R I F T


" These violent delights have violent ends

And, in their triumph die, like fire and powder

Which, as they kiss, consume. "

Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene VI


Chapter 1

Thirty Years Ago

I remember when I first saw her. I remember it, even as a battle sieges outside the fragile glass panes of the old inn, as I look out of it to the silhouette of the ancient castle in the twilight. A fiery, vibrant red flares out of the black upon the rolling knoll the school is situated on, and again my old memories call softly to me, alluringly. The shouts, the cries, the explosions and screams are vague and distant from where I stand behind the glazed windows. What a dastard I would have looked, standing aside in the shadows as the faint flashes of curses illuminate my worn face, again and again. A murmur of a strangled yell whispers in my ear, begging for the help that will not come. She cries for help, for she is injured, or her loved one is injured, but no one will stop for her. The battle rages on and her single shout is silenced as a hooded and masked man easily claims her life.

I lay my hand upon the sill, the veins protruding from the flesh in a way it does in times of stress. I suddenly feel aware of my surroundings, and the sounds around me dim, the deathly sounds of the battle. I hear the sighs of my breath in the deafening stillness: slow, balanced, and unmoving. It did not catch; it simply continued and was even in the silence. The subtle beat of my heart echoed in my chest, tapping gently to a measured pace. Above I could hear the creaks of the floorboards as someone or something shifted their feet, and below in the street there began the serenade of a lone cricket, his melodic chirps sending me into the past by thirty years. And I remembered the day I first saw her.

Thirty years ago his countenance had not yet been carved of the harsh commodities that had forced themselves upon his life. When Severus Snape was only seven years of age his eyes were still black, his hair straggly and unwashed, his frame slight. In difference his face was rounded with, as well, a bit more color in the cheeks, and there was that light in his eyes that held the essence of both curiosity and innocence. It was around this age that Severus found himself to be capable of extraordinary happenings, most of them peppered about randomly over the term at his boarding school. On one chilly day in Humanities, Severus had received a terribly low mark on a test, to his utter dismay. When he had stormed away towards the door to leave, the door swung outwards abruptly as he approached it, as if by its own volition; the door did not rebound against the wall but stood wide open, quite stiff. It took the teacher a few good tugs on the handle to get the door to close, watching as the one student he could never quite understand rounded the corner.

Most of the children at the school shied away from Severus, save but for Timothy Heron, who always seemed to be impressed by the strange boy. Timothy Heron lived near Spinner's End where Severus lived, but it was only until he and Severus started having classes together in Junior school did they start to make friends. They regularly went over to the neighborhood playground to play and talk whenever there was time, spending hour after hour chatting and playing tag under the sun.

It was one summer afternoon in 1967, an hour or so before it would start to get dark, when Severus was sent out of the house by his mother; she was having friends over, and she thought it would be best for Severus just to take a walk rather than sit out lengthy conversations over a steaming cup of tea. Severus instinctually made for the playground, where he met Heron, sitting absent-mindedly on a swing.

"Hey SS," Heron greeted brightly, giving Severus a wide smile that showed one of his missing teeth. Heron then pointed to the empty swing next to him for Severus to sit in. After Severus had done so and was lightly rocking with the wind, Heron asked in a half-excited, half-nervous voice, "You know what I did today?"

"What'd you do?" Severus asked keenly, his dark eyes looking over at the brown-haired, bespectacled boy.

"I—" Heron hesitated, as if either unsure of how to describe it or afraid to speak it out loud, "well, I made my mum's rose bush disappear. I mean," he added hastily, because Severus was giving him a pointed look, "I didn't touch it. It was just… gone."

Severus was quiet for a moment before answering, gently swinging back and forth, his long fingers grasping the warm, slightly rusted chains that held the swings up. It was a humid and rather balmy summer day, and even as the sun had started to shrink farther down into the sky behind the clouds, it was still cooking hot in the small British district.

"Was your mother upset?" Severus finally asked, frowning.

"About the bush? Yeah, she really liked it, gift from my grandmother. She blamed the dog about it going missing–"

"No," Severus interrupted, "I mean, was your mother angry at you before it had disappeared?"

"Well…" Heron shifted uncomfortably, looking at his sandaled feet, "it was the usual 'clean your room or else!' talk, and I hadn't, and she was all yelling at me, and I asked her what did it matter about whether my room was clean or not? Because, after all, it's my room, and I'm very well sure Uncle Grant and Aunt Bonnie aren't going to go wandering into my room…"

"How are you sure the dog really hadn't dug it up?" Severus questioned.

"Well," Heron said again (for he seemed to be quite fond of the word 'well'), "I had to clean my room in the end because Mum was down my back about it, and after that she sent me out in the garden to play with the dog. But really I wasn't doing much except looking around, because my dog's really old and hasn't got any more spirit in him to play. And then when I was looking over at the rose bush it vanished, just like that." Heron opened his hands with a kind of flicking motion, imitating the flowers vanishing by his own influence.

"I'm pretty sure I did it," continued Heron, looking up at Severus, "I mean, I don't know what happened, but it's sort of what you did in school, right? But really, I mean, I blinked, and the next second, it wasn't there anymore."

"Yes, I'm pretty sure it's similar to what happens at school," Severus said in his quiet voice, his eyes wandering over the playground to a lone figure approaching from across the street.

The figure turned out to be a girl, and by the looks of it, she seemed to be a bit older than Severus. Her shoulder-length blonde hair was pulled up into a tight pony-tail, and it bounced up and down as she meandered along. Heron eventually took notice of the girl and called out a greeting to her, but, with a haughty look, she scowled at him and made for the slide.

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed," muttered Heron, watching resentfully as the girl climbed the ladder. "Well, I've seen her around, though. She and her sister come here a lot–" Heron eyed the blonde-haired girl again, "– but she's never liked me much, not even when I let her win at tag."

