A Sestina for Snape

by Ms-Figg

A 39 line dark sestina about Severus Snape. I was a poet before I began writing lengthy stories. If I didn't love Snape so much, I would have never been able to write more than a few lines. He's inspiring. I decided to return to my roots.

I decided to try my hand at a little poetry this morning. I used a form of poem called a Sestina. In a Sestina, the lines are grouped into six sestets (6 lined stanza) and a concluding tercet (3 lined stanza). There are 39 lines in the poem.

A Sestina uses the same end words throughout the poem in a different order, the last end word of the stanza becoming the first word of the following stanza, then alternating. It sounds complicated but if you look you can see the pattern.

The first stanza actually consists of descriptions of Snape taken directly from the first book, the Sorceror's Stone. Then I began writing the following stanzas. It came out rather sad, but I enjoyed writing it even as my eyes watered. I'm such a honeybun. lol. Well without further ado . . .

Snape Sestina

He teaches Potions, but doesn't want to.
Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts.
Snape, whose laugh became high and cold.
Slytherins. They say he always favors them.
He didn't dislike Harry - he hated him,
his cold, empty eyes like dark tunnels.

The bleakest things burrow in tunnels.
One never knows the ends they lead to-
winding, mysterious, frightening like him;
a man lost to the most malicious arts,
all the while protecting them.
No wonder every word comes out cold.

Who is more entitled to be cold?
Moving through dungeons like tunnels,
he was black- pure evil to them,
no matter the pain they led him to,
the Dark Lord practicing the arts
of Crucio on the shuddering mass of him.

There was never a hope of solace for him.
No retreat, no place of peace, just cold ...
not even pure, unadulterated focus on the arts.
His life a labyrinth of twisted tunnels,
no way out, no door, no escape to run to,
he lived, suffered and died for them.

The ever ungrateful trio of "them"
slowly edging toward the death of him.
He always knew where he was going to,
his bones slowly lowered to the cold.
In his heart rests the darkest arts;
rests the end of the accursed tunnels.

For him, there will be no more tunnels,
no more loyal guardianship of them.
No longer a prisoner of love-torn arts
born of green eyes, peace will come to him,
the final resting place he flys to,
a place that is peace, dark and cold.

His life a mass of tunnels, crossed and cold.
Always savior to them, his commitment led to
Death, the darkest of arts. Remember him.

A/N: Thanks for reading. ***