(Author Notes expanded, 15th August, 2016)

Disclaimer: I am still not J.K. Rowling. I still don't own Harry Potter.

Note: The following is a second look into events which take place during the summer of 1976 in an alternate universe in which (some years earlier) seven year old Lily Evans had a series of dreams about 'the future', which she's never been able to forget. Since when, she's been trying to change things, with not much success until a few small things very recently. (For the sake of the scenario, I've assumed that for one reason or another - whether fear of being thought crazy, or of being mistaken for some sort of 'seer' - that Lily hasn't ever actually told anyone who matters (and who believed her at the time) that she's had 'dreams about a future' where the things she dreamt about keep happening.) This story is for now a two-parter.

Rating: This story is still rated 'M', just to be on the safe side in case it ever amounts to more than a two-parter. I didn't say anything at all about high quality underwear purchased in France in early February, 1978, on the advice of an employer who has very particular ideas about what should be gifts for La Saint-Valentin. ('Honestly, this young Englishman is in urgent need of a firm but paternal guiding hand, if he imagines the previous year that some potions text is an appropriate gift...' - thoughts of an as yet (at the time of writing of this note/rating, in August, 2016) unnamed Frenchman)

Several weeks have gone past. Various things have happened during those weeks, some of them more surreptitiously carried out (and carefully removed from the possibility of any prying eyes) than others. And then, another overcast summer afternoon sees Lily and Severus back on the swings.

Lily has had a feeling that Severus has been working up to something for some time, now, and this time he actually comes out with it:

"I wrote to the headmaster." Severus says. "I asked him if he wanted me to spy on Slytherin for him? I tried to be polite about it – to say that it would be me reporting on things that Professor Slughorn is too busy to investigate properly, or too nice a man to want to believe and look at any more than necessary. He wrote back last night, and said 'no'." Severus' shoulders slump slightly. "So that's that. I don't think the headmaster has liked or trusted me very much ever since that night I'm not supposed to talk about, but which James Potter claims he saved my life on."

That, by the way, had been another of Lily's failed attempts to change the way that things were happening. She'd tried to put Severus off from going to investigate the passage under the Whomping Willow – since some time 'after the event' in her 'future' dreams James and company had explained to her the bit about Remus being a werewolf, and Sirius having (rather stupidly) set a trap for Severus on that one occasion – but of course her attempts to get Severus to stay away had only made him more curious and determined to investigate…

Lily really hasn't been at all good at this whole 'trying to change the possible future' thing up until that one small success that day by the lake.

And she has had to constantly pretend not to know the details of what had really happened that night with James and Sirius and Remus, since there shouldn't have been any way whatsoever that she could know those yet, without a lot of awkward explanations – and there might not ever be any way that she could 'know' them, this time.

"Umm. So the headmaster doesn't like or trust you much." she said, trying to sound diplomatic. "So why would you want to spy for him anyway?"

"I wouldn't, but I don't want to have to be in Slytherin, this next school year, pretending to like and get on with everyone, unless I was pretending to do it for a good cause – like spying for the headmaster. And I would have to be pretending, because you were right: the fact that Potter and his gang do stuff for a laugh doesn't excuse the bad things that Mulciber and the others in Slytherin do, either." an explanation started to tumble out of Severus in a positive torrent of words. "In fact at least Potter has the excuse of being a brainless Gryffindor, for acting the way that he does, whereas Mulciber should know and act better. He's a Slytherin. It's supposed to be the best house to be in – or at least it was. Before it all started going wrong, some time. But anyway, I can't put up with it – not having to pretend to like it – or not without a good reason now, so since the headmaster doesn't want me, I'm going to have to write to Professor Slughorn and ask if he can get me a job anywhere? I've got OWLs, now, so I don't have to stay on at school, and it would be better and more useful than the alternatives. Ideally, I'd like to go somewhere abroad, since that way I'd be less likely to 'bump into' anyone, and they probably wouldn't think it worth while to come looking, since I'm only a half-blood 'nobody', but I don't know if that would be possible, and I'd have to take probably anything. Well: anything 'not wrong'. And I suppose Potter and co. will say that I'm running away, and a coward, which I will be, but not from them – but let them and everyone else think it if they want."

"Err…" said Lily, her mind reeling.

Her grasp on the details of this long and tremendously convoluted piece of Severus reasoning was somewhat shaky, but somewhere in the middle of all that, she'd latched onto the facts that Severus had decided that:

1) he didn't like Mulciber (and friends) very much any more, or at least that was the gist of what she'd got on that point.

