I OWN NOTHING (sadly)... warning child abuse...
Severus didn't know how long he walked in the rain. His throat was scratchy and harsh from his uncontrollable screaming and sobbing. His clothes were irreversibly drowned. His black hair was clinging to his sickly pale face. His lips were turning an unhealthy blue and the chattering of teeth began to harmonize the pounding rain.
He stopped walking once he began to lose feelings in his fingers and toes. Looking around realizing he made it to Hogsmeade. He looked unimpressed at the shops around him, never being here before. Lily never asked him and though he wished she would, he felt subconsciously she was beginning to push him away. He felt it by the way she slowly lessened her protection on him. Lessen their contact in public. He denied it but he lost the fiery red months ago.
He would have felt anguish at this revelation, but now all he felt was numbness. He was shivering as he walked into Three Broomsticks. Shivering as if some invisible forces were violently shaking his drenched figure. The owner looked at him in distaste not hiding her disgust as the shivering teen with running tears and snots asked for the nearest chimney to make it home. She huffed in superiority and pointed towards the unused chimney hidden behind tables. Some other customers looked at the soaked boy and owl with the same distaste. He felt the emotion of unbearable loneliness and abandoned swell in him.
No longer will his mother to offer her love. Look at him with pride. Acknowledge his pain.
He was alone.
The school, Dumbledore, and the teachers abandoned him. His torment ignored with twinkling eyes. Lily abandoned him. Brilliant green eyes shunning him.
Now his mother. The only person Severus could count on to protect him. To heal him after his father's wounds. To love him for whom he is. To make him know he was worthy. Was gone.
The owl trying to comfort his unpleasant frame would soon be gone. He would be alone.
Everything abandoned him.
With that thought he staggered and tripped over his wet robes. Receiving no help but a snicker, he stood slowly. His face lifeless as he walked into the fireplace. The wet trail following his process causing the barmaid to huff in distaste. Lifting his powder which was now mush due to the rain he minutely wondered if that could possibly cause his death. The thought didn't feel him with fear as it would before but with giddiness at the prospect. He was somewhat scared at his own reaction but the anguish at knowing he would never see love in another's eyes as his mother did obviated any musing on his response.
Dropping the mushy powder limply he called in a rough voice, "Spinners Edge"
The village looked like Severus felt. Cold, dark and deserted. The houses stood threateningly and quiet. The only sound in the deserted street was the continuous patting of rain hitting the ground. Severus walked down the dark street barley lit by the muggle streetlights.
The small cloaked figure and grey bird were almost hidden in the background. He welcomed the bitter cold as the rain poured over his body allowing his tears to go unnoticed by the earth.
Unseen like Severus Snape.
The walk felt shorter than he would have liked because soon he stood in front of his father's house.
Run down and quivering in the rain, it looked menacing as it welcomed the lamb going to the slaughter. The fence was broken and the dying grass that surrounded the home was nothing more but mud. No lights were to be seen through the broken windows.
If Severus didn't live here he would have thought it was an abandoned like himself.
He would have been content to stand in the rain until it washed him down the drain but the disturbing shaking from his owl made him continue.
He walked slowly towards the large and dreadful looking black doors. Knocking softly he was disappointed his drunkard father heard the shy sound.
The door was wretched open violently showing the face of his obviously now drunk father.
The man was everything he despised.
He was huge, his figure overpowering even Severus impressive height. His beer belly was poking through unwashed underwear and a stained tank top. His hairy arm clutching the doorframe like he was trying to hold himself back from attacking his son.
Wouldn't want the other muggles to see his 'disciplinary actions'.
His greasy beard and hair were long, curly, and black with hints of gray. The foul features on his face twisted in familiar detestation did not deterred Severus. But when he made eye contact, Severus feel the uncomfortable emotion of fear crawl over him.
The beetle black eyes that were the only traits they shared, showed undisguised hate and disgust with promise of pain. Severus once longed for this man to love him. To have eyes that shine with pride at his only child. To care and protect him like a father was supposed to.
After receiving his first black eye from the man's hairy fist, he learned to not waste time for such foolish wishing on such an abomination. The threatening glare from the disturbingly similar eyes made Severus shiver in fear.
This man who seduced his mother was why Severus held mixed emotions about returning home every year. He loved his mother more than anything but reviled his father with a burning passion that filled every pore with fire. He only came home to turn his father's attacks away from his mother and on him.
His mother was never a beauty in the conventional but she was beautiful to Severus. Their Romanesque noise was dignified, as she would say after he returned home first year crying about being bullied for having a 'hook noise'. She had sharp features that Severus felt made her look respectable and sophisticated. And whenever she smiled at him with eyes that showed love or laughed at his sarcastic commentary of school she would lighten up. Her sharp feature looked almost otherworldly. She was to him the most beautiful woman alive. He loved her deeply and never blamed her for staying with his alcoholic muggle father.
