In those endless days when he had spent eternity in the hell called Azkaban, he recalled very little. The twelve years, as they supposedly told him, could have been twelve hundred or twelve thousand, for all the difference it seemingly made.
Endless, that was how he would always remember it.
Endlessly facing the grey-black of four walls.
Endlessly drowning in the soul-freezing cold of the Dementors.
Endlessly aware of their presence outside, never knowing when one of them would break the fragile restraints of the magic binding them and come to send him into blank oblivion.
Endlessly being drained of joy, of every single positive experience, any random happy thought.
Endlessly denying entry to the anguish, the unforgivable horror that, given the chance, would infiltrate him and drive him mad.
Endlessly channelling all his energies, whatever pitiful dregs were left, into survival.
The only thing he could concentrate on was his hate. There was no space anymore for pain – pain only came when one had something potentially left to lose. He had no energy left for anger or rage. But hate – hate was something the Dementors had an excess of, saw no use or need for. So he hoarded his hate, built it up to be an impenetrable fortress around him. His last defiance against the endlessness.
It was dark and cold, but focused, CLEAR – this hate of his. It was unclouded by the vagaries of emotion. It had a purpose. It would help him, eventually, when the time came, and he needed to take action.
The day arrived, and from the moment he saw the grey, furry creature in the newspaper article, basking in freedom and life, things were set irrevocably into motion.
But away from the endlessness, things became less defined. Other emotions, sensations, perceptions demanded entrance. They were screaming to invade parts of him that he had sealed off an eternity ago to survive.
He needed to focus on the hatred. And it was here that lay the endless tragedy – he needed his greatest enemies to fuel the vast blackness that kept him from falling apart.
Peter Pettigrew and Severus Snape.
Cowards and traitors, condemned a million times over as they kept him bitter company within the walls of his prison.
He would laugh at the ultimate irony, if he still had a sliver of humour left in him.
With every passing minute, hour, day, more and more of the old emotions were seeping in, battering upon the walls of his fortress, threatening to eradicate that identity he had managed to eke out during his endless incarceration.
He could not lose that now – the thing that kept him going all through eternity.
So it didn't matter what they said. Whatever Dumbledore said, or however Remus explained, Severus Snape would always be the same. Just like the other.
He could never have changed.
Always the Slytherin, Death Eater, traitor, torturer, maimer, murderer of innocents.
Always evil, incapable of good.
Always the object of his hate.
Always.
Endlessly.
For all of eternity.
For if it were any other way, it would just simply…
Destroy him.
fin