There's an outcome I enjoy thinking about. Severus taking care of Harry. It can be any time during any of the books and I'll eat it up.
But, one of my favorites is Severus taking care of Harry with the help of other people — specifically people he hadn't gotten along with. Snupin, snirius, wolfstarprince, no ship at all; it doesn't matter. I wrote something like that about a year ago, but stopped because I was unsatisfied with how I was writing it and how long it dragged.
Recently I tried again. I'm still working on the third ACT, but I'm pleased to say I've been enjoying creating chapters so far. Everyone should invest in Severitus. . .
It's been a while but let's do a small nostalgic rewind
Imagine, Severus and his mom have been moving from apartment to apartment, to a shed, and back to an apartment again for a few years now. It's like every birthday would include the gift of getting further and further away from a man who posed a threat to their safety — his father. He knows who his father is, and he has spent enough time around him to form a solid opinion. He understands why they have to move so much, really, he gets it...but it still sucks. He doesn't have any friends, he doesn't look good enough to invite kids to play with him, and—
Oh, look, a job offer!
Okay, finally, they're moving to a neighborhood in a small, cozy town called Amber Crane! Wow, Severus' really
Really
...
He hates it.
He hates it, but is doing his best to stay optimistic for the sake of his mother's exhausted heart. Yes, all for the sake of her. She tells him to go explore (strange, she would never let him do such a thing anywhere else), and he follows her order because let's be for real, he isn't going to stand around in the autumn winds waiting for the landlord to drop a key into her hands.
It takes him ONE step onto the sidewalk until he gets attacked. Why what you may ask?
Alright, I'm finally feeling good recovering from surgery, went to all my post-op appointments and I'm clear, I can finally go out again and see my friends!
(Someone crucify me, I beg, I forgot my favourite author friend’s birthday)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY AMAZING WRITER FRIEND (who torture me but that’s okay), ONIELLLLLLLL‼️‼️ the images above are because everyone deserves flowers, take my money for the impeccable writing you do, and a delicious cake because… it’s your birthday, who doesn’t have cake on their birthday?
Everyone should go and pay their respects on their AO3 account because their writing is heavenly. HEAVENLY I SAY. Yes, they never fail to make me cry with angst, but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The more immune come, the more angst the can ruin me with </3
honestly though, oniel, you’re a bloody brilliant person, and I hope you’re having a wonderful day <333
lots of love,
lils xx
@unnecessaryheadache
(anyone who sees this post, I request that you send them a happy birthday)
I was busy running around but oh my goodness now that I've got the time to read this, I'm tearing up 😭
MY FIRST BIRTHDAY WITH COOL ONLINE FRIENDS!!! YAYYY!!! Thank you so much, Lils Ó╭╮Ò you are an amazing friend and an even greater encouraging spirit
You're actually the reason I have the motivation to write 🫵🏽 and I'm appreciative of all the feedback I've gotten from you! Thank you again, kisses and blessings from me
Happy birthday Lily Evans, you are so underestimated
Bless her soul, she still wasn't sure where she was going, just about the journey planning to meet her on the road. She stuffed some clothes into her bag, snuck candy, pastries, and a whole box of Chinese food into her coat, and hoisted on her glittery shoes. Lily had never left home without someone by her side before.
Usually, it was her Ma who made sure she followed her daughter around the second they stepped out of the house. Lily was prone to wander off on her own, her tiny legs somehow taking her too far in too little time. Now, as for why she was running away from home…
Lily could still remember being yelled at and blamed for something she hadn't done by her sister. Their parents took Tuney's side and sent Lily off to bed, Tuney stayed up, eating some ice cream they gave her to cheer her up. Lily stayed in bed, staring at her ceiling, brewing up a plan.
Now she was carrying it out…early morning. It would be too obvious for her to leave in the dead of night, and too dangerous. She might have been eight, but her mind was always beyond her years when it came to her intelligence.
Slowly, she climbed out of her room through the window, thanking Pa's choice in housing. Her feet met the ground in a thump!, leaves flying all around her, tickling her ankles. Lily tightened the straps of her backpack, took in a deep breath of the dawn air, and bolted.
Get far, far, faarr away from home. That's what her mind told her. Run faster, press your legs harder against the ground, leave, and never return. They'd always liked Tuney more.
