Disclaimer: First try at HP FanFic.
Severus Snape listened to the chilly plink of the broken faucet. It was soothing. The reverberations in his head weren't being caused by a rough voice barking coarse words, or the rubbery crack of flesh smacking flesh. He closed his eyes.
He wouldn't sleep. He concentrated hard on the echoes of the water drops. Severus was bone tired, but his father had yet to come home. He was not still at his apothecary, delayed on very important business, per his mother's old fib. What she used to tell the neighbors, when they used to look at her.
His mother was once a beautiful woman: fair hair, snowy skin, glistening lips, the fairytale type. That was why his father had married her "anyway." Squibs were no better than Muggles in his book, but a Squib with a face and a boy like hers excited a battle between instincts and indoctrination that the former had clearly won. There was never any love. His mother wanted money, and what his father wanted from her was plain enough.
There was some hope early on, hope that her good looks would improve upon the classic Snape face. But, Severus turned out to be the spitting image of his father. His little brother fared better with looks, yet lacked the magical talent that would make his father proud. He drowned. There were no more children.
Severus shared his father's features, and faculty for potions-brewing, but he hoped the similarities ended there. His father was… chaotic. There was a sloppy bestiality in him that he unleashed upon wife and child too often. Under the aegis of books with black covers and intimidating titles, Severus's fear had long turned into disgust. Since he could remember, his father had surrendered himself to alcohol and rage. This weakness repulsed him.
Weakness was a flaw distinct in both parents, yet Severus had a soft spot for his mum. There was his weakness. His mother was as much of a devious fool as his father, but for reasons that were unclear even to him, he saw her as more a victim. And though he did all that he could think of to make himself as cool and removed as echoes on stone, he suffered from an acute case of commiseration.
So past midnight and into the early morning, Severus lay awake in bed, sheets tugged from the corners, rubbing his wrist raw on the mattress edge. His wand was in the other hand, ready. He was oppressively tired. It was getting harder for him to breathe.
He looked to his right, at the admissions letter lying open on the nightstand. Hogwarts. How he wished there were Snapes on the other side of the Wall. He'd just finished Hogwarts, A History, and was less than impressed. He thought that a class like Care of Magical Creatures existed so that "Hufflepuffs" could pretend that they too were capable of (loosely) academic magic, when they should actually be put to wiping the floor of his father's store. He had to admit, though, that he'd found a prestige about the Slytherin House that all of Durmstrang couldn't rival….
He blinked. One second. Had he fallen asleep? There wasn't a window in his room from which to judge. He listened: no snoring, no noises downstairs. Whatever time it was, his father wasn't here now.
Grudgingly, he stood up and opened the door so that a sliver of moonlight lit a slice of his face. All clear, he slipped through the crack, walking down the hallway with caution. It was here that, over the years, a great many hexes had been put to practical use. His parent's bedroom was at the end of the hall, and he hoped his father wasn't in a state to greet him.
Their door was not shut. He peeked inside and saw his father's side of the bed, empty. His mother's side, empty too. And not a sound. He put a hesitant palm on the heavy door he knew would squeak, and pushed. It gave way to show a scene that his logical mind had expected, some day—but it was, right now, a savage shock.
He'd done it the Muggle Way. She was a mess…
Severus stumbled out of the room like a blind man, shaky hands gripping the doorjamb till his knuckles turned white, then lying flat against the wall as it looked like he would collapse on the hallway floor. Instead, he leaned his weight on the wall, his fingers clawing at it. His hands turned into fists, and he banged them against the scratchy stone until the travel line of his palm was covered in his own blood.
He wasn't crying—he didn't feel like crying, either. There wasn't anywhere for any thought or emotion to manifest itself right now. The inside of his entire head had turned into a white heat, and that was the real horror that had him pounding his fists to a pulpy mess. His hands didn't hurt, though his eyes could see that they looked like they certainly should. It appeared that his mind objected to what it had been forced to reason with, and had decided to disconnect itself. The sudden gulf between brain and body was sending Severus into a panic.
The door downstairs slammed open. Severus blinked. It was his father, no doubt. He unclenched his fists, then clenched them again, feeling something was slightly wrong. His hand was empty—he'd dropped his wand. He looked to his right, saw the handle of his wand just inside the door of his parents' bedroom. His stomach lurched, but his mind was still petrified, and it stubbornly refused to make itself up. If he dove for the wand, he wouldn't have time anyway to retreat to his bedroom and put a sticking charm on the door. If he dove under the sheets, his father would see the abandoned wand and take the opportunity to get at his son when he was defenseless. And if he just stood there in the hallway halfway between either bedroom, the damnedest kind of fool, he'd be just asking for it.
He went for the wand. He was still kneeling when he heard his father's voice boom.
"Expelliarmus!" His wand shot out from his hand and skittered down the hall until it clunked against something, his father's boots, no doubt.
"Turn around and face me, boy." That stern, saturated voice. He'd heard it a thousand times over, and a thousand times his heart had raced at that sound. But this time, a curious feeling overtook Severus that wasn't fear or loathing. His whole body suddenly went hot, yet cold, as though the white heat in his head had seeped into every part of him. He didn't look his father in the eye. He looked down at the floor.
"Accio wand."
He knew later that there had been surprise in his father's face. It was the expression he died with, thunderstruck for all eternity. Severus had practiced plenty of spells in the solitude of his room that he hadn't trotted out for family tussles. Others he learned just for learning. His father had some idea of how advanced his son was—he'd needed potions to get rid of some of the hexes thrown at him, sometimes potions that he made Severus finish mixing for him—but he was far from knowing enough about his son to know exactly what to expect.
So while the waifish 11-year-old stood there as still as he had ever been, his eyes no more fathomless than how they usually appeared, the accio'd wand limp at his side, his father had time to shield himself against, at worst, a blasting curse or a stunning spell, a bit bored, even, by his son's predictability. No small wonder that his face would be frozen in astonishment when the green sparks reached him.