Never underestimate the power of obsessive love

This is my take on those fics in which Severus Snape finds true love, becomes a family man, and powders babies' bottoms. It is not a nice story, so read on at your peril if you prefer your Snape with a generous side order of nobility.

AU, but still set in the same version of the Potterverse that is depicted in my canon fics.

Chapter 1: Severus Snape

The Dark Lord had taken care of the matter personally - he hadn't been there, of course, he'd been stuck up at Hogwarts as per usual, out of the action, snooping around after Dumbledore, but he'd heard all about it from Lucius. The Dark Lord had left nothing to chance, the Dark Lord had waited until he, Severus Snape, had reported that Dumbledore had convened a meeting of the Order of the Phoenix, and then the Dark Lord had paid a call on the Longbottom household. The Dark Lord hadn't wasted time; he'd killed the old bag of a grandmother who'd been left to mind the baby before she'd even had a chance to raise her wand, and then he'd killed the child. The Dark Lord had made it quick, he'd used the Avada Kedavra, the brat had been asleep in its cot, and it hadn't even cried – so much for the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord!

And so much for the parents who had thrice defied the Dark Lord, Frank and Alice Longbottom are dead, too, because once the menace of the prophecy was out of the way, they'd concentrated on targeting the members of the Order of the Phoenix. The Longbottoms, the Prewett brothers, Edgar Bones, Alastor Moody, Remus Lupin - they'd all been dealt with ...

Lupin! He'd had to laugh when he'd heard how it happened. Lupin had tried to spy on his fellow werewolves, the hopeless amateur, and he'd been caught out – and Fenrir Greyback had torn Lupin apart. But that still left Potter and Black, and Pettigrew had reported that Black had moved in with the Potters after Lupin's death. And that had really churned him up, even though he'd known that his suspicions were verging on insanity - because what pure-blood wizard would be willing to share his wife with another man?

Peter Pettigrew, the fourth Marauder, he hated Pettigrew – but Pettigrew was another reason for the Dark Lord to be pleased with him, to praise him and reward him. Pettigrew had come sidling up to him after Dumbledore had fallen - the Muggle-loving old fool had been killed by the Dark Lord in a one-on-one duel in Hogsmeade, the battle had really made a mess of the only purely wizarding settlement in Britain, the Muggles believed that an airliner had crashed into it – and he'd had to put his duty to the Dark Lord first. Pettigrew was a disgusting little rat, but he was an Order member, he was a valuable recruit, he had useful information for the Dark Lord.

And some of the useful information that Pettigrew had shared was the precise location of the house at Godric's Hollow and the nature of its defences ... and the Dark Lord had no intention of sticking to the terms of the cease-fire that Millicent Bagnold had asked for. So he'd gone to the Dark Lord, and begged for the job, begged for the opportunity to settle his old scores with Potter and Black. But he hadn't had to beg for Lily's life, the Dark Lord had looked into his eyes and said, "I can see you're … attracted … to the Mudblood witch. You can have her when you've killed the Gryffindor blood-traitors."

He'd even dared to ask that Lily not be Obliviated, because a Memory Charm strong enough to obliterate her memories of James and the baby would leave her an empty shell, it would be worse than killing her, nearly as bad as a Dementor's Kiss, she'd just be a body to use - and the Dark Lord had been gracious.

Godric's Hollow wasn't a soft target, even with the benefit of the information that Pettigrew had provided, and he couldn't risk failure, he couldn't risk disappointing the Dark Lord – not even for Lily's sake. So he'd been glad when Lucius had offered to come along, because while Lucius might act the part of the spoiled aristocratic playboy - drawling and sneering, complaining about a broken finger-nail or a scuff-mark on his dragon-hide boots - the change in him when they put on their Death Eater robes and masks was astonishing, it was like watching the change in a pampered pet Kneazle, lounging on a cushion, when it sees a bird on the window sill.