Maybe it was because she was the oldest and most mature, maybe because she was chillax, maybe because she wasn't as difficult to deal with as her little sister. If they didn't want to bother themselves with Lily anymore, they didn't have to. She will take matters into her own hands and leave home completely undetected.
"Lily?"
The redhead nearly fell face-first into a bunch of leaves after her name was called. She saved herself with a last-minute, poorly done balancing act, swinging herself forward and back on the balls of her feet before settling on her heels. Her head whipped to the side, searching for the source.
A small, skinny pale boy. He combed his hair out of his face — washed for a change — with a grimace, his pale limbs covered by some big, muddy jeans and a worn-out knitted sweater. Severus crossed his arms over his chest. "What're you doing?" He asked.
"What are you doing?" Lily retorted as she turned her body to him. "It's too early for you to be outside."
"I couldn't sleep," he scoffed. "Now what's your reason for bounding about?"
That made her shrink in on herself slightly. Lily looked off to the side, her cheeks turning red. "Don't tell anyone," she whispered before shuffling closer. "I'm running away, okay?"
Her neighbor didn't often show any signs of emotion other than mild annoyance. So when his eyes grew wide and his lips parted, Lily knew she'd finally caught him horribly off guard. He sputtered, black eyes disappearing and reappearing as he blinked rapidly.
"For what reason could you of all people have to run away?!" He huffed, stomping a foot. "Are you mental?"
"What do you mean 'am I mental'?!" Lily shrieked. "I'm perfectly all here, Sev!"
"Clearly not." The skinny boy rubbed his eyes with the heels of his wrists. Under his breath, Lily could hear him mumbling about something, but his accent made it nearly unintelligible.
Eventually, Severus looked back up at her. "If you're running away, I'm coming with you." he decided.
Now it was Lily's turn to be shocked. "What—" she held her palms out in a 'slow down for a second' way, pushing them out in front of her. "Stop, stop. There's no way you're gonna leave home with me."
Severus picked up a big, worn-out satchel, which Lily was now noticing, and hung it over his shoulder. "I already was," he drawled. "Why not have someone to leave with? At least it's you."
And he started to walk. No matter how many times Lily tried to ask him why he was leaving home, he didn't answer. She even shared her reason and all he could do was give her a nasty scowl and call her stupid. She nearly kicked his butt for that one.
By the time the sun was completely up, Lily and Severus had made it past a lot of streets and other neighborhoods. They ate what they'd brought with them. For Severus, it was a couple of sandwiches, and Lily found out that there were plenty more stashed in a pocket somewhere.
When they were done, they started walking again. Severus didn't ask where Lily's destination was, and Lily didn't ask Severus where his destination was. They'd been following each other for the past hour now.
About another half hour in, Lily found a playground. She plopped herself down on a bench and kicked her shoes off to wiggle her toes. Severus preferred to sit on the rocky ground, and he kept his shoes on. They stared up at the clouds, watching as one morphed into something new every five seconds.
"That one looks like you," she'd beamed while pointing up at a diamond-shaped cloud. Severus silently observed it before his attention was grabbed by another cloud.
He pointed up at that one. "That one looks like you." He echoed.
When Lily tried to follow his finger, she didn't know what she was searching for at first. But slowly, her eyes adjusted to the light, and there up in the sky she saw a giant heart-shaped cloud. She giggled, clapping her hands in joy. "It's a heart! I'm a heart?"
"You're a heart." Severus nodded.
Well…that was the nicest thing he'd ever said to her. After some more cloud gazing, the duo continued their wandering into the unknown. They avoided police cars, adults, pets (Lily ended up getting chased by a whole litter of puppies), and crowded areas.
They wandered and wandered and wandered until suddenly—
"This is where the road ends," Severus noted. He was staring at the big billboard announcing anyone's arrival to where they'd just left. Lily stared at it with him.
Both of them stopped staring to look at each other, one uncertain, the other stoic as always. Lily picked at her sleeve as she languidly walked to a clear grassy spot to sit. She opened her bag and brought out an apple juicebox, poking the plastic straw through it while speaking. "It's like being on the edge of the world—"
"You should go back."
Severus's interruption startled Lily. She blinked up at him, concerned by his sudden seriousness. "What? No!" She grumbled. "I have no reason to."