Severus looked up at the girl, who was standing on her tip-toes and looking out on the top of the playground down the street. After a few seconds of what appeared to be a fruitless search, she gave up, and then came down the slide; her sundress caught on the edge of the slide when she reached the bottom, however, snagging her and nearly making her fall over.

Heron burst into raucous laughter and Severus watched with maybe a flicker of a smile on his mouth, but neither went to help her.

"Stop laughing!" the girl snapped, tugging the dress free and glaring at Heron. "You're so immature, just like all boys are!"

"Come on, Pet, I'm sorry. But that was pretty funny; it's not every day I see you tripping up."

The girl sniffed angrily, her arms crossed tightly as she stared defiantly at Heron.

"Don't call me Pet," she told him flatly.

"Okay, then, Tuney," Heron shot back cheekily with a grin.

The girl gave him a threatening look, glowering at him through the tiny slits of her eyes. Eventually she took notice of Severus; in a voice with relish, she sniped, "You have friends, Timothy?"

"Well, yes, in fact, I do." Heron said, his freckled cheeks burning. He then motioned to Severus.

"This is SS."

"Severus Snape," Severus affirmed to the girl, tilting his head at her.

The girl was now staring at Severus's clothes, which were all very baggy; the monstrous jacket he wore over his shoulders looked like it was swallowing him whole. She seemed to decide not to comment on Severus's views of fashion and instead replied in a contemptuous voice, "I actually feel sorry for you."

"Why's that?" Severus asked casually, as if he didn't care for the answer.

"The first one's pretty obvious, but for another…" The girl's eyes slid from Severus's clothes over to Heron, who was bent over tying the laces of his two shoes together for fun. "Well," she continued with a petite little cough, "there's the other."

Now Severus looked at the girl with a sparking dislike within him, and he said smoothly, "You know who I feel sorry for? The people who are friends with you."

The girl glared insolently at Severus, her eyes narrowed as closely together as possible to still be able to see through them, her hands clenched tightly at her sides.

"Where d'you live?" she spat suddenly at him in similar likeness to a teacher shooting a question at his students in a pop quiz.

"Spinner's End," Severus answered curtly.

"Oh." It was all she said.

There was a stiff silence in which the wind swept over the small playground, gently stirring the vacant swings and disturbing the grass; the sun was now below the clouds on the horizon, the last few rays sending the clouds into brilliant shades of red, orange, and purple. The scene distracted Severus for a few moments, the last few seconds of daylight slipping away before his eyes.

A cricket began to softly play, and it was joined by several others. A creaking sort of sound joined the vibrant chirps, and Severus saw that Heron had started to swing back and forth, his shoes successfully tied together. The girl, on the other hand, was starting to look a little anxious. Her arms were folded again and she was tapping her foot; if she had had a watch, Severus was sure she would have been checking it constantly.

All of a sudden, a shout rang out from the left: "Tuney!" The high-pitched voice echoed from down the street, and, from the last rays of light, Severus saw another girl. She was running down the street, a bright smile upon her face, flaming red hair flying behind her.

The blonde-haired girl went out of the playground fence to meet the other with an unmistakable scowl.

"Where've you been?" she snapped, irritable. "I've been waiting for you here for hours…"

"But I didn't know where you were, Tuney!" replied the red-haired girl earnestly, who was shorter than her elder. "Besides, it's not been that long."

"Come on, it's dark," said the other sniffily, "Mummy and Daddy will be worried."

Their voices began to grow faint as the two girls began to walk away down the street. Severus looked after them until he could no longer make out their outline, his expression that of curiosity.

Heron was still busy swinging back and forth, whistling as he did so. Severus could feel the wind rush past him every time Heron made a pass, Heron's tune growing louder and then softer as he swung by.

Eventually, Severus spoke.

"Was that her sister, Heron?"

Heron dragged his feet noisily on the asphalt and jumped out of the swing. He turned to Severus and bent over again, untying the laces so that his shoes were free and then retying them to their proper owners, and as he did so he talked in a matter-of-fact voice.

"Yep, that was her little and way friendlier sister, Lily. Well, Petunia, on the other hand, is a real show, as I'm sure you noticed. I can't say two words without her shrieking at me. They both live a little ways down the road and I think they go to a different school than us… An independent school, I'm sure."

Severus stood, as well. He still had a strange, lingering expression upon his face, as if he wanted to know more about the girl he had only briefly seen. It was much like getting a glimpse of something wonderful and then having it snatched out from under your nose before you could have a proper look.

It might have been the dark or he was simply oblivious, but Heron did not take note of his friend's rather distant expression.

"Well, it's late. I'm going to head home, are you coming with?"

"All right," replied Severus, a little late in reaction.

They set off out of the playground and then crossed the street, Heron talking in a loud voice about a girl at school that reminded him strongly of Petunia.

After Severus had parted with Heron he made his way silently up the cobbled street, staring ahead into the blackness as the chirps of the crickets filled his ears. He didn't quite know what yet to think, but what he was certain of was that he wanted to see that other girl again, with the flaming red hair… Lily.

It is before the individual did announce himself did I already know of his presence, standing in the doorway as a mere shadow. Although a reverie had held my mind captive, my senses were all but alert; my eyes refocus onto the window, and in the reflection behind me I see the wan countenance of both a friend and fallen man.

"Lucius?" I inquire as my eyes revert back to the silhouette of the dark castle beyond the panes of the glass; still a war rages against its great walls, I only a witness of its downfall, not an entity or power within me to stop it.

"Severus. The Dark Lord requires your company," he replies, his cracked voice empty and stripped of the boisterous hauteur it had once held. "There is a service he requires of you."


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and profit will not be made off of this story.