if expecting someone to shout.
When nothing happened, she hurried him to take his trunk in his hand and they walked out of the house. As they walked a path that Severus would have thought to almost have forgotten, he started to run facts in his head: It was obviously September first, though it was difficult to tell what year he was in… From his height, he was either expecting to start fourth or fifth. At that, a chill went through his body.
‘What the hell am I supposed to do?’ he thought to himself ‘Changing something could lead to something worse, but…’
He couldn’t avoid a glance to his left arm, completely unblemished. He resisted the temptation to touch it and see if that was real. If he really was free from the dark mark.
He barely noticed his mother taking his arm when they reached an abandoned alley and only did when he noticed the feeling of the apparition process. He almost tumbled but his mother didn’t stop walking and he was dragged into King’s Cross Station, full of people as every other day. As he did, he noted the clock marking 10:45 and understood why his mother wasn’t stopping. He wondered a bit why she hadn’t woken him sooner, but he had brief memories of a day like the one he was living and he let it go. For the moment, he couldn’t even concentrate on possible changes or anything of the like, but he wasn’t overall worried about it.
As they passed the barrier quickly and without being seen, his mother let go of his arm. She straightened his clothes, and Severus wondered briefly why she tried when they both knew that he would change to his uniform as soon as he was able to.
“Have a–Take care, Severus,” she finally said.
“Of course.” He nodded, still thinking about everything he was going to encounter “Goodbye.”
He turned around and practically went inside the train in an instant, his trunk in his hands. He looked frantically everywhere, still without knowing what year he had landed into as he went to a little bathroom to change clothes quickly.
As soon as he was changed and was able to save his trunk in an empty compartment, he saw a glimpse of red hair and his heart skipped a beat. He opened his mouth but found that he couldn’t speak at all. It wasn’t needed though, as apparently the person had noticed. As she turned, he tried to control his heartbeat and recited in his head all the recipes from the Potions book.
“Sev!” She smiled. It hurt to look at her, like a walking nightmare with her hair and green eyes that sparkled with happiness. “I thought you would never come. Everything alright?”
“Yeah… Just fine, Lily,” he said and glanced to a side, seeing that her friends were waiting for her. “What about you?”
“Oh, you know… More or less fine. You know Tuney…” She tried to smile at that,but it didn't reach her eyes. “And things with that… Well, my parents were very worried after what happened to the Richards, you know?”
Severus nodded at that, but he knew that he was pale and he felt as if he was going to faint. He remembered vaguely this news; it had been a muggle family of two muggleborns that had been brutally murdered during the summer of 1975.
“Hey! Snape!” A voice called him and his eyes shot up at seeing his classmates. There was Eustace Mulciber, with his horrid smile at his lips, and Linden Avery, with his arms crossed and his piercing eyes. “You have saved a few seats for us, right?”
He licked his lips. “Yeah…” He pointed to the compartment behind him and Avery was quick on entering inside. Mulciber, though, stayed there with him, looking over to Lily, who was pursing her lips on a fine line.
“Evans,” Mulciber remarked as if he was cursing her just like that. He probably would have said ‘mudblood’ if it wasn’t for Severus standing there.
She seemed to control her temper in time and her eyes looked at him, almost making him feel as if his soul was being judged. When she opened her mouth, she only said:
“I'll see you in class, Sev.”
And just like that, she turned on her heels and left with her friends, disappearing immediately in the sea of people.
Mulciber sneered a little and Severus sent him a warning look that made him roll his eyes. “Come on, Snape, I get that you live in the same neighborhood or whatever, but you don’t need her anymore. We’re your friends, aren’t we?”
“... I don’t want to antagonize her, that’s all,” he murmured and entered the compartment with them.
His heart was still beating too fast from seeing her alive, just as he remembered. He could barely believe that he was back once again in 1975. What the hell had he done to deserve this kind of hell? It wasn’t enough to sacrifice himself for the cause of the Order? To murder Albus Dumbledore at his own request and offering himself completely to HIM ? To play the double spy, the one that nobody trusted, living without a soul at his side, knowing that one side hated him for a mark in his arm and the other side could never be trusted? Did he have to repeat everything once again?
“Hey! Snape, hey!” He snapped his head up and looked towards Evan Rosier. When he had entered, he had no idea. “Were you even listening?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Avery rolled his eyes and at second glance, Severus noticed that Macnair had joined them too in the compartment. “He probably is thinking of the thousand ways he can improve the potions book.”
“Slughorn is a disgrace,” Macnair snorted, “so that should be easy. I am still surprised that he’s a professor. Mind you, at least his damn club works for something.”
Severus glanced at Rosier. “So, what did you want?”
“Lucius wrote to me this summer. About that harmful potion you created, remember?” He did. He had created that potion at Lucius’ request, as this one knew of his dexterity with his art in potions. He nodded. “Well, he presented a sample to the Lord and he was very impressed with it. And with you. You may be invited soon to one of the meetings.”
His other ‘friends’, if he could call them that, were surprised at that. Most of them had only attended either because of their families or connections somewhere. Severus had neither, except the word of Lucius Malfoy and his own abilities. It was good news for them, it was something he knew his past self had been very proud of. Now though… He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to feel. He knew how everything would end if he went the same path, he could almost walk it with his eyes closed.
However, he tried to smile and keep his other emotions tight behind his Occlumency shields. It would not be well to be watched in the Slytherin house for the moment and he still hadn’t decided what to do.
“That’s great!” he said and he was almost glad that he sounded as cheery as he probably had felt last time. “I can’t wait!”
“You’ll love it, it’s so incredible seeing his work…” Mulciber mentioned. “It’s great.”
Severus couldn’t say that he disagreed with that fact. The Dark Lord’s magic was a lot of things, but it couldn’t be denied that it was great, incredible and powerful… After all, that was why a lot of them had been tempted by his side.
He took a little breath and watched the landscape through the window. There were a lot of things to take into account, but it could be summed up into what to do with the knowledge he had and his own time travel. What would happen if he repeated everything as it happened? Would he be forced to travel back in time at his death once again? But what if he changed things? What assured him that everything would go alright? Would Lily live if he didn’t join? And then there was the problem of the horcruxes and that chilled him to the bone. He knew only a few and he was sure that Nagini wasn’t one yet, as she had been created after his fall at Harry Potter’s hands.
And that made him remember another trouble that he would find at Hogwarts. THEM. Potter, Black, Lupin and Pettigrew. The last one of that group almost made him frown his nose, but he was able to school his features. Still, they were a problem. A problem almost on a similar level than his father, except that he had to see those four practically all year.
‘I already know Lupin’s secret, though,’ he thought. ‘And I know they became animagi around this year.’
It was a problem in itself. He already knew what happened during this year mostly like the back of his hand; it was difficult to forget when between this one and the next it was when he had started making all those horrible decisions, the damn prank and those horrible words spoken to his best friend.
What to do, what to do?
But even as he thought that, he already knew he had made his decision. He refused to repeat all his mistakes again. The good question was, where could he even start? And how could he avoid calling the attention of his housemates?