Chapter I

WARNING

This story deals with mental illness and mention of suicide.

Severus didn't know when he began to foster the thought that adulthood would be his revelation. He should have known better, really, but he was a teen, and teens are prone to all kinds of awful afflictions like acne and mood swings and hope. The problem was that hope had never done a Snape any good.

But he was seventeen and no one was going to change his mind, mostly because he kept it to himself. Maybe an unconscious part of him was already afraid that someone would tell him the truth. So he kept silent, and he kept hoping.

Adulthood, he believed, was this entirely different place where Everything would be Different. It was going to be his Great Break Through. He expected to walk out of Hogwarts and promptly flush those seven years down the toilet. Just like he had done every September with the preceding summer. This time, he had friends, and they were all powerful or clever or pretty. Some of them even were all of the above. And this time, he belonged with them. He, Severus Snape, was going to become a real Death Eater. A real someone. He was going to be admired among his peers (or at least tolerated), and outside of them, he was going to be feared. Finally, Fate was guiding him down the better path.

But then again, Severus had once expected Hogwarts to be that Great Break Through.

The initiation ceremony to his adulthood should have been a fairly clear sign about where he was headed with his life. However, Severus was young and skilled in being blind, so what could stop him from only looking at the benefits? He was clinging so desperately to the promise of a better something, a better anything.

Said initiation ceremony was about to mark him for life. With black ink on his arm. With death on his hands. With darkness sizzling underneath his skin. For life.

That's where he is now. On the brink between eighteen and nineteen. The final leap into adulthood. He has just committed his first murder.

His friends are gathered around him in a perfect circle. They are faceless, yet he can feel their breaths hot in his neck. He is naked, and for once, not uncomfortable about it. He is not uncomfortable about anything at all. It's the potion – just another part of the ritual, no less gruesome than the rest. He knows it because he made that potion, and he knows exactly what it's doing to him. The ritual continues.

The sensation of killing someone doesn't stick with him. He remembers neither what the muggle looked like, nor how the blade in his hand sunk through skin and veins and tissue. What he does remember, is the warm, pulsing blood that ran down his hands. The blood spills and spills and spills. And he just stares at his red hands. Blankly. Nothing.

The blood catches fire, and the fire follows the patterns and symbols drawn on the floor. He thinks it beautiful. Beautiful, as one would think of a piece in a museum, with a sign underneath it that reads DO NOT TOUCH.

The ancient gods accept his sacrifice. All his life, he desired praise and approval. He knows he did. And he knows that from now on, he will never want it anymore. He doesn't know why, not yet, because he's still too full of shit ideas and still clinging onto shit promises. But the gods have him anyway. They take his arm and they kiss it, they mouth it, and then they bite it. They bite it until he feels their teeth gnashing against his bones. He is afraid that they're angry with him, that they can sense the void that fills his head like cotton. They hiss and they spit and they blow their black fire into his veins. But that's just dark magic. It's all anger and fear. Nothing more, nothing less. And Severus has always been all anger and fear. Maybe that's why these gods house so easily in his skin.

Afterwards, he never brings up the whole ordeal. Not even in his own thoughts. It just slips out of his mind. Flushed away, like those seven years of Hogwarts. Away. Or at least shoved somewhere he can't reach. Not for now. Not until it infests and starts crawling out on its own.

The only thing he keeps thinking of is how easy it is to take a life. He expected a part of him to shatter or break. But it didn't. Nothing changed. Maybe he really has no soul. Maybe he has no heart. For some reason these thoughts come in Lily's voice. It went easily, too easily.

He thinks he is becoming a hollow man. Or maybe he always was. He is just hands that brew and guts that twist and a head that shouldn't be allowed to make choices. Now, his Lord makes his choices for him. He likes it that way. He likes to think that he gave that responsibility away, and that his Lord knows how to make the best out of him. Lily disagrees. Sometimes his mother disagrees too. It's them and it'll always be them because Lily is a muggleborn and his mother chose a muggle man over her pureblood family. And he hates them for it. He hates that they made these choices. His Lord gives him this hate, raw and hot, or maybe the dark gods who still breathe into his mark do.

