Thanks for the reviews! Everyone seems to think that I've made Severus a bit too young... but you should have seen me at 11/12 years old!!! Ive tried to age him a bit in this sections...
His darkness looms...
***************
Professors were on the scene in an instant. Dumbledore, Flitwick, McGonagall and the bloody Baron all took seperate paths into the forest after hearing what happened. The shocked head of house was left to get rid of the stains to prevent panic, Madame Pomfrey was told, rather despondantly, to be ready for a possible casualty - Although most thought there would only be a body to bring back.
All through the day they searched, and when they returned at supper it was to a scared hall. By now the tale had spread and grown. It was a werewolf! An ogre! A vampire... a dragon..
"We continue the search after a break" Dumbledore announced to the staff wearily. "We must find the child."
Everyone nodded resolutly and began their meal.
No one, not even Dumbledore noticed the thin smile on Malfoy's face.
McGonagall wandered deeper into the woods, her wand lighting the way. She didnt like this place, but Dumbledore needed to find answers. He had his suspicions of what happened that day... but wouldn't yet reveal them.
"Foolish child" She muttered. Playing with dark magic! He hardly paid attention in class, let alone have the ability to do something like this... Had he summoned a demon?
There was a tiny clearing ahead. She stopped to look around, at the jagged and fierce trees, at the murky marsh beneath her feet. Stupid child. She didnt like him much. He was arrogant and uptight, yet never made the effort to make friends or do anything for anyone other than himself... and then he complained of lonliness. Stupid child. She sat down on a log to rest her aching legs and to curse the black headed rat once more. As she bent to massage her ankles, she caught the faint scent... and her light soon revealed a blooded footprint, recently crushed into the pine and earth floor.
A strange light in front of him. It took up his whole world and scared away the darkness that threatened to consume him. Broken and dirty, he raised an aching head to find the source. A small song ran like river down the hole to him and he sobbed slightly as a friend appeared, sitting at the enterance to his hideaway.
"Fawkes?" Snape sobbed. "Hello..."
"Severus?"
Dumbledore. Relief washed over him and he sighed to the darkness.
"Severus are you all right?"
"Im so sore..." He moaned. "I want to go home." He demanded to the earth under his face.
"I will take you home. Give me your hand."
Silence. Dumbledore kneeled with a crack to his knees at the enterance of the large hole. Too big for rabbits, who knew what had once occupied it before this very battered boy. Looking down he could see Snape's head where it rested on the earth floor, the curve of his knee, the slimness of his wrist and fingers as the boy lay in the tunnel.
"go away." Snape decided. "Im tired"
Fawkes gave a quizzical peep and flew to his master's shoulder. With a grip surprising for a man of his age, Dumbledore wrapped his fingers around the boy's wrist and pulled him out of the hole, making him shout anew as his security was broken, old wounds opened.
It was a very discheveled little wizard that knelt before Albus on the ground. He swayed and his shoulders drooped, he threatened to collapse forwards onto his face. Dumbledore gently lifted him up into his arm. wrapping his cloak around both of them. Snape buried his face in the long beard silently and sobbed, his hand grasping beard and clothing, unwilling to let go.
The journey was not long but by the end the boy had worn himself into slumber. Gently he was placed under the care of Madame Pomfrey, wrapped up in thick blankets and a thick potions spilt over his lips as he resisted being awoken. He didnt stir once as Poppy healed him: the bumps and scratches, the fever that appeared in the night and the crushed and mauled shoulder and tears to his face and hands where the beast had held him and dragged him deep into the woods.
As he sat by the bedside, watching almost intellegently, Fawkes plucked a near loose, irritating feather and threw it to the floor. Dumbledore quickly wrapped it in a silken handkerchief and placed it under the sleeping child's pillow. Fawkes bobbed his head, as if he agreed with the present. Snape had his feather back.
************
It didnt take long to get the story from the now clear headed child. tucked safely under the watchful eyes of Poppy, it was as if the last terrible day had been a dream.
"It gave me a fright when it appeared... It was horrible, like a sped up movie. Everything felt wierd." He explained. "Then it grabbed me. That hurt! It took me into the forest, running far too fast. It felt like ages before it slowed down and it was terribly dark then. The creature was odd. It stopped and it put me down.. It drank at a puddle and I looked at it. It wasnt really a wolf as I had thought, it was all scaly and slimy in parts, like a snake-dog. It had a forked tongue too. And black eyes... so horrid!" He shivered in memory. "But something wierd happened when it tried to pick me up again... It was trying to bite me again, but I wouldn't let it. So it bit my arm instead." He nursed the bandaged arm mournfully "It was dragging me along but I wouldnt let him do that either. It was wierd because then it started to smoke. I thought maybe it was on fire and I was glad."
