She runs. She runs all the time.
Does she ever stop?
He saw her everyday. She passed him by, running - always in the same place, always at the same time. She smiled and waved. Everyday. She smiled and waved. There was no fright, no disgust in her eyes, only warmth ; and her smile was the brightest he had ever seen.
Everyday in the same time. At the same place.
It became a habit. Everyday of the week found him sitting alone on that very bench, in that very park, waiting for that short, curly-haired, dark-eyed woman to pass by.
Who was running all the time.
He was waiting for her. He didn't know why it was so important to see her - but it was. It was a comforting certitude : come hell or high water, she was running. She was like a bird, flying away - free. It was both a reminder of his own imprisonment and an unforeseen source of comfort. It was both certainty and faith. It was safe.
She was not afraid of him ; she was not disgusted by his mere presence ; and above all, she wasn't expecting anything out of him. She didn't expect him to be here ; but yet here he was, at that same place everyday, for once unburdened.
It was a relief.
She was everything he was not. Happy and beautiful and free. Everything he wished to be.
He watched her. Waited for her. Every single day, on that bench, only to see her for a glorious ten seconds. Seeing her brought a myriad of emotions deep in his gut, battling against the numbness of his heart.
That was why he needed to see her everyday. Unbeknownst to her, she was helping him remain human, even if only a bit.
Jealousy ; jealousy and despair. Unlike him, she was heading somewhere - to a loving home, or to a sweet child, or to anywhere free people went to - jealousy and despair, and rage and loneliness, and a maddening emptiness, like a tear in his tattered soul. The Fates had other plans for him.
He hated her. Her bright smile, her dark skin, her curly head ; none of those were not his alone. Weren't his at all ; she belonged in the sun, in a world of possibilities, while he belonged - he could not say where. He was a festering wound, forced to crawl in the dark, prostrated before his master's feet, creeping in blood and fear.
He loved her. He could almost feel the warmth radiating from her when she ran past him ; he saw the worry in her eyes, worry for him, when she did not even know his name ; worry for the hobo she probably thought he was, sitting here in the rain, in the cold, in the desperate darkness of the world he had built for himself to perish in.
She was always running, come hell or high water.
Until she stopped.
She wasn't running anymore.
At first, he was blindly irate. How dared she abandon him? She was no better than the rest of them - and here he had been, trusting her, loving her - but did he? - to be once more discarded, thrown aside, forgotten.
He broke his hand against a wall in pure wrath.
But then panic crept into him, a grisly worm in the very core of his being. Something must've happened to her. A ghastly thought slithered in his brain - but surely not. The Dark Lord wouldn't know ; he was keeping his memories of her deep inside the confines of his mind, unperceived by his reptilian master's Legilimency - or so he thought.
She didn't come back. He did ; in the same place, at the same time, everyday. But she never did. One day she had been here ; and then she had vanished.
Until now.
There she was - broken and naked, mutilated, alone in the circle of his brethren. She wasn't terrified anymore ; she had the far-off, dazed look of the ones who had endured agony.
The sight of his face brought in her eyes a flicker of recognition, and a brief flare of hope - of course she would hope ; wounded though she was, mutilated though she had been, her faith in people would not have died so quickly. But he couldn't act. He couldn't do anything.
Standing on the right hand of the Dark Lord, Severus watched blankly his brethren abuse her body.
There was no solace for him in this world.
Her eyes held no more warmth ; her smile was no longer bright.
She would not not run anymore.