#sempiternel

“Snape, Aster!” The cheering that welcomed the previous student died down in an instant, and in its stead rose a murmuring ocean of whispers. It washed over him, but he willed himself to move forward. Wave after wave of questions and exclamations followed him down the middle of the room and up the stool. Professor McGonagall gave him a kind smile, and put the Sorting Hat on his head.

You can find Sempiternel on Ao3. Five chapters are already out, and more are coming soon!

Summary: In 1993, a young Hermione Granger stumbled through time and landed twenty years in the past. Now in the year 1992, her son Aster Snape begins his journey at Hogwarts. Being Professor Snape's son is already hard enough, but when strange events start happening that threaten the very stability of his world and family, he realizes that Hogwarts may not be the safest place after all.

This story was born from many discussions with the sexy @pet-genius (who also happens to be the beta reader of the story!), and started as random outlines in messy handwriting, until it grew into something that I could no longer ignore.

“What about you, young man?” she asked Caspian. He shrugged. “I don’t know.” “Well, aren’t you wearing Slytherin colours?” Indeed, right before they’d left, Severus had charmed an old beanie to make it green, with two silver stripes running along the bottom part, and shoved it onto Caspian’s head. “That’s because Daddy said he’d… dis- disown me, if I wear a red hat,” Caspian said, stumbling over the word. The beanie covered most of his forehead, and his brown curls fell over his eyes. “I don’t know what it means, but it sounded bad,” he concluded. Severus smirked, a satisfied, evil smirk that lightly stretched one corner of his mouth.

Chapter 07 of Sempiternel is on Ao3!

“I’m surprised you haven’t said anything about the Weasley twins yet, Severus,” Filius said after a few minutes. “They’re next on my list.” “You better not be talking about a hit list,” replied Minerva; Severus hid a smirk in his coffee. “In fact,” she added, putting down the newspaper, “it may not be them at all. Do we have any proof?” “Basic common sense and deductive skills,” Severus snarked. “The same ones that make you accuse Potter of every misdeed under the sun?” Severus glared at her.

You can find Chapter 06 of Sempiternel on Ao3.

Severus reached again for Hermione’s cloak to replace it correctly on the hook, the dark fabric brushed against him as he did so, and that’s when he felt it. A tingling. In his left forearm. Letting out a muffled gasp, Severus dropped his wand. It clattered to the floor, the sound overly loud in the otherwise quiet room. The still active Lumos was casting harsh shadows all around Severus, illuminating the stone floor and leaving Severus’s face in the dark.

Chapter 05, on Ao3.

The Halloween chapter! The plot is moving along nicely (not for our characters though), and trouble ramps up for everyone. No fun times have been had, let us say.

“What did you do?” asked Minerva in an exasperated voice. Severus looked up suddenly, glaring at her. She was eyeing him with what looked like suspicion.  “What makes you think I did anything wrong?” “You forget I’ve been on the receiving end of your charming personality more times than I can count,” she argued back, looking straight at him. She didn’t look very impressed. “If you’re handing out detentions to use as an excuse to spend more time here in the castle, then you must have botched things up somehow.” The way her words resonated with his own worries made his stomach drop. Leg twitching, he got up from the chair, feeling his earlier agitation come back. “If I’ve done anything wrong, then I don’t know what it is, because she won’t tell me!” It felt easier, somehow, to argue back against Minerva rather than his own mind. “How can I make it better if I don’t know what’s wrong?”

Chapter 04 of Sempiternel is up on Ao3! And more!

A family feels chapter! All five Snapes together reunited for Hermione's birthday.

Hermione was lost. A part of her was screaming in her mind, banging fists against an invisible wall. Another, larger, more sinister part, was overshadowing everything else, hovering constantly on the edges. Something was wrong. Of course she knew that. Why, though, had she reacted so badly to Severus? A dense fog had been clouding her mind, not for the first time, and suddenly Severus had been here next to her, his fingers within reach of the diary, and an overwhelming sense of dread had filled her. Fear, of what would happen to him. Heart racing, she’d left the room and had climbed up the stairs to their bedroom, unable to blink away the image of the hurt expression on his face.

Chapter 03 of Sempiternel is up on Ao3!

One day I'll remember to do these posts on time, and maybe catch up to the Ao3 updates.

In this chapter:

“Don’t you have some homework to do?” asked Severus, knowing full well what the answer was, since he himself had assigned some not twenty minutes earlier. “Will you help me if I do it here?” said Aster, head reclined against a cushion. “Yes,” Severus drawled. “I do so enjoy grading my own work.” Aster snorted. “Worth a try.” A second of silence, and then, “I’m not sure you’d even give yourself an O anyway,” he quipped.

Chapter 02 of Sempiternel is up on Ao3! As well as the next three chapters.

Aster Snape's first two weeks of classes at Hogwarts happen to not be as fun as he'd hoped they would be, in between navigating school politics and prejudices due to his name.

He's not the only one who is silently suffering, however. Hermione is also struggling, though for quite different reasons. She can fee her mind slowly slipping away from her grasp, like trying to catch smoke with her bare hands.