Future Harry Potter Stories and Snippets

AN: This is just a little bit to tease and tantalize you with what is to come. Some of these probably won't be written, but I hope they act as inspiration in a good way.

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling, nor do I own the Harry Potter Series.

Cursed to Relive:

I slammed the door to my room, willing, wishing that no one would come. 'Like I had done that on purpose...'

No. no, with my rotten luck, my freakishness would make the door disappear altogether, or become stuck. Perhaps it would turn into a granite wall. Something nasty, something that would force my father to spend money they didn't have in order to repair the damage her demonic powers created, again...

After all, it wouldn't be the first time something like that happened.

I bit my lip, trembling. 'Do not think about it. Don't jinx yourself girl...'

It was inevitable that the Taint would manifest again. I tried to think happy thoughts. Sappy unicorns, rainbows, that ridiculous batman series, anything to keep my mind from her parents downstairs. I rarely spent time with them anymore, the awkwardness suffocating the atmosphere. It was just too strange...

It hadn't been the same since that bloody charlatan, that swine that would swindle mum and dad, in order to 'cure their tainted child'. Arghh! It had been one of the worst days of my life...

After examining me, Father Bronson had stated that red hair was the mark of Satan. I nearly cut into the conversation then and there, but there had been no point. Seeing mother and Petunia nod at the priest's words stung. Of course Petunia agreed that was a given. But then mum had begged Bronson to save her baby...

That, that nearly reduced me to tears. I wanted to strike the man, I really did. But then, wouldn't that have proven Petunia and my parents right? That I was demonically influenced, like the man claimed? I restrained her words, I really did. After all, it WAS possible, although I didn't actually feel like doing evil acts. At least, not all the time, no matter about appearances and what Petunia thought.

Did my desire to kick the bald priest for agreeing with the whole demonic thing nonsense that my parents thought it was count? I hope not.

Then Father Bronson said he had a method to check for sure. He pulled a carefully wrapped, golden cross from his suitcase and handed it to me, commanding me to take it.

I still don't know how the man did it. I wanted to believe that the priest had heated the cross previously, after entering their house. When I screamed in agony though, and smoke escaped from my hand, even I doubted. Where did my freakishness come from after all? The priest urged me to bare the pain, to endure, that Christ would help me drive out the devil...

It hurt, it hurt so much, but I held it in spite of the burning pain...in spite of the seemingly-endless agony. After all, I didn't want to disappoint my family, even when I knew that at the end; it would fail to 'cure me', like all other methods before...

I held it, enduring the excruciating pain, a burnt smell coming from my hand...until I saw a small, nearly imperceptible smirk from the man. Then I realized the truth: the man was playing my worried parents for fools, that burning cross being a nasty trick. I was furious at that...

Even now, I couldn't help but clench my fists at the memory. Why, oh WHY did I shout "THIS IS A LIE!", throwing the cross across the room? Almost as soon as it left my burnt hands, it somehow melted, before turning into a bat as it flew out...

The silence had been deafening, the priest looked horrified, making some rather lame excuse. Eyes widened at the evidence of magic he clearly hadn't been expecting, the man claimed he needed to do more research, then promptly left.

I had been shocked speechless for the rest of the session. Even now, I wanted to kick myself for my reaction. If I could have somehow defused the situation, if I comfronted the priest, exposing him as a fraud...

It felt like my eyes had ran out of tears... It had been nearly a month, and they hadn't heard anything from Father Bronson. My parents were still tiptoeing around me. They tried to act normal, but I knew...oh, I knew that they were scared of my, just like all of her so-called 'friends'. My mother didn't even dare look at my face anymore, terrified that she would be next to suffer the 'taint'... Petunia flinched even from something as small as when I entered the room she was, practically begging dad to allow her to move to the smaller bedroom.

To move out of the room they had always shared... I didn't want to cry, but even then my heart did not always agree with my mind.

Idiotic powers. Idiotic priest. Idiotic Petunia… And of course, Idiotic Lily. Because, after all, it was my fault... It was always my fault...

The letter arrived. Everyone was silent when mother read it aloud. An uncomfortable pause reigned for a moment until Mum stated, voice trembling,

"There are more of them. And they want her back into a school. "

My father sighed, expression strained.

"Maybe it's for the best. If we can't cure Lily, Perhaps it's the next best thing; they could teach Lily to control her taint around people"

Something cracked inside me...