They'd laid down a barrage of Anti-Disapparation jinxes, and then they'd smashed their way through the defences and into the house. Lily had joined in the fight only briefly, he'd seen her red hair flying like flames in front of him, but before he'd had time to feel fear for her, she'd vanished. And then all thoughts of her had gone out of his mind, because he'd already lost two men - Gibson and Carrow. It had taken three of them, including Lucius, to take Black down, while he held off Potter – and then Potter had been disarmed by a piece of falling masonry knocking the wand out of his hand.

The others had gathered around for the kill, and his first impulse had been to make it slow, to use the Cruciatus Curse to hurt Potter so much that the convulsions would break bones, rupture internal organs, and made blood pour out of every orifice – and then he'd thought, you haven't got Sirius Black to back you up now, Potter - you're on your own now, and how does that feel? So he'd tossed Potter's wand back to him, made it a fair fight.

And that had made his revenge all the sweeter, the Avada Kedavra was too good for Potter, he'd sliced Potter up with his own curse, Sectumsempra, for enemies, and then finished him off with his signature hex - a bone-breaking curse that had pulped Potter's entire body.

When the red fog had cleared, he'd remembered Lily - but it was Lucius who'd caught her when the Invisibility Cloak hiding her snagged on something as she tried to creep out past the cordon of Anti-Disapparation jinxes, burdened by the brat in her arms. And when he'd seen her, wandless, trembling, clutching the crying baby with one hand and with the other desperately trying to cover her body with her torn robes, he'd had to stifle a pulse of irrational rage against his best friend.

He'd cast the Morsmordre over the burning wreckage of the house - the honour fell to him as the one who'd planned and led the raid - and then he'd taken Lily by the arm and Disapparated. The moment they'd arrived at the familiar smelly river bank, the brat had started to scream hysterically, and for a moment he'd had an impulse to snatch it from her, hitch up her robes, and claim his prize there and then – after all, he'd won her in fair fight, and he didn't have to ask nicely.

But the look of fear in her eyes had shaken him - she was terrified of him, terrified that he'd hurt her or the child - and in the thousand times he's imagined this scene she's not afraid, she's melting with gratitude, telling him that the marriage to James was a mistake, she'd always wanted him, but she'd thought he wasn't interested ... in his fantasies, she hasn't been shrinking away from him, she's been eager and willing.

So he'd slipped the Anti-Disapparation bracelet - the Dark Lord's own invention for restraining prisoners - onto her wrist, and escorted her through the winding streets, and finally the baby had stopped howling, but they hadn't spoken, they'd walked on in silence. He'd kept a very firm grip on her arm and a sharp eye out for Muggle police - a pure-blood witch would be helpless without a wand in a Muggle area, but Lily was Muggle-born, and she was tough, capable – and she was a Gryffindor, she might do something reckless. And he really didn't want Muggle attention being drawn to Spinner's End – not the kind of attention a cop-killing would attract.

He'd flushed a little with shame when he'd opened the front door into the dingy little sitting room, shame that he'd had to bring her to this stinking dump, nothing like the comfortable Evans family home that he'd visited once or twice before she married Potter - and he took the Dark Mark.

He'd moved back into Spinner's End when Hogwarts was closed down after Dumbledore's death – the place had been empty for years, since his mother died of grief or drink or both, she'd actually pined for his filthy Muggle father - but he really only used the place for sleeping, and for brewing the potions commissioned by the Dark Lord.

He'd locked the door – magically, and in the Muggle way – and shown her around the place, his old bedroom would do for the baby, he could transfigure the bed into a cot easily enough. Then he'd shown her the bedroom that had belonged to his parents, and said, "This is our room."

He'd didn't use magic at Spinner's End unless he really had to - the house isn't known to the Ministry and he'd prefer that it stayed that way so it's warded to hide the use of magic, but every use of magic requires the wards to be replenished – so he'd rustled through the fridge and found some bread and milk for the baby, and then waited for Lily to get the brat settled down to sleep.

He'd waited patiently for her, naked under the sheets, listening first to the murmur of her voice soothing the baby, and then to the sound of water running in the bathroom, and finally she'd come into the room wrapped only in a towel and slipped into bed beside him. He'd turned off the bedside light, he wasn't ashamed of his body - he wasn't as muscled as James but he'd filled out a lot since he was a weedy fifteen year old - but somehow it seemed the right thing to do.

