Disclaimer: Not mine, but you already knew that.
His Dawn in Darkness
By Sindie
Shadows decorated the cracks between every tired stone, breaking into every space, an infestation of darkness. A slight movement near one of the windows made known the presence of a man who would have blended in perfectly with the darkness otherwise. He turned his head, and as two passing clouds broke, a momentary ray of moonlight threw the harsh lines of his face into chiseled relief. A turning down of the thin lips and a crinkle of the hooked nose marked his trademark sneer, and with a violent whip, his black hair was shaken forward, covering a visage whose cold indifference hid a blanket of bitterness wrapped insecurely around his broken soul.
Severus Snape was now the headmaster of the not so long ago esteemed school of Hogwarts. Little more than two years ago, the previous headmaster had remarked grimly how dark these times were, now that Lord Voldemort had been resurrected, but Snape could pose a true witness to what real darkness was. It permeated everything, even the castle which had once been a safehaven for many, and it filled him to the brim. He waited for the day when the cup of damnation would overflow, and as he withdrew from the window, he wondered if it hadn't already happened.
The begging question was: when?
These familiar halls were as his old Death Eater friends and the Dark Arts. An intoxicating mixture, both compelling and revolting. Sleep was a wicked enemy, filled with visions he could Occlude during consciousness, but a flicker of a candle, the flaming red, brushing tendrils over his skin, making it crawl, as he crawled, pathetically begging for an end. The green blaze of a curse that ended life and a flash of angry green orbs, both glaring and judging him in his final moment, and he knew if death knocked now, he would answer.
Again, the damned question: when?
The stones were smooth to his touch, but so cold. Every footstep echoed in the emptiness, a chill sent through the spine and the corridor. Even the paintings were afraid of him. If only they knew...
After hours of aimless wandering, no goal in mind, he would return to the office that was now his, although he didn't feel it rightfully so. He refused to meet the blue-eyed twinkling welcome of Albus Dumbledore, the only portrait who would even talk to him. Like a drug, now an addiction, he moved toward the cabinet where he knew it was.
The Pensieve.
Like the Mirror of Erised, it brought him no real or lasting happiness, but since his nightly wanderings no longer could calm his nerves like they used to, so the Pensieve would serve the purpose he demanded. He held it deftly in his long, white hands, placing it carefully on the surface of the headmaster's desk. He sat. Then began the task of painstakingly extracting every precious memory into the treasure chest, but like gold, didn't buy happiness.
"Oh, Severus," came the concerned, pitiful voice of Dumbledore.
Snape ignored it. He stared down into the swirling contents, his memories.
"Don't put yourself through this again, my boy."
Snape's nose was now touching the silverly surface.
"You do yourself no good by tormenting yourself like this."
Snape fell into the Pensieve and found himself on a sunny summer day, watching two girls play on the swings. He didn't look at the dirty little boy sitting next to him, for he was that child, so dirtied and hiding in shame.
But he could still marvel at her, see how beautiful and powerful and wonderful she had been. He heard that tingling laughter, like bells at Christmas.
"Memories are all I have now," he whispered, feeling the hot saltiness of a tear streak down his cheek.
This long-ago, half-remembered, dreamlike, seeming cosmic joke was his dawn in darkness.