The Law of Unintended Consequences:

Remus felt awful, truly awful as Lily left the room, not even looking at him. He couldn't blame her; he had promised to try to help her with her housemates, and he had tried...only to fail miserably. They had ignored his asking them to back off, continuing to hex Lily. He had drawn his wand to help...but was unable to bring himself to hex anyone, doing nothing.

Lily had had tears in her eyes as they continued their humiliating attacks, not stopping until she was stripped down to her undergarments, the rest of her clothes having been burnt into a crisp. Laughing uproariously while Remus stood there and watched, they had shouted insults, insults the werewolf-boy couldn't hear while staring into the red-head's emerald-green eyes...

They had soon left, leaving Remus no longer able to look at Lily in his shame; he would have preferred if she would have shouted at him, instead she had ignored him completely, treating him as if he were lower than dirt, lower than a Death Eater...

He couldn't blame her.

Nor could he blame how Severus and Mary were walking toward him, apparently having found out about what had just happened, wands drawn and matching looks of hatred and rage on their respective faces. He had made a promise to Severus as well, the same one he had made to Lily. Just by the look of malice on Severus' face he knew that the boy wasn't going to let him off the hook...

Lily's response to breaking his promise had been to ignore him, at least for now, making him miserable.

Remus knew that Severus' would be to make him suffer, suffer like he had never suffered before...

Ex Intempestivo Pax:

"So Severus, let's get started. What memory would you like to show me?"

Severus nodded, settling down on the floor gracefully. "OK, put your memo-" Suddenly blinking, he shouted in surprise, "What did you say!?"

Lily grinned, stretching back as she tried to wiggle into a slightly more comfortable position. The grey stone floor of his basement was quite uncomfortable indeed, causing her to wish she hadn't accepted Severus' offer to do the memory-viewing here. Perhaps that was why he had the bed down here, in case he needed to sit down.

"Well, Severus, I've been thinking; I've been showing you my memories so far, but you haven't had the chance yet to show me any of yours. We may have agreed to it, but it just doesn't seem right..." Chuckling slightly as Severus seemed to weigh her words carefully, Lily couldn't resist throwing in something that was a little teasing, "Besides, surprises are good for dealing with those 'evil, Slytherin plans you like to cook up!"

Severus rolled his eyes at this, but Lily noticed his lips quirk slightly. Several minutes went by, during which he gazed at her unblinkingly, a hand placed delicately on his chin. There was an odd light in his eyes, and he seemed...nervous.

Finally, the former Slytherin spoke quietly, a small frown on his face, "I...I am unprepared to reveal too much at the moment; some of my knowledge could...obstruct the war-effort if revealed prematurely. However, I can show you this memory." He tapped his wand to his forehead, removing a single silvery strand of hair from it, dropping it swiftly into the stone basin. "You should recognize it easily enough, fifth year, two weeks after the...incident. It was the day that James Potter received his award for 'saving my life'..."

Lily wasn't surprised at the bitterness on his face as he said this; the depression there was certainly new though...or so she thought.

Penance, The Purgatory of James:

"...Your task is to create one time-line where Severus Tobias Snape is Happy, Mr. Potter, while following the rules and guidelines..."

James would have thought that such a thing would be relatively easy, given how much he knew about the man, but apparently that was not the case. It seemed simple enough, but given the limitations, he was having quite a few issues.

Also, it appeared that Severus Snape didn't enjoy being a Dark wizard nearly as much as James had thought. Becoming the second Dark Lord hadn't been a time-line that Snape had seemed to enjoy very much, although James was pretty sure that the man had enjoyed throwing Sirius into a pack of werewolves-unable to transform but otherwise normal- a LOT. Still, overall Severus had turned out to be rather miserable...AGAIN.

A particularly irksome fact was that the so-called 'prime' time-line where Severus had apparently died to some bloody snake at the age of 38 was BETTER than even James' best efforts so far.

'Well, at least I've managed to discover some 'forks in the road' thanks to my efforts so far...but this is PATHETIC! I mean, this guy's a Death Eater for Merlin's sake! How is it that he can't manage to be happy when he gets to kill whoever he wants, bed any girl he can get at the other end of his wand, and rules all of BLOODY BRITAIN!?'

James didn't know what Snape's problem was, but he would have to keep trying until he got it right; his afterlife LITERALLY depended on his results here...

It was a shame that he didn't know where to begin.

