Fire to Burn Cold

Irony.

That is all that I have to say.

My life is supreme irony.

After what has been done to me, my anger burns like fire. I stillflare in disbelief every time I think about it. But, perhaps I should step back and explain. You'll have to forgive me, the fire inside gets me carried away, and I try to vent it to keep myself from combusting.

To other purebloods, my family name brands me as a blood traitor or illegitimate - either way it makes me no better than a mudblood to the others of my kind. I have no pureblood last name, and that is what leads others to speculate why I do not. How can I choose to defend myself? I cannot, to most, because that would mean I would have to confess that my father was a Death Eater. Was, before he was killed, killed by the Dark Lord.

So, you see, herein lies the rub. Should I say to those conservative purebloods that my father was an inept Death Eater who was murdered for his failures, and my mother most certainly did not want me to share the same fate, so she hid us and hid my father's identity from me? Surely not. Not if I value my life. Should I say to the Muggle-lovers that yes I am a pureblood, and yes my father was a Death Eater, but he was a good Death Eater?

My former school, Scyon Private Academy of Magic, may just have well been Scyon Pureblood Academy of Magic, but that would be politically distasteful, wouldn't it? I was the mudblood there. I was the one that was targeted much more ruthlessly than Hermione Granger was targeted, for the same reason, at Hogwarts by Draco Malfoy. Only in a school where everyone, including the majority of the Professors and staff, hold the same ideals, nobody cared what happened to me. Me, the filth of pureblooded wizardry.

Five against one. One eleven year-old boy who had no idea why he was so hated. One eleven year-old boy that learned quickly how to fight back. After months of physical damage from curses, hexes, and physical assaults, I finally managed to give some back. I had given up on the idea that someone would stop them, that someone would fight back for me. Merlin forbid a teacher would risk his career for the blood traitor! I knew I was alone. I knew I was responsible for my own protection. When I sent those fiveto the hospital wing, slashed up and bleeding, after they had hit me with numerous, more undetectable curses, I was punished. Nobody did anything to the five of them for the months of torture they inflicted upon me, or even for the Cruciatus they cast upon me that very day.

The eleven year-old boy was told that he was lying scum.

"If they attacked you, then why don't you have cuts teeming with blood and welts all over? Why would they look so much worse than you? You lying little whelp."

Yeah, sure.

I tried to defend myself then. I pleaded. Then I yelled. I stood up for myself, and the unfairness of it all, until the beating I received left me unable to stand up for myself any longer. The Professor didn't believe me when I told him that the five of them could be choosey on what they cast upon me. They could be careful not to leave any overt signs of what they did to me. Could I, against the five of them, have been selective in what I cast upon them to keep them off of me?

It was no excuse. Not to them. Not that they even believed me for a minute.Not that they would have done anything to stop it if they had believed me.

Years of this. Years of being punished for protecting myself and it gradually got worse - if that is even believable. It gradually got worse, and I gradually got more ruthless in defending myself. I then had an eleven year-old brother in school to protect. I would not let them torture him while they held me back, making me watch as he screamed, and not try to do anything to prevent it. The fights, or ambushes rather, got worse until one day when I sent all five of them to the hospital wing with gaping wounds, compound fractures, and intense spell damage.

I had enough.

I was a druid then. I had learned how to manipulate power in ways it took regular wizards a lifetime to achieve. I learned how to use my druidic powers to my advantage in the altercations. I was faster. I was more used to pain than they. I could focus my spells more despite my state, because my mind was disciplined.

Not that I could do the same damage to any adult wizard, let alone five of them, because I could not, but against five children I could.

I was expelled. I was finally released from the hell that was my life. It could not get worse, I told myself. My mother was dead, dead by my own hand. She had asked me to end it for her, but I'll have to live with the fact that I was looking into her eyes and watched the magic drain right out of them. True, the only other alternative for her would have been much more painful and long, but I still have nightmares.

