A/N, as usual, don't own 'em, don't want to own em. Plot bunny came to me after seeing the movie THR3E (don't see it, it's absolute rubbish aside from the basic premise, which is actually really interesting) and rereading A Christmas Blessing. Apparently, Snape has some sense of religion, and blames it on his father, who dragged him to church every sunday.
"If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." -John 20:23
"Forgive me father, for I have sinned." The old wooden bench in the confessional groaned ominously as he shifted on the seat. He could hear the bench on the other side do the same.
"Boy, at least come up with something original this week." He smirked slightly.
"What would you like to hear, father?"
"Oh, I don't know lad. The truth maybe?" The silence descended on the wooden box.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I've seen you in here every Sunday for the past years. Don't think I'm so young to not remember you as a wee lad, you used to be a choirboy, were you not?" He nodded, before remembering that the vicar could not see him.
"I was."
"Your father was a religious man. Never missed a service in his life that he could help. Showed up the day before he died." A small snort. "You weren't at the funeral, lad."
"We weren't on the best of terms." The laughter from the man on the other side surprised him.
"Lad, I don't think anyone could be on good terms with your father. But you're growing up to be just like him you know. Don't think I don't notice these things. You're every bit as surly as he was."
"And what do you know about my family?"
"I know what he sat and told me from that same seat. He did care for you boy, even if he had an-odd way of expressing it." If an odd way of expressing it was with fists and shouting, than yes, he did care. But these thoughts were not voiced. "I wouldn't call your father a nice man, lad. But he wanted you to grow up to be respectable. He wanted you to succeed. The same as any father. He even accepted that you gave up the small chance you had at playing for his old club, realizing that academia has infinitely more potential than sport. He didn't want you to wind up the way he did."
"Funny, I remember a row about that very subject. Go away to a good school, or stay in a school barely better than debtors prison and hang onto his vague hope of grooming his son to be everything he wasn't." He had been decent at the sport, nothing more. As good as could be expected when trained to play it from as long as he could walk.
"He may not have been a good man, lad, but he wanted what was best for you. He wanted to apologize you know-came to confession every week and felt horrible about what he did. He was human, lad. And you're becoming quite your father's son. If you truly hate him, I suggest stepping back and looking at yourself." Lips twisted into a sneer that very quickly faded at the realization of who he was sneering at. Eleven years of being dragged here every Sunday had taught him, if nothing else, to respect the old man. "But you didn't come to confession to talk about your father, did you?"
"No."
"Why are you here lad? You come here, sit the service every week. You come to confession every week, and confess the most mundane things. I've been a vicar for seventy years lad, and I now the signs of someone who's got some great guilt hanging over their head." The snort echoed throughout the dark wooden box.
"How do you know I don't just like sitting here?"
"What is it that's so great a sin that you can't bring yourself to confess it?"
"I'd likely be excommunicated."
"Last I checked you can't be excommunicated from the Anglican church. Besides, I've heard confessions from all sorts of people lad, look around you, look at where you're from. I've done my share of prison ministry. Even murderers and rapists can come the light boy. Confession is a weight lifted off your soul. Just speak boy, the good Lord will guide your tongue." He opened his mouth trying to find the words.
"I'm sure I'm worse than them."
"No man who repents is worse than any other man." He took another breath, formulating a thought.
"I've killed in cold blood. Not out of passion, not out of fear, not out of hatred, but because I was told to, for no reason other than I thought it would help me on a path to glory. I've seen friends slain because of what I've done, the only man I could ever truly trust died at my hand-begging for mercy. Because I thought I would gain glory. Power. I thought I'd find myself somewhere that wasn't here, being lauded, rich, honoured, exalted. Any means to reach my end." There was a pause, an uncomfortable silence that seemed to settle into the wood.
"You hate yourself for it, don't you lad?" The question was quiet, nearly easy to miss with the sound of the altar guild chattering away in the background as they stripped the linens away, collecting the candles to trim down to perfect, pristine conditions.
"Yes." It was one word, that held meaning.
"You regret it lad-more than anything. Don't you?"
"I do."
"There is no penance for you lad. There are no amounts of prayers I can tell you to recite. No amount to donate to the collection, no amount of service, ministry, you can perform to atone for what you've done." He scowled at the ground, as the vicar paused. "You are living your penance every day. Don't hate yourself for your mistakes boy. When your soul is up for the final judgement, your remorse will weigh in the balance. If you truly regret your actions, there's still hope for your immortal soul. That you confessed is proof enough of that. Any man that did not truly regret his actions would have never spoke, would never come looking for a sense of salvation. You have lad, and you may still enter into the gates of paradise. No man is a sinner if he acknowledges and repents for his sins."
He sat back, soaking in what the vicar had said. He did regret it. He hadn't come here in concious hope of salvation, he didn't come here out of any concious choice. He just came out of compulsion, out of falling upon old habits. But somehow, it was soothing to know that there was some hope still left for him. That even after his confession, the vicar still held some hope for him. He shifted again, wondering if he was finished in the wooden room that seemed to be entirely too small for him. "You're your father's son lad. He'd be proud of you, you know. He never confessed his sins until his last rights."
"His funeral-" He found himself asking, if only out of a small, morbid curiosity.
"Was myself performing the rights. No one else. He's buried in the parish cemetery if you have any interest in that. You've done good lad-never give up on yourself. There's a good man in you still. Somewhere, there's still that innocent choirboy that tripped on the hem of his cassock in front of the Archbishop." He could feel the faint flush at the memory. He'd nearly gone headlong into the venerated man.
"Thank you Father-" He slowly opened the door, breathing fresh air again.
"You're a good man, Severus. Don't let yourself believe otherwise." He walked out of the church, heading towards the main door, before turning, and backtracking through the maze of hallways to head out the back, cutting past the small cemetery, looking through the headstones, until he saw the one he had been looking for. He stood there, staring at it for a long while, wondering when exactly he had turned into his father.