Dumbledore shook his head. A mean streak in this one!
"It was like a glass emptying... all the darkness in it began to vanish up into the air.. it was becoming transparent. I could see through it. It didn't seem to be able to drag me as easily as before either.
Then I heard something.. I think it was Fawkes and the beast stopped" He pointed to the bird fluffed up at the end of his bed. "It got all angry and agitated... but just kept on boiling away... It was really pale now, hardly grey, and soon it seemed to be so pale I couldnt see it. It had to let go of my arm and turned to run away.. and as I watched. the snake - thing vanished into nothing."
A strange tale. Severus could see the teachers running through their memories for signs of a creature that fitted. Their neutral expressions betrayed nothing.
"We are going to go and find out more, Severus. Rest here" Dumbledore swept out of the room followed by his teachers.
The next day Severus Snape was released back to his dorm. He now sat revising on his bed for the day he had missed. McGonagall was being sour, and had insisted that, snake dog or no, he was going to sit the test on friday along with everyone else. It was during a particularly gruesome chapter on "When Transfigurations go wong" that Malfoy walked over to the small boy's bed.
"Hey, shrimp" He drawled. "Heard what happened. You ok"
"Yeah..." Snape answered carefully. Lucius rarely cared how he was. and if he did, it was in order to make him feel even more miserable than he already was.
"I hear you showed Hagrid that spell I taught you?"
"Oh yeah, He thought it was cool too. I dont think I did it quite right though..."
With a snarl Malfoy had grabbed the boy's robes and dragged him up eye to eye.
"Get this into your slimy head, snake! You are to never EVER show anyone that spell!"
"Wh...why not?" the boy choked. "It was just for fun?"
"Fun. Oh my yes. " Malfoy sneered and dumped him back on top of his books. " Fun... yes. In a way it is. For me"
Severus shook his head in confusion.
Dinner came and the teachers were glad of it. Between restless children and Dumbledore's incessent probing into their knowledge of dark creatures they were weary and spent. Potato soup perked them up and the unusual meal of Macaroni cheese ("My brother used to make this. It is a delight!" A smiling Dumbledore had reassured them) The children seemed to be enjoying it, even the picky eaters.
The Slytherin table was full of jokes and nonesense tonight. A game to fill your mouth with as much Macaroni as possible was going rediculously wong as students were giggling and spitting their meal all over each other. It was oddly pleasant to get so dirty. Severus snorted as he wiped cheese from his face and tried not to lose his jawful of dinner. Between giggling and choking he managed to swallow.
"Peasants" Malfoy intoned as he sat at the end of the table.
"Going home for Christmas?" A slytherin girl asked of the table. Most were - no reason to stay at Hogwarts when vast feasts and family waited at home. "You, Snapey?"
He looked at his plate and didnt feel hungry anymore "Yeah, im going home."
"Well, at least look happy about it" Another snickered as he stuck wads of macaroni on the underside of the table.
The truth was, Severus didnt want to go home... ever! But he didnt want to share that with any of this lot, and had no friends close enough to tell and it made his heat ache. Lucius knew... Severus was sure of it though he didnt know how. It didnt matter anyway what Lucius thought.
Severus's mother was dying. It shouldnt have taken as long as this... She had been ill for years. His father loved her very much, he knew. She had ben so beautiful. Severus remembered times when she had ran about with him, taught him basic spells, clambered through hedges... yelled at the half dead rat he had brought home and even when she had smacked him for being really bad. The parties they had held in their house! Father in dress robes, Mama in long gowns of white and purple, her black hair strung up with pearls and silver gems in her ears. a princess! and she was all his.
No one could really remember when she fell ill. It just seemed that every so often her complaints worsened... her complexion paled. It wasnt till Severus and his father came back from a week trip that it really hit them. So pale and drawn and in pain.
