If You Would Your True Love Win

Months, then years, passed as best as Severus could tell in that timeless land, and the Queen's promise held. Severus knew nothing but pleasure. Food was plentiful and delicately flavored, elf-made wine flowed like water but never gave headaches. Severus was never allowed out of the Hill unaccompanied, but he might go as often as he liked with an escort to walk in the wilderness, or swim naked in the untamed forest streams, or ride elf steeds under the unknown stars.

There seemed to be no marriages among the elves, nor even jealousy. When the Queen did not claim him for her bed, any of the other elves of her court might invite him to lie with them. As a novelty, there was quite a bit of vying for his attentions, sometimes two or more would come to him at once when they could not agree amongst themselves who should be first.

The human world slipped further and further from Severus's mind. In time he nearly forgot his past life and how he had come to that wonderful country.

---

From time to time, another mortal man would be brought to the Queen's court to be feasted and feted and loved, just as Severus was. Severus thought sometimes to ask them for news of the human world, but their minds would be so full of the wonders before them that they remembered little about their previous lives, and cared less.

The strange stars, so frequently overcast, were little help to Severus in keeping track of the seasons and the years, but the four great feasts were always observed. The mortal world was close by on those nights; the entire hill thrummed with excitement.

On All Hallow's night, the Faerie Court rode out, arrayed in their finest robes. The young man Severus had lately befriended went with them. He bade Severus good night before they rode out and promised to meet him at the lake on the morrow to swim.

Severus never saw him again. No one would tell him what happened, nor mention his name.

Months, or was it years, later, when Severus had nearly forgotten, it happened again. Then, a third time. It was all Severus could do to recall the faces, let alone the names, of the previous guests of the Queen. He knew it was the magic of the country making him forget ... there was something important, but he couldn't seem to grasp it for more than a few moments before the music or games would draw his attention away.

Soon after the third disappearance, Severus teased a few words from one of the younger elven handmaidens. She whispered to him that the Queen owed a tithe to Hell, a tiende, every seven years. No enticement could persuade her to say more about it.

The Queen had told him truly, that he would grow younger here. Looking into the forest pools, he saw the lines of care had gone from his skin, and many of his scars had healed. The Dark Mark was still on his arm, but he'd been so young when he got it. Would it too vanish, in time? How much younger could he get? Severus suspected that reversing puberty would remove the Queen's interest in him, and what then?

Severus knew he had to get away soon. The tiende would come due again, and there was no other mortal in the Faerie hill now.

Severus began to pay more attention to his surroundings and look for ways to slip away without his attendants. This was difficult; there was only the one great entrance to the hill, and only the elf magic could open and close it. He waited, and he watched.

Midsummer approached; he might be able to get away while the worlds were near.

He hid in the hall behind a great statue of a goblin and waited. When the court rode through to hunt, he slipped out before the stone gates crashed closed and dashed for the forest. He was allowed out when he wanted to ride or walk, but not near the feasts – the danger of his escape was too great then.

Severus didn't really have a plan, but he hoped that if he made it through the Forest to the place where, in the mortal world, Hogwarts was, that he would still feel some kind of connection and perhaps be able to follow it back. The Forest wasn't as dangerous in the Faerie world as it was in his. He wore the Queen's gift, the elf stone, at his brow. Nothing here would dare harm him.

Two thirds of the way through, he stopped suddenly on hearing the sharp snapping of a twig. He drew the elven cloak around him and slipped silently towards the noise. What he saw stopped his breath in his throat.

A witch, wearing Gryffindor robes, with the most beautiful long red hair he'd seen in decades flowing down her back, stood holding a flower she'd just broken from the bush in front of her. She dropped it into her empty basket and was reaching for another when he spoke.

"Lily..."

She turned. Wide blue eyes stared at him in shock, and the spell was broken.

"How did you know my name?"

---

Lily had been gathering the forest roses for Potions ingredients. She knew she wasn't supposed to be in the Forest alone, but she loved the silence and the solitude. And, with her father being the Headmaster, she felt a bit as if she owned the place. When she had sensed herself being watched, though, fear had suddenly coiled in her. She'd been about to bolt until she heard her name spoken with such longing, and in the sexiest voice she'd ever heard in her life.

Looking up, she saw a dark forest elf in the shadow of the clearing with coal black eyes that stared at her disturbingly. He stood elegantly tall, green-grey robes hanging from his shoulders, draping on the lean muscles of his arms and chest. A stone gleamed like starlight from a fillet across his brow. He knew her name. She was lost.

"I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else," the elf said.

She could hear the disappointment in his voice. Lily's stomach flipped and she felt ill.

