Maybe, I'm Amazed

What if Severus hadn't called Lily a Mudblood? What if Potter never managed to break them up? What if they got married and had children despite the turbulent times?

Warning: I hate James Potter! Plenty of James bashing! This story is AU and neither the characters nor the story are canon. A word of advice: don't like, don't read, but don't flame me or personally attack me because the characters are not canon!

Disclaimer: The plot is mine, but all the main characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I do not own or profit from any of them.

A/N: The title is from a song written by Sir Paul McCartney, "Maybe I'm Amazed," McCartney album, Apple Records, 1970.

A/N: To guest reviewer Snapehater, Wingodingo (or whatever), Cleoleo or whatever dumbass name you're calling yourself: Your reviews have all been consigned to the trash bin where they definitely belong!

Chapter 1

It was Thursday and Severus Snape had just finished his practical Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL and felt very pleased. He was certain he had achieved an O on both his written and practical exams. He walked slowly, looking over his Defense class notes, when suddenly he heard someone calling his name and looked up to see his girlfriend, Lily Evans, their close friends, Alice Downing, and Alice's boyfriend, Frank Longbottom, sitting in the sun by the Black Lake.

"Sev, we're down here!" Lily called, waving her hand frantically to catch his attention.

No matter how many times he saw her, she never failed to astound him with her beauty, her shoulder-length deep, auburn red hair, almond-shaped, emerald green eyes, luminous skin, and lithe body. She could have chosen any of the handsome boys, such as her fellow Gryffindors James Potter and Sirius Black, or Hufflepuff's Amos Diggory, as her boyfriend, but she had chosen him. They had grown up together in a lower income area of Manchester two blocks away from one another and had been best friends since they were nine.

Severus was lanky and pale with eyes so dark they appeared obsidian and shoulder-length thick, raven black hair. His face was thin with high cheekbones, and a full mouth. He had a beautiful smile when Lily got him to smile, but his nose was permanently misshapen, the result of one breakage too many by his father, Tobias. His smile widened as returned Lily's wave and started down towards her.

"Look, Prongs, it's Snivellus!" He suddenly heard a mocking voice say.

He turned and saw his three most hated enemies, James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew. Remus Lupin, the fourth member of the self-named Marauders, sat against a tree studying. He, as usual, was ignoring the actions of his three friends even though he was the one of Gryffindor's Prefects. Severus reached for his wand in the pocket of his robe, but before he could even get his hand on it, he saw Black jab his wand at him and yell, "Silencio!" then Potter yelled, "Levicorpus!"

Severus was suddenly hanging upside down, his robe over his head, unable to speak, and his arms and legs flailing. He felt his wand fall out of his inner pocket. The worst thing about it was they were using a spell, he'd invented, Levicorpus, against him. He, being the inventor of the jinx, knew the counter-jinx, but he could not do it without his wand and it was lying somewhere below him. He tried summoning his wand with non-verbal "Accio!", but he could not concentrate enough to make it work.

"Good one, Padfoot!" James congratulated him. He was of average height, handsome, well built with messy black hair that stuck up all over and hazel eyes behind round, wire-rim glasses. He was very popular, loud, noisy and very competitive.

"You, too, Prongs!" Sirius returned the compliment. Sirius was model handsome with longish curly, dark hair and brown eyes. He attracted girls easily and changed girlfriends frequently.

"You two are amazing!" Peter exclaimed in his normal hero-worshipping tone. He was short and dumpy with mousey blond/brown hair and blue eyes. He was their follower and main worshipper, and was willing to put up with second-class treatment from James and Sirius in order to be part of the Marauders.

A crowd had gathered, laughing and pointing at Severus. James ran his hand through his messy hair and bowed. Sirius winked at the girls who were present while Peter grinned at their antics.

"What should we do next?" Sirius wondered aloud.

"We could be polite and ask him how he thinks he did on his OWLs, but you used the silencing charm on him," James pointed out.

"True, but he probably flunked all the written exams because he dripped grease all over his papers and smeared all his answers," Sirius said as Peter chortled.

"Hey! I've got an idea," Peter said. "Why don't we hit him with the tickling charm? Maybe it'll make him piss his pants!"

"Good one, Wormtail!" James replied with a small bow in Peter's direction. "Be my guest."

The crowd began hooting and yelling their encouragement as Peter raised his wand in Severus' direction when there was a sudden blur of red as Lily slammed into Peter, knocking him off balance, his wand flying out of his hand. She turned and gave James and Sirius a hard shove. Alice and Frank had followed her from the lake and now stood by, wands at ready, to help Lily and Severus if they needed it.

"You arrogant toerags, leave Sev alone!" She shouted. "What's he ever done to you?"

Despite the fact that he was hanging upside down, couldn't speak, his robes completely covering him, and feeling totally humiliated, Severus felt a small smile crack his lips. His Lily had a fiery temper and woe be tide anyone on the receiving end of it!

