Chapter 50: When The Guilty Lie In Loathe

{A/N: Here's another update...Had to get rid of my cat, Severus, for those of you who do not remember...he inspired the animagus chapter of this tale...due to a slum lord's nonsense, needless to say I am not in a very pleasant mood...}

My Thanks To All My Readers And Reviewers Enjoy-S.S.

{"I know I hate you...I can't escape you...You bring me emptiness...and nothing I've become...I can't resist it...I wouldn't miss it...It's finally coming out the darkness and the cold...You can't break me...taking hold...of it all...I've finally gone straight down...I can't deny it... I lie in loathe..."}Loathe, Rev Theory

Unknown Location, Unknown World...

The obsidian eyes of Severus Snape opened to find him surrounded in the abyss. The Potions Master had no expression nor any sign of alarm at his current surroundings that filed across his pale face. Snape was as indifferent to his hellish situation as always. He knew all too well, the darkness that had lurked inside of him. It did little to make him wish for things that any normal man had been accustomed to, such as the pleasures of a woman, the feel of coming home to a house full of loving family members, he didn't need the illusions as pleasant as they were. Those were for wizards like Arthur Weasley who's life had been complete with his house full of red haired children all close and loving in their displays of affection for each other. Severus knew from an early age that he was not that sort of wizard. His time with the death eaters and in service to both Voldemort and Albus Dumbledore proved that he was more or less in the other class of wizards. A class like his father should have been in the "Do not attempt to approach for anything aside from meaningless sex class."

"You are awfully quite, Severus." said a familiar voice in the depths of the abyss. "Are you by any chance overwhelmed by the sense of hopelessness and shock for your inevitable doom."

Snape arched an eyebrow at this though he had not been in the least impressed by whatever this was.

"Is there a point to this endless drivel?" he asked in an emotionless tone.

Whatever had been wrapped in the darkest reaches of the abyss hissed enraged at his insolence.

"INSOLENT LITTLE HALF BLOOD FREAK!" shouted the angry entity.

Snape rolled his eyes realizing just whom the voice belonged.

"Hello Tobias." he said with a noted lack of surprise.

From the shadows stepped the figured known as "Tobias Snape" with a fixated glare of outright hatred.

He looked every much the same as a formerly six year old Severus remembered him being when he witnessed the ferocious man slap his mother across her pale face sending her falling onto the cold kitchen floor because she wasn't moving fast enough to hand him his umpteenth beer...then he hit her again when she didn't grab the coldest one he had specified when he sent her to retrieve it.

Tobias was a tall man, his build had been all together impressive and he had what one would describe as "rugged good looks." The potions Master had been of similar height, though he took more after his mother in terms of looks. Her sallow pale flesh and raven hair had been inherited by him not to mention the obsidian eyes that many a woman thought to get themselves lost in when he took them to bed. Tobias Snape's hair had been lengthy much like his son's but neatly kept.

Snape smirked as he watched Tobias with renewed interest. It had been years since he had seen the brute face to face, the last time being when he effectively ended his life. Even with Matthias admitting that he had cured Tobias and turned him into the subsequent heartless brute that beat his wife and son on many drunken nights, this image of Tobias was all that Severus had ever known and therefore the subject of immense hatred.

They shared the same coldness and volatile temperament.

Despite Snape's best efforts to quell the darker parts of himself, it was clear he had indeed inherited his father's curse.

"Shouldn't you be rotting in hell somewhere old man?" asked Severus as a surge of rage filled him at last.

Tobias smirked.

"Funny." he said amused. "I should be asking the same of you."

"I was rejected." said Snape almost bitterly. "Of course that still doesn't explain you."

"To be rejected from hell is quite the feat." said Tobias with a begrudging fondness. "You are even a freak among monsters and demons."

"To each his own." replied Snape with less emotion that the initial spark at seeing his so called father again. "Of course I had know for years why you found it necessary to resent your own son...your inadequacies...do little to impress...is that why you were so fond of hitting my mother?"

"Shut up!" shouted Tobias enraged. "You will show me some respect you little shit."

"Is that suppose to be intimidating?" asked Snape in an emotionless tone. "I've been more terrified paroling the corridors of Hogwarts during off term hours with only Albus and Minerva attending the castle."

Tobias arched an eyebrow at this. Snape saw briefly where he had gotten the gesture.

With a wave of his hand the enraged elder Snape brought his unruly son to his knees. Snape rolled his eyes feeling pain shoot through his battered form. He still had been unimpressed by the gesture having endured much worse under the command of the dark lord.