He'd stroked her hair, and if she'd slapped his face, he didn't know what he'd have done, but she hadn't pushed him away, so he'd kissed her. He hadn't tried to slip his tongue into her mouth, but he'd stroked her breasts, and then let his hand drift further down – her stomach muscles were as tight as a drum, and he'd realised that she was as nervous as a virgin on her wedding night, Lily Evans had never looked at, never touched any boy other than James Potter ...

He could smell her hair – she hadn't washed it, it still smelt of the same brand of Muggle shampoo that she'd always used at school, and of smoke and magic, of the burning wreckage of the house at Godric's Hollow, and the smell was maddening, intoxicating – and then he couldn't stop himself from nudging her legs apart, because he'd been as frantic to get inside her as any importunate teenager. And while it hadn't been quite what he'd hoped for, because in his dreams she'd always been wildly responsive, it was still good, and better than his fantasies, really, because she was still there afterwards, alive and real and warm in his arms.

He'd cuddled up to her, draped his arm over her, and she hadn't pulled away from him. He'd been sleepy and contented, and then she'd said, softly, "Sometimes Harry cries in the night and I have to get up to him." He'd just grunted, that was OK.

And the brat had cried, the unfamiliar sound had woken him at once. She'd gone to the baby, and when she came back, when she'd crawled back into the bed beside him, he'd wanted her again, and this time he'd coaxed her into letting him kiss her properly. And the second time it was actually nicer - he'd been less frenzied, because he'd already marked her as his in a way that every male will understand, and if she wasn't as eager as he would have liked, she was clearly willing.

When he'd woken in the morning, he'd been puzzled for a moment by the long red hair spread over the pillow, but then he'd remembered the raid on Godric's Hollow. He could hardly believe that he'd actually managed to pull the crazy scheme off – Lily Evans was his, she was safe in his bed - and it had been the single happiest moment of his life, better even than the day on which the Dark Lord had honoured him with the Dark Mark.

Really, it was kind of a weird situation, hell, he'd never lived with a witch before, he'd never actually had what you could call a girlfriend, either - not the sort of girlfriend you took out to dinner and bought flowers and chocolates for. But he couldn't go wrong being polite - and he was never going to start treating her the way his father had treated his mother. That had started with insults, when he was six years old and his mother couldn't hide his uncontrolled, accidental magic any longer. His father had called his mother freak and deceitful bitch, but pretty quickly it had become something worse than insults – and he could never understand it, his mother was a witch, she could have hexed his father to hell and back, so why didn't she? Why hadn't she used her magic to protect herself – and him?

And Lily reminded him of his mother, the way she did things around the house Muggle-style, just like his mother, who had never dared to use her magic to make her life easier. And that memory had made him snarl a little, to think of a witch cooking and scrubbing and working her fingers to the bone, just like a filthy Muggle. But it was nice, coming home to a house with the lights on and a meal cooking, and he just liked having her there, she was a companionable presence while he looked through his Dark Arts books or organised his potions ingredients. And, well, he didn't exactly play with the brat, hell, what did he know of babies? But it was easy enough to hold it on his knee while Lily was busy, and to turn the pages of a Muggle picture book. And it was a bright enough little thing, it was learning to repeat the names of the animals in Where's Spot? And when he showed some interest in the baby, Lily smiled at him, she'd even touch him, run her hand over his shoulder as she walked past.

He worried about her, it wasn't much of a life, cooped up in Spinner's End, under virtual house-arrest, but the war was really hotting up, and she wasn't safe outside his wards, Lily Evans was a known Muggle-born and she was at risk of being killed on sight if he wasn't there to protect her.

And then there were the Muggles – Spinner's End was in a rough neighbourhood, and Lily had no wand - so he never let her out of the house alone. And when he escorted her to the Muggle shops or to take the kid to the swings in the mangy little park where he'd played as a boy, he was glad that the child, with its black hair and green eyes, could pass for his, because he didn't want anyone thinking that she was one of the local Muggle sluts with a string of bastards to half a dozen different men.

