Hurt

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. J K Rowling does. I'm just playing with her toys. Nor do I own the song, and thank you Alice Cooper for writing it!

Summary: A songfic based on the song "I never cry" by Alice Cooper. Severus Snape. Angst.

If there's a tear on my face,

it makes me shiver to the bone, it shakes me babe...

It's just a heartache that got caught in my eye

And you know, I never cry. I never cry.

He shook his head and shrugged, dejected. Then sunk down on the floor, leaning his back on the ice cold stone wall in the dreary dark corridor that led towards the Slytherin dungeons. He felt like there was a kind of hollow pit in his stomach, a stone in his throat, and a fountain of tears just behind his eyeballs. This feeling was something he'd learned to live with almost all the time. When it had first began to take hold of him, in his second year, now five years ago, he'd been dead scared that he'd actually start to weep. But he never. This Feeling, as he'd christened it, just accompanied him all the time. It seemed to grow stronger when that goddamn Potter his goddamn crony Black were around, making his life even more of a misery. Although, it never was stronger than when she was near. The girl named after a star. The one whose name meant Female Warrior. And she just laughed at him and made fun of him and used him and took his heart out, stomped on it and threw it back in his face again, just like everyone else did. It was nothing new, oh no, she wouldn't get the pleasure of being the first to make him hurt.

She was mad, clearly she was raving mad, but so was he, wasn't he? He glanced down at his left arm. It was almost completely covered in scars, crisscrossing into each other. Would a sane person do that to himself? He didn't know why he had started. He didn't know what crazy thought had made him do it the first time. He only knew that now, it was one of the few things that made That Feeling disappear.

He got a blade out of his pocket and put it to his arm. He pressed it into his skin and ran it as fastly and hardly he could manage across the arm. The crimson liqud called blood immediately poured out. He felt a sense of release, of being freed somehow, the hole in his guts diminished and so did the lump in his throat. He wasn't human anymore, and this was what he did when humans in his place cried.

He rolled down his sleeve, got up and slowly slouched down the stair to the Slytherin Common Room, ignoring the usual snide remarks being thrown at him. He thought he recognized her laughter and stopped short in the middle of the room, which made even more comments fly his way. He saw in the corner of his eye how she sat on the floor, laughing crazily, thrusting her head backwards so the mass of raven, unruly hair zoomed violently across the air. He stared at her for a while, wishing he could extend his wounded arm to her and push her face down into the blood... Show her what he was capable of doing to himself... maybe she'd realize then, that he wasn't the easy prey she thought... but no, she'd only laugh.

Sometimes I drink more than I need
Until the T.V.'s dead and gone
I may be lonely but I'm never alone
and the night may pass me by
but I'll never cry

Severus Snape averted his gaze elsewhere and kept walking towards the stair leading down to the boys' dormitory. His eyes disappeared from sight behind curtains of thick black hair. He felt like an insect that had managed to wander into some human's house. He hurried to slouch down these winding stairs as well, wanting desperately to get out of sight.

The newly made scar burned on his forearm, and he started breathing more slowly, getting relief from the pain. He lay down on his four poster bed and closed the green and silver curtains. Severus then drew his wand and performed both a Darkening Charm and an Inpenetrable Charm on the bed, so that no one would neither be able to see him nor come near him. He then produced a bottle of Firewhisky out of his black schoolbag that lay at his feet.

And then he put it to his mouth, and drank, took deep swigs of the burning drink until his eyesight got blurry and the room seemed to disappear. He drank until the bottle was completely empty and he could just lie down and not feel anything. His thoughts were foggy but yet they were clear in a wonderful way. He thought of his revenge, the revenge he knew he'd get one day. The revenge of those fucking Maradeurs, the revenge of that bitch Lily Evans who kept trying to defend him, who was she to think he wanted her filthy mudblood-defence, who was she to think he needed any bloody defence at all? But most of all, he'd get even with Bellatrix Black.

He fidgeted his wand idly between his fingers, and conjured up another bottle out of thin air. Not that he needed more of course, but what the hell did he have to care about anyway? "Please, will the world just disappear, please please please..." he thought. "Let me never have to see Potter and Black again, let me never have to see the other Black. Let me never have to go home to Father again. Let me never have to see my self-inflicted scars again."

