Light filtered through the torn gauze curtains on the bedroom windows - it cast eerie shapes across the darkened, silent room. A mouse scuttled across the floor drawing a sharp breath from the single inhabitant. The woman was as light as the room was dark – pale, lank blond hair framed an even paler face, a face wrought with pain and fear. Heavy eyebrows hooded the woman's frightened dull blue eyes. Her skin was sallow, and her face appeared sunken in, like a skeleton of someone long since deceased. She was frail and thin, giving the appearance that she was the shell of what once may have been a healthy woman. Her nightgown of dull gray was raggedy, the hem worn away and each sleeve falling two inches short of her sickly looking wrists. The woman clutched the dingy duvet to her chin, sitting upright in the rickety queen sized four-poster bed.
A loud crash reverberated through the house, and the frail woman jumped, a horrid, jerking motion. Her eyes narrowed, she slowly removed the bedcovers, clutching a polished wooden stick in her right hand. Indeed, the wand appeared to be the only well cared for item in the room, including the woman herself. The woman pointed the wand at the bedroom door, and cast a muttered silencing spell at the rusted hinges. Opening it soundlessly, she hurried down the small hallway and into a sitting room the size of a large closet.
The door was still open, letting in the cold night air. A shaft of moonlight from the opening revealed a crumpled figure on the floor. The woman crouched near the figure; another sharp intake of breath followed as she clumsily flipped it over, revealing a gaunt face with dark features. The same heavy eyebrows as the woman, only in a shade of almost midnight black, rested above closed eyelids. A large, twisted nose, thin, chapped lips, and sunken cheekbones were framed by a shock of shoulder length greasy hair, matching the formidable eyebrows.
So like his father.
The woman reached out to the figure, noting his torn robes and a large bruise across his neck. She cringed outwardly, for the bruise resembled the shape of four fingers. At the precise moment when her fingers brushed his pale, exposed arm, dark eyes shot open, and met her own. The woman slowly turned his arm, and dropped it, letting out a strangled sob.
"Severus!" she hissed sadly. "My son!"
Eileen Isabelle Prince Snape collapsed bodily to the floor, sobbing with loud, gasping coughs that shook her whole being. She cried for her son, her poor misdirected child, driven to this cruel life by the wicked hand of his father. She cried for the life he would never lead, and the life he always had led.
Severus Snape touched his mother's shoulder, and she recoiled. Tears fell silently down her face and she stared at him with a twisted kind of disgust and wonder. As if she were watching a mildly disturbing television program instead of her own flesh and blood's startling descent into hell. For the freefall had begun, Severus had been pushed into a plummeting tunnel, one that led straight to the fiery pits of the earth's core.
Eileen hurriedly stood and ran back down the hallway from which she had emerged, slamming her bedroom door and locking it physically and magically before throwing herself onto the creaking bed and sobbing mercilessly. After a few moments, she managed to sit up properly, and reached calmly into the bedside drawer. Tearstained, puffy face notwithstanding, she was the epitome of nonchalant as she quickly downed the contents of a small, black phial. Afterwards, she lay back on her bed, her body convulsing unnaturally, and finally, with one great twitch, resting quietly as if in a deep sleep. Perhaps the only peaceful sleep she had experienced in her adult life.
Severus Snape threw open the door to his bedroom, and the next to reveal his modest laboratory. His mother had catered to his passion for "mixing" as she so fondly called it. His father, blasted man, still had no idea that his son has taken to using the hallway bathroom in the past two years. Upon entering the room, his eyes were drawn to the shelves lining the far wall. One glance told him what was missing. One glance, and he knew. Severus ran through the house, instinctively knowing that the door would be warded, he pointed his wand at the door and muttered, a light shot forth devouring it quickly in flames. He quickly extinguished it with water from his wand. In seconds, he was crouched over the still form of his mother. Severus pressed two fingers to her neck, and silently covered her with the dingy sheet she had thrown to the floor. He stood over the covered form of his mother for only a moment, before walking swiftly from the room.
Three days later, immediately following the funeral, Severus Snape sat in Albus Dumbledore's office. After refusing some form of yellow muggle candy, tea, and biscuits, he sat silently considering the roaring fire flickering in the hearth. The red and gold phoenix perched across the room silently took flight, landing in the dark man's lap. Severus absently stroked the bird as it dropped several tears against his leg. Albus finally broke the poignant silence.
"I'm afraid there are some wounds even you cannot heal, Fawkes." He muttered.
The bird looked curiously at his master, almost reproachful, before taking to the air again and returning to his post. For some reason Severus could not explain, he almost mourned the loss of that reassuring weight on his left leg. Still not taking his eyes from the slowly flickering fire, he voiced what had been worrying him since his return home.
"I'm afraid… I do not know what to do next." He admitted softly.
"My boy, we can help you. If you are willing to help us." Albus answered, "Your mother would have wanted this."
Silently, Severus nodded. "Yes, for her."
The world around her began to ripple as Hermione Granger exited the pensieve memory, finding herself again in the Headmaster's office. She looked up into the blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore, wiping the tears from her sixteen-year-old eyes. Cerulean blue met cinnamon brown.
"I don't understand why you have shown me this, sir." She muttered.
"Miss Granger, there comes a time in everyone's life when we must do something that breaks our hearts. Something that sets us apart from our peers, and the very people we care for the most. Depending on the situation, oftentimes this 'something' cannot be avoided, but must be done in order to preserve those very people."
Hermione stared at him, still utterly confused.
"Miss Granger, that time, that 'something' is steadily approaching for Professor Snape." Albus said softly. "No, do not ask me. I cannot tell you what may or may not happen, but I do ask that in the event that I am no longer available after this war, I ask that you merely direct the proper persons to this pensieve. You see, my dear, there are many more memories than the one you have just viewed in those shimmering depths that will explain a great deal to a great many people, and perhaps change the lives of a few select ones." The customary twinkle returned as soon as Hermione voiced her next question.
"But sir, why have you shown this to me, surely Harry would---"
"It is all quite simple, Miss Granger. A mind such as yours can separate emotion from vision, in order to find reason. Harry, while an excellent young man, is haunted by several emotions at the present, which would indeed conflict with what I have asked you to do. In fact, I must request you not share this information with anyone, including Harry, Ron, and especially Professor Snape." Albus looked at her sternly over his half-moon spectacles.
"Of course sir, but if I am not to say anything, how will I know--?"
"My dear," Albus sighed heavily, "I regret that when the time comes you will know. Without a doubt, you will know. And at that time, I ask that you direct Professor Minerva McGonagall to show the memories collected in that pensieve to the Minister of Magic, and the Head Of Magical Law Enforcement, along with whomever is heading up the Wizengamot… in the event, of course, that I am not here to do it myself." He smiled benignly at her, and she relaxed visibly, "I will be adding this encounter to the pensieve in order to prove that I indeed did request that you do so."
"Yes, sir." Knowing a sign of dismissal when she heard one, Hermione rose to leave.
"Miss Granger?" Albus called as she reached the door. Hermione turned to face him. "Thank you."
She nodded, smiling slightly, confusion in her assigned task still evident, but he had no doubt she would rise to the occasion. Albus stared into the flames of his fireplace as he heard the door close quietly behind her, humming a slow, melancholy tune softly to himself.