That's not how the stories are supposed to go, she thought, in sudden grief. That's not how this one is going to go. Am I a Gryffindor, or not?

She stepped closer to him, and closer still, while he remained poised between watching her and disappearing into the trees. She held out her hand and placed her fingers gently on his arm to see if he was real. "Are you sure I won't do instead?"

The elf started at her touch, then looked at her again, really seeing her this time, and he smiled. "Hello," he said, taking her by the hand.

Lily was never certain exactly how it came about from there. She'd never done anything of the kind before, not even with boys she'd known for years. Yet, here she let this complete stranger take her by the hand and lay her down on the forest floor. As he kissed her, she saw stars, where he touched her, there was flame. When he entered her aching wetness, at first there was pain, but also a sweetness, and a feeling of completion like she'd never imagined.

She stroked his raven hair while he caught his breath. When he sat up, she did too, and winced to see her own dishevelled appearance. Forest mould had stained her robes with dark streaks, and several of last winter's leaves clung to her hair. Oh, Merlin! she didn't even know his name. She turned to ask him when she saw him suddenly whip his head around and stare back into the forest.

"They're going to find me, I've got to go!" With that he jumped up and ran back into the woods. Lily raced to follow him, but she tripped over her robes, still half on and half off, and fell back onto the ground in a heap. Great. Just great.

Lily gave up hope of following him deeper into the forest. She had to get back to Hogwarts and she still didn't have but one of the damn roses she'd come for in the first place. Muttering to herself at her gullibility, she picked her basketful as quickly as she could, gave herself and her clothes a brisk cleaning charm, and ran back to the castle.

Luckily for her it was midsummer, so no classes were in session. Lily lived at the castle year-round as her father was the Headmaster. She went to her own room, then took a real bath in the Prefects' tub – something she could get away with when school was out, no way would she have been made Prefect, let alone Head Girl. By the time she saw her father at dinner, her control was restored and she made a reasonable impression of her normal self.

She hoped she'd find her elf lord again. Hour after hour and week after week she searched the forest, but there was no sign of him, and eventually she gave up. She would have thought the whole thing was a dream – that she had fallen asleep in the forest, perhaps under the influence of some rare plant, and hallucinated everything – except for one important piece of evidence that it was real.

Two weeks after the mysterious encounter in the Forbidden Forest, clockwork Lily missed her period. Four weeks after that, school had started. Soon after that, she gave in and saw Madam Pomfrey about it.

"I'm sorry, Lily, you are definitely pregnant. You know I'm going to have to tell the Headmaster. Will you tell me who the father is, child?"

"I can't."

"Do you mean you won't, or you don't know?" Poppy didn't sound especially shocked at the idea. Lily was sure she'd seen it all.

"I just can't," was all Lily would say.

That was all she said to her father too, and to her mother. They tried asking, they tried pleading. They swore they wouldn't hex any of his bits off unless Lily wanted them to, but there wasn't anything she could tell them; they'd never believe her.

She didn't tell her friends she was even pregnant, but by October they were starting to guess.

By Halloween, Lily had lost all hope. She'd meant, at first, to keep the child. She thought she'd maybe find her elf after the baby was born, and he'd come back for her. As her waist thickened, and her breasts grew heavier, she became too frightened. She didn't believe he'd ever come back. She couldn't face being a single mother while her friends went about their carefree lives. She'd have done it with him, but not alone, never alone.

She made one more trip to the forest; she had ingredients to gather. She knew what she needed, and where they grew. She'd brew her potion this afternoon and take it before dinner. Everyone would be at the Halloween feast, no one would notice she was sick, then it would be all over.

Lily leaned by the edge of the stream, grubbing among the roots. She knew it was here somewhere. Suddenly a strong arm gripped her shoulder and pulled her violently around.

"What are you doing?" It's him. What is he doing here, now, of all times? It's too late. He should have come sooner. He would have if he'd cared at all, Lily told herself.

"It's none of your business what I'm doing," she told him, her voice rising into a hiss just like her mother's did when she was angry.

The black-hairedhead leaned over her basket. "Evening primrose, pennyroyal, and I daresay that was tansy you were digging for just now. I damn well think it is my business. You're going to kill my child, aren't you?" The coal black eyes bored into hers, daring her to deny the truth of it.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Lily shouted, pushing him back from out of her face. "For that matter, who the hell are you, anyway? You just came out of nowhere, shagged me on the forest floor and ran off. I've searched for you for weeks. You never even told me your fucking name!"

He deflated a bit and answered her softly. "Severus. My name is Severus Snape."

Lily didn't think anything he could have said would have made her angrier. She raised an arm to slap him, but lowered it again. "Don't lie to me, dammit! If you don't want me to know your name, then don't tell me. Just don't lie, and don't expect me to think you give a damn that I'm pregnant."