Take away, take away my eyes
Sometimes I'd rather be blind
Break a heart, break a heart of stone
Open it up but don't you leave it alone

Sometimes he didn't know himself what the feeling he nursed for Bellatrix was. He couldn't tell hatred and love apart, but he knew it had to be one of them, or maybe both. Yes, it probably was... He would love to hurt her, but more to hear her screaming his name than to see her in pain. He would love her to hurt him, but more to see her notice him at all than anything else.

She did hurt him, though, didn't she? She had done so lots of times. In every possible way, too. Cursing him in front of people... killing him verbally... over and over again... and yet he couldn't stop yearning for her... pathetic.

Everything swirled around above him. He barely noticed how someone's steps down the stairs echoed. He assumed it would be just Anybody, so he didn't look. But it wasn't. It was the least unimportant person in his whole world.

"Severus," said her voice. He didn't recognize it at once. He didn't react at all, not until she had broken down his Inpenetrable Charm without effort, within a few seconds. She sat down on the edge of his bed and did not look at him. He looked at her, though, oh yes he did, he stared, taking in every inch of her.

"I love you," he said, not being able to contain himself. His number one rule, to always keep his integrity, had been broken, and he could not help feeling a bit relieved by this. It was exhausting, always keeping up a facade. So, he said it again: "I love you. I love you. I love you, Bellatrix, I love you."

'Cuz that's all I got to give you
Believe me Babe, it ain't been used
My heart's a virgin, it's never been tried
And you know I'll never cry

Then he quietened and waited for a reply. His heart was beating fast enough even though he'd drunk almost two hole bottles of Firewhisky. He watched her and waited... and waited... and waited. But the words he longed to hear never came over her lips. He imagined for a moment what might be going on in her mind. Perhaps the words were struggling to get out? Perhaps she just couldn't say it... I love you too, Severus. He stopped short in his train of thoughts... how pathetic he was to imagine this... he felt a sudden longing to hurt himself again, but then Bellatrix spoke, and it was in quite a taken aback voice.

"Severus, I... I just came here because Rodolphus said he'd been down here and he thought you were drunk, he'd heard you talking to yourself. I, I'm sorry."

Severus stood up, fuming.

"I don't need your pity," he whispered. "Just fuck off from here, leave me alone."

She raised her head and shrugged.

"If that's the way you want to play it, Snape. Crucio!" And suddenly he found himself howling with pain, rolling around on the floor, screaming out his agony. Every inch of his body hurt.

"I'll make you cry, Snape. You're such a loser. Now cry!"

He managed a smirk, somehow. She obviously was worlds away from him if she thought he even could weep. He looked up at her, stared into her eyes... and suddenly, without realizing what he was doing, or how he was doing it, he felt himself being inside her mind. He saw images of three girls, one of them definitely being Bellatrix, the others probably her two sisters, running as if their lives depended on it, over a great lawn. A man not all unlike his own father was running after them equally quickly, with his wand in the air, bellowing all kinds of curses. The image switched and then there was Bellatrix on the ice of the lake, sitting next to a man with white skin, black hair and emerald green eyes.

The present Bellatrix stared widely at him.

"What the bloody hell are you doing?" she hissed. "Impero!"

And Severus heard a voice in his head, a lovely soothing one, telling him there was no danger in the world... telling him that he should relax... telling him that he should masturbate in front of Bellatrix, Malfoy and Lestrange... no, what the hell? He wasn't gonna do that, never. He stood up and shook the curse of him without a spot of bother. Bellatrix stared, outraged.

"Now go away, let me be," he snarled and crawled back into his bed. That Feeling was not there anymore. It had gone beyond that, it was part of him now. So now, he just had every opportunity in the world to develope the characteristics he'd need. He would, whatever it took, get back at her for this.

And you know I'll never cry
And you know I'll never cry
Never cry, I'll never cry

He took a look at his arm. The scar he'd made earlier had dried, still glowing a clear red though. And suddenly, he realized that was the last time he'd done that. Without any obvious reason, he just knew he wouldn't need to do it again.


Break a heart, break a heart of stone
'Cuz that's all I got to give you
Believe me Babe, it ain't been used
My heart's a virgin, it ain't never been tried

Why waste time hurting himself, when it was Bellatrix Black he really hated...


And you know I'll never cry
Never cry
I'll never cry.

"You're as good as dead, Bella," he said softly to himself and lay back down.