Raw and hot, that's how he feels. And his mother's voice is cool and soothing. She speaks to him from the past and suddenly the past is a nice place to be. The past is so pleasantly cold and he is burning. At night, his mother tells him about how to clean, the muggle way, and they put on their muggle clothes and they go buy muggle food. They eat muggle candy bars and he realises he still wants those because there's no magic equivalent that could ever beat a snickers. He masters Occlumency like no other, and he does it for her. So he can be with his mother again, with no Dark Lord peering through the gaps between the curtains. And with Lily. Her voice is soft and kind and sometimes there's laughter. He misses laughter. He misses her. He apologizes to her every night. And to his mother. He's so sorry.

But during the day he isn't sorry. During the day he does what he does best. He brews. Acids and liquid fire and the sweetest of poisons. One day he liquefies death, and it has the flavour of honey. They make silly jokes about feeding it to muggle children. He laughs. Bellatrix laughs louder. Lucius and Narcissa share that breathy, thin laugh you make when you really want to be somewhere else. They're new parents and new parents don't think cruelty to children is that funny. Severus wonders what it's like, to have love and family and money. It's not like he'll ever know.

His Lord takes a liking to him. Severus has been good and loyal, no more than the others, but no less either. And he is the most pitiful of them all, because of his muggle father. It turns out that his Lord knows all about muggle father's and silly witch mothers.

"They're animals," his Lord says. The two of them are standing on a balcony, at the Malfoy Manor, where everything is more beautiful. It's one of those sweltering red summer evenings that lasts forever. "At least I didn't have to grow up with them." In the last light of the day, Severus thinks him handsome. Tints of gold soften his face and sweeten his brown eyes. Behind great magic and great words, there is something surprisingly human about him. "But well, they're dead. Are yours still alive?"

Severus doesn't like thinking about his parents. They're still neatly pushed away in a corner of abandoned memories. Talking about them feels like talking about strangers. "I think my father has killed himself by now," he says, because it sounds like the right thing to say. And then he adds, "I hope he did."

"Suicide. That's pathetic." He chuckles as if he is reminded of something, and Severus has to look away. "But, of course, if they get rid of themselves, at least we won't have to do that anymore."

He doesn't respond; he just smirks, and that satisfies his Lord. He doesn't say that his dad would never do something as brutal as suicide. Dad just drinks. A lot. Drowns himself in alcohol. That kills too, but much slower. And it's pathetic still, so it's all the same anyway. He doesn't think about his own attempted suicide. That too belongs to Times Flushed Away.

Just past the end of summer, he finds himself alone with his Lord again. This time, he seems less handsome. Less human. The ever setting sun has finally left them in the crisp autumn chill. His Lord is in a good mood. A great mood, actually. They walk into a pretty room. Severus has lost count of whose house they're in. He can't think straight. He inhales slowly, evenly, deeply.

"Severus, my friend." He has been very happy with Severus. The reason why Severus has gained such great esteem in his eyes happens to be the same reason why he hasn't slept in three days. Death and suicide haven't been on his mind so much since his sixth year in Hogwarts. "Tell me, what did you want to talk about?"

"The prophecy." His voice is surprisingly steady. His Lord smiles, not concealing his pride. But then Severus sighs, "See, the prophecy states that the boy is the threat that has to be eliminated, yes?"

"You would know better than anyone, Severus."

"I do," he says. "But there is one small favour I wanted to ask."

His Lord is watching him closely now, feigning a perfectly calm air. "A favour? Well then, talk."

His mind has become that void again, almost the same way it did during the ceremony. It's the feeling of Occlumency and it soothes him. Even if his Lord isn't trying to read his mind. There I no place for fear now.

"I knew his mother."

The Lord arches his eyebrows slowly. It takes mere seconds for him to put the pieces together. Although he scarcely knows the mother in question, he knows very well what the prophecy said about her. "Am I understanding correctly, that you want me to be merciful upon someone who defied me, not once, not twice, but trice?"

His voice is displeased, so gently displeased that Severus can feel Death peering greedily through the window. He doesn't lower his eyes, doesn't skip a beat and doesn't hold his breath. He does what he does best, after brewing, and that is lying. Honesty, in his opinion, is the single drop of poison a glass of wine needs. "I fancied her, once." He pauses, as if he is trying to share the idea with his Lord, "And I think that, if she has no husband and no child, maybe she'll be less reluctant."

He laughs. His Lord laughs. Death looms behind the door and for a brief moment Severus thinks its hand is pushing down the handle, but instead it's the sound of Death's footsteps, leaving.

"I don't like the women you fancy, Severus, but I like the way you think."

