So...what do you all think? This was a random thought I had, when I was suffering writer's block on my other story, The Life and Lies of Lily Evans and James Potter. Tell me what you think! Also, do you think I should add other characters? I know it's barely 1000 words...should I add some more, do you think?
Please review and tell me what you think/don't like!
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Severus Snape
People think it's easy being me.
To them, I'm just the snarky, slimy Slytherin Snape who picks on poor Harry Potter for no reason. People say it's because of his father.
Please.
I hated James Potter because he was a stuck-up, arrogant bully. It may sound catty (or snakey) but it's true. Potter hated me because I had the nerve to be a Slytherin and be friends with his precious Lily. Just because I wasn't a insetsitive arse-hole to her didn't mean I loved her.
Which I did, in the end.
Potter always started fights in front of Lily. Always started them 4-on-1. Why? Because he was afraid and jealous of Lily and my relationship. Really, I could go as far as to say that Sirius Black and James Potter drove me to join Voldemort. They turned the entire school against me. They made fun of my greasy hair, my large, "hooked" nose, how I always dressed in black and my painfully skinny body.
If only they knew.
Lily was the only one to know why my nose was hooked like it was. She knew that my father had broken it too many times to count. She was the only one to know that I washed my hair liberally but had been cursed by a mad mother. My father had driven my mother into insanity, and, thinking I was him, had cursed me. My hair would never hang glossy and smooth.
Lily was the only one to know that my body was covered in bruises and scars, and that the reason I was in the Hospital wing for nearly a month in my sixth year was because my father had beat the shite out of be for being first in all my classes. Yes, for being first. Why, one might ask. He did it because I was "soaking up too much unnaturalness like your bitch of a mum".
Lily was the only one to ever care, and she was looked down on because of it. It was cruel and unfair, but who was I to complain? I had my own problems, after all.
One of the reasons that Black always hit a nerve within me was because somewhere in him I saw myself. Or rather, I saw who I could have been. I could tell he was abused. I saw all the signs I chose to repress. Bullying, in order to release your pent-up aggression at the abuser. Resentment at the world. A mask (Black's was one of a ladies man) to hide your true self.
I know Black saw that he and I were alike. He escaped it, though. He chose the easy way out, choosing not to help me and instead making Hogwarts, which I had hoped would become my home, a living hell.
I resented them. I resented them because they thought themselves better than I. They thought that I was an evil Slytherin out for no good, and when Black set Lupin on me, well, I snapped. I called Lily the M-word. I do not know why.
Or maybe I do.
I knew things. Being in Slytherin, well, you often knew things before the rest of the school did. I knew of this "Dark Lord". I knew what he offered. Power, ambition, a chance to rule the world. I knew whom they targeted. People like Lily. I knew that she was in danger, associating we me. I knew it and I feared for her.
She would be better off with people like Potter. Potter loved her; he would never let her go.
People think I renounced Voldemort because of many different reasons: I loved Lily (partly true), I was a coward, my Death Eatership was an elaborate ploy of Dumbledore's…
I am tired of it all.
I renounced Voldemort because he, indirectly, stole my life.
I was never a child. My mum, in an attempt to rebel against him and his ideals, married a Muggle. The result of that action was years of pain and misery for both of us.
I was never a teenager. Those in Slytherin, and following him and his ideals, delighted in my ability and affinity to create Dark spells. Black and Potter believed I was going Dark and thought I was trying to bring Lily over to the Dark side. They both unknowingly made my Hogwarts life hell, pressuring and taunting me. If not for Lily, well, I would've gone mad.
I was only an adult, and I will forever hate Voldemort for what he has done to me.
Still, people say I hate Harry Potter because he looks like Potter Sr. No. I hate—no, resent Potter because he is me. He is abused. I know it. Dumbledore uses him like he did me. Everyone expects things of him, like they did me. And, does he care? No. He is as closed minded as the rest of them, and that hurts me. It hurts that he would allow them to use him, and not care.
It's not easy being the sharp, sly, sneaky Potions Professor. Everyone misunderstands me, makes assumptions about me, and looks at me with contempt because they do not know my story.
"So, tell them," Dumbledore says to me one month after the Final Battle.
I stand up and look him in the eye. "They don't deserve it. When they want to know my story to know me, instead of Severus Snape, they can come beg. Until then, they can gossip and speculate away. I am above such things, and I know it. I quit."
I toss something behind me and exit the office for the last time, ignoring the single tear glistening in Dumbledore's eye as he picks up the shiny Phoenix pin. I am through with being used. From now on, I am me.
I will be free.