Again, I digress. So, I was expelled for being impulsive, violent, incorrigable, and insubordinate.Very colorful, no?

You might ask yourself why this wasn't more devastating for me. How could I expect to secure a profession? The answer is quite simple really.

The Headmaster of Scyon knew the truth of the matter. He knew what was happening to me. He knew why I was forced to resort to such brutal tactics. He knew I was being discriminated against in the worst way. He couldn't do anything for me while I was at the school because of political reasons. He would most assuredly lose his job. All he could do was find me a new school and an opportunity for me to pursue my intellectual endeavors elsewhere. For me to pursue Potions elsewhere.

I went to Hogwarts. He was friends with the great Albus Dumbledore from the days of Grindelwald.

There I met Potions master Severus Snape and made a rather lack-luster first impression. It was rather mutual. He thought I was another impulsive, undisciplined, rule-breaking, spoiled child. I thought he was a cold, vindictive, pompous, nasty, git.

I was sorted into Slytherin none-the-less.

So here I was in the most pureblooded and prejudiced house in the entire school, and I wasn't sure it was going to be significantly better than Scyon. I was not far from correct. Draco Malfoy chose to be the first person to speculate about my geneology and the taint in my blood that must obviously show on my skin.

I broke his nose.

That was when I realized, however, that there was one thing about Hogwarts which was, indeed, much different from Scyon: Professor Snape.

In one swoop of billowing, black robes, he punished me.

But, he saw me flinch as he advanced on me with those harsh, black eyes, even though he had no intentions of hitting me. How was I to know that? Should I have expected something else given my history?

He also saw, in my very open eyes as he used Legilimency on me, that Malfoy had indeed targeted me for no good reason.

He gave me two months of detention and put me on restriction for the entire term. I didn't know it then, but those two months of detention gave me my chance to make an impression. I would have to prepare his ingredients for him every night.

Then, after informing me of my punishment, hedid the one thing I never would have anticipated anyone doing...he had a little talk with Malfoy to guarantee that the boy wouldn't come picking on me about my bloodlines ever again.

"Blood tests are given at Scyon Academy, and I guarantee you that his 15 generations of pureblood are much greater than your 12. I suggest you don't put your nose in other people's business, especially not those of your own house. What is more, that boy could make a very easy job of you indeed, and I wouldn't want him to make you the target that will get him expelled from his second school."

He did the one thing that no one else ever did for me in my entire life - he gave me a chance and believed me when I told him that Malfoy had baited me. He stood up for me despite my colorful record from Scyon. Before you start thinking him to be benevolent in any fashion...not for one small moment did he ever waiver on his choice of punishment for me or even deign to be congenial.

I didn't realize it then, but he won my respect and loyalty in that moment. He might have punished me for what I did to Malfoy, for my impulsivity clouding my intellect as it were, but he also took care of the split in my lip that Goyle had inflicted. He didn't treat me differently than any other student because of my last name or lack thereof.Myrespect and loyaltyonly grew exponentially after.

I hadn't known that I was looking for protection after so many years of experiencing pain that wasn't my due, but I suppose I was. In retrospect it seems that way.

So why the fire, why the anger, you might ask? Well all good things give way to bad and the cycle starts over again.

The irony continues, I suppose.

The beginning of my plunge back into firey hell happened on cold night in December when Professor Snape came back in a very sorry state from a Death Eater gathering. I was apprenticed to him by now.

Ultimately, now that I had some modicum of stability and some taste of real life, I was the one that was asked to protect his life.

Sickeningly funny, right? When I was younger, I was the one punished for defending myself. Now, just of age, I was asked to protect my Master's life by sacrificing my freedom, future, and well-being, when he was the one who strove to protect my life and my future in the first place.

Irony.

He hadn't wanted to apprentice me because of this association with the Dark Lord - his dangerous status as a spy. Being his apprentice could bring me to the same end. But, he had feared that refusing me would cause me to desperately seek help elsewhere - from the Dark Lord. Two choices he could make and he saw both likely leading to the same end.

