After the raid, he found a grand piano in the living room. No one said anything when he sat down on the mahogany bench and drew near to it.
He couldn't bring himself to touch the keys. They made small, weak movements, sticking to the fabric of his sleeves. He spread them out and gave them permission to become stronger, to feel again.
As soon as he began, the music buried him, holding him down as he'd held the smallest beneath the water as she struggled in vain and became limp, staring at him blankly through his mask. The sequins on her ballerina costume still sparkled underneath the water and not a single strand came loose from her braided chignon. He heard a small rattling in her chest as the thrashing stopped.
Leopold Sr. was defenseless against the curse that peeled his skin away until the skeleton was revealed beneath. It went on clacking against the floor, leaving smears of flesh where tiny knots in the grain were porous. His squib son squatted over the corpse, finding what once was an ear and whispering some final words into it before being stricken with confringo.
The piano keys had collected a pool of blood; his, the family that had been murdered.
He'd lost and regained consciousness more times than he could count that night. What passed through his mind were not memories and were not hallucinations. They were slivers of torture; firsthand experience of the dark arts he'd always been so devoted to.
Music was the only thing connecting him to this world anymore. When it stopped he didn't know how to breathe. He felt lost as the dark mark was cast above the estate; completely incapable of moving.
A death eater with familiar grey eyes helped him stand up from the bench. Taking his hand, Mulciber apparated them both to Spinner's End.
Severus was sure Mulciber would quickly disappear, utterly disgusted by his lack of enthusiasm, but the shorter boy supported him upstairs and helped him undress; casting tergeo to get rid of the stains on his pallid skin.
Ashamed, Severus said nothing. He climbed underneath the covers of his bed and fell back against the dingy pillow thankfully.
The worst part is over, Mulciber said, reassuring no one.
Neither of them were the hardened death eaters they had always talked about becoming. They had both been shaken during initiation, plainly and in ways only visible to one another.
There was a crack as Mulciber apparated to Penley. Strands of his hair stood up on end seconds before he disappeared. Whatever he had been trying to say was swallowed by the air like the last few notes of Chopin's Mazurka.
And in the next few hours they repeated themselves. No one starts out jaded.