Confessions of the Snapes:

1977...

Severus had no recollection of going down the stairs, but he knew that he must have because he was now standing in front of his snoring sire with clenched fists and the urge to Avada Kedavra him from here to next year riding the teenager hard.

But Severus was not a murderer and he had no wish to become one unless he absolutely had to. So he kept his wand pointed towards the floor and his teeth tightly clenched while he worked on calming himself a fraction or two. (Rage was fine. Murderous rage was not.)

While he'd been upstairs, healing his mother, his father had lost his loose grip on the whiskey bottle and it now lay on the floor, a stain spreading across the threadbare carpet that used to be beige but now hovered closer to brown from age. The small TV still flickered, casting shadows in the dim light of the corner lamp. Elehootay was perched on top of the TV, her fierce gaze glued to his father as if she knew that he was the one responsible for everything bad that had happened in this wretched house.

Severus got the impression that his owl would happily be pecking his father's eyes out and then feasting on his guts if he were already dead.

If he was, I probably would be cheering her on, he thought spitefully.

But his father was still breathing, unfortunately, too stubborn and fit to die of something as simple as overindulgence in alcohol. Tobias Snape might be a drunkard and missing half a leg, but he was still a soldier at heart and somehow managed to keep active enough to prevent a beer gut from settling on his tall and heavy frame. (Not to mention that he didn't generally drink the much cheaper beer. Oh no, only the finest whiskey from Scotland would do for the retired Major.)

"Elehootay, go," Severus tried not to growl at her with the vile emotions clogging up his throat. "Meet me at Hogwarts."

She tilted her head, hooted softly, and then reluctantly flew out of the room. Severus turned his focus back to the foul excuse for a human being slumped over on the ratty old couch.

Time to wake up, you fucking bastard.

With a flick of his new wand, Severus blew up the TV that he'd never been allowed to watch. It exploded with a very satisfying bang and a shower of sparks that produced the result he was looking for.

His father woke with a gargled scream, his eyes going wide with momentary terror as he searched the room for enemy fighters. All he found was Severus. "What the fuck you doing?" he rasped out, moving to stand up.

Severus vanished the ugly couch.

His father crashed to the floor.

"Why you little..." he sputtered.

"Silencio!"

His father's mouth sealed shut, lips looking glued together, and his pale blue eyes all but bugged out with fury. The enraged man moved to push himself off the carpet that was lighter in colour where the couch had protected it for as long as Severus could remember.

Another flick of his wand, and Severus had his father bound in rope from shoulders to ankles. A high pitched whine emerged from his throat, but that was all he could contribute towards protesting because of the silencing spell.

Severus smirked cruelly. One more flick of his wand accompanied by a, "Levicorpus!" and his father was hanging upside down in front of him. Due to the constraints of the relatively low ceiling, this meant that his father's head was now level with Severus' knees. Since that wouldn't do – Severus refused to lower himself in any way before this man again – he floated his whinging sire along behind him as he strode out of the living room and into the entrance hall that was two stories high.

He may have deliberately let his father's knees crash into the upper doorframe on the way through.

Once in the more open space, Severus directed his father's sausage tied form to float up high enough so that they were now at the same eye level. Black eyes locked on ice blue and glares of utter hatred were exchanged.

When I get out of this, that boy will have breathed his last, the elder Snape was thinking.

Severus showed his teeth in a way that could never be called a smile. "Oh. I think not. You're never laying a hand on me or my mum again, you gangrenous pustule on a troll's arse."

What?! How did he...

"Surprise, FATHER," Severus spat, lip curled maliciously. "I can read your mind."

"You can what?!" Severus had never seen those hate filled eyes wider in his life.

Severus laughed bitterly. "It's my own private curse; reading minds. I know what anyone who looks at me is thinking, what they're imagining, what memories they're reliving. Always could. And oh, how special you made me feel, really, to know how much you despised my very existance, so fuck you for that." Severus deliberately pushed the tip of his wand into the center of the other man's forehead, watching the eyes cross as they followed the movement. "And fuck you for proving that Muggles really shouldn't know anything about magic. You just can't handle it, can you? Can't handle knowing that I have more power in my little finger than you do in your entire body. So you had to prove to yourself over and over again that you were still the dominant one by beating me and Mum as often as you could."

"That's not..."

Severus snorted, lowering his wand again, not quite ready to end this truly fascinating and long overdue conversation. "Of course it was. Unless you really do believe in your gods and devils and such and you actually believe I'm an incarnation of Satan come to life as you've so elegantly put on more than one occasion." Severus waited, watching his father stew over that, his thoughts inconclusive. He pushed him for an answer. "So? Do you? Believe in God above? Heaven and Hell? Or is that just something that you've been trained to think?"

"I don't know. It certainly felt like there couldn't possibly be a God watching over us on the battlefields of the second World War, or the Korean War, or every smaller one in between, or protecting me from the bloody scratch I got on my leg in those fucking swamps of the fucking Malayan 'Emergency' that got infected and forced the doctor to cut it off and ended my career."

That was the first time Severus had heard about how his father had actually lost his left leg and he almost felt a hint of sympathy for him. Almost. "Be that as it may, I'll tell you what I believe."

This ought to be good. Fucking wizard voodoo or something.

Severus huffed in actual amusement before he continued in a low growl. "I believe that you ARE going to Hell, or someplace equally torturesome. I don't personally believe in God or Gods, being of a more scientific bent, but there are proven other realms of existence once you pass on from this one. If there is any justice in this world, when you die, you will go to the most unpleasant realm possible. Preferably one where they whip you until you have no skin left, throw your bleeding carcass in a fire, and then they start all over as soon as you rejuvenate, and so on into infinity."

