A.N.: Err...this idea came to me while I was sitting around wondering how I was going to cure my seemingly incurable writer's block. It's extremely weird but hey, you can't say it's not original...hehe. Anyway, I should probably shut up and get on with the fic...I know the ages don't make this probable, but, well, let's just say that Severus is older than we think...hehe, lame excuse, I know, but I have to write this short thing to cure my writer's block. Also, this is gonna be pretty short and will kinda suck just because I still kinda have writer's block...
Disclaimer: If you're stupid enough to think I'm J.K. Rowling then just go ahead and think that while I go fetch you your straight jacket.
The five-year-old black-haired boy looked up at his mother. "Maman, do I have a daddy?" he asked even though he already knew the answer, had known it all too long.
Nadja sighed, pulling a strand of black hair out of her son's face. "Severus, stop asking that question. You know the answer. Now don't stress me out. I have to do my work."
"But Maman why haven't I --"
"Shush, you know that I had you when we were both very young, still students. He's not going to take you in."
"But who is he?" the little boy persisted, earning himself only an irritated look from his mother.
"Please don't ask that," Nadja took on a pleading tone with her young child, trying not to let the fact that she felt like pleading with a five year old demean her. "You'll lose all respect for him if I tell you."
"Oh, so it's someone who I respect, is it?" Severus said slyly, breaking into a grin that spread even wider as he saw his mother grimace. Still, he persisted, "But maybe we could live in a house like everyone else if we went to live with him instead of this stupid," he scrunched up his nose in a look of disgust, "muggle apartment."
"Severus, just believe me, we can't," Nadja said, throwing down the pen on the desk, making a noise that resounded in the small one-room apartment. "See, he's married and his wife doesn't know that we exist. And she can't know."
"But Maman," the boy whined.
"Severus, just go to the bed and read a book and leave me alone," Nadja pushed him over to the couch bed that they shared and picked up a stray book lying there, pretending to read it while glaring at his mother and wishing his father dead. Wishing he could kill his father, whoever the man was, imagining his little voice saying, "Avada Kedavra," and seeing the man's body hit the floor. He gave a cruel smile from behind the book.
The first year lay in his bed late that night, crying. He hated it all. He hated the way they hid it from him, the way he wasn't supposed to give a crap who his father was, the way his mother had gone and got married to some stupid Prince Charming who was supposed to make Severus not care anymore because he could buy them a house in the city. Like that would make him forget about the father he didn't know, about the father his mother refused to tell her about
Besides, Mr. Charming was a Gryffindor. How had his mother fallen for a goddamn Gryffindor? A Gryffindor, no less, that convinced his mother to go along with him and disown Severus when he became a Slytherin.
He opened the note for what must have been the millionth time:
Severus,
You have dirtied our family in becoming a Slytherin. You were enough of a bother before, but this is too much. You are no longer family. We have taken the appropriate legal proceedings.
From Nadja and Harold Potter.
In a burst of anger, Severus ran out of his dorm to the commonroom and threw the note in the fire, watching the paper curl into an incinerated mess, it's contents turning to mere ash, ash which suggested nothing.
Well, if they were going to renounce him, then fine. Good. He never loved Nadja anyway, and much less did he love Harold. So if they wanted to disown him then they could. Why, they could burn in hell for all he cared. They could. He sent off the letter telling them just that, smiling, knowing that it would kindle a rage between them that he would never hear about since they would be too proud to write to their disowned son.
Then he curled up in one of the chairs and had sweet dreams of a plague coming and sweeping away his former mother and his former step-father and whoever his father was and his ex-step-father's stupid son James and everyone else so that he never had to deal with the harsh, ugly world again.
Severus leaned closer to the door, straining to hear what they were saying, the next moment wishing he hadn't heard what he had but being oddly glad all the same. "Albus, he's your son," a woman's voice was saying.
"Minerva, I know that, but I was young and foolish then. I'm older and wiser and I want to leave the past behind me," Albus sighed. "Besides, what would Melissa say?"
"What would Severus say if he knew about this?" Minerva countered.
"I can't," Albus told her with a tone of finality. "I simply can't."
And Severus fled, leaving a small note for Albus: "How could you hide it from me for sixteen years?"
"Did you hear? The Dark Lord is taking new recruits," someone whispered to another in the common room.
Severus was bored. He didn't know why everyone was so attracted to this stupid Voldemort. He'd rather have his own power instead of being a rotten minion of a greater power. But nonetheless, the next words caught his attention: "I heard that he wants to kill the headmaster."
Kill Albus...kill his goddamn father...kill...kill...kill...he smiled. Perhaps being a minion wouldn't be so terrible after all. Perhaps...
"Severus," Albus said with a sigh. "I know I should have told you sooner, but it is never too late for me to make amends."
Severus laughed, a cold, cruel, embittered laugh as he looked into the blue eyes of the headmaster. "I didn't come to make amends over the fact that the whole world has been lying to me in hopes I wouldn't know."
Albus sighed, a long, sorrowful sigh. "Severus, you have to understand that there is something incredibly wrong when you are killing the very person who gave you life."
The very person who gave you life... as much as Severus tried to ignore the words they echoed in his mind. I don't have morals, he told himself. Morals are just a stupid creation. But somewhere he couldn't believe his own thoughts.
"I've been stupid, but now I'm ready to adopt you and try to right things, even though I never can really right what I have done wrong," Albus told him, looking Severus in the eyes. But Severus never heard the end of the words, for before he could he fell unconscious, unable to do what he had been planning, imagining, looking forward to all his life.
And when he woke, still embittered, still angry at the harsh cruel world, his first words were, nonetheless, "I'll help you. I'll join your side."
A.N.2.: I dislike my little happy-sappy ending, but I sort of had to do it, if you know what I mean. I know it's actually pretty much impossible and certainly improbable, but I had fun writing it anyway. Hopefully this cures my writer's block! Anyway, it's really stupid if you spend all the time to read this (well, it doesn't take that much time, but still...) and don't review. And I do love reviews. What a subtle hint...