By Autumnmist
He laughed derisively, "One of the finest wizarding minds of the century, going to waste. You cannot begin to understand what it feels like, looking at the people surrounding you and knowing that you might as well live on another planet - so different from you that they cannot grasp your thoughts… Do you know what it's like to make love to someone knowing that when you wake up the next morning, you'll be alone again? Alone because you know in that too-brilliant mind of yours that your actions together never transcended past the purely physical plane of existence in their thick-headed skulls?"
He snorted with disdain, "They call me an arrogant cold-hearted bastard, and you know what, Hermione? I AM. I AM arrogant, because Merlin help me, another part of me dies every single night as I lie in bed realizing that no, my faith in the world has not been restored, and yes, I had to speak down to every farthing student throughout the day. It infuriates me beyond rational thought that I have to speak down to my students. Do you think I want to do that? Do you know that I fantasize? Not about women - because Merlin knows I gave up hope of finding someone long ago - but about simply teaching a class of appreciative, intelligent students who have the spark and the drive…the ambition to learn, and learn? But no, most of the halfway-decent students I have taught were too scared to try - too scared that they might, Merlin forbid, overreach themselves."
"And yes, I am cold-hearted as well because guess what? After spending your youth and the last fifteen years of your life lonely, even you would be cold-hearted. When I am sitting in my rooms alone, I AM lonely, and too egotistical to lower myself and engage in a relationship that is physical," he laughed with a snide curl to his lip.
"I know what you are. I see what you have become and deep inside of you, there's that voice screaming and dying a little more every day. Haven't you ever felt the pull, the siren's call? You go to sleep every night with a silent cry of desperation. You live every day in naïve hope that someday you will find someone who can appreciate you - so that you can answer the call together. And every morning, you face the sun's harsh truth that this quest for knowledge for its own sake is futile and completely hopeless."
"I am telling you now. Give up. I know what I am capable of, what my mind is, and I absolutely adamantly refuse to offer any part of me - my mind, my body, or my emotions - to someone who is not capable of appreciating and accepting them for what they are. I know you feel the same. I am arrogant enough to want a companion who can match me thought for thought, action for action, and word for word in every respect. And I know you feel the same. I cannot, and I know you cannot, respect someone for anything less. And the tragedy of it all is that such a person Does-Not-Exist. That is why I joined. You will despair of finding that person. Then you will lose confidence in your quest. And that is when you will join too."
"Ah," she murmured sagely, "I think I understand."
I understand. More than you know, I understand why - why you joined the Death Eaters, why you are who you are. It is ironic isn't it, that you joined them for possibly the most pure reason in existence. Unsullied incandescence willingly stained by darkness. You understood, or at least you thought you did, what they stood for. You thought they ate Death, partook of it and embraced it, searching for the essence of life and purity knowledge in the absence of both. You joined because you sought confirmation; you wanted to know once and for all, whether life, the pure essence of it that you once believed in, existed. And you became one of them when you Saw that Death changed nothing because there was nothing to change. I see now, the bitterness, the hopelessness. Why live when everything a man should live for does not exist?
And comprehension shone in her eyes for one brief moment. Then they dulled and he watched with morbid fascination as another Great Mind succumbed to the pits of disillusionment.
So this is what Death looks like. Now I know. And to think - oh savage irony - that it did not require the taking of a single life. Just one mind, one soul, one ephemeral spark of pure beauty - the desire to learn and live and hope. Brilliance abandoned. And that, that is what a Death Eater does. Years after I abandoned their way, I find I still follow the true path day by day. The incongruity of it staggers me. I feast upon the dying of her mind, rejoicing and secure in knowing that now that she has seen the Truth of life, she has become one of us.
I'm sure I've copied ideas from every single SS/HG story I've read, so my apologies to any author whose stories I mangled. And of course, JKR owns both characters and Harry Potter and just about everything here.
The original idea for this came to me while I was rereading C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy (Black Sun Rising, When True Night Falls, Crown of Shadows). Gerald Tarrant reminded me of Snape; actually Tarrant has more weighing upon his soul than Snape in any fanfic I've read, but…Tarrant, the genius/prophet corrupted… . If anyone has read any of the books, I'd be interested in hearing what they think. It's hard to find other fans of the trilogy online. I wanted to pose a purely self-serving reason for Snape joining the Death Eaters - the quest for pure knowledge, much like Tarrant sacrificed his family and his faith for more time.
This is my second edit.