Severus smirks. The way he thinks. He doesn't think at all, lately. There is no Lily in his head either. If there was, right now, he is certain she would not be keeping him from killing himself anymore. All those nights she was with him, but now he fears she will finally leave him.

There was one miscalculation that Severus didn't consider. And so, the Dark Lord finds him again, Death pacing happily in his wake.

"Severus, Severus," he greets him, in that sweet voice he uses when all mercy has left him. "Severus," he says again, but this time Severus thinks it's Death calling out to him. "I was not aware that this pretty girl, Lily, is a muggleborn."

He fears for a moment his heart will stop right then and there. Just give up. Just go, "ah, fuck this, I quit." But it didn't. It just kept beating, and Severus was forced to keep going as well.

"She is," he says, because there's no point in pretending he didn't know. "But she is different."

"Different?" The Dark Lord sighs. "You sound like a teenage boy."

"I was a teenage boy when I-" fell in love with her, "When I wanted her."

He is displeased, and Severus wants to laugh. He wants to look over his Lord's shoulder, straight in Death's eyes, and laugh. It all doesn't matter anymore, does it? Death, no death. It's all lost. All lost.

"Fine, Severus, fine." His Lord's voice is cold. He becomes less and less human, and Severus wonders how he hadn't seen it before. But that's the magic of pretty faces, soft hair and glinting eyes. Of course he hadn't seen anything. "I thought you were stronger than this. I thought you were different." He eyes Severus as if he's not sure what to do with him, like a cat eying a mouse that pretends dead. "Maybe I was the stupid one."

He leaves with that. And Death, quite disappointed, leaves with him. See you next time, Death says. Severus waits until their footsteps peter out, and silence resumes. And then he laughs, and he laughs, and he laughs.

Lily's voice does not leave him. In his mind, she doesn't know what he told his Lord. Or she pretends she doesn't. Or she understands why he said what he said, but she never really understood him, so mostly she doesn't know.

Sometimes he thinks about what the Dark Lord will do. He imagines him killing Potter. He wishes, truly and deeply, that the thought would excite him. Where is that wicked, vengeful and sadistic part of him when he needs it? Sweet revenge, that's what it is. That's what it should feel like. But instead everything feels awful. He doesn't want anything to do with Potter anymore. He doesn't want him dead or alive. Just out of his life. And then there's the boy. Her son. Could Lily survive the murder of her child? Shivers run down Severus' spine, because he knows what his Lord will do. He will be merciless. Kill the child in front of her. It will be his revenge on her. Trice defied. And he will ask her to bow to him, and she won't. She's too good and too pure and too strong. She will never bend. She will die.

If she would live, she would never want to see Severus again. But that is not the horror of it. He can live with just the memory of her, just like he has done for months now. It's knowing that she is alive and in danger, that he can't live with. Knowing that soon everything she loves will be dead. And Severus will be alive. And it will be his fault. He can't live with that weight.

He can hear her voice speaking through his fears. You wouldn't do that to me, Severus.

I wouldn't, he says.

But you did.

Dumbledore is taller than he remembers him, and greater. The war has done nothing to harden his features. He is still soft and calm and powerful as ever. In the night, outside, his face glows in the moonlight. He looks more alive, more human, than anyone Severus has talked with lately.

He is afraid, terrified, and he sinks to his knees. He knows his Lord gave him this fear, because he himself has nothing left to lose. If Dumbledore raised his wand now, he would embrace Death. But Dumbledore isn't closely acquainted with Death, so it's just the two of them.

It's unfair, because Dumbledore knew. He knew all along what Severus was. What he would turn into. Under that hard gaze, the fear of his Master makes place for Severus' own shame.

He still begs him. His hands are shaking but he still bows and reaches for Dumbledore's robes. Please, his mind keeps shouting, please save Lily. Tears come and he lets them flow. He realises he hasn't cried in a long time, and it feels so good to feel so awful. He bathes in his own hurt because it's his and not theirs.

Dumbledore says "You disgust me," and Severus savours the words. He knows it's true because Dumbledore always knows the truth.

He still begs him. "Anything." He chokes out. His voice is croaky and hoarse and heavy. "I'll do anything". He knows he is ready to give anything, because he would do anything for Lily. It's her voice that brought him here, or maybe it was Fate who took his hand and carried him to this place, but he thinks he'd like Lily better. "Anything," he promises. Because if Lily can't save him anymore, there is nothing left to save.

And then Lily dies.