Severus's brows tightened on his forehead. "Yes you do, Lily," he argued. "You have a nice family, a nice home, and plenty of resources to live off. You don't need to run away just because you think you're unwanted."
Lily reeled back before standing up. Her grip around her juicebox grew so tight that it began to spill juice from the straw. "You don't know anything about my life. And why haven't you answered me yet? Why're you so set on leaving?"
"That's none of your business. I didn't ask you to tell me why you left. I didn't really care, but now I do because it's stupid." Severus snapped.
Those seemed to be the final words to come out of his mouth. He began walking. Again.
Lily quickly sipped all her juice up and shoved the box into her bag. But as she was going to follow him, a loud beep and a bright flash of light spurred her out of her anger. She whipped her entire body around, shock written all over her face as a cat she'd grown up seeing pulled up beside her.
Down came the window to reveal the horrified look of her mother. "LILY EVANS, YOU FOOLISH GIRL!" She scolded.
"Ma—"
"What the bloody hell were you thinking, leaving the house so early for? We've been searching for hours, scared half to death that you might've been kidnapped. Here you are, out here, past the sign, for goodness sake!"
Lily ignored her mother's ranting to search for Severus while staying in place. But lo and behold, that boy was nowhere to be seen. Her entire body deflated. Although it was bright outside, he'd still managed to completely disappear on her, as always.
She was soon hustled into the car by her mother's voice, and when she entered, she gave out one last look at the hill he must've disappeared behind.
"You always leave…" she whispered to herself. "How can I be your friend if you always leave?"
Ten years somehow slipped through her fingers. The boy left, and she was never sure if he came back or not, just that his father, too, had left. Lily continued on with her life, learning about others and new, strange things, pursuing education, and soon landing in the countryside.
She was attending a university far from home, and due to some...complications, she often called them, she had to move in with her grandparents on their humble family farm. Lily arrived carrying boxes. She was greeted by smiles and hugs, and for days she lingered on that farm, waiting for the school year to start.
One day, she wandered around the barn area where she could hear the gentle moos of a cow and clucks of chickens. What caught her eye wasn't the sight of many yellow baby chicks running around, but who was with the yellow baby chicks.
A guy, she could tell that much. He had dark hair, darker eyes that changed to deep brown when he looked up, tan skin (maybe from staying out in the sun), and wore a plain black shirt over his muddy jeans. She greeted him with a smile and introduced herself, but the guy continued to stare at her, almost in awe.
She learned his name from her grandparents. His past was something she could fill in the blanks, because she knew him. He did as well.
After some horrible, mutually hated moments interacting with each other, Lily and Severus managed to put aside plenty of their differences. He'd been at the farm for years now, doing what he could do to help her grandparents out.
Over the years, he'd managed to make acquaintances — friends, she'd corrected him — and good choices that helped him thrive in the town. When the day of her birth came on a very, skin numbing January, Lily was quite stumped. Severus had officially become her new "acquaintance" — friend, or perhaps there was more to them than they knew at the moment — and was out in the cold trying to gather up their other acquaintances.
She didn't know if she wanted to have a party. She hadn't planned a thing for herself! All her friends and family had, but she didn't get to say what she wanted, simply because she had no clue. All this restless waiting around really ruffled her nice birthday hair.
Lily would make her choice, even if it was stupid. She'd spend her birthday doing what she liked to do the most.
As the redhead finished hopping into her left boot, snuggled in her thick coat, gloves, scarf, and earmuffs, the door to her dorm clicked open. "Oof—" she huffed while setting her foot down. "Who's there?"
"Evans, it's me and—" Coming in through the entrance, James stopped abruptly to stare incredulously at her. "Were you trying to come to us?"
"Us?" Lily breathed. "Are the others outside? I wanted to go out."
Behind James came Sirius and Severus, their bickering voices confirming Lily's previous suspicions. They'd been fighting outside, and despite the thick walls, Lily could hear every word. James ignored them to frown at her. "In this cold. You want to go out in this cold?"
"She wants to what?" Peter complained from outside. Mary, Marlene, and Dorcas were there too. Pandora couldn't make it due to some family matters, but her gift was in Mary's trembling hands.
