Chapter 9: Evil Angel
{"I'm a believer...Nothing could be worse...All these imaginary friends...Hiding betrayal...Driving the nail...Hoping to find a savior...No, don't...Leave me to die here...Help me survive here...Alone, don't...Surrender...surrender...Oh...Fly over me evil angel...Why can't I breathe evil angel?"} Evil Angel, Breaking Benjamin
My Thanks to all my readers and reviewers Enjoy-S.S.
One by one the images came an endless sea of motion and darkness until he was thrown upon the hearth outside Godric's Hollow on the night of October 31st 1981. The day that Lily and James Potter met their tragic end and Harry Potter's legacy began. Godric's Hollow had the haunted feel about it the second Snape stepped foot on the property. His heart had been pounding in his chest wildly as fear coursed through him. He had not known what to expect when he ventured into the open door down the long hall passed the lifeless corpse of one James Potter. The man seemed to look up at him, with dead eyes and an expression twisted in agony. Snape had not truly known how to feel about his apparent gruesome death, for years he had wished for nothing but this for the arrogant Gryffindor prat who use to strut around Hogwarts as if he owned it.
Looking down briefly at James as he passed the long hall a march that seemed endless due to the overwhelming emotion bombarding him at once, Snape saw not the boy whom had caused him nothing but grief and stolen the only light in his otherwise dismal world but a man. A man who had died trying in vain to protect his young family. A father whom had only a few precious moments with his infant son before their time had been cut short. Despite their dark history, Snape could only feel sadness for the fallen James Potter as he passed him and ventured on.
{ Softly...slowly...Snape crept through the hall not knowing whom or what would be awaiting him once he reached his destination. The storm of emotions continued to clash inside him as his logical mind battled brutally against his hopeful heart. She can't be. She is. She isn't. There is nothing you could do. No you lie. She's gone. NO THAT CAN'T BE. But it is you know that it is. No! I don't believe you. I can't.
Snape continued to make his way down the hall until he came to an opened door filled with the cooing sound of a baby. The boy was alive. Her son had lived? He didn't know how it was possible. His obsidian eyes took in the sight of the room's chaotic appearance. Signs of struggle had been all around. There had been no sign of the dark lord. Perhaps he had been defeated? Snape ventured further inside scanning the chaos until his found her.
Lying on the floor near the boy in his crib was Lily Potter, her strawberry red hair a tangled mess in the wake of her battle with the dark lord and her emerald eyes opened in a lifeless glare. Her face twisted in agony as if to be a testament to the final fight of her life when she stood up against her husband's murderer to protect her infant son.
All at once the raging storm that had been brewing inside hit it's most catastrophic point and Snape fell to his knees as the agony hit him. wave after wave of intense pain more potent than any hex or curse coursed through him. His veins hot with his boiling blood and his heart heavy with sorrow.
"LILY!" was the only word that escaped him before the weight of regret set in.
Snape collapsed onto the floor as the pain continued to make itself known. He crawled to her lifting her lifeless form and pulling it close to him. The images of the girl with Strawberry red hair and sad emerald green eyes from that day at the tree came back to him. Her innocent kiss on his cheek before she grabbed his had. The day in the cave when she took away the pain with one request came back as well. He could hear her sweet voice like music in his ears.
"Come on Sev." she had said sweetly.
"I love you too, Sev." echoed in his mind.
"NO!" he shouted scaring the small boy in the crib behind him. "NO!"
Baby Harry James Potter burst into tears hearing the booming rage in the voice of Severus Snape. The legendary scar marking his forehead and shaping his destiny had been visible in the dim light.
Snape held Lilly to him, her head resting against his chest while his heart beat thunderously. The tears coming down his sallow pale cheeks in rivers. How he wished he could rip it from it's cage and give it to her so that her beautiful life could be restored. As if spurred by shock Snape got up off the floor and carried the lifeless form of Lily Potter into her bedroom still clinging to her tightly. Without a word he wandlessly pulled back the covers on her bed and layed her down softly as if she could still feel. The distraught wizard pulled the covers over her leaving her beautiful face exposed.
He closed her emerald eyes and stepped away. If one had not known any better they would have remarked that she was simply sleeping peacefully. He ventured into the kitchen still unable to shake his shocked state and found a bottle of milk. Apparently Lily and James were about to fed young Potter before the dark lord arrived.
Snape took the bottle into his trembling pale hand and ventured back into Harry's room. The small boy looked at him with his mother's emerald green eyes, a reflection of innocence passed in them that Snape did not dare take in. He knew who and what he was. He had chosen this. He turned to the darkness when she walked away and let it consume him. The light in the small boys eyes was not meant for him.
The dark wizard steeled himself as he approached the crib erring on the side of caution. Much to his surprise, baby Harry had not been afraid of him. He simply looked tired. One couldn't blame him after the night he was having. Both of his parents murdered one after the other. His own mother slain right before his innocent eyes.
