Harry Potter: Monsters are Created
By: Jenrya Lee
Note: First happy Harry Potter fanfic, centered around Snape.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. It belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, Warner Brothers, Bloomsbury, and whatever other company does.
People are cold and cruel. When you need to speak to someone about something private, something personal that has been burning at your soul, you might as well turn your head and speak to a wall. They either have no need for you or are far too busy to listen to your petty words. Some even have the gall to say that your words weight down on them. Your own problems, which you must live with for every cursed moment of your life, are far too difficult to hear about. I have learned to not trust people, nor bother with them. Too many of them are disgusting and too contained in their own lives to care about others.
But I still had faith in one person, at least. I believed in one person. Even I, as slimy and disgusting as I am, deserve at least one, single, sole individual to care about my well being? I don't think that that was too much to ask for. Perhaps I was wrong. No…I was wrong.
When I entered the Headmasters' office after James publicly humiliated me, I expected to be consoled. I expected kindness, and a chance to finally show the Headmaster that perhaps I wasn't as vile as everyone thought.
Which is why I was so utter shocked when the first words to come out of his mouth were, "What did you do to provoke this, Severus?"
I felt betrayed. Of course. Or course the schools savior wouldn't bother with a lowly Slytherin like myself. There could be no possible explanation that didn't start with my being a pain in the ass to Potter and his gang of slime.
I grew up to be a man who overflowed in rage and bitterness, I grew to despise the world and it's inhabitants.
My father was cold, cruel, and violent. He could even be compared to the Dark Lord. Which is surprising, seeing as how I rushed to the Dark Lords side for something my father could never supply me with.
Acceptance. Pure and simple acceptance. To not be glared at in the halls, to not feel someone wince under my touch…the Dark Lords world of which he spoke would hold his followers in such high regard. I would finally receive what I have longed for since I entered that disgusting school.
Murder turned me away. Blood that stained my hands and my dreams turned me away. Approval must be gained in a far easier fashion, I though. I did not want to end lives and tear families apart by the threads the way my father did.
They all screamed, and I always remembered her. The first person I had been forced to kill. Her dead eyes staring into the distance. Black blood that had hardened and dried on her pale face. The spasms that ensued from a body that no longer contained life. That image alone was enough to turn me away from everything I had ever dreamed. Years later, that image would force me to go running back to the one person whom I thought would save me.
I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, blinded in the night, not clearly sure of where I was going until I arrived. My hair was covered in blood, my hands had crusted over with it. I was scared. I was beyond myself. James and Lily Potter, dead. And the fault fell quite neatly into my hands. How was I supposed to know that the prophecy I heard that night referred to them? How was I supposed to know that someone would die because of this?
No. I knew that someone would die. I knew it. Deep in my soul. But I never expected it to be someone whom I had known. I thought it would be some nameless face, off in the distance. When the Dark Lord announced that he was to kill them, I was shocked. Lucius mistook my shock for joy.
"Finally, they are getting what they deserve. See, Severus? Didn't I tell you that this would happen someday?" And he smiled.
I went home after the meeting and vomited. I pulled my head up slowly after my fit and decided to speak to Dumbledore. He would fix things. I knew he would. He always did.
I immediately decided against it. He'd kill me…I'd…die. I took a deep breath, cleared out my mind. Slowly. Calmly. Forcing my superior Occlumency skills to push everything to the back of my mind. Everything besides the current matter at hand. Which is what I really, more then anything else, wanted to push away. I didn't want to think about this. I shouldn't have to. But, then again, it was always I that had to deal with things like this. Never Lucius. Lucius had it easy. He came from the prestigious Malfoy family. His house was a castle. His wife was gorgeous, his son talented, and he? He had money, looks, and connections.
I came from a poor family. My mother was a pure-blood, my father a muggle. An abusive muggle with knuckles that felt like metal when they swung and landed on their proper destination. Which didn't happen often. Which is why he reverted to other forms of pain. He yelled at my mother and silently groped her in places that he shouldn't have, even as her husband. He broke her self-esteem and left her an empty shell, devoid of expression and thoughts after several years. Worse then what any dementor could do. I was harder to break.
Which is why, one day, when I was young, before Hogwarts…he took me. All of me. I remember grabbing the cloth of his shirt and begging quietly. The tears landed softly on the pillow under me and with them, my soul. I flinched violently for years afterwards whenever hands touched me. I would sob quietly on trains when I was alone and left to think. Which is exactly what I was doing all those years ago, when I first met Potter and Black.
I was sobbing quietly in my empty compartment. Several students, early on during the trip, had stuck their heads in and retreated the second they saw me. However, around twenty minutes or so into the ride, Black came in. Rather loudly. He didn't notice me, seeing as how he was walking backwards like an ape on muggle drugs. He bumped into me. I said nothing. Years of 'discipline' at the hands of my father thought me that much. To say nothing. To think nothing.
"Oh…god, I know you. Severus Snape." Black snorted loudly and threw his semi-long hair over his shoulders. It glistened and shined in the dimly lit compartment, and the strands separated easily under his fingers. Not like my hair. Filthy and oily, it tended to clump together and tangle. I looked away. I knew the Blacks. I had to deal with them on occasion during summers. Their oldest son, Sirius, was a monster. Cut off a huge bit of my hair several years back. Took me two years two to evenly grow it out.
"What do you want, Black?" I asked bitterly. I noticed, to my immediate chagrin, that it was blatantly obvious from my voice that I had been crying. Black barked his laughter through the compartment.