Defiled

Lily hated him, her former best friend, the boy she would have once given everything she possessed for. Severus had changed so much from what he had been that Lily couldn't see anything left of him, just mocking images of what he had once been, and what Lily had always hoped for him to be; instead of being that quiet, hopeful boy she had known and loved very much, he had chosen to become something...something awful, choosing to fight against everything she stood for.

She had told him once, before the end of fifth year, that she hoped to join the Order of the Phoenix as soon as they left Hogwarts and hoped that he would too. Severus had only rolled his eyes and said in a quiet, almost pitying voice that he hoped that she changed her mind before her foolishness got her killed, as he'd hate to lose his best friend fighting for a useless cause. The boy that she had once known would never have called something like that 'useless', but would have been there...a few feet behind her to be sure, but he would have fought with her.

He had once tried as hard as she did at everything, from schoolwork to simply having fun playing outside, his grin almost as bright as her own. That had changed; he never smiled anymore, and soon she couldn't remember the last time he had spoken in class. By fourth year, while Lily knew that Severus was just as bright as he had always been, his grades had fallen from 'O's' to low 'E's' and high 'A's'. He no longer bothered with school, claiming that he didn't care about it anymore.

Maybe he didn't.

A part of her died inside everytime she saw him with those boys, HIS friends, as it was a living reminder of how far he had fallen. They would laugh about how they had had so much fun with the Muggle-baiting they had done over Christmas, something about casting a spell and making a Muggle think that a five-foot drop was actually a flight of stairs, and Severus would chuckle right along with them.

It was almost more painful though when she remembered what he had done earlier that year, when his friends had broken Mary's legs 'just for a laugh'. He had mocked Mary, mocked her pain as the rest of the gang scattered to avoid their punishment, but he had also carried her up to the Hospital Wing before anyone else got the chance to.

It was more painful because in those few moments, Lily saw a glimpse of the Severus she had known, the one who she had loved and still loved. It made it far more painful than it would have been if he were just like the rest of his friends, black holes which sucked the light and goodness out of everyone around them, as she could see the shards of the boy there along with the twisted man he had become. She hated him even more for reminding her that he had once been different from them, and now mocked what he was with every word he could.

Lily would have done anything to save him, and had done everything in her power to do so...but he refused to leave his hellish darkness, in spite of his love for her, and she had given up in the end. It was all the more painful because she couldn't help but wonder...wonder if there was something that she might have said that could have stopped him.

She hated him most of all because she could see both what was, what is...and what might have been.

What hurt most of all was she sometimes got the feeling that she could have gotten the right answer from him, gotten him to leave those monsters who had defiled him, making him a monster in the process...but she had forgotten to ask the right question.

Author's Note: All of these snippets are from possible upcoming fics, or fics that are already in progress. All of them have at least a reasonable chance of ending SSLE, although I won't say for certain. I'd like to know which you would like to see me focus on.

Here's a brief summary of each of the fics that I haven't already posted. The last one of these is a fair bit darker and grungier than what I usually write, but it might have a happy ending:

Penance, The Purgatory of James: Lily wasn't the only one sent into purgatory, and James' purgatory was far worse; he has been given the task of creating a happy, healthy Severus for one reality, in recompense for the life of the one he harmed so much.

However, although he tries to finish quickly, he soon realizes that things aren't so simple even when one has the abilities he does. Severus is the same, but he soon is forced to confront the fact that his perception of the man is quite flawed indeed...

Cursed to Relive: After his death, Severus finds himself reborn into the body of his seven-year old self, in the bushes by the playground watching Lily. Remembering his life and knowing what he now knows, he decides to try to avoid Lily in order to protect himself from watching his life repeat itself...and protect her from him.

However, in the process of trying to fix the mistakes of his past life...he ends up making whole new ones, in spite of the best of intentions. Avoiding the problem doesn't mean solving it...

Defiled: Lily and James started dating in seventh year, after James got his head 'deflated', but in this universe a twist occured; after an accident with James, resulting in 'a nine-month miracle', Lily finds her position as Head Girl stripped away and most of the school hating her. Things grow more complex as Lily is forced to find out what true friends she has left in the midst of a hellish variation of what should be a happy dream.

With enemies surrounding her, she discovers that good and evil can be more complicated than merely enemy and ally...and that some friendships refuse to die even when filled with hatred...

It will be a seventh year to remember...