He stands again, surrounded by a perfect circle faceless men and women. Among them stands Fate, marvelling at its knack for creating patterns. Only this time there is no death and no ancient ritual. But there is nakedness, and sticky blood between his fingers. He's not ashamed, just like he wasn't ashamed in the circle of Death Eaters. He thinks he might never be ashamed again, after what he did. How can a man like him still feel shame? Or anything, really? Anything but the haze of physical pain that thrums steadily through his body. He flinches when hands wave, even if it's not in his direction. The chair holds him tightly, too tightly. It senses the fear, that never left and never will. Dark fear that burns with every heaving breath. That's how he knows his Lord is not really gone.

His arm is exposed. His mark. They all look, and he feels their eyes most of all. He feels them more than he felt the prodding, and more than the magic they flung at him in the endless days that preceded his hearing. The mark moves continuously, as it always has. It sizzles beneath his skin, as if he is being called. He wants to pull it back, away, hide it and hide himself, but the chair cuts into his wrists and his ankles and his ribs. He can't really breathe but a part of him thinks that maybe he doesn't need to. Maybe he shouldn't.

They ask questions, and he is glad, so glad, when Dumbledore rises. His own lips are chapped and dry and his throat is tight. He can't speak. Not a word. He can hardly think in words. Can't understand the words around him at all. The fright pulsing through his chest is primal. Strong and wild and thoughtless. He just wants to run. Turn around and run. He wants to go to nowhere, where he belongs, and never return.

Then Dumbledore turns to him. The whole world dulls around those two blue eyes. He thinks he will beg again but there's nothing to beg for. And the anything he would give has turned to nothing. He has nothing left. He wants to say I'm sorry, but nothing good has ever come from him or his words so he says nothing.

"Are you mine?"

The words drill through his head, resonating there until he makes sense of them. His mouth is dry and his tongue coated in blood. Are you mine? he thinks, and something within him stirs. It's his Master calling out to him, and to be called is good. His lips work around the softest answer that Courtroom Ten has ever heard.

"I'm yours."

Then Dumbledore turns away and the world slips back into a blur of shouting and shaking fists. He doesn't flinch anymore.

Nothing else of the trial stays with him. Only those hard, blue eyes.

The next time he wakes up, he is somewhere else. For a long while, he just breathes. He doesn't remember anything, anything at all. His head is filled with cotton instead of thoughts. It's good. He slips away into another dreamless sleep.

It takes a while before being awake becomes being aware. His mind sputters and falters, and very slowly, it starts picking up things again. The walls around him are high and familiar, the bed old and creaky. The hospital wing. He's in the hospital wing. For a moment he thinks he is fifteen and fell from his broom. Soon Lily will appear next to him and tell him, in her most worried voice, that he's the biggest moron she's ever had the honour of befriending. But then Dumbledore appears and he says nothing. And Severus says nothing. Tiredness overtakes him, and something much deeper, much darker too. He gives in and lets it carry him back into the land of the unconscious.

He only realises his verdict days after it's been spoken. Not Azkaban. The realization floats in and out of his head without stirring anything.

Dumbledore brings him tea. The rim burns his lips and he gulps down the scalding heat. The pain is oddly freeing. Then Dumbledore starts bringing him slightly colder tea. They sit there for long whiles in which nothing is said.

His wounds heal too quickly. Every morning the bruises feel numbed and cold underneath a drying layer of salve. He starts being able to move his fingers and toes, though his arms and legs remain too heavy. His ribs don't clench around his chest anymore, chocking him a little with every breath. Dumbledore doesn't say anything about it. Sometimes, when Severus slips into the limbo between being asleep and being awake, he can feel Dumbledore nearby. Soft hands and gentle touches.

One morning he wakes up to green drapes and chilled air. He doesn't know where he is. His chest tightens, trapping his breath, and his head begins to spin. He stumbles out of the bed and drags book and vials along with him. That's how Dumbledore finds him. On the floor, shaking, lying in a mess of potions and shards and books. Then the pain and the cold, hard floor make place for two warm arms. Severus sinks into the robes and something within him snaps. He finally breathes, but the air is thin and broken, and he chokes on it. He sobs, chest heaving and shoulders shaking. The world is reduced to two arms, pressing him closer and swaying him gently. A hand softly lays his head against a chest, where he hears the steady beat of life. He cries and he howls and he makes all the pathetic noises he was always ashamed of, until everything becomes hoarse and muted. And then only that soft, sweet heartbeat is left.