He often brought her little gifts and trifles – Muggle books and music, toys for the baby, even flowers sometimes - and she seemed to be warming to him, of course it was going to take time, and he'd got used to the idea that she was no sexual enthusiast, it wasn't the Karma Sutra in the bedroom but he wasn't getting bored with her, quite the reverse. When he wasn't with her he thought about her constantly, and he craved her, the more he had her the more he wanted her, as that Muggle playwright said, As if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on ...

He was more cautious in the fighting now, reckless bravery was for idiot Gryffindors anyway, but he couldn't afford to take chances - if anything happened to him, Lily and the child would be without a protector. And he didn't hang around now after a successful raid, he didn't want to drink and celebrate with the rest of them, he wanted to Apparate home as soon as he decently could.

And often in the evenings they'd watch Muggle TV together, curled up on the shabby old sofa, while the boy crawled about the sitting room - now that Harry was starting to take a few steps he'd had to put up some shelves, Muggle-style, with a hammer and nails, so that his Dark Arts books were well out of Harry's reach. Not that it was all plain sailing, sometimes the kid screamed and yelled and drove him mad, but he just went outside and smoked until the tantrum was over – he'd stopped smoking in the house, not that Lily had ever said anything, but he'd seen something on TV about the dangers of smoking around children.

He was away from home for two days during the final battle to establish the Dark Lord's regime, the battle in which half the Ministry building had been destroyed - he hadn't even had a chance to send an owl to tell Lily that he was OK, and when he'd walked through the door it was obvious that she was glad to see him, you didn't need to be a Legilimens to see that, not that he ever used the spell against her, any more than he'd use it against Lucius or Narcissa, that would be a violation.

She'd looked anxious, so he'd reassured her, the blood that spattered his cloak wasn't his – most of it, anyway - and he'd been aching to see her, absolutely aching, so despite the blood and the grime and the exhaustion, he'd lifted her up on the kitchen table and made love to her, there and then. Afterwards, Lily had told him that she was pregnant, and for a moment he'd felt an awful fear that it was James' - but it couldn't be, the dates weren't right - and then more fear, because how would the Dark Lord react to this news? And what did he know of being a father anyway ...

But then he'd felt joy, because of course she'd always love Harry, he was her first-born, but when she held his son in her arms, she'd forget James. So he'd reassured her, told her that he loved her, and that he could protect her and the baby. There'd been heavy casualties when they stormed the Ministry, and casualties meant promotion - he was guaranteed of a high position in the Dark Order, he wouldn't be going back to Hogwarts to teach god-awful Potions under Igor Karkarov, who'd been promised the position of Headmaster. And they'd have a better house soon, much better than the squalid little dump at Spinner's End; one of those big mansions that come with house-elves ... a nice place in the country, well away from Muggles, with fresh air and room for the children to have pets and fly their broomsticks.

Afterwards, as they'd snuggled on the couch, Lily had switched on the wireless and they'd listened to the Dark Lord's address to the wizarding community. He'd heard the Dark Lord say that he'd already informed the Muggle Prime Minister of the change of regime, and then he'd dozed off for a moment, until he'd caught what the Dark Lord was saying about Muggle-borns, they are to report to the Ministry building, their wands will be broken, they'll be Obliviated and re-settled amongst the Muggles – but his hand had tightened on Lily's arm, because he couldn't believe that, it's much more likely that the Muggle-borns will be shipped off somewhere and killed.

So he'd screwed up all his courage, gone to the Dark Lord and begged a favour on bended knee, and the Dark Lord had raised an eyebrow, asked why he wanted to marry his Mudblood mistress. He'd said, "I don't want my son to be born a bastard" – and the Dark Lord had been indulgent ... and the next day they'd seen Ollivander, and got Lily a new wand.