Every night Severus would be wakened by either his mother moaning in pain from the fire that consumed her... or Father muttering his dispair to the darkened corridors. Father never cried... and there were no more parties, no more visitors for Snape the elder had become vindictive and short tempered. Not towards his son though. But after three years of this constant unhapiness something changed. His mother, although not recovered, seemed to be slowing in her illness... father looked better and was quieter too, although there was a strange coldness to his eyes. He lifted his hand more often to his son, but on the other hand began to spend more time with Severus and to teach him magic and hexes that delighted the pyomaniac in every child.
Although nothing was ever said or revealed, Severus was clever enough to realise that his father had done something really bad to secure this slight break in their spiral downwards.
As he munched on the remenants of his cold dinner, the sound of his housemates droned out, Snape wondered if the strange feelings he had made him evil. What would it be like to go home and find his mother gone... buried... He would be relieved... happy again, able to play in the corridors without hearing her, without wanting to go into that room that smelt so wrong... were these thought evil? To wish your mama dead so you could have a good night's sleep?
The end of term came and with it, time to go home. Holiday work assigned, and good natured comments from the teachers. The only worry was, as McGonagall had told Snape, they had still no idea what had taken him that night.
Snape lugged his chest into the train and turned to wish Hagrid farewell for a while.
"Take care o yerself, Sev" He growled "N take good care of your pres' hear?" He slapped a heavy hand onto the boy's back and blew the wind from him. "I will!" Severus spluttered as he waved the pheonix feather at the giant.
The Hogwarts express wandered happily through the hills and farmland until it came back into the city.
There in the milling croud of parents was his father, Severus realised with a jolt. How tired he looked with those bags under his eyes, and he was a lot thinner than he remembered from last time. He huddled under a coat in the cold and drift of snow, but looked as if he wold never be warm again.
"Hey, Snake!" A light voice broke him from his musings "Remember to practice that spell! I want to be able to teach you a *Better* one next term!" Blonde Lucius was with a blonder set of parents.
"Yeah, of course! Goodbye!" Snape shouted back.
Severus nattered about his term to his father as they walked the last bit of the way up the hill to their house. People he didnt like, people he hated... a couple who were ok... about ravens and eagles and owls and how he really wanted to lean some better hexes, because the ones at school were all too easy...
His father gave him a small smile and looked down at him, world weary. His high cheekbones seemed more shadowed. He placed a bony hand on his child's head and pulled him closer.
"Its good to have you back." His voice was like wind... nothing there... "Lets have a good meal and talk later, ok? But first... we gotta clean you up!" He tugged at a greasy lock and his eyes twinkled
"Ok" Severus agreed.
A nice warm bath and his father insisted he clean himself three times over before he was satisfied. He poked and prodded his boy as he stood wrapped in a huge towel, still wet.
"Why, you litle drip" His father announced with a small grin. Why did Severus think that his father hadn't smiled in a while? "You are starting to fill out properly! And look - I think you are getting taller too. What's goin on?" He challenged.
"You know you can tell the size of the dog by looking at the puppy's feet?" The wet child asked innocently
"Well, no I didnt" The answer was smiling "Lets see what size this wet dog is going to become!"
and he grabbed his son by the feet and bowled him over
"Urgh! No! Dont tickle!" Severus squealed, wriggling away from the fingers on his soles.
Their play was interrupted by a gentle moan... a sigh that travelled the halls like ice.
His father changed. His eyes were glazed. "You had better get dressed and ready for dinner. I will attend your mother, then we can all talk after tea."
"Yes father" was the meloncholy reply.
Dinner was lonely for his father never appeared. Instead two house elves waited on him. The dinner was wonderful, yet tasted of cardboard. They watched their young master with trepidation. This wasnt the house for a young boy.
"Severus come and greet your mother" Snape beckoned around the corner of the kitchen and he obeyed immediatly, his fork dropped with a clatter.
The room hadn't changed much since he had last been in it. The long curtains blowing in the slightly opened window, as thin as silk. The large four poster bed that he had once jumped in and played king in and hidden from nightmares while wapped in his parents' arms. Only one person occupied the bed now. In the corner of the room, the large table cluttered with remedies and medicine and herbs and anything farfetched his father could find. There was definatly more bottles of pills and drinks than before.
"Severus?" A whisper. A breath.
"Here Mama." He approached the bed nervously.
This wasnt his Mama anymore. He wanted to burst into tears right there and demand to know where his princess had gone. who was this stranger in the bed? But her eyes hadnt changed.. eyes that were also his and bound them by birthright and love. At least they han't changed.