2) he was going to leave Hogwarts and try to get a job – 'abroad' if at all possible, to minimise his chances of meeting 'the wrong sort of people'.

She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, or hoping for, with this whole trying-to-change-things stuff… certainly nothing like this, however. Who the hell was she supposed to work alongside in NEWT level potions classes, if Severus wasn't there? He was the only person remotely close to her in level of brewing ability (okay; he was better than her on some counts), and now that it had seemed that just *maybe* he wouldn't go completely bad after all (as he would have done, according to the dreams she'd had all those years ago), she'd been starting to anticipate possible NEWT level projects she could attempt to work on with him.

Life just wasn't fair, sometimes, it seemed…

"Of course, I'll write to you whenever I can. I might even, if I'm really lucky, be able to get days off at weekends, if I can find out how to apparate, and make it into Hogsmeade to meet up with you, if you want that." he continued.

"Ohh." she said, and smiled rather weakly.

This wasn't at all supposed to happen…

The swings slowly squeak, as the teenage girl and boy sit there on them, pondering…

Author Notes:

Since Severus' initial action/response to Lily's words, as indicated in the previous chapter, besides showing to Lily the odd piece of magic Severus has been doing a lot of hard thinking, and reached conclusions approximately as he tries to outline/explain to Lily as above.

As Severus sees it, being in Slytherin house and openly defying 'anti-mudblood' and 'pro-Voldemort' sentiment is not an option. However, 'anti-mudblood' and 'pro-Voldemort' opinions are not things which he can sincerely espouse or support any longer, and he feels unable to now even pretend to hold them, unless it is for a genuinely good cause, such as spying on his fellow Slytherins for the headmaster. (Possibly he is afraid that without the constant reminder of a good cause, he might be tempted to 'backslide', and to start actually believing the things again...)

Anyway, Severus wrote to the headmaster, with his offer, and after due consideration the headmaster wrote back, politely thanking him, but saying 'no'. (Besides not liking – or at least not trusting – Severus much, Albus Dumbledore was slightly confused receiving this bizarre offer, out of the blue, and suspected that it was either some sort of Slytherin prank or – more seriously – some sort of trap being set for him, by Lord Voldemort.) And in the light of this, Severus concluded that since he couldn't do any 'good' in Slytherin, or otherwise survive in the house, as he saw it, he Clearly Must Leave The School. (If the idea of being re-sorted occurred to him at all, he presumably discarded it as an option that would look too much to his former housemates as 'treachery', but on some level the idea of missing out on taking NEWTs as a Big Grand Sacrifice Made For Lily had a lot of attraction to it too... Ah, the tangled, convoluted, thought-processes that a teenage Severus Snape is capable of tangling himself up in.)

Meanwhile, Lily still isn't really thinking of Severus as anything more than a friend, and this latest development is highly confusing and vexing for her. (He's walking out on Her? Just as it looks like he might not go baaaad after all? What the heck?)

Umm, at least Lily can be certain, now, that she does seem to be making noticeable headway, diverting events, from how she dreamt that they were 'supposed to be', all those years ago.

This story is, for now (August 12th, 2016) restricted to being a two-parter. I have some ideas about Lily's last two years in Hogwarts (whilst Severus is off in France working for some French potion maker or other) but I really should be working on 'The Politics of Men and Beasts' and updates for several other 'Saint Potter?' universe pieces. And then possibly an update for 'Harry Potter and the Greengrass Connection'. And some one-shots, when updates for the pieces without 'complete' tag, aren't going anywhere...

(School transfers, or not: 15th August, 2016)

In response to some early reviews for this chapter, with regard to school transfers, it's not really something that I particularly want to write, as happening away from Hogwarts, at this date. I don't feel that there's currently (in August, 2016) enough 'official' information (for me) floating around about canon schools other than Hogwarts to support such a storyline to the extent which I'd like, and I don't have the energy and enthusiasm to fill in enough of the details of the organization, curriculum, significant figures, etc, etc of another school to feel satisfied that I have a good 'feel' for such an institution. (Nor do I currently have such information which I can 'borrow' from another story of my own, at this date, although I possibly have an Italian magical school 'in the works', long-term, for a supporting piece in the 'Saint Potter?' universe.)

And besides, it's very much in my mind that the Weasley twins, Fred and George, in canon leave Hogwarts with nothing more than OWLs and still succeed in business (although granted there are two of them and they did get sufficient 'startup' funding from canon Harry Potter to be their own masters by the time that they exit Hogwarts).