Chapter 6: Decent Into Darkness

{A/N: I did say this story was dark.}

{"...The Tears Are Filling Up Their Glasses...No expression...No Expression...Hide My Head I Wanna Drown My Sorrow...No Tomorrow...No Tomorrow...And I Find It Kind Of Funny...I Find It Kind Of Sad...The Dreams In Which I'm Dying Are The Best I've Ever Had...I Find It Hard To Tell You I Find It Hard To Take...People Run In Circles It's A Very...Very...Mad World...Mad World..."} Mad World, Adam Lambert

My Thanks to all my readers and reviewers Enjoy-S.S.

Snape's Room, Dumbledore, Manor, Wizarding World...

More silent tears streamed down the cheeks of a sleeping Severus Snape. The pain from his memories bubbling to the surface and boiling over from the darkest trenches of his mind. The rampant illness preventing his usual self-control from pushing them back into the abyss. He had been so far away from the old manor that smelled of old wood and leather. The dust and spiderwebs that decorated the aged place had no visual effect and the bushy haired witch that spent most of her time watching over him was no where to be seen. He could feel himself slipping slowly as if cast adrift in the wake of a storm. The tightness in his chest evident as the long repressed emotion struggled to break free. He could see the obsidian eyes of his long suffering mother as she lay on the hardwood floor. Her simple gray cotton dress with little blue flowers sticking to her pale skin sticky with red blotches and damaged from little slits. Those eyes would haunt him in such a way that he would never again dare to look into the mirror another day in his life. The rancid taste of bile rose in the back of his throat as his own dark eyes took in the sight of the crimson pool that lined her pale form. Her messy raven hair askew from the usual ponytail she pulled it back into whenever she started working about the house.

{The lean form of Severus Sebastian Snape approached Spinner's End. The rancid air with his green smog had turned his stomach as soon as he ventured passed the swill spewing river. The rundown old mill had been in the distance very much the eyesore it always was as he shuffled along. His father's old worn trousers nearly a much better fit with the exception of the looseness as he walked. His odd pale feet covered in old worn dress shoes that had long since lost their shine.

The heavy long sleeve shirt that had not been truly white since the day it was stitched had been draped over his thin torso yet another hand-me down from his father's old attire. The sleeves hung off his small arms as he ventured ever closer to the house that had filled him with dread from the moment he was aware of the toxic drama within. The only reason he had ever bothered to venture back was to see her. He had not cared that she had looked just as tired and rundown as he, not that her hair had been split raven strands pulled lazily into a ponytail

Sadly he had not known just how toxic his environment had been until that particular day. Severus Snape aged 16 years had been a student of Hogwarts for some time and despite his misadventures there, he had much preferred the looming walls of the castle than this rancid place. He made his way up the three steps into the small porch with its paint peeled boards.

The stench had hit him even before he opened the door. A sickeningly sweet smell of rot and decay. The young wizard had not known that it would be the only scent that would repulse him to such a degree that nothing else would ever come close. A sudden coldness washed over him as he entered the house. It had been dark and quiet. Such an unusual thing when his mother made it a point to always open the doors and clean until she scrubbed away the bad memories of the night before.

The scent of firewhiskey hit him as he stepped further into the house. The sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach seemed overwhelming as he continued to make his way toward the kitchen. She had always been there. It was the most common spot to find her. If there was anything that he could say in the way of admiration for the woman he called mother it was that she did not hide. Even when things seemed at their worst, she did not run and refused to be driven by fear.

He must have gotten some of that blind determination from her. It was the only place that his own enduring nature could have sprung. He pushed open the door and finding a small dim light that had still been aglow. The sticky crimson announced the truth before he could even see that from whence it came. A motionless form over by the counter. Severus ventured closer as the unseemly mount of rotted flesh came into view. The haunting look in the eyes of his long suffering mother as she lay there lifeless on the floor she had scrubbed many countless times in her late life.

"M-Mother." said Severus in a nearly inaudible whisper.

The only person in the world who he had given a damn about from the moment of his birth lay dead at his feet. Her blood pooled around her and her face twisted not in horror or anguish...but relief...so sweet he could almost swear that she had been smiling. The heart of an innocent 16 year old boy suffered it's first break. He had been so busy staring at her lifeless form that he had barely felt it shatter.

Taking in the sight he knew at last what had happened.

Tobias had finally made good on his promise.

He didn't need to have been there to know that when he came for her, she had not run. She stood there weathering the blows and when the small flicker of defiance had been too much for his bruised little ego, he went for a knife to reestablish just how strong he was. Multiple lacerations had been across her chest. Her cotton dress in shreds and stained with blood.

"Mother." said Severus a voice as soft as when he had been a child.

The only pleasant memories of her from a time when he was too little to know the truth about the life he had been born into. Severus backed away from her. Away from the blood. Away from the death. He huddled his thin frame into the darkest corner of the house letting the clear streams freely down his pale sallow cheeks. The world went on ignoring the sorrowful sobs of the mother-less boy.}

"Professor." said the voice of Hermione Granger. "Professor It's going to be okay."

The bushy haired witch's amber eyes didn't leave the pale wizard as she watched him whimper and sob in his sleep. She had never known anyone's cry to sound so broken before. It tugged at the young witch's heart to hear such a sound from the bravest man in the entire wizarding world. Hermione let her soft fingers stroke his sweat covered forehead. Seeing him so weak and frail had only made her want to be nearer to him. His sobs hitting her ears made her want to hold him tight and never let him go.

When she had wondered just whom or what was the cause of his anguish the words fell from his pale lips with a forced breath.

"Mother."

Streams of tears had begun to fall from the cheeks of the young witch herself. She knew the tragic story of Eileen Prince and what became of her that fateful day. It was one thing to read about it in some old article preserved in old books but to have lived it, to be the one to find her even at the age of 16 must have been heartbreaking.

Unable to resist Hermione threw herself across the ailing Professor's chest half hugging the man as tears streamed down both their cheeks.

"I'm so sorry Professor." she said softly. "You should never have had to deal with that on your own."

A soft moan escaped him at the instant of her touch and he began to settle back down into an easy sleep. Hermione curled up in bed beside him letting him know that he had not been alone. The beating of the dour wizard's heart as well as her own the only sound in contrast to their breathing. Half asleep the young witch reached out and grabbed his pale clammy hand providing a warmth that he had never before experienced.

"Everything is going to be okay Professor." she said softly. "I'll stay so you won't be alone."

Within half an hour Hermione fell asleep. Her soft breathing a soothing sound if ever he heard one.

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