She reached out a hand. So britle and thin. Her skin felt like paper, so fragile and dry. He took it in his and wasnt surprised to find his was the larger. Where were the hands that washed his face free from mud, that lited him with one movement when he fell. All he could see was this piece of parchment with bones showing painfuly through.
"Oh my pretty boy!" Another breath. So much effort "You have grown so much! And you look so much like your father!"
"Yes, mama" He was stuck for words.
"Was school good? Does Dumbledore take good care of you?"
Yes, Dumbledore... the strange man that had appeared a couple of times long before his scooldays to advise and pat him on the head. Dumbledore, the greatest wizard ever.. who couldnt save one boy's dying mama
"Yes, mama. Weve had a fun year...."
And he talked, his voice little more than a whisper itself for anything louder would surely destroy her?
As he spoke his attentio was not on his words of childish antics and new things learnt, but on the face of his parent. Her skin was so sallow and white... grey flecked it and the bags under her eyes showed her inablity to sleep well. Her hair, once blacker than his, was lank and grey in places, but much had fallen out and patches of wrinkled skin on her scalp was paler than the rest of her. Her slender neck, sunken and bony, her collerbone and elbow.. was there even skin covering them? He double checked. Yes, still. The rest of her was covered in a bright red velvet blanket that seemed to mock them all with its liveliness and verocity in life. Where was his mama... He was beginning to be scared. She hadnt been this ill when he left...
"You have had fun, Severus! good... good... Perhaps in the summer you can bring some friends over and we will all go swimming in the river and I shall make a picnic and we will sit on the hill and have a lovely chat"
His moma wasn't going anywhere... she was already dead! A small sob escaped him. "Yes mama! we shall" he agreed "We shall, one day"
She was asleep, her mouth slightly open, her breath rasping.
"She is tired." his father whispered and took the hand of his son as they both left.
Severus wanted to cry. This was no family! This was hell...
The next week passed uneventfully. Severus remained in his room, locked away to finish his homework and once complete, creating new potions to tease Potter with on his return . It was the only thing that kept him sane from the delusional mutterings and cries from *that* room. he had entered only ocassionally since to say a few words and stare once more at that shadow in the bed. She hardly reconised him in his visits. It was only the thought of going back to Hogwarts that kept him going. He remained in the dark room, smelling slightly of sulphur and dragonsbane and muttered darkly to himself. It wasnt fair. This was HER fault. She shouldnt be this ill. she could get better if she only tried...
His father glanced in at him. "Are you alright?"
"Oh just great" he replied sarcastically, his eyes wet with tears. His father came in and sat beside him, looking at the little cauldren that bubbled softly. " Good, good... you are beciming quite the potionsmaster." He nodded. Severus just looked at the pot with a pout, trying not to cry. His father pulled him into a hug.
"Oh my son..."
Severus broke down.
"Why wont it go away? Why is it killing her? Why does she have to lie there and scare me all the time? I want it to go away! I want her to go away!" He sobbed miserably into his fathers warm cloak.
"Im so sorry Severus.. I wish it would go away too. Sometimes I want to cry too, but I have to keep going. Sometimes its hard being a grown up." He hugged him closer "Try not to grow up too fast, Severus? " He sighed. "I love her and you so much... sometimes I wish she would go away too...yes, to go away and leave us in peace..."
Dumbledore was enjoying the gentle morning breeze in the silence of the castle gardens. The monster in the lake wove a lazy tendril at him and Hagid was a blur in the distance, chopping wood and humming rather tunelessly. It was quiet without the bustle of children, so quiet. It was nice to have a change, but he missed thier presense, the magic that only children could bring. McGonagall silently joined him, severe hands clasped together as the stared at the clear and pale winter sky.
"Wonderful to have a bit of serenity without the constant barrage of students, isnt it?" She breathed.
"Ah, Minerva - but where would we be without the children?" The headmaster asked of her over his glasses
"Nowhere, Albus. Nowhere."
Ahead of them an owl swooped low across the grounds on a path towards them
"Hunting? McGonagall asked.
"Somehow I think not."
The bird dropped its message before silently heading up to the tower.
Dumbledore unrolled the parchment and read it serenely. Then he gave a small sigh and shook his head, his eyes filled with pain. " I think something has it in for that boy... the poor child..."
"What?"
"Severus Snape... His Mother was murdered last night ... by his father."
***********
Darkness as only real life can bring! So many whys and no answers!