Snape felt for the boy. One could only imagine the uphill battle he was going to have to face when he was old enough to understand what had happened here this day. As if in sorrowful kinship Snape fed baby Harry his bottle and watched over the boy as he fell asleep. The dark wizard made his way back into the Potter's bedroom and stood quietly in the dark, unwilling to leave Lily's side until someone came that could care for them all.
Feeding baby Harry was to be the dark wizard's last act of kindness. The only thing left that he could do for his deceased friend. Morbid thoughts clouded his mind as he decided that he would not be long for this world. His heart of darkness shattered to pieces leaving the innocent boy he once was stained with the blood from it's fragments.
With a crack of thunder, Albus Dumbledore arrived at Godric's Hollow. The blue eyed wizard had not known what to expect as he ventured into the open door, passed the body of his former student and fellow Gryffindor James Potter. He continued down the narrow hall of scattered personal items and parchments and peeked into the opened door of a room decorated with baby blue and innocent things. His blue eyes twinkled when he saw baby Harry Potter tucked peacefully beneath his baby blanket fast asleep with a new scar upon his small forehead.
The old wizard gave the boy a sad smile as he watched his tiny torso rise and fall as he breathed. This was Albus Dumbledore's first image of baby Harry Potter, The boy who lived. Turning away from the crib The Headmaster of Hogwarts ventured further into the house coming to the bedroom of James and Lily Potter. He cautiously stepped inside raising his wand. His blue eyes took in the sight of what appeared to be a sleeping Lily Potter, but the old wizard knew better. She had been dead just as James had been. A beautiful young girl in her own right and bright for her age. She had been a fellow Gryffindor as well.
With a sigh Dumbledore turned his attention to the faint breathing in the darkness.
"You can come out Severus." he said.
"Have you come to kill me?" asked Snape in an emotionless tone.
"No." replied Dumbledore.
"Then there is nothing that you can do for me." replied Snape still in the emotionless tone.
"Severus." said Dumbledore softly. "Let me help you."
"Why?" asked Snape. "No one's ever wanted to help me before."
"I have use for a man like you." said Dumbledore.
"I do not wish to be of use." replied Snape. "And I am far beyond your foolish notions of redemption old man."
"Severus there is still good in you." said Dumbledore.
"The good in me left when Lily took her last breath." replied Snape. "Soon I will be hunted down and wrangled up with the rest of my brothers...because of my rank within the dark lord's army they will want my death...a fitting end to a life well spent wouldn't you say Headmaster?"
"Severus don't be a fool." said Dumbledore still trying to salvage him.
"Funny." said Snape still emotionless. "How can I not be what I was from the moment of my birth?"
With that Snape walked out the door leaving Dumbledore alone to deal with the newly orphaned baby Harry Potter. }
Snape's Room, Dumbledore Manor, Wizarding World...
The screams had been worse than before. Aberforth held Snape down on one side and Albus held him down on the other. The Potions Master had been burning up as the sweat came off him in streams. Hermione tried her best to wipe him down with a cool towel but it was to no avail. He jerked and kicked as the older wizards so no other alternative but to bind him to the bed.
"What the bloody hell his wrong with him?" asked Aberforth gruffly.
"I think he's having a nightmare." said Hermione.
"Or reliving one." added Dumbledore.
"What do you mean Headmaster?" asked Hermione.
Before he could answer Snape bit down hard on his lips causing it to bleed a great deal.
"Stop him." ordered Aberforth. "He's out of control."
"He's not responding." said Albus. "Perhaps I lack the proper method to soothe him."
"Let's douse the boy with a water spell." said Aberforth. "That'll take some zing out of this here fever."
"Absolutly not." said Hermione outraged. "You'll send him into shock."
"Better shock than this." retorted Aberforth gruffly. "Bloody boy's gone crazy and the fever will kill him if it's not brought down."
"Perhaps there is a middle ground." replied Albus. "What if we douse him with a water spell and Miss Granger ease him through the effects?"
"That just might work Headmaster." said Hermione considering it.
Aberforth grunted in annoyance.
"You do what you want." he replied. "I'm going to start on supper."
The gruff wizard made his way out of the room leaving Albus and Hermione to their work. The Headmaster blasted Snape with a water charm and Hermione dried him soothing him with her words in the process. When they finished they had brought his fever down enough to let it break on it's own. Albus left Snape to Hermione's care and went to talk some sense into Aberforth, like it would do any good.
"Professor." she said softly in his ear. "Can you hear me?"
Snape grunted much like Aberforth.
Hermione stroked his sallow pale cheek.
"You are a good man." she said softly as if she could see into his mind's eye.
Snape let out a familiar soft moan in reaction to her touch. The bushy haired witch sigh and cast a drying spell on him and the bed before she climbed in beside him. She told herself that she would just sit with him until she wall called for dinner. The young witch absently traced the scars on his exposed torso with her soft hand. It was clear that Snape had been through a great deal of hardship over the course of his life. He had the battle scars to prove it, but there were other scars. Scars that couldn't be seen on in the view of his pale flesh. And if these dreams were any indication, they were starting to bleed all over again.