Title: The Chosen
Rating: PG
Genre: Defining Moment / Reflection
Spoilers: Philosopher's Stone to Half-Blood Prince
Period: Various
Pairings: None; talks about Lily/James
Summary: Severus Snape only chose to kill one family.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The plot, however, is created by the writer and is not to be replicated by another.
Writer's Notes: This story was written as part of Miss A's writing challenge on the HPDC. The requirements included the main character of Severus Snape, the genre of a defining moment / reflection, and the inclusion of a quote that the character spoke in one of the books. The quote, which is bolded, is from PoA.
The Chosen
a severus snape honesty
When Severus was six-years-old, he received a book from a man named Tobias. His mother had told him that this man was his father, was a Muggle; therefore, it was of no surprise that Tobias understood nothing of the wizarding world. To Tobias, magic was nothing more than influencing the practical world around you--thaumaturgy, Severus remembered him calling it, remembered him thinking that he knew what he was talking about.
The book, something in Latin that Severus began to translate the next day, specialised in the Dark Arts. Because of this, he became aware of those who referred to themselves as, "Death Eaters" and "Lord Voldemort." Severus suddenly became aware of his future, and he began studying magic five years early to force his future to be aware of him. Everything Severus had done in his life had led him to this point, and beyond.
Several nights ago, when the moon was waning in the midnight sky, seventeen-year-old Severus knelt in front of the Dark Lord and kissed the robes billowing about his feet. He, along with a Gryffindor and a Ravenclaw, murmured promises of submission and blood.
In the matter of a few months, he graduated and never had to remove that moonstone-white mask that covered empty black eyes. Severus never found it odd that the Dark Lord only surrounded himself with a select few Death Eaters--himself, Malfoy and Lestrange--and that, when they attacked Muggles and Mudbloods in the name of purification, they favoured a means that was not of magic. Magic was clean, Malfoy had once said, and did not have the satisfaction as arm-to-arm combat did.
After that, Severus carried a jewel-encrusted dagger. But although he killed, he never chose to kill. He never woke up in the morning and decided to annihilate this family or that woman, to taste their blood and fear. No, the first time Snape chose to kill, he was listening in on a prophecy foretold.
That old man Dumbledore was wrong, the Dark Lord never knew that the prophecy could refer to two children. Severus never told his Master that. In that short moment that Severus was eavesdropping on the clairvoyant, he knew a baby that would be born at the end of July. Lily Potter's caesarean-section was scheduled for 3:00 that day, he remembered. In that moment, Severus chose to kill, because. . . .
He kept whispering, "Give me a reason."
And the Marauders kept giving him one.