Dont worry... more questions wil come.. dont worry... everything is answered in the end!
His darkness looms...
***************
Professors were on the scene in an instant. Dumbledore, Flitwick, McGonagall and the bloody Baron all took seperate paths into the forest after hearing what happened. The shocked head of house was left to get rid of the stains to prevent panic, Madame Pomfrey was told, rather despondantly, to be ready for a possible casualty - Although most thought there would only be a body to bring back.
All through the day they searched, and when they returned at supper it was to a scared hall. By now the tale had spread and grown. It was a werewolf! An ogre! A vampire... a dragon..
"We continue the search after a break" Dumbledore announced to the staff wearily. "We must find the child."
Everyone nodded resolutly and began their meal.
No one, not even Dumbledore noticed the thin smile on Malfoy's face.
McGonagall wandered deeper into the woods, her wand lighting the way. She didnt like this place, but Dumbledore needed to find answers. He had his suspicions of what happened that day... but wouldn't yet reveal them.
"Foolish child" She muttered. Playing with dark magic! He hardly paid attention in class, let alone have the ability to do something like this... Had he summoned a demon?
There was a tiny clearing ahead. She stopped to look around, at the jagged and fierce trees, at the murky marsh beneath her feet. Stupid child. She didnt like him much. He was arrogant and uptight, yet never made the effort to make friends or do anything for anyone other than himself... and then he complained of lonliness. Stupid child. She sat down on a log to rest her aching legs and to curse the black headed rat once more. As she bent to massage her ankles, she caught the faint scent... and her light soon revealed a blooded footprint, recently crushed into the pine and earth floor.
A strange light in front of him. It took up his whole world and scared away the darkness that threatened to consume him. Broken and dirty, he raised an aching head to find the source. A small song ran like river down the hole to him and he sobbed slightly as a friend appeared, sitting at the enterance to his hideaway.
"Fawkes?" Snape sobbed. "Hello..."
"Severus?"
Dumbledore. Relief washed over him and he sighed to the darkness.
"Severus are you all right?"
"Im so sore..." He moaned. "I want to go home." He demanded to the earth under his face.
"I will take you home. Give me your hand."
Silence. Dumbledore kneeled with a crack to his knees at the enterance of the large hole. Too big for rabbits, who knew what had once occupied it before this very battered boy. Looking down he could see Snape's head where it rested on the earth floor, the curve of his knee, the slimness of his wrist and fingers as the boy lay in the tunnel.
"go away." Snape decided. "Im tired"
Fawkes gave a quizzical peep and flew to his master's shoulder. With a grip surprising for a man of his age, Dumbledore wrapped his fingers around the boy's wrist and pulled him out of the hole, making him shout anew as his security was broken, old wounds opened.
It was a very discheveled little wizard that knelt before Albus on the ground. He swayed and his shoulders drooped, he threatened to collapse forwards onto his face. Dumbledore gently lifted him up into his arm. wrapping his cloak around both of them. Snape buried his face in the long beard silently and sobbed, his hand grasping beard and clothing, unwilling to let go.
The journey was not long but by the end the boy had worn himself into slumber. Gently he was placed under the care of Madame Pomfrey, wrapped up in thick blankets and a thick potions spilt over his lips as he resisted being awoken. He didnt stir once as Poppy healed him: the bumps and scratches, the fever that appeared in the night and the crushed and mauled shoulder and tears to his face and hands where the beast had held him and dragged him deep into the woods.
As he sat by the bedside, watching almost intellegently, Fawkes plucked a near loose, irritating feather and threw it to the floor. Dumbledore quickly wrapped it in a silken handkerchief and placed it under the sleeping child's pillow. Fawkes bobbed his head, as if he agreed with the present. Snape had his feather back.
************
It didnt take long to get the story from the now clear headed child. tucked safely under the watchful eyes of Poppy, it was as if the last terrible day had been a dream.
"It gave me a fright when it appeared... It was horrible, like a sped up movie. Everything felt wierd." He explained. "Then it grabbed me. That hurt! It took me into the forest, running far too fast. It felt like ages before it slowed down and it was terribly dark then. The creature was odd. It stopped and it put me down.. It drank at a puddle and I looked at it. It wasnt really a wolf as I had thought, it was all scaly and slimy in parts, like a snake-dog. It had a forked tongue too. And black eyes... so horrid!" He shivered in memory. "But something wierd happened when it tried to pick me up again... It was trying to bite me again, but I wouldn't let it. So it bit my arm instead." He nursed the bandaged arm mournfully "It was dragging me along but I wouldnt let him do that either. It was wierd because then it started to smoke. I thought maybe it was on fire and I was glad."