"Are you quite finished?" he asked in a bored tone. "You're going to have to do better than that Mud-born."

The enraged Tobias smirked rather suddenly.

"Well it appears you do have something of a spine." he said sounding impressed. "Too bad it won't do you any good."

"He's right you know S-S-Severus-s-s." hissed a familiar voice in the abyss.

Severus Snape's obsidian eyes widened as a familiar coldness washed over him.

"Kura ans...Bana ans...snart ans..." hissed the same voice in parseltongue.

"Bana ans..." hissed Snape in reply.

"Solutis doloribus!" came the words that made Snape collapse onto his back.

The Potions Master glared up at the snake faced man with red glowing eyes.

"Bana ans..." hissed Snape in Parseltongue. "Snart ans...snart ans hesleuf..."

The Potions Master found himself losing consciousness as the abyss engulfed him in it's darkened fury.

Elsewhere...

Hermione had a sense of urgency come over her as she and her two companions made their way through the constructed memories of Spinner's End. They narrowly avoided Tobias Snape and his drunken rampage. The bushy haired witch could only imagine what it must have been like for Severus growing up. Living in constant fear of that brute and being poverty stricken.

She knew she had to find a way to reach him. Everything he had been holding in since he was a small child was obviously unhealthy.

"Which way did he go?" she asked the ten year old version of her lover.

"Hogwarts." replied the boy.

Hermione arched an eyebrow at the boy much like he had her upon their first meeting.

"Well let's go." she said staring at the looming castle in the far off distance.

"He can't go there." said Teen Snape with a bored expression on his face.

"What do you mean?" asked Hermione.

"Well think about it love, he's ten." replied Teen Snape.

Hermione looked at Ten year old Snape and then suddenly remembered why he couldn't join them. Hogwarts letters went out on a witch or wizard's eleventh birthday. Ten Year old Snape was just a year shy of Hogwarts.

"I'm sorry, I forgot." she said turning her attention to the child version of her lover.

Ten Year Old Snape simply smiled.

"You go on." he said. "I'll be okay."

"What about..." started Hermione.

"I can take care of myself." he replied. "Besides your the one who's out of sorts here."

Teen Snape folded his arms across his ebony clad chest.

"He does have a point you know." he added.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"When I find my Severus...we'll come back for you." she said.

Ten Year Old Snape nodded absently. He did not seem to like the idea of being left behind with Tobias Snape and all the pain of her Severus' childhood. Yet he knew there was no other choice.

Hermione kissed the boy on his pale cheek and ventured toward Hogwarts Teen Snape in tow. It had not escaped her notice how literal her lover had been even in the wake of his own memories.

In The Abyss...

Snape opened his eyes to find that he had been transported to what he knew to be his former cell back at Azkaban. The familiar sensation of cold iron digging tightly into the flesh of his wrists had been the first thing he noted. The second had been the sting of his usual beating at the hands of the guards. They had been particularly nasty this time around, mostly due to it being reminiscent of his first few days imprisoned. The murder of Albus Dumbledore had still been fresh in everyone's minds and he was undesirable number one.

The empty gray cell was his home for more than five years. All thinks to the efforts of Harry James Potter.

The crimson of his blood stained the otherwise lack-luster gray stone floor. The Potions Master's thoughts turned to a certain bushy haired witch. He could not figure out why she had been the only one who had believed him to be innocent. Even when Potter made it his business to ambush him on the battle field, she had been there stopping the arrogant prat before he killed him.

The mud from that day still clung to his pale flesh.

He had long sense become numb to the various aspects of pain inflicted upon him. Wither it had been beatings or curses, Severus felt none of it as much as his tormentors had wanted him to. The perks of being loathed and abused since birth most likely. What he had with Hermione on the other hand had been quite the opposite. She was one of the few people that had not tried to cause any sort of anguish be it mental or physical. The others had been the Malfoys Lucius and Narcissa. Rare gems in a world that seemed to hate the pale wizard from the moment he took his first breath.

He wondered what she had been up to. He could sense her presence more strongly than he use to. It was common knowledge that she was constantly worried about him. Her protective nature had been in place during his imprisonment though she could do little about his treatment.

"Hermione." he said as his thought became more focused on the bushy haired witch with whom he shared a bed.

He had no idea that she was well on her way to rescue him and cure him of whatever this was that was eating away at him.