The Dark Lord had been more than indulgent, the Dark Lord had showered him with favours, he'd been appointed head of the Goblin Liaison Office - effectively head of Gringotts Bank, under the new administrative structure - and he had quite a talent for dealing with goblins, the nasty tricky little bastards. Wringing the amount of Galleons out of them that the Dark Lord needed for reconstruction work wasn't easy, but he had a surprising knack for administration, and they couldn't fool him with a lot of technical jargon about the difficulties of curse-breaking and treasure recovery. Ragnok had tried to blackmail him once, tried to hold his Muggle father over his head – Merlin knows how Ragnok had dug that up - and he'd been amused, because of course the Dark Lord knew that he was a half-blood, he'd never been stupid enough to try to hide that from the greatest wizard, the most accomplished Legilimens the world has ever seen, and the Dark Lord hadn't been concerned that he was a lowly half-blood, he'd said this will be our little secret. So he'd gestured towards the fireplace, said, "We can Floo to the Ministry at once, the Dark Lord is generally willing to see me without an appointment, if it's important ..." – and that had shut Ragnok up.

But the greatest favour the Dark Lord had shown him was to attend his wedding as the guest of honour - Lucius had been his best man, the cream of society had been invited, and it had all gone very well, even if the most cleverly cut robes couldn't hide the fact that Lily was six months pregnant. The Dark Lord had done Lily the honour of dancing with her, and he'd known then that she was safe, he enjoyed the favour of the Dark Lord, and no one would now dare to say anything about Lily's Muggle origins. He'd had a quiet word with Rita Skeeter about that, with her red hair Lily could pass as a by-blow of one of the tribe of Weasleys, and it was better for her to be rumoured to be the bastard of a blood-traitor than to be known as a Mudblood. Lucius had danced with Lily, too, but he hadn't liked seeing Lucius with his hand on Lily's waist at all, even though Lily didn't care for Lucius and the idea that there could ever be anything between them was ridiculous.

And they had a splendid new home - the house-elves had been a little shocked that the Master and the Mistress wouldn't have separate suites of rooms – and life was getting back to normal, Hogwarts had reopened - the Dark Lord took a keen personal interest in wizarding education - and he liked to think that Lily was happy. She had friends, Narcissa was civil - it helped that she was also expecting another baby - and Harry and Draco were of an age and played nicely enough together, for toddlers, although things would probably change when they grew up, if they were Sorted into different Houses. And it was better if Harry took his name and was brought up knowing nothing of his biological father – he'd discussed it with Lily, and she agreed.

Of course, their sex life had stopped as she grew bigger and bigger, but that was normal - from what Lucius had told him of married life – and he didn't really mind. Lily was still beautiful in his eyes, her swollen belly wasn't unsightly to him, and he loved her even more now that she was going to give him a son. But a wizard has needs, so once or twice - or maybe a little more often than that - he'd banged one of the young witches at the office, hell, he got plenty of opportunities and he couldn't be expected to always say no - or he'd gone out to a bar with Lucius, after work, looking for some action.

Actually, they'd been at Malfoy Manor when Lily's contractions started, a very pleasant lunch, while Draco and Harry wobbled about on their toy broomsticks - he'd been listening to Lucius boasting that Draco could fly as soon as he could walk, and who would believe that one day he and Lucius would be arguing the merits of the safety charms on various brands of children's broomsticks?

So now he's in St Mungo's, there's quite a trend for younger wizards to be present at the birth of their children but frankly he's squeamish about that sort of thing, he'd been delighted when Lily told him, very firmly, that she didn't want him there – so he's just chain-smoking and pacing up and down, waiting for it to be over ... and when the Healers tell him that the baby is a girl and that he can see mother and child, he's utterly taken aback, he'd been so sure that it was a boy.

Looking at the little pink scrap, he thinks, I've never seen anything so unappealing in my life ... and then he thinks, sweet Merlin, I hope she doesn't have my hair and nose ... it's hard to tell, the baby's face is so squashed-looking, but she doesn't seem to have his beak of a nose, and her hair is fair, not black.

And then he remembers how boys had clustered around Lily, and he will be having a word with Karkarov when the time comes, because he's damned if he's going to allow any randy teenage wizards to make assignations on the Astronomy Tower with his daughter ... and he must send an owl to Lucius and Narcissa, to tell them that Harry has a sister, and they'll call her Eileen, after his mother – unless Lily really hates the name ...