Written for Competition Time: I Want to Dance with Somebody

Written by: sekdaniels

Team: Pride of Portree

Position: Beater 1

Song: "We Will Rock You" by Queen

Word Count: 524

A/N: Particularly influenced by the last stanza and the line with regards to making peace someday.

A Queen and a Prince

What price, peace?

There wasn't much else to think about in the dead of night when sleep was such a stranger that no potion was strong enough to compel it to join you. When time is running out, it also feels as if the inevitable is taking forever to arrive.

He had only wanted to reclaim some pride for himself, at first. It soothed his bruised ego, and gave him friends; or something like friends.

He thought of his mother; downtrodden, sickly, worn away to a nub by her abusive husband. He wanted to bring back glory to her, to her family. She didn't deserve to have to hide her magic or be ashamed of her son. Her magic made her beautiful. Powerful. No Muggle should control that!

That's what he'd told himself anyway when he was young, and foolish.

And needy. And lonely. Always so lonely. Always.

In truth, he was vengeful, angry, distrustful, and scared. He needed answers; and, if truth be told, he wanted someone to blame. His Muggle father was a louse and a drunk. His Muggleborn friend threw him over for a slip of the tongue. So sensitive; so fragile. Muggles. Muggles were to blame. Why couldn't others see it?

I saw what I wanted to see.

They talked about it in the Three Broomsticks night-after-night. They railed against the inclusion of these soft, uninitiated bastards into the world they were born into. Shouldn't their family history, steeped in magic, make them better somehow? Shouldn't men like Tobias Snape be weeded out before they could beat and cow a witch the likes of Eileen Prince?

How different would my life have been if I had been born a Malfoy? Prewitt? Crabbe? Even a Potter?

He didn't even remember when it turned from just talk to something more serious; he just saw red. The color of revenge; the warm, sickly feeling of retribution that burned in his belly.

These were the thoughts that haunted him now, in the darkness, as he looked back on how simple it was to be seduced to it. How all he wanted was to feel a part of something important, and maybe to feel as if he belonged, for once. Was wanted, for once.

There is enough blood spilled on both sides now to satisfy even a vampire like myself.

He absentmindedly rubbed his forearm. It was almost as if he wanted the call. He had so much to make up for, he felt as if he could never really rest. Despite being bone weary, Severus Snape rose from his bed and crossed to the window. A large, full moon cast an icy light through the clouds that spilled insistently into his dark, dank room like a spotlight.

Severus felt that for all the time he spent enrobing himself in shadow, he was always exposed; always too much in the light. He had started this journey for himself. Now he only had time enough to serve everyone else, and hide whatever true pieces of himself remained.

All I look forward to is the peace of the grave.

As it happened, it was coming soon enough.