Dumbledore shook his head. A mean streak in this one!
"It was like a glass emptying... all the darkness in it began to vanish up into the air.. it was becoming transparent. I could see through it. It didn't seem to be able to drag me as easily as before either.
Then I heard something.. I think it was Fawkes and the beast stopped" He pointed to the bird fluffed up at the end of his bed. "It got all angry and agitated... but just kept on boiling away... It was really pale now, hardly grey, and soon it seemed to be so pale I couldnt see it. It had to let go of my arm and turned to run away.. and as I watched. the snake - thing vanished into nothing."
A strange tale. Severus could see the teachers running through their memories for signs of a creature that fitted. Their neutral expressions betrayed nothing.
"We are going to go and find out more, Severus. Rest here" Dumbledore swept out of the room followed by his teachers.
The next day Severus Snape was released back to his dorm. He now sat revising on his bed for the day he had missed. McGonagall was being sour, and had insisted that, snake dog or no, he was going to sit the test on friday along with everyone else. It was during a particularly gruesome chapter on "When Transfigurations go wong" that Malfoy walked over to the small boy's bed.
"Hey, shrimp" He drawled. "Heard what happened. You ok"
"Yeah..." Snape answered carefully. Lucius rarely cared how he was. and if he did, it was in order to make him feel even more miserable than he already was.
"I hear you showed Hagrid that spell I taught you?"
"Oh yeah, He thought it was cool too. I dont think I did it quite right though..."
With a snarl Malfoy had grabbed the boy's robes and dragged him up eye to eye.
"Get this into your slimy head, snake! You are to never EVER show anyone that spell!"
"Wh...why not?" the boy choked. "It was just for fun?"
"Fun. Oh my yes. " Malfoy sneered and dumped him back on top of his books. " Fun... yes. In a way it is. For me"
Severus shook his head in confusion.
Dinner came and the teachers were glad of it. Between restless children and Dumbledore's incessent probing into their knowledge of dark creatures they were weary and spent. Potato soup perked them up and the unusual meal of Macaroni cheese ("My brother used to make this. It is a delight!" A smiling Dumbledore had reassured them) The children seemed to be enjoying it, even the picky eaters.
The Slytherin table was full of jokes and nonesense tonight. A game to fill your mouth with as much Macaroni as possible was going rediculously wong as students were giggling and spitting their meal all over each other. It was oddly pleasant to get so dirty. Severus snorted as he wiped cheese from his face and tried not to lose his jawful of dinner. Between giggling and choking he managed to swallow.
"Peasants" Malfoy intoned as he sat at the end of the table.
"Going home for Christmas?" A slytherin girl asked of the table. Most were - no reason to stay at Hogwarts when vast feasts and family waited at home. "You, Snapey?"
He looked at his plate and didnt feel hungry anymore "Yeah, im going home."
"Well, at least look happy about it" Another snickered as he stuck wads of macaroni on the underside of the table.
The truth was, Severus didnt want to go home... ever! But he didnt want to share that with any of this lot, and had no friends close enough to tell and it made his heat ache. Lucius knew... Severus was sure of it though he didnt know how. It didnt matter anyway what Lucius thought.
Severus's mother was dying. It shouldnt have taken as long as this... She had been ill for years. His father loved her very much, he knew. She had ben so beautiful. Severus remembered times when she had ran about with him, taught him basic spells, clambered through hedges... yelled at the half dead rat he had brought home and even when she had smacked him for being really bad. The parties they had held in their house! Father in dress robes, Mama in long gowns of white and purple, her black hair strung up with pearls and silver gems in her ears. a princess! and she was all his.
No one could really remember when she fell ill. It just seemed that every so often her complaints worsened... her complexion paled. It wasnt till Severus and his father came back from a week trip that it really hit them. So pale and drawn and in pain.
Every night Severus would be wakened by either his mother moaning in pain from the fire that consumed her... or Father muttering his dispair to the darkened corridors. Father never cried... and there were no more parties, no more visitors for Snape the elder had become vindictive and short tempered. Not towards his son though. But after three years of this constant unhapiness something changed. His mother, although not recovered, seemed to be slowing in her illness... father looked better and was quieter too, although there was a strange coldness to his eyes. He lifted his hand more often to his son, but on the other hand began to spend more time with Severus and to teach him magic and hexes that delighted the pyomaniac in every child.