His father made a slight whimpering sound of terror in the back of his throat, his mind blank except for, ironically, Oh God! Maybe because Severus had finally unleashed all of the suppressed anger, resentment, and pain he'd been holding in for years and years, making the power contained within him manifest to the extreme.

His hair and clothes whipped around his body in his own hurricane of magic, the walls shook, the front door slammed closed, the window shattered, and the dim foyer light flickered madly. And his obsidian eyes blazed with the flames of which he spoke even as the air around them dropped in temperature so quickly that frost formed on the walls and floor.

"I would relish doing that to you myself," Severus rumbled out from somewhere deep within himself as he pulled the power back in and everything returned to semi normal. "But I have to take care of Mum first, so I'm going to give you to someone else to give you what you deserve. Someone nowhere near as nice as I am."

"Who? Who could possibly be worse than you?" His eyes were nearly as black as Severus' now with adrenaline and he was trembling inside his ropes.

Severus smiled grimly. "The man I just signed my soul over to in exchange for keeping Mum safe from you. You might even call him the Wizarding version of Satan. I'm sure the two of you will get on famously."

"I don't understand. Wizards have a devil too?"

"You don't need to understand, but yes, in a fashion." Severus stared at his father in silence for a few seconds. "I just need to know one thing."

"What?"

"Why do you hate Mum and I so? Is it really just because we have magic and you don't?"

His father's eyes looked tormented for the first time in Severus' memory, his conscience suddenly telling him that everything he'd done had been wrong. "I... I don't..."

"Don't even bother trying to lie to me," Severus warned, pushing his wand into the side of his father's throat.

Tobias Snape gulped, his Adam's apple bobbing. "All right, yes. I felt so betrayed when I saw you floating your toy blocks. I loved your mother and you so much, so very very much, I really did. But then I found out that she'd kept a huge secret from me, it felt worse than if she'd cuckolded me with my best mate. How could I have married a witch? An abomination to God's plan? It was like I was being punished for every single person I killed on the field of battle or something and the only way to make amends was to try and drive the magic out of both of you with any means necessary."

Severus clenched his fingers around his wand as his power rose again in response to his pain. Somehow, it hurt even worse knowing that his sire might have been a normal, loving one, if Severus had only been born a Squib. "I'm sorry you felt that way, but you were wrong, so very wrong. Mum loves you, gave up her magic long ago for you, and you almost killed her this last time for nothing! She was practically gasping in her last breaths when I came home!"

To his credit, Tobias Snape's eyes actually welled with tears. "I... It was accident! I went to yell at you some more yesterday morning when you were in the cellar and she came to stop me. I lost my temper and somehow, I don't really know how, she was suddenly tumbling down the stairs. I ran down and picked her up – you weren't there, why weren't you there? I know you can heal things a bit – and took her upstairs. She spoke and said she'd be fine. I believed her."

Two solemn trails of moisture flowed onto his father's forehead and into his grey buzz cut. "I believed her."

Severus gazed at his father with a broken heart and cold eyes. "For the record, if you had but treated me like your son, I would have given up magic for you too. But you pushed me away so much that magic was all I had left to turn to. Remember that in whatever minutes or hours you have left."

"What? Please don't..."

Severus pulled his gaze away from his father's. He didn't want to hear any begging or pitiful entreaties or he might lose his resolve. Pushing his sleeve up, Severus touched his wand to the still aching Dark Mark.

Only moments later, Lord Voldemort cracked into the room beside him and his father whimpered in his throat again, jolting violently within his bonds and the magic that held him upside down in the air.

Severus dropped to one knee, bowing his head.

Voldemort touched him on the shoulder, indicating he could get up. And then he took in the scene in one cool sweep of cold blue eyes that suddenly reminded Severus too much of his father's. A single eyebrow rose. "Interesting. I see you've already started."

"And gone as far as I'm willing," Severus said as emotionlessly as he could manage. (His voice still cracked slightly, much to his dismay.) "I've done my part; no one remembers who I really am anymore, including my mother. Now it's your turn to keep your promise to make sure my father will never hurt us again."

Voldemort put a comforting hand on Severus' shoulder, easily plucking the last few hours out of his mind as he locked eyes with him. Severus found that it didn't hurt as long as he offered up his memories freely. After a moment, the debonair wizard smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry. Your repulsive sire will be dealt with accordingly and left to be found at the scene of a tragic hit and run car accident. Terrible things, those muggle death traps."

"Thank you. That works for me. I don't need to know more," Severus said stiltedly as he moved to the stairs, ignoring the way his father's eyes were bulging again and how he was shaking his head frantically.

"Then you won't," Voldemort said. Severus paused on the second step and looked back as his new Master continued to speak. "And yes, I agree that the best place to heal your mother is at Hogwarts. So much quieter than St. Mungo's, especially this time of year. And I hear that the new Matron, Pomfey or something like that, is one of the most talented Healers alive at the moment."

"Madam Pomfrey is very competent," Severus agreed. "Thank you again, My Lord. Please, fell free to summon me anytime you need me."

"I will do so, young Severus, no question of that."

Even though Voldemort was smiling, a chill chased down Severus' spine. He nodded respectfully and then continued his climb up the stairs in a hurried rush.

From below him, he heard Voldemort say, "Now, what shall I do with you? It's been at least a month since I've had a good, solid, well built toy like you to play with."

I don't want to know. I don't want to know, Severus thought on repeat as he frantically packed up his trunk with a wave of his wand and shrunk it. Then he went over to the small bed and picked up his mother, hugging her much-too-light frame to his own lean chest.

I'm sorry, Mum. So very sorry. For so many things, he thought as an unwanted tear fell on her hair. He kissed it away.

Just before he Apparated out of the dismal house in Spinners End, he heard his father scream like his bones were being ripped from his body all at once.

Merlin. What have I done?