Author's notes and disclaimer-- Like many I was so deeply touched by Snape's story when I read the Deathly Hallows that I felt the need to explore his character further in my own mind. This story is my first ever attempt at writing anything that isn't a screenplay and I appreciate constructive critisism! I own no characters or anything I've stolen from good old JK's world, although one day I hope to own something similar! :P
If Severus Snape had ever been forced to recall his first memory, his mind would have taken him back to a small, neglected house on the outskirts of a Northern English town.
A building, which the wizard had called home for the first 11 years of his life and which would hold many bitter memories in the years laying ahead of the boy, encased a sobbing dark haired witch who appeared to be in her early twenties; a hook-nosed, hostile looking muggle man, whose face bore the tell-tale lines of being 'middle aged;' and a thin, sallow boy who at the age of four, could easily have been mistaken for one much younger, had it not been for the white birthday cake in the centre of the room with four lit-up candles dancing on the icing. The woman, as Snape would remember her that day, was the embodiment of sorrow. Limp folds of hair stuck to the tear-stricken pale face as she stood facing her husband, arms at the side of her rake-like body, rasping.
"You've ruined it! You ruin everything! Anything you touch! You are nothing! You've.. you…" words failing her she rose a wand to the throat of the man she had been so elated to marry only 5 years ago. Before she had the chance to utter the spell that had formed on her tongue, the hand of the boy's father rose up and smacked her across the face. The hand made to grab her throat as his other hand went for her wand. As her only means of defence was stolen from her hand, the woman let out a cry of what the young boy would remember as a mixture of terror and rage.
"Mummy" he whimpered from the corner of the room. He gasped in fright as his father snapped the wand that his mother had used to paint bedtime stories for him, had used to heal his grazes when he fell over in the back garden, had used only yesterday to protect the child from his father as the man staggered towards him full of rage because Severus had somehow managed to cause the television, that the man was so attached to, to implode. His father's eyes flashed with madness as he struck the woman in the stomach, and again round the face. The witch cried out with pain, and as she crumpled to the floor Severus ran out of the room, hands over his ears to keep out the sounds of his mother's sobs of pain as the giant man proceeded to teach her how the effects of a crucio curse could be achieved without the use of magic.