"James, was this little git crying?" James? Who the hell was James? I turned my head slightly and for the first time, noticed an arrogant looking boy in glasses standing beside Black. Oh god. I let out a small groan, and turned my head to face the window.
"Ha. Looks like it. What was his name again, Snivellus?" Oh, god. That's the ridiculous nickname Black gave me last summer. For the love of god…
"Ah, you remembered his name, James?" Black smiled. "Hey, freak, we need you to move down. We're taking this compartment."
I shrugged and moved down, ignoring his 'freak' comment. Black put his bag between us, and smirked cruelly at me.
"Try not to contaminate my bag with your grease, Snivvy." I rolled my eyes and took out something to read. Completely at random, it was on the Dark Arts. I flipped through the pages in a bored stupor. After several minutes, I felt a small object whack the side of my hair. I looked down, and saw a small golden imitation snitch on the floor.
"Erm…sorry." The James boy muttered. He didn't look sorry. Nor did he sound sorry. Quite the contrary. I believe that he had done it quite on purpose. I held my tongue and continued reading.
"Well, aren't you going to pick it up?" I turned the page of my book, not aware that this question was directed towards me. "Snivvy. I said, aren't you going to pick it up?" I started up at him calmly. Even as we sat, he was taller then me. It would take me several years to reach his height. Late bloomer.
"What? No." I continued reading, running my thin fingers over a particularly nasty, and difficult, dark spell. 'Why are the wrist movements so damn difficult?' I thought bitterly.
"But James can't pick it up. His hands would be covered in oil for ages." I continued to ignore him. Black kicked the small golden ball over to James, who smirked. Damn them and their smirking. It's as if their facial muscles are incapable of doing anything else.
Several minutes of excited whispering between the two boys, in which I was left alone. Until, of course, another boy walked in. His face was covered in thin scars and his hand was covered in thin bandages.
"Ah…I'm sorry…everywhere else it's full. Can I stay here?" His voice was timid and I noticed that his hair was lanky. He didn't look very healthy. Black shrugged. The James boy nodded. The thin, sickly-looking boy sat right across from me, and stuck his hand out. "Hello. My name is Remus Lupin. And you?"
I stared down at the bandaged hand briefly. After a seconds hesitation, I took it. "Severus Snape."
"Noo! Don't touch his hand!" Black yelled. I looked up, as did Lupin.
"Why not?" The small boy whispered.
"Because he's filthy! Can't you see that?"
"For the love of god, Black!" I screamed, pulling my hand away from the other boy. "Shut the fuck up and grow up for once in your ridiculously spoiled life!" My breathing was raspy and my chest rose with each inhale. I was angry. Which, when I was young, was exceptionally rare. I wouldn't become a rageful, angry, bitter person until after my mother would die in fifth year. Black snorted and turned away from me.
"Don't talk about things you don't know about, you greasy little git." I opened my mouth to answer, but instead, turned in my seat and faced the window. Screw Black.
Another minute in silence, and then, the boy in front of me stuck his hand out again. I slapped it away.
"I don't give a bloody damn as to who you are." I ignored the hurt look in his eyes. I would regret doing that before the trip was even over, when Lupin would become friends with James, whom I learned was surnamed Potter and thus be referred as that by me, and Black.
Fate likes to spit on me, I suppose.
I was actually initially saddened when I made Slytherin. My mother had been a Ravenclaw. Not the most attractive of women, my mother. She was blissfully plain. I had inherited my rhetoric from her. She was intelligent, if nothing else. Her will was weak. She had witnessed her fathers death as a child, and her mother had really preferred her to be in Slytherin. A pure-blood, she had been. But her mother was not cruel. She never beat her daughter or insulted her. She settled on merely ignoring the girl and only speaking to her when it was completely and utterly necessary. Only when the circumstances asked for it, would she bother uttering anything more then a scoff or a grunt at her daughter. She became very self-conscious. She told me once, when I was young and she was trying to pull gum out of my hair (that had been graciously placed by Black) that she married my father to spite my grandmother. Even placed the announcement in the Daily Prophet. My grandmother almost had an aneurysm. When she was finally able to successfully charm the gum out of my hair, she then turned me around to face her.
"But don't you ever think, even for a moment, that I don't love you to death. I adore you, Severus. Just because your father is…a terrible man, doesn't mean I blame you." She then held me in her thin, beaten arms, and ran her fingers through my hair. Slowly, gently, until I was between being awake and not. I would never allow myself that murky sort of satisfied feeling ever again after she died. Her arms were the only place where I felt truly content. Years later, when the bloodshed and torture addled my mind in those nights when I was cold and alone, I would think back to those protective arms, and wonder why they couldn't have held me longer then they did.
Maybe then the demons that scratched away at my mind, my very sanity, maybe perhaps they wouldn't be as loud. As visible. As real. Maybe then I couldn't feel their claws ripping me apart, every night. Maybe then…The rather weak incentive of joining Lord Voldemort's cause wouldn't have been so appealing to me.
Perhaps then…I wouldn't have fallen so hard and so fast upon the darkness called life.
(Authors Note: Yes, this is in Snape's point of view. Yes, I know it's short. It's the prologue. It also follows the events of Half-Blood Prince. And it isn't slash. I was planning on it to be Snarry before HBP, but that book sorta…ruined all chances of a Snarry pairing. .. Read and Review, please! It'll only take a moment, and they really do encourage me.)