Lily stood on the tips of her toes to see them. "Sorry! I want to play in the snow before we start anything."
The entire group grew silent.
Severus was the only one unimpressed with her shenanigans. "Okay. Does that include walking and talking or just battle?"
Lily rested back on her heels, her hands clasped in front of her as a sweet smile grew on her face. She rocked her body side to side, the action enough to make herself clear. Severus exhaled heavily.
"Put the cake and pastries in the kitchen, keep her gifts on the couch. We're going to play in the snow."
And play in the snow they did.
Thirty minutes in, Peter was down face first in a pile of snow, his girlfriend slowly covering him as she fake sobbed about her loss. Dorcas had her hand on Mary's shoulder, evidently trying not to lose it while Marlene continued her assault directed at Sirius and Sirius only.
Remus, who'd attended late, didn't hesitate to retaliate when Severus accidentally hit him with his snowball meant for James. He pretended that he was brushing it off and going to sit somewhere; in reality, he was rolling a huge snow ball, and now he was chasing the guy around with it.
James and Lily locked in combat. She wasn't certain if he'd been trying to let her win or not, but damn, her aim was crystal. James kept getting snowballs in his face, and witnessing this, Sirius yelled at him in fake anger. "STOP ACCEPTING BALLS IN YOUR FACE!"
James threw a snowball at him for that. "Help me, you fuck—"
"Why're you running?" Lily could hear Remus ask. She turned around, lowering her guard to see what was happening behind her.
Mary was done burying Peter, now clinging onto Dorcas for dear life as Marlene turned on them. Severus was walking backwards, his fingers pink and possibly numb from all the snowball launching. "Put it down, Lupin," he warned. "I swear, put it down!"
"Come here, I wanna chat."
"NO!"
"C'mon, I'm friendly..."
"With that? Don't make me laugh."
Out of the corner of her eye, Lily saw Sirius slink away from Marlene's attention and slide over to where Remus and Severus were. She also saw a ball of snow coming for her.
"AHCK—" she squawked before falling on her butt in a pile of snow. "Cheat."
"You were distracted. It was such a perfect opportunity, I just couldn't bear to miss it, love." James smirked. He made it over to her and extended his hand for her to use.
Blushing, both from the cold and the action, Lily took his hand. She'd originally wanted to stand, buuuut....
She didn't think that would be all that in character for her. With a smile wide and evil enough to combat the devil himself, Lily yanked James by his wrist and made him fall on the snow beside her.
He let out the girliest scream, then sputtered and spat out the snow accumulated after the fall. "Damn it, Evans!" He whined, rubbing snow from his face.
Lily burst into a fit of giggles. She kicked her feet and rolled around, thrilled by her trick working and by his absurd scream. "Wh-what was THAT?"
"Leave me be!" He snorted. "You're so mean to me..."
It took a little while for her to calm down, but once she did, everything felt perfect. It was her birthday. She'd just turned nineteen. There was a boy who liked her lying beside her, tolerating her everything while staying kind, sort of like someone she knew.
She could hear Severus holding in his own laughter as she wrestled the boys off him and continued his game of tag. She caught glimpses of her girlfriends goofing around with each other, or even sabotaging any plans Sirius came up with. Her grandparents were still alive, she'd gotten calls from her parents wishing her happy birthday...
And Petunia had sent a letter. It was awkward to read at first. Then it started getting emotional, and so did she. They'd need to talk once they got the chance to — not just her and Petunia, but their entire family.
Lily didn't have to worry about it now, though. Drawing in cold air, she closed her eyes and allowed James's sneaky hand to curl around hers. She held his back, smiling to herself as she felt him shift closer, and heard him mumble and excuse about staying warm.
This was it.
She hoped that in every universe, she'd have a nineteenth birthday just like this one. Then a twentieth, and a twenty-first, and on and on and on until she reached one hundred.
No need to wander. Everything she wanted was around her and holding her hand.
yk fun fact, when i first joined Tumblr almost a year ago, you were one of the first blogs i had ever seen and followed and i thought you were so cool (and still do) and so awesome and i wanted to be ur moot so badly :D
WAIT WHAT SERIOUSLY?
Oh that is so sweet what the heck ☹️ tysm!
Also kind of funny because I was nervous to talk to you 😭
