"What If Snape Died?
" (sic) is a Harry Potter fanfic where the premise is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, in which James Potter fails to save Severus Snape from a transformed Remus Lupin during their years at Hogwarts.
Tropes that appear in this fanfic:
- Abled in the Adaptation: Alice Longbottom isn't rendered insane as in canon.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: The Weasleys appear much earlier than in canon, with Harry meeting them when he's about five years old, with Hermione meeting Harry shortly afterwards.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Voldemort, which really says something. While he attacked the Potters because he saw Harry as a threat in canon, in this story he's unaware of the prophecy and attacks James, Lily, and Harry just because they number among his opponents.
- Adaptational Origin Connection: Outside of the prophecy and being members of the Order of the Phoenix, the Longbottoms had little personal connection with the Potters in canon. Here, it's mentioned that Alice and Lily were close friends at Hogwarts.
- Age Lift: Harry is five years old instead of one when Voldemort makes his fateful attack on his family.
- Bodyguard Betrayal: Reversed; Cornelius Fudge assigned Frank Longbottom to guard Lucius Malfoy on his way home from the Ministry of Magic, but Malfoy, being a Death Eater, seized the opportunity to kill Frank.
- Dead Guy Junior: James and Alice have a daughter they name Lily.
- Death by Adaptation:
- The story's inciting incident is when Severus Snape is killed by Remus Lupin while the latter is transformed.
- Peter Pettigrew is killed along with other Death Eaters the day before James and Lily's wedding.
- Frank Longbottom is murdered by Lucius Malfoy instead of being rendered insane by torture.
- Xenophilius Lovegood is killed for publishing details on Voldemort.
- Fate Worse than Death: James views sending Harry to the Dursleys as such and threatens Dumbledore with killing Harry should he try.
- He Knows Too Much: Xenophilius Lovegood is murdered by Death Eaters for publishing information about Voldemort's past.
- In Spite of a Nail: Even though the timeline is pushed back five years, Lily sacrifices herself for Harry as in canon; when Voldemort tries to kill Harry again, the curse backfires and Voldemort is broken.
- Internal Reveal: Dumbledore reveals the prophecy to James after Voldemort is killed the first time.
- Locked Out of the Loop: In this story, Voldemort doesn't know about the prophecy since Dumbledore kept it quiet, so his attack on the Potters in Diagon Alley is more along the lines of For the Evulz.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Lucius Malfoy's murder of Frank Longbottom not only gets him imprisoned but leads to a policy that causes a bunch of other Death Eaters to be found and arrested, preventing them from infiltrating the Ministry of Magic.
- No Ontological Inertia: The jinx Snape uses to incapacitate James is lifted when Snape is killed by Lupin.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Dumbledore notes sadly that after Snape's death, werewolves will likely be barred from Hogwarts from that point onward.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Augusta Longbottom outlives her son Frank after he's murdered by Lucius Malfoy.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Severus Snape's fatal mauling by a transformed Lupin causes all sorts of ripples.
- Point of Divergence: Snape casts a spell on James that prevents the latter from saving his life.
- Properly Paranoid: Fudge takes Lucius Malfoy's outing as a Death Eater very personally, issuing a law that requires all Ministry employees to roll up their sleeves when starting work. The policy actually works since a dozen Death Eaters are found, including Barty Crouch Jr.
- Punishment Detail: James has to scrub floors at Hogwarts the summer between sixth and seventh year after Snape is killed.
- Related in the Adaptation: In this version, Harry and Neville become stepbrothers after James and Alice marry.
- Second Love: Alice and James are a mutual version, after their spouses are killed.
- Spared by the Adaptation:
- Lily Potter lives for a few years longer than in canon.
- James Potter outright survives.
- Would Hurt a Child: Voldemort, as per canon, attacks a five-year-old Harry, torturing him and attempting to kill him. Dumbledore kept the prophecy to himself until Voldemort's first "death" because he believed that if Voldemort were to hear the prophecy, he'd kill both Harry and Neville just to cover his bases.
