A quiet wind rustled the trees of a quiet neighborhood. It was evening now, and the stars were beginning to peek out in the moonless sky. Rows of quaint wooden houses lined the street, complete with ordinary lawns, ordinary stoops and ordinary people. It was like the set of a television sitcom and it was not the place you might expect anything extraordinary to happen.
But something extraordinary was indeed happening.
In front of a particularly older two story house, a small congregation of strangers had appeared. Their dark robes and skull-like masks guarded their identities and the twilight cast an ominous shadow over them. There was about seven of the masked figures, and the smallest of the group stepped towards the darkened house boldly. The seventeen year old Severus Snape gripped his wand in his sweaty hand tightly until his knuckles were white. As he climbed the stairs to the door, he paused and glanced back briefly. Lucius Malfoy smirked back at him from under his mask. He had requested to supervise Snape's final initiation into the Death Eaters personally.
His stomach fluttering in anticipation, Snape turned and pointed his wand at the door. "Alohomora." He muttered, and the bolt turned with a resounding click. He entered the home cautiously. It was not an extravagant place, but it was clear the owners were better off than most. The house had a faint flowery smell to it, combined with a familiar, unpleasant musty one. As he quietly made his way through the entryway, he listened for the whereabouts of the owners and could hear a television playing somewhere in a back room. Snape swallowed, his mouth dry. How could his mouth be so dry when his hands were so sweaty? Admittedly, he had fantasized about this for years, but to be here now… He narrowed his eyes and peered around the corner into the hallway. The faint light of the room in the back illuminated a photo hanging on the wall, and as he passed it, Snape could not help but stop and inspect it. It was a wedding portrait of the owners. His face filled with hatred and disgust at the image of father smiling back at him. "How very like him to run off and marry a rich muggle whore." He thought bitterly. He briefly wondered if he might have to deal with the wife tonight as well. Squaring his shoulders, he turned down the hall to complete the task he was sent here to do. That he had dreamed of doing. He adjusted his grip on the wand in his hand as he approached the living room.
As the familiar musty smell of decay and booze hit his nostrils, he instinctively knew that his father was there on the couch in front of him before he had even come into sight. Some black and white muggle show was flickering on the muted television before him, filling the dimly lit room with an eerie glow. Grim and slightly trembling, Severus rounded the couch to face Tobias Snape only to find him asleep. At the sight of his father, unpleasant memories of their final encounters played in his mind, filling him with rage. He hated everything about this man. Raising his trembling wand with one hand, he removed his mask with the other and let it drop to the floor; the cold glow of the tv illuminating and intensifying the angry features of his face. This was it now. Time to wipe this disgusting stain off of the face of humanity. Snape cleared his throat loudly.
Tobias didn't stir.
In fact, he didn't move much at all. Snape eyed the empty bottles of booze lying on the floor. Cautiously, he reached out and prodded the still figure. The skin was cold to his touch. Snape stepped back and for a moment stood, stunned. He couldn't be…? He waited to see the figure breathe, and when he saw that the man had none and was indeed dead, a cold fury washed over him. After all this time, after all his sins, Tobias was to die of natural causes? His face twisted with rage. "You won't…!" he spat. "I WON'T LET YOU TAKE THIS FROM ME!" and whatever self-restraint he might have had before was lost. "SECTUMSEMPRA!" He bellowed as he slashed with his wand over and over and over again until the body of his father was good and shredded and was no longer recognizable.
His wand still outstretched, his hand twitching, Snape regained control of himself. He stood for a moment panting heavily. As he lowered his arm, he caught a glimpse of someone watching him out of the corner of his eye, and turned aggressively. A young girl in a field of flowers stared warmly out at him from a painting on the wall (the wife's tastes, Snape reasoned), which now had a great deal of blood on it. The dull reddish liquid framed the girl's face; a witness to the heinous and utterly pointless act that had just occurred. Under her soft gaze, Snape suddenly felt very indescribable. He knew who the girl reminded him of, and as he unexpectedly felt very heavy, he did not wish to endure the phantom judgments of the painting tonight. His task complete, he gathered himself up and wordlessly left the room without so much as a backward glance.
Snape exited the house and rejoined the masked group outside the home. At the sight of him, a few of the Death Eaters took a step back and Snape saw the smirk was gone from Lucius' face. It suddenly occurred to him that he was covered from head to foot in his father's blood. Lucius quickly seemed to regain himself and chuckled uneasily. "Ha ha, well done Severus! Went a little overboard, didn't we? We'll get you cleaned up. You've got to be presentable! You've done the Dark Lord proud tonight." And with a wave his wand, the Dark Mark appeared over the former home of Tobias Snape.
Severus Snape stared up at the mark in the sky against the backdrop of the night sky, the image burning forever into his mind.