I would never have willingly gone over to the Dark Lord. He couldn't have known that though.

He said yes to apprenticing me, so the reason did not matter.

His initial reservation was right too, as I am sure you have anticipated, based upon his return from that Death Eater gathering. The Dark Lord wanted my Master to being me to him - wanted another skilled in potions. The ultimatum was given: "Bring me the boy, Severus, or I will further question your loyalties. Bring the boy or die."

He came back to Dumbledore and refused to order me to do it. He refused to even ask it of me.

He would not trade my pain for his life, or extension thereof.

Ironic that his desire for me not to go with him to the Dark Lord made it impossible for me not to go with him to the Dark Lord.

He had my trust and my respect, but until that moment I did not know that I also had his. I suppose I am much more loyal than your average Slytherin. But, Professor Snape and I are kindred, even if neither acts it nor admits it. We are both druids afterall.

Ironic that the man that had saved me from so much physical pain would again sentence me to such pain - to more torturous pain even. Physical and psychological.

Ironic that he had to treat me nearly as badly as the professor at Scyon I so hated. He smacked me. He beat me. He used the Cruciatus on me. He broke me again and triedhishardest to douse the fire of anger, and he succeeded as best he could. I cowered from him in those moments. I still do sometimes.

He had to do it, though, in order to train me so that I would not betray us both to the Dark Lord. We had to create memories of him being the cruel Master the Dark Lord would expect him to be. Those were the memories I was to push forward as truth when I was occluding the Dark Lord.

I have two personas now, like Professor Snape does, but the two of mine are not like the two of his. One of his is stoical, contemplative, and strict, but fair. The other is of a merciless Death Eater that cares nothing of things other than power or subservience. My Master can separate the two personas within himself...can change from one to the other at the drop of a pin and not be influenced by the dormant one.

My personas? One is the real me - strong, academic, loyal, sarcastic, and vindictive. The other persona is that of myself shattered like a mirror. I am forced to be obsequious and to wear an emotional and physical mask.

Slowly I am turning into the second persona - the one that was supposed to be an act. It is more and more difficult to find myself. I cannot take off the mask as he does.

The fire is going out, or rather the fire itself is burning cold. The embers are still hot, and the flames can flare up when fueled, but it feels cold inside. It feels cold right down to my very magical core. The anger is cold, because it is slowly turning to hate and emptiness. Hatred of the wrongs of the world and my place in it. I know it will happen to me. I know that in hiding and controlling my emotions and reactions, I am losing touch with them completely. I see what I will be like in 20 years everyday. I am apprenticed to my aged counterpart. The old saying, 'Like Master, like man.'

He did not want his life for me. He told me so when he tried, in vain, to discourage me from accompanying him to that first, fated meeting.

That was the sacrifice I made to save my Master's life. There were more reasons that than, but that is ultimately the way that I feel.

Feel?

I say Master without any reservations. I could not have asked for a better mentor. It was painful, and continues to be, but he taught me everything he knew.

He taught me how to survive.

As a druid, I should not be surprised with the irony or even with the cyclical nature of things. You can escape something only momentarily before it will eventually come back to you or you to it. You can escape pain, but will come back to it. You can be given a future, but then must choose to sacrifice it. I have used the word ironic a lot, but I will use it at least two more times yet.

Ironic that the man who gave me a future, was the Master that I gave that future away for. Perhaps I will get it back again. Cyclical, you see?

I said that in time I would turn into that second persona, but it is even difficult for me to realize how much I have been defeated, broken. How much I really have sacrificed.

Ironic that even now the fire burns cold.

I write this because I cannot yell, or scream in pain, or defy, or even say out loud what I am going through to the man who is supposed to be my mentor.

He would understand, rationally I know, because he has gone through the selfsame thing. I cannot bring myself to speak such things to him at this moment, because the act has taken over my real existence.

The fire burns cold, indeed.

Signed, Osiris Silver