He knew she only stayed due to fear. Fear that cause her smiles to weaken, her hair to be dull black strands, her features to be painfully pointy, her laugh to become forced, and her light to diminish. It was a rare occurrence to see her truly happy. To have her chocolate brown eyes to shine with joy. But the love in her eyes never changed when she looked at her son. She never stopped loving but as his father's beating became regular and escalated from anger at work or feeling inferiority at living with wizards while being muggle, she stopped living.
But recently mixed with her fear was guilt. He could tell every time she fixed his wounds or cleaned the blood. Guilt for allowing this. Guilt for causing her son pain. Guilt for allowing the fear to overcome her strength.
Every time he saw her guilt he hugged her and whispered words of love and forgiveness. He would feel her shake with tears hugging him murmuring desperate words of love and apologies. He remembered the last time he saw her. His father had been furious when returning home having been laid off another job due to drinking and before he could strike his wife Severus purposely broke a dish causing his violent rage to be directed towards him.
Severus was lying down when his father finished and left to go out and drink more. His mother was silently fixing his bones with his wand, as his father snapped her's in half.
He remember that day vividly, his father rage was frightening to behold. He raged and blamed his 'freak' of wife for his misfortunes. Severus remembered watching with tangible fear as the drunken muggle snatched his mother's wand. He remember hearing the desperate pleading and manic apology from his broken mother. He remember seeing her eyes go lifeless at the snap. The sound so painfully loud that it muted his hammering beating heart. The look of absolute hopelessness on his mother's face. That was the first time he wished death on his father.
He was eight.
Since then, each bruise that painted his mother's flesh each fist that he received, Severus fantasy for the muggles death increased. The fantasies were welcomed with a perverse and sadistic appreciative anticipation. It was the first time he plan his father death. It was the last time he regarded the muggle as his blood relative.
However the day he last saw his mother, she looked at him with a fire he long forgotten and whispered with strength he didn't know she possessed, "I'm sorry Severus."
He remembered feeling her bony hands grasp his equally skinny ones with a strong grip, "I will get us out before the end of the year" He only nodded and smiled faintly forgetting the words while slipping into blissful unconscious.
He whimpered. Did she die trying to save me?
His father barked nastily at the action and gripped the shaking and cowering boy by the shoulders forcing him inside the run down and battered house. The first punch brought Severus out of his questions. As the familiar tingle of pain crept in he stared in his father in fear. The fist became harsher and more painful than before. He felt something stronger hit him across the cheeks causing his jaw to become dislocated. As blood rained down freely so did his father confession.
"Your witch bitch of a mother thought she could leave!" The muggle's breathing laborious from exhaustion.
Severus saw through hooded eyes his father holding a muggle bat. "I saw her. Walking out the door. She said she's going to go. Not going to let me hurt her and her son!" The swings escalated.
Severus cried freely. The pain was too much. He felt emotionally and physically beaten. The fear, covering him like a quilt smothered him.
It tasted like blood.
He chuckled realizing it was his own.
"I told that bitch she couldn't leave! Who would take her and her disgusting son!?" He gave a dark chuckle looking down at Severus' crumpled form. "She called me muggle and tried to cut me with a knife!" Severus could picture his mother. Trying to overcome fear, hands shaking looking at this monster.
"She tried to take my shit! I paid for all of it! My money spent on that ungrateful bitch!" He began the assault again. Severus could feel his vision blurred. He felt fear burn his throat, he was gagging on it. The copper taste tainting his mouth. He wheezed out a laugh remembering it was his blood.
"So I took her scrawny neck and squeezed" The man barked out a sadistic laugh but then shouted.
Severus was lifted out of his fear as he saw the owl clawing the man. Moving as fast as it could to protect the form lying lifelessly on the floor. He almost smiled at the bird's action but he felt something inside him snapped as his father grabbed the bat and swung.
He watched as the bird slowly fell from the impact of the bat. The last one to love him, gone.
Rage.
Rage was all Severus felt inside him. Sizzling his pain until all he could understand was rage. The scorching hate charred his fear. A brief flash of sanity crossed his mind. If he would die, so would this murderer.
He choked out his final insult, "M-muggle" He cackled as his father looked away from the broken bird to murderously glare at his son. He raised the bat aiming at the boy's head.
He embraced hate as he shakily grasped his wand. He felt fear for the last time raised his wand and chanted a lasting spell. Rage burned his soul as the last thing he saw before slipping blissfully unconscious was his father's twisted face in horror.
Across the street a muggle family called the police to report a strange green light shining out their neighbor's house.
NEXT CHAPTER: what happens next to our bamfing severus snape?