The next time he sees the green drapes, he recognises them. They're his own, or Slughorn's, really. He thinks he'll do away with them. Black keeps out the light better anyway. He lies in bed for a very long time after waking up. His blood has turned to lead and his flesh to stone. His mind keeps running in circles. He's in the dungeons. In Hogwarts. He's alive. Lily is dead. He doesn't know why he's alive but he knows why Lily is dead.

Having the private quarters to his disposals means having to use them. He moves slowly and carefully. First he thinks the heaviness in his limbs is because of the injuries still healing, then he blames the dreamless draught, but finally, he realises it's just him.

He drags himself to the bathroom, where he spends at least a half hour sitting on the toilet. Not that he has to. It's just hard to get up. Pointless, too. He leaves the lights off, so that he won't accidentally see himself in the mirror. The shower remains unused. Then he goes to the only place he feels safe going to. The potions lab looks exactly the way he left it. There are no shortages, because he went through everything before leaving, last year. Funny, how he left everything here behind in a perfect state. And yet he doesn't remember bidden any proper farewells to the staff. He still begins checking all his supplies. There's nothing else for him to do. Last year, it had taken him weeks to get everything ready. This year, hours. Last year, he had thought his first year would also be his last.

Dumbledore knocks at his door around noon. They go to his office, because the dungeons are too glum and the Great Hall is too large, and they have tea. There is food too, but Severus feels nauseous looking at it and even worse smelling it.

They don't really talk. That is to say, Dumbledore talks, but it's a one-man conversation. Questions are asked but Severus doesn't listen to them, and soon they stop coming. He is thinking about brewing that honeyed poison and having a last glass of wine.

"How are your storages?"

"No shortages." His voice is hoarse and thin. He can see the wine class before him. Or perhaps something more violent would fit. Something that would burn right through him. Then again, he doesn't want to leave a gross mess behind. It would be a poor way to repay Dumbledore's efforts. Maybe he'll take it to the Forbidden Forest. Take it there and never return. Finally, Death will sit down next to him and take his head onto its lap.

"Severus."

He blinks. Dumbledore's eyes are pinned on him. For a moment he fears Dumbledore has stolen a glance into his plans, but there is no trace of him in his mind.

"Will you continue teaching at Hogwarts, for me?"

For him. Severus swallows, and he can hear Death laughing at him in the distance. Maybe next time, it shouts, and then it spins on its heel and marches away.

"Okay."

"Thank you."

He doesn't know why he is being thanked. He lets it pass. Another year. And then another year. And then god knows how many more years. Years of being stuck in a room with children who don't give two shits about potions, and tied to the responsibility of teaching them. No, he hates teaching, and there is no way he will be doing it for years.

But then again, maybe teaching for one more year wouldn't be too bad.

"Let me teach Defence Against the Dark Arts."

"No."

Damn it. God fucking damn it. He can't muster up the strength to argue, so he goes through his list of uncreative profanity for the entire pause in their conversation.

"Minerva will be coming back soon, and then Poppy and the others will also return, one by one."

He doesn't say anything. He's still angry. Only later, once he's back in bed and right after drowning his draught, he realises that maybe he should know whether they've heard about his hearing.

His hearing. The only subject they don't talk about. It's an unspoken rule between them, and Severus is quite sure that he is the cause of it. He doesn't understand why Dumbledore saved him, but he leaves those doubts in abandoned corners of his mind; something that's rapidly becoming his best skill. There they'll fester, and start leaking in due time, but due time is not now.

In the meanwhile, he sits in the Headmaster's office. He spends a lot of time there. The brief flare of anger never returns. And no other emotions do either. One of these days, the Headmaster will come back on his decision and tell him to pack his bags. Or just to leave, because what can he really take with him? But days pass, and they keep passing, and it's just like when his heart kept beating when it should have stopped. Severus doesn't even know what they talk about. The weather, maybe. It's sweltering outside. The hot breath of summer heaves over Hogwarts. But Severus is cold. He is always cold.

The newspapers never speak of him. Minerva arrives and she stares at him sometimes but only with doubt. She doesn't know, at least not for sure. And when the other teachers start dripping in, they don't even stare. The whole incident is swept under the carpet. Swept right where it will wait for someone to discover it, and then blow it up in his face. All in due time.

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This story was not beta-read and I'm not native English, please correct me if I make any mistakes!