"It's the truth, my name is Severus. Why do you think I'm lying?"

"Because Severus Snape died years before I was born. My father goes on and on all the time about how he was the bravest man he ever knew. If you were Snape, you'd be around sixty years old. Besides, everyone said he was ugly and you are ..."

"I'm what?"

"Beautiful," she said, then blushed. He was far from it, really, but somehow it was true.

Severus let out a soft sigh. "I've been living in the elf country, with the Faeries. It ... changes you."

Wonder overtook her anger. So very few returned from the elf country. "Can you tell me about it?"

"Will you think about keeping the baby? Please?"

"I'll think about it. I'm not promising."

"Come, sit," he told her and led her to a soft mossy spot by a tree they could lean against while they talked.

"You know my name, so I guess you've heard about what the Dark Lord did, when he was finished with me."

Lily nodded. "He killed you with the snake, but no one ever found your body."

"I wasn't yet dead. Very nearly, but not quite..."

Lily listened in silent awe, as Severus described how he'd been rescued by the Queen of Faeries, and how she'd kept him all these years. "What year is it, anyway?" he asked her, suddenly.

"It's 2026."

Severus looked shaken. "It doesn't seem that long to me, I can only count about four years, but it's been twenty eight."

"You still look too young to be you," she told him. You must have been nearly forty at the end of the last war, but you don't look much older than me. Twenty at the very most."

"How old are you ... Lily, you said your name was Lily?"

"Lily Luna Potter," she told him. "I'm nineteen. I've left school, of course, but my father's the Headmaster, and he said I can stay until I find a place of my own."

Severus had been staring at her during this speech. "Please. Please tell me you aren't Harry's daughter."

"Yes, he's my dad," she told him a little proudly. "My mum is Ginevra Weasley Potter."

Severus dropped his face into his hands. "Of course."

Lily laughed. "Okay, now I believe you are really Severus Snape."

He turned to look at her sideways through the curtains of his hair. "Thank you. I think."

"So you've been in the elf country nearly thirty years? What is it like? Why have they kept you? And why were you trying to escape now?"

Severus evaded the 'why did they keep you' part of the question. He was certain it wouldn't help his case any to let her know that the faeries had a bit of a thing for humans.

"Every year since I've been there – I guess every seven years in your time – the Queen has to pay a tiende, a tithe, to hell. There have been other mortal men living with the elves for a time, three all told. At Samhain, they disappear. This year there was no other mortal ... I think it's my turn." Lily took his hand and held it tightly while he continued.

"During the sun and fire feasts, the worlds are closer. It is sometimes possible to pass between them. I tried to escape at Midsummer ... that's when I found you in the forest. When I ran off ... I had heard some of the elves looking for me. I didn't want them to find you too ... and I didn't want them to know I was trying to escape. I ran back to the Hill, and pretended I'd just gone out to pick wildflowers for the Queen.

"I'm so sorry I left you," he told her earnestly, pressing her hand tightly, and looking straight into her eyes as he said it. "I couldn't get out again for two more days ... and then it was too late, I couldn't get back to your world before today."

Severus's hands shook so as he told his story, and his eyes stared at her so intently, imploring her to believe him. Lily couldn't doubt his story. Her heart turned over, and she forgave him for abandoning her as she thought he had. "It's ok, Sev, I believe you. I trust you."

Severus's eyes opened wide in shock; he pulled Lily into his arms and buried his face in her hair. She felt his shoulders shaking and stroked his back gently. "No one's called me that in years, Lily, and no one's said they trust me. Can you? Really?"

"I can, I do. Are you free now, can you come back with me?"

"I don't think so, they'll come for me, and they'll find me; they need me for their tiende. Lily ... when I go, there will be nothing left of me in the world except your baby. Is there any way I could persuade you to keep it?"

"Not without a father, Severus, I ... I just can't. Is there no way to free you?"

"There's a way, I think. But you've got to be very brave."

"Tell me."

---

That night, Lily stole her father's invisibility cloak and snuck out of the castle. Over her arm she carried a basket with an extra cloak, her wand, and a bottle of holy water. She flipped the cloak over her shoulders and drew up the hood, then set off down the path to where the Forest road and the Hogsmeade road met, right near the lake.

Clouds scudded across the moon, alternately cloaking it in darkness, and allowing shafts of moonlight to touch the tops of the trees or glitter off the surface of the lake. Tendrils of mist rose from the lake, spreading eerie fingers across the path and curling about Lily's ankles.