Although nothing was ever said or revealed, Severus was clever enough to realise that his father had done something really bad to secure this slight break in their spiral downwards.
As he munched on the remenants of his cold dinner, the sound of his housemates droned out, Snape wondered if the strange feelings he had made him evil. What would it be like to go home and find his mother gone... buried... He would be relieved... happy again, able to play in the corridors without hearing her, without wanting to go into that room that smelt so wrong... were these thought evil? To wish your mama dead so you could have a good night's sleep?
The end of term came and with it, time to go home. Holiday work assigned, and good natured comments from the teachers. The only worry was, as McGonagall had told Snape, they had still no idea what had taken him that night.
Snape lugged his chest into the train and turned to wish Hagrid farewell for a while.
"Take care o yerself, Sev" He growled "N take good care of your pres' hear?" He slapped a heavy hand onto the boy's back and blew the wind from him. "I will!" Severus spluttered as he waved the pheonix feather at the giant.
The Hogwarts express wandered happily through the hills and farmland until it came back into the city.
There in the milling croud of parents was his father, Severus realised with a jolt. How tired he looked with those bags under his eyes, and he was a lot thinner than he remembered from last time. He huddled under a coat in the cold and drift of snow, but looked as if he wold never be warm again.
"Hey, Snake!" A light voice broke him from his musings "Remember to practice that spell! I want to be able to teach you a *Better* one next term!" Blonde Lucius was with a blonder set of parents.
"Yeah, of course! Goodbye!" Snape shouted back.
Severus nattered about his term to his father as they walked the last bit of the way up the hill to their house. People he didnt like, people he hated... a couple who were ok... about ravens and eagles and owls and how he really wanted to lean some better hexes, because the ones at school were all too easy...
His father gave him a small smile and looked down at him, world weary. His high cheekbones seemed more shadowed. He placed a bony hand on his child's head and pulled him closer.
"Its good to have you back." His voice was like wind... nothing there... "Lets have a good meal and talk later, ok? But first... we gotta clean you up!" He tugged at a greasy lock and his eyes twinkled
"Ok" Severus agreed.
A nice warm bath and his father insisted he clean himself three times over before he was satisfied. He poked and prodded his boy as he stood wrapped in a huge towel, still wet.
"Why, you litle drip" His father announced with a small grin. Why did Severus think that his father hadn't smiled in a while? "You are starting to fill out properly! And look - I think you are getting taller too. What's goin on?" He challenged.
"You know you can tell the size of the dog by looking at the puppy's feet?" The wet child asked innocently
"Well, no I didnt" The answer was smiling "Lets see what size this wet dog is going to become!"
and he grabbed his son by the feet and bowled him over
"Urgh! No! Dont tickle!" Severus squealed, wriggling away from the fingers on his soles.
Their play was interrupted by a gentle moan... a sigh that travelled the halls like ice.
His father changed. His eyes were glazed. "You had better get dressed and ready for dinner. I will attend your mother, then we can all talk after tea."
"Yes father" was the meloncholy reply.
Dinner was lonely for his father never appeared. Instead two house elves waited on him. The dinner was wonderful, yet tasted of cardboard. They watched their young master with trepidation. This wasnt the house for a young boy.
"Severus come and greet your mother" Snape beckoned around the corner of the kitchen and he obeyed immediatly, his fork dropped with a clatter.
The room hadn't changed much since he had last been in it. The long curtains blowing in the slightly opened window, as thin as silk. The large four poster bed that he had once jumped in and played king in and hidden from nightmares while wapped in his parents' arms. Only one person occupied the bed now. In the corner of the room, the large table cluttered with remedies and medicine and herbs and anything farfetched his father could find. There was definatly more bottles of pills and drinks than before.
"Severus?" A whisper. A breath.
"Here Mama." He approached the bed nervously.
This wasnt his Mama anymore. He wanted to burst into tears right there and demand to know where his princess had gone. who was this stranger in the bed? But her eyes hadnt changed.. eyes that were also his and bound them by birthright and love. At least they han't changed.
