He couldn't deal with Draco right now. He couldn't deal with his pointy little face and inappropriate remarks. No he couldn't deal with him. He'd unceremoniously force-fed the boy a powerful sleeping potion just moments after they'd arrived so he could grieve in peace.
He'd come here on Dumbledore's orders. Dumbledore who was dying in front of him just a few hours ago, shaking with pain. Eaten alive from the inside, barely standing. Dumbledore who gave him no choice.
He cursed legillimens.
Albus'd showed him what he'd been up to. Showed him what he'd been drinking. Showed him a place he never thought he'd see again. 'Save the boy, save yourself, finish me. You promised. I want it to be you', he'd said without speaking.
'Damn you!' Snape shouted, throwing a dish against the wall. And he picked up and threw and threw and threw. He shouted over and over again, all the time thinking 'how could you, how could you'.
He stopped, slowed his breathing and brushed the hair off his face.
He let himself into the bathroom, turned on the water for the bath and stepped into the huge old tub fully dressed.
The cold jolted him. He waited, empty inside, as the water went up and over the rim of the tub before he turned it off. There was to be no magic from him for quite awhile. He tried half-heartedly to get his face out of the water to breathe.
Albus Dumbledore was dead. Everything was in place for the final showdown. He'd known they were getting to it as soon as Dumbledore had given him the Defence Against the Dark Arts job. That was pre-arranged. Making the other side believe he was making headway, helping ready the children for war at the same time. As much as he could, anyway. He was reasonably sure he had given them a fighting chance.
In the end he'd shown Harry Potter how little he really knew. He'd shown him what he should be studying like blocks and silent spells. He'd even left the little snot his old Potions book on purpose. The boy would begin to understand how weak he was, the boy would see how easily Snape could have snuffed out his pathetic little life.
With tiny little flicks of his wrist he showed the future savior of the wizarding world that he needed to leave his childhood behind and go to work. Potter was suitably enraged, he knew. Suitably blinded by his hatred for him. He would no doubt spend every waking moment training and studying and plotting with his friends. With the Order. With those ungrateful bastards who would jump to the wrong conclusions because they couldn't know. Because they didn't know. Because they never knew what Dumbledore had on him. Because he never let the man tell. Because they all had to stay just a tad suspicious. Because they were as jaded as he was.
He took a breath and let his body float. His ears were in the water and the buzz in his head was almost pleasant.
He should want to throw up; he was such a white hat, it was pathetic really… All of this for young Regulus who had made a predictable mistake and heroic last stance and willingly paid with his life. All of this for Lily who had tried to recruit him, who had seen something in him he hadn't even been aware was there. Who had let him touch her inflated belly to feel her child moving inside, to feel the life and the love and the possibilities. She'd said 'Severus, you know I'm right, and I know you're good' and she'd smiled, taking his hand. That was the last time he'd ever seen her.
He had unknowingly betrayed her a year later, but he had tried to have her spared. He should have known she wouldn't stand aside. Should have known she would give her life. And all for a boy who ended up having too much of his father in him, a boy who had no discipline, who was careless with himself, his friends, potions.
He couldn't bare it when he found out from that sniveling Wormtail that the Potter's were next. And Dumbledore took him in. Saw his mind and opened his door.
He had been loyal to a fault to his new master, he had resisted temptation even when there was so much of it he couldn't breath and now he would surely die for the cause, die a traitor like everyone was so quick to believe.
Albus chose to trust him above everyone else. He had chosen to give him the hardest jobs, the dirty jobs, the impossible jobs.
Well the impossible job. Singular. The one where he had to either kill his mentor or be killed by an unbreakable vow he made to protect his position. To protect Draco for Narcissa, who had once meant something to him. To see the look on that shrew Lestranges' face when he said 'I do'.
She would pay for this. They would all pay for this. The world had tumbled around him. Up was down and down was up and for what? They could have had more time if only he'd thrown Bellatrix out on her crazy behind that day. If only he'd told Dumbledore about what precisely had happened to Regulus Black. How he had refused to kill his own brother. How he sacrificed himself like a bloody Gryffindor when he saw the error of his ways. How he had disappeared before his inevitable torture and execution to go on a fool's errand, all because he had overheard impossible things about horcruxes and set out to find one. How he too had been eaten alive from the inside by a potion of Snape's own making as he stumbled into Malfoy Manor to face his sentence. Snape had covered his recognition of the potion he smelled on Black.
A complicated potion of immeasurable power, potency and durability. A potion with no antidote that had been one of the highlights of his many triumphs for the Dark side. He had stood back as his young friend had been tortured to death by a half dozen death-eaters. And then they all had lunch.
He guessed he shouldn't take this that hard. He was, after all, a complete git with questionable morals who held grudges against young students and who was and had always been a pawn, although a knowing and accepting one.
He opened his eyes. The bathroom was so bare to even him, so normal. A spider was weaving a web in the corner; birds had the nerve to chirp loudly outside his window. Tears fell silently into the bathwater.
He wondered what his mentor felt like behind the veil. He had no doubt the man was well received. He knew the man had regarded death as the greatest of adventures.
And he wondered if he would ever get out of this bath; if he could ever face Draco. He didn't know what to do with him. Who to be with him. How to speak to him. Draco, all nerves and shock, had laughed when they had gotten the portkey to the safe-house. Laughed and said 'old Dumbledore never saw that coming'.
How wrong he was. How wrong.
What would he do with the boy? What would he reveal? How long could they stay hidden?
He had orders, Snape had. He couldn't sink down to the bottom of the tub like he wanted. He couldn't let himself fall asleep and wither away. He was a weapon. He had a plan to execute, and as always he would obey. Because, as Bella had once crudely accused him, he was Dumbledore's bitch, wasn't he?
FIN-