Chapter 1: The Fallen Angel
"How many times have I told you to stay out of my way you incompetent brat!" Guasto snarled at his seven-year-old son.
The boy backed slowly into a corner, his silken black hair hanging about his face in a mat of sweat; his grey eyes shining with fear. He knew he shouldn't have bothered his father but he couldn't help it. He wanted to learn about potions and his father was the only person he knew that could teach him. The man advanced on the boy like a wolf stalking its prey. Before the child could utter a sound the man's strong and powerful hand slapped him across the face, leaving a spot where a bruise would quickly form. Without so much as a pause the hand swung back like a pendulum, clipping the boy's chin with a loud 'thwack'.
"Now get out you pathetic excuse for a child," the wizard growled condescendingly.
"F-Father I---," the boy began, tears spilling from his somber eyes.
"OUT!" Guasto bellowed and with that he picked the boy up by his robes and tossed him out the door.
The child landed on the hard ground with a rather disconcerting 'thud'. He rose on unsteady legs and made his way to his parent's bedroom. In the time it took him to travel the foot and a half to the door, his mother, Anima, moved from the bed to the doorway with her hands crossed over her voluptuous chest. He looked up at her steely green eyes and dark brown hair. He saw so little of her in himself. She extended a slender hand to him with a weary expression on both her mouth and in her eyes. The boy followed his mother obediently and silently to the small bathroom that adjoined the sleeping quarters.
"Now Severus you know your father doesn't like to be interrupted while he's working," she said calmly, retrieving a face cloth from the closet and running it under hot water.
She gently and lovingly wiped the blood from her offspring's bruised face. Tears still glistened in his forlorn eyes. She put the cloth on the edge of the sink and pulled her son to her in a protective hug. She stroked his soft hair and buried her nose in its sweet smell, trying not to cry. She hated how her husband treated their son.
"Mother. Do you love me?" he asked in between sobs.
"Of course I do darling. Don't ever forget that," she whispered serenely in his ear.
"Your father loves you too. He just isn't sure how to show it," she added quickly.
"No he doesn't. He hates me," the 7-year-old wailed.
"Shhh. Just stay out of his way alright," Anima whispered firmly.
They broke their embrace and the boy straightened his robes and wiped away the last of his tears from granite color eyes. He turned abruptly on his heel and left the bathroom. He walked past the open door to his father's office but averted his gaze. Severus spent the rest of the afternoon in dreary silence.
That night as he lay in bed, Severus could the voices of his parents down the hall. His father had had a lot to drink that night and was in one of his abusive moods, as if you could call any of his moods non abusive. He could just make out what they were saying.
"I'm sick and tired of you treating him like a house elf!" Anima shouted angrily at her drunken husband.
"He's my goddamn son and I'll treat him any bloody way I want," he snarled, his speech slightly slurred.
"If you ever lay another hand on that boy---," she began but what cut off by fist making contact with bone.
Severus shot out of bed and snuck to the entrance of his parents' room. He saw his mother, her face dripping with crimson colored blood. She had tears streaming down her pale face like rivers. Suddenly Guasto drew from his robes an 11-3/4 inch cherry wand and pointed it unsteadily at the beaten woman in front of him.
"Crucio!" he yelled and the woman collapsed in mind numbing pain.
"Please…stop!" she begged.
"Shut up!' he sneered menacingly.
What happened next would scar the child watching forever. The man he called his father raised his wand and unleashed the Avada Kadavra curse on the female, killing her instantly. The boy retreated in fear. He had lost his protector, his angel.