She reached out a hand. So britle and thin. Her skin felt like paper, so fragile and dry. He took it in his and wasnt surprised to find his was the larger. Where were the hands that washed his face free from mud, that lited him with one movement when he fell. All he could see was this piece of parchment with bones showing painfuly through.
"Oh my pretty boy!" Another breath. So much effort "You have grown so much! And you look so much like your father!"
"Yes, mama" He was stuck for words.
"Was school good? Does Dumbledore take good care of you?"
Yes, Dumbledore... the strange man that had appeared a couple of times long before his scooldays to advise and pat him on the head. Dumbledore, the greatest wizard ever.. who couldnt save one boy's dying mama
"Yes, mama. Weve had a fun year...."
And he talked, his voice little more than a whisper itself for anything louder would surely destroy her?
As he spoke his attentio was not on his words of childish antics and new things learnt, but on the face of his parent. Her skin was so sallow and white... grey flecked it and the bags under her eyes showed her inablity to sleep well. Her hair, once blacker than his, was lank and grey in places, but much had fallen out and patches of wrinkled skin on her scalp was paler than the rest of her. Her slender neck, sunken and bony, her collerbone and elbow.. was there even skin covering them? He double checked. Yes, still. The rest of her was covered in a bright red velvet blanket that seemed to mock them all with its liveliness and verocity in life. Where was his mama... He was beginning to be scared. She hadnt been this ill when he left...
"You have had fun, Severus! good... good... Perhaps in the summer you can bring some friends over and we will all go swimming in the river and I shall make a picnic and we will sit on the hill and have a lovely chat"
His moma wasn't going anywhere... she was already dead! A small sob escaped him. "Yes mama! we shall" he agreed "We shall, one day"
She was asleep, her mouth slightly open, her breath rasping.
"She is tired." his father whispered and took the hand of his son as they both left.
Severus wanted to cry. This was no family! This was hell...
The next week passed uneventfully. Severus remained in his room, locked away to finish his homework and once complete, creating new potions to tease Potter with on his return . It was the only thing that kept him sane from the delusional mutterings and cries from *that* room. he had entered only ocassionally since to say a few words and stare once more at that shadow in the bed. She hardly reconised him in his visits. It was only the thought of going back to Hogwarts that kept him going. He remained in the dark room, smelling slightly of sulphur and dragonsbane and muttered darkly to himself. It wasnt fair. This was HER fault. She shouldnt be this ill. she could get better if she only tried...
His father glanced in at him. "Are you alright?"
"Oh just great" he replied sarcastically, his eyes wet with tears. His father came in and sat beside him, looking at the little cauldren that bubbled softly. " Good, good... you are beciming quite the potionsmaster." He nodded. Severus just looked at the pot with a pout, trying not to cry. His father pulled him into a hug.
"Oh my son..."
Severus broke down.
"Why wont it go away? Why is it killing her? Why does she have to lie there and scare me all the time? I want it to go away! I want her to go away!" He sobbed miserably into his fathers warm cloak.
"Im so sorry Severus.. I wish it would go away too. Sometimes I want to cry too, but I have to keep going. Sometimes its hard being a grown up." He hugged him closer "Try not to grow up too fast, Severus? " He sighed. "I love her and you so much... sometimes I wish she would go away too...yes, to go away and leave us in peace..."
Dumbledore was enjoying the gentle morning breeze in the silence of the castle gardens. The monster in the lake wove a lazy tendril at him and Hagid was a blur in the distance, chopping wood and humming rather tunelessly. It was quiet without the bustle of children, so quiet. It was nice to have a change, but he missed thier presense, the magic that only children could bring. McGonagall silently joined him, severe hands clasped together as the stared at the clear and pale winter sky.
"Wonderful to have a bit of serenity without the constant barrage of students, isnt it?" She breathed.
"Ah, Minerva - but where would we be without the children?" The headmaster asked of her over his glasses
"Nowhere, Albus. Nowhere."
Ahead of them an owl swooped low across the grounds on a path towards them
"Hunting? McGonagall asked.
"Somehow I think not."
The bird dropped its message before silently heading up to the tower.
Dumbledore unrolled the parchment and read it serenely. Then he gave a small sigh and shook his head, his eyes filled with pain. " I think something has it in for that boy... the poor child..."
"What?"
"Severus Snape... His Mother was murdered last night ... by his father."
***********
Darkness as only real life can bring! So many whys and no answers!
Dont worry... more questions wil come.. dont worry... everything is answered in the end!