It was nearly midnight when she got to the crossroad. Standing squarely at the center, Lily took the holy water and cast it in a circle around her. Then she slipped to the side of the road, still within the wet marks, and waited. She tried not to cast a time charm every thirty seconds, but she knew when twelve o'clock came. She drew the cloak more tightly around herself, shivering, and stared hard into the dark mist.

Suddenly she heard a jingle of harness and a soft clopping of hooves. Muffled by the fog, they must be very near for the sound to reach her, but she could still see nothing. They were nearly upon her when she finally saw the first horses riding along the road. Just as Severus had said she would, the Queen came first on a coal black steed, then her attendants on their brown horses. Finally, a figure cloaked and hooded on a milk white horse, with the bright elf stone on his brow. He stared straight ahead, not seeing Lily, but she knew him.

Just before the white horse passed, she sprang up and grabbed it by the bridle. The horse shied, and Severus fought to keep his seat. He still didn't seem to see Lily, and she wasn't sure what she could do. The others would come back for him in a moment, or the horse would pull free and he'd ride on.

Letting go the bridle with one hand, she reached up and took his bare hand in hers. It seemed as if a veil dropped from his eyes; he recognized her with a look of wonder and slipped down from the white horse and into her arms.

Lily had only a moment to hug him before she felt him change. He became impossibly thin and long. His skin became rough, then smooth and scaly. He almost slithered away before she seized him with her hands and held him close again. His head whipped around and Lily looked at the long fangs dripping venom in panic. He wouldn't hurt her, but the way he thrashed, he might poison her accidentally. Strengthening her resolve, she closed her eyes and held on tightly.

After a moment, the wild thrashing ceased, and the snake coiled gently around her. She felt the dry forked tongue graze her cheek and imagined she'd been kissed.

The quiet moment was broken when the snake began to transform. Uncoiling as his length shrank and girth thickened, legs sprouted, and the scales were replaced with fur. Where the snake had been, a lean greyhound struggled in Lily's grasp.

She held him as tightly as she'd held the snake, trying not to fear the hound's white teeth, or the claws on the four strong paws that scrabbled at her in a wild bid for freedom. She laid her cheek to the fur of his shoulder and closed her eyes again, remembering how Severus had felt when he touched her.

The memory made her feel warm, despite the cold of the late Northern night and the damp mist all about her from the lake. She felt her skin flush with heat, remembering the feel of Severus's naked skin in the moment he had entered her.

The hound in her arms grew warm too, impossibly warm. Suddenly, Lily realized the heat wasn't coming just from within her. The greyhound was gone, and had been replaced with a piece of red hot iron. She gasped in fear and nearly let go, but recovered herself in time. If it was going to burn her, she'd be ash already. She held the iron close to her, the glow of it making her pale skin ruddy and sparks shine in her red hair, and waited for the next change.

The next change was the last. The heat of the iron cooled to blood temperature, and the glow went out. Hard metal became soft flesh and silky hair, and eyes that looked at her in wonder. Realizing that the man she now had her arms around was mother-naked, Lily pulled the green cloak she'd borrowed from her Slytherin brother from her basket and threw it over his shoulders to cover him.

Suddenly a cold wind blew round, whipping up both their cloaks and making the brush wave frantically and they heard a hard, cold voice spoke from the broom by the road's edge.

"If I'd known you would return, Severus, I'd have torn out your two black eyes before I let them look on me.

"Had I known your heart was not dead, I'd have taken it from your body and replaced it with one of stone.

"If I knew you would escape me, I'd have given you as my tiende long ere now, before you could run away!"

Severus and Lily stared wildly around, grues running up and down both their spines, but the voice of the Faerie Queen had faded and did not return.

When they were certain she and the elven company had gone, Severus took Lily's face in his hands and kissed her, then he pulled sideways into his arms so he could lay a hand on the slight swell of her belly. "You did it," he murmured in her ear. "You've freed me. Will you keep the child now? I promise, I'll be there for you and for the babe."

She turned to face him and with a tender smile, told him, "Yes."

"Before I hold you to that, I should warn you. I've been presumed dead for decades. I probably haven't got a pot to piss in. I'm not sure yet how I'm going to keep myself, let alone a wife and child."

"I've got a job," she told him, "and rooms in the Castle; you can stay here too until you find work, and we figure out where we want to live. Come up with me now," she said, taking his hand and leading him up the path. "Wait till Dad sees you're alive. He'll have kittens!"

Severus took a deep breath, and closed his eyes, gathering his resources. "Lily, you have no idea." Then, with a wicked grin, "All right, then, let's go see him."

---

A/N: Very much thanks to luvsev, the most amazing beta who deservers more turnaround time than I give her, and Rose of the West, my cheerleader in chief, who keeps the wibbles at bay.