Broken Chapter One

DISCLAIMER (applies to all chapters): I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER, OR ANY RECOGNISABLE CHARACTERS. THEY ARE THE PROPERTY OF J.K. ROWLING.

I AM JUST PLAYING WITH THEM. HEH HEH HEH.

Wow. I never expected such a reaction to this trilogy, let alone the last chapter of Breaking. It means so much to me that everyone enjoys it, as much as I enjoy writing it. Now, I know you are all hoping for a happy ending. I can't promise that, but Broken will bring some happy scenes, sad scenes, and heartbreaking scenes. But perhaps...not in that order. *laughs cruelly* I haven't quite finished with Severus just yet.

I hope it lives up to everyone's expectations, as your reviews have meant and indeed mean the absolute world to me. I love you all, so much!

This story is dedicated to my Kati.


Headmaster! You never listen to me. You never ever listen! Do you not care at all?

Now look what you've done to me. I'm dead, tortured to death—and it's all your fault!

All your fault!

Your fault....

He awoke with a start. When had he fallen asleep? The activity did not come easily to him at the moment. His dreams were polluted with cruel images that his mind inflicted on him to only deepen the guilt. Once again, sleep had caught him, and imprisoned him. He was sat upright too. In an armchair.

Oh. Surely not the staff room!

"Albus?" A soft hand touched his own. Minerva. "Are you all right? You were calling out."

Albus looked up into Minerva's kind face, "Fine." He ruffled, "I'm fine." He stood abruptly, ignoring Minerva's worried expression and the concerned glances of his colleagues. "Absolutely fine." He murmured. "I'm fine." He left the room in a hurry.

Fine. A word that had fallen from his lips so often recently. It had always been coupled with another lie.

He remembered someone else who had always lied by using the word fine.

"I'm fine, Headmaster."

But he had never been fine.

Everything reminded him of him. The corridors had subtle reminders. The classrooms had hints. The students' faces were the worst. Dark glances. A teacher, murdered.

Murdered. By whom? Not Voldemort. No, he had simply carried out the deed. Who had sent him there in the first place? Who had worn down his defences? Who had cut his heart and left him to bleed?

When he looked in a mirror, he saw the murderer.

People told him it wasn't his fault. Snape had had it coming. He couldn't protect everyone. There was no reason to feel guilty. There was no way he could save that man, so tainted and impure.

Even after his death, he couldn't say the truth. He couldn't say how courageous and brave and Light Severus Snape had been.

"I'll show you coward."

And indeed, Severus had. He had shown him who the true coward was.

Albus Dumbledore was a coward. The worst of the worst. He wouldn't defend his friend, his protégé, his son, even when he lay in a mausoleum in London. What would people think of him when they realised what he had done to that man—that intelligent, witty, valiant and beautiful man. Better for them to think he had died in battle—how and why was up to them.

How he hated himself. Severus had hated him. But no hate could surpass this self loathing.

Severus' room. Seemingly untouched. One month since the finding—announcement—death. He had not yet forced the wards to yield. He didn't want anyone else to access this shrine to someone he had loved so very, very deeply.

A shrine was what it was. The room looked like Severus. It smelt like Severus. It felt like Severus. He thought he knew the room off by heart, it was burned into his eyelids, and yet, small details surprised him every day. Today he could detect musk in the air. He breathed in deeply through his nose, wanting to savour every particle. Had Severus worn a scent? An aftershave, perhaps? Or had it just rested on his body like a fine shimmer of glitter, after all his potions making?

The photograph on the desk was not new. Albus knew it so well that he could draw it from memory. How long had he stared at the image? A rare moment, an unforgettable memory, a precious treasure. Severus...smiling. the expression never came easily to Snape—except if it were sarcastic. But here it had been a genuine smile, and it had been when he was stood at Dumbledore's side. Just the two of them. The way it was meant to be. The mentor and the student.

The Master and the Servant. Much more fitting.

He couldn't stay here. It was too painful. He wandered back to his office, trying to hold the pain in. He was going mad, and he knew it.

Every day was different. Sometimes he was gripped with heartbreak. Other times he felt empty, almost as if he was drowning in nothingness.

A voice behind him, "Albus" Remus came sprinting up behind him, lowering the volume of his voice dramatically to convey his information, "We've found You-Know-Who's hide out."

And every day he was consumed with uncontrollable, terrible, agonised rage. Anger that would make him destroy thing. The sense of injustice that would rip him apart.

And the loss that, right now, in this very second, and for the rest of time until he had his revenge, made him such a threat to Lord Voldemort.


Yes. I have written a vengeful Dumbledore. But how vengeful will he be? And who may still be lying in Voldemort's hide-out, alone and forgotten.

Or perhaps not forgotten, if we know Voldemort...

Please review if you have the time, they mean the world to me, they really do....