"Only pull out his wand and try to hex us anytime he sees us!" Sirius complained. "We have the right to get the greasy git before he gets us!" The crowd cheered his answer.

"What I can't understand, Evans, is why you're dating this Slytherin slimeball anyway," James argued. "He's not only greasy, but hangs around with all these followers of You-Know-Who." He shrugged carelessly. "Of course all of Slytherin are nothing more than Death Eaters-in-training!"

There was a loud murmur of agreement from the crowd watching. Many of them had been hexed by Avery, Rosier, Wilkes, or the Lestrange brothers because they were considered unworthy by the pureblood fanatics.

"You know nothing about Sev and you know nothing about me, Potter!" Lily yelled shoving her finger into James' chest as she spoke. "Now let Sev down!"

"I'll make you a deal, Evans." James proposed with a smile. "Go out with me and I'll let old Snivellus down and I'll never hex him again." Of course his promise didn't mean Padfoot and Wormtail couldn't still hex Snivellus should the opportunity present itself. He took a snitch out of his robe pocket and let it fly into the air than grabbed it, showing off his fast reflexes. "I should be our Seeker, Padfoot; I've got better reflexes than our current Seeker. What do you think?"

Lily gave James a disgusted look and said flatly, "I wouldn't go out with you, Potter, if you were the last wizard on earth and thank Merlin, you're not! You're nothing but a conceited, immature, spoiled toerag who thinks he can have whatever he wants and thinks every witch should fall in a dead faint at his feet!"

Frank also gave James a disgusted look. Both he and James were Chasers on the Gryffindor house Quidditch team and he was fed up with James's overblown ego. "You're a complete arse, Potter! Quit showing off with that bloody Snitch and let Sev down!" He was generally mild mannered and rarely used profanity, but he was sick of the self-named Marauders bullying Sev, and fed up with James thinking he was the most important person on their team.

James ignored Frank and said to Lily, "Okay, have it your way, Evans!" He turned to the crowd and said, "Who wants to see me strip Snivilly naked?" The crowd cheered, urging him on.

Severus began to struggle fiercely, hoping he could get himself down, but all it did was make him dizzy to the point of nearly passing out. He suddenly heard a soft, but angry voice order: "That's enough, James, Sirius!"

Remus Lupin stood behind them with his wand drawn. He was shorter than James or Sirius and thin with light brown hair longish in the back, shorter on the top and sides and had gray eyes which had now turned a shade of amber. He was quiet and much more studious than his friends were.

James whirled around, his mouth hanging open in shock. He shook his head in disbelief. "What's with you, Moony? How come you're defending Snivellus?"

"Yeah, are you becoming a Snivellus fan, Moony?" Sirius demanded.

"Yeah, are you a fan of greasy gits, Moony?" Peter echoed Sirius.

Remus ignored their taunts and snapped, "You've all gone too far this time. Sirius, take the silencing charm off Snape and James let him down right now!" Sirius shocked at Moony's unexpected anger quickly removed the silencing charm.

"Okay, Moony, don't get your tail in a twist!" James muttered then said the counter-spell, "Liberacorpus!" and waved his wand at Severus who crashed to the ground. Unfortunately he hadn't had a chance to prepare himself and came down head first, hitting a rock.

"Sev!" Lily cried and ran over to him. Alice and Frank hurriedly followed her over to where Severus lay in a heap, unmoving. She lifted his head then gave a cry when she saw her hand was covered in blood. "Merlin! He's bleeding!"

"Don't worry, Lily, Sev will be fine." Frank reassured her. "We'll get him to Madam Pomfrey and she'll get him fixed up in no time." He looked around and spotted a fallen tree branch lying near them and quickly transfigured it into a stretcher. Alice immobilized Severus and carefully levitated him onto it. Frank pointed his wand at the stretcher and said "Mobilicorpus." The stretcher began to float in front of him as he walked. Alice walked along side of him.

"Wait a minute," Lily called to them. She turned to Potter, Black, and Pettigrew and said in a threatening tone, "I've told you to leave Sev alone and you promised you would. As a Prefect I didn't turn you in because I assumed as fellow Gryffindors you'd keep your word, but since you haven't, I'm going to turn you three over to McGonagall and Dumbledore. Furthermore, you ever come near Sev or me again and I will hex you so bad that the possibility of any future Potters, Blacks, or Pettigrew's will be nil!" She then turned to the crowd surrounding them and demanded, "Why didn't any of you help Sev instead of encouraging these three toerags to continue tormenting him?"

Somebody, a boy from Ravenclaw Lily thought, answered sullenly, "Because it's like Potter said; he's a greasy git and a follower of You-Know-Who!"

"You're all as pathetic as those three!" Lily snapped. She quickly gathered up Sev's scattered papers with a wave of her wand and placed them inside his book bag. She snatched up his wand from where it had fallen then caught hold of Sev's hand and walked beside him as Frank quickly, but carefully steered the stretcher towards the castle.

A/N: I borrowed the page break style from evil minded because I really like them.