Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all its characters and logos belong to J.K. Rowling.
A/N: Hey Sarah? You read my stories yet?
For as long as Severus can remember, the china doll has sat on top of the mantle, calmly watching him with pale blue eyes. He spends hours gazing at it. He catches himself reaching for it several times, but he stops, for fear the delicate thing will break.
Some times he can compare his mother to that doll. Beautiful with a painted smile, but fragile and empty on the inside. For all the will or strength that she holds, she might as well be a doll.
When he can't bear to watch his mother hide her bruises with a trembling face any longer, he stands in front of the doll, never touching, always looking.
And when his mother finally breaks; when her china soul and her china body finally shatter, he calmly picks up the figurine and hurls it at the blood-red wall.
Though no tears have yet come for the one who bore him, he somehow finds the pathetic shards of the little doll to be the saddest thing in the world, and sobs shake him helplessly as they cut into his palm.