I am a rock

by Estrelda

Summary? It's a songfic. It's angsty. What more do you need to know? Oh, alright. It's Snape.

Title:  "I am a rock"

Author:  Estrelda

Rating:  PG-13

Summary:  Summary?  It's a songfic.  It's angsty.  What more do you need to know?  Oh, alright.  It's Snape.

Author's notes:  The title comes from the song of the same name, which was written by Paul Simon, and performed by him with Art Garfunkel.

Disclaimer:  Snape belongs to JK Rowling, and the song belongs to *its* authors.

A winter's day,

in a deep and dark December.

I am alone.

Gazing from my window

To the street below

On a freshly fallen,

silent shroud of snow.

It was Christmas.  Snape didn't know why this Christmas should be any different from any of the others he'd experienced over the years.  And it wasn't.  There was the same huge, heavily decorated tree.  The same lack of students - except for the ones who felt too unloved and unwanted at home to warrant going.  The faces appeared aged eleven, and disappeared aged about seventeen, and stayed all year, every year, not caring whether or not it was term or holidays.

He stood on the top of one of Hogwarts' miscellaneous collection of towers, and stared down at the snow that had fallen the previous evening.  Nobody else was up yet, and the snow was pristine, and unmarked.   He envied them, in a way.  They at least had their friends.  They had eachother.  They were all in the same boat, and they all understood.  He had a family.  Well.... parents.  He'd gone home for Christmas every year.  He didn't bother anymore.  He didn't need them. 

I am a rock

I am an island.

He was strong.

I build walls.

a fortress steep and mighty

That none may penetrate.

I have no need of friendship

Friendship causes pain

It's laughter and it's loving I distain.

They were weak.  They felt that they had to rely on friends and aquaintances to maintain themselves.  They couldn't handle solitude.  The peace and quiet was what he welcomed most at Christmas.  They never went looking for him.  Even if they had, he would driven them off with biting, acid sarcasm.

It was better this way.  Whenever he thought back to his own days as a student at Hogwarts, he was reminded of that.  The students he'd called friends had, in the long term, caused nothing but trouble and pain.  Not that he could be bothered telling them that now.  Most of them were gone now.  Imprisoned in Azkaban, or dead.  Those that remained weren't friends.  Not anymore.  They were the poisonous ones who took what they wanted, and gave nothing in return except pain.  They couldn't hurt him anymore.  They weren't friends now, so they couldn't hurt him.  They didn't know how.

I am a rock

I am an island.

Nobody knew how.

Don't talk of love

Well I've heard the word before.

It's sleeping in my memory.

I won't disturb the slumber

Of feelings that have died.

If I never loved,

I never would have cried.

Below him, a door was flung open, and a couple of students emerged into the snow.  He couldn't see who they were from above, but he could see the way that they held hands.  Young lovers.  Undoubtedly one of them had stayed because the other one was.  It always worked that way at Christmas.  Unwittingly, his thoughts turned back to Lily.  He tried not to think of her.  She'd chosen somebody else.  Potter.  Had he known just how lucky he'd been to win her?

She'd been a Gryffindor.  So had Potter.  Snape hadn't had a chance, and he'd known it.  He'd only tried to tell her once.  But she'd brushed him off, and gone on her way with her friends.  She hadn't even listened.  Two days later, he'd seen her kissing Potter, and knew that it was over.  Besides, she'd been a Gryffindor.  What kind of lover would a Gryffindor have been for a Slytherin like him?  The only partners even marginally acceptable to a Slytherin outside of that house were Ravenclaws.  And none of them were even faintly interesting.  Or interested.  The girls in Slytherin were much too scary.  Nothing about them that was even faintly loveable. 

He'd been weak as a child.  He thought he'd needed friends and lovers to support him.  As he'd grown, however, he'd seen how wrong he was.  He could stand perfectly well without them.  After he'd cried himself to sleep one night, he'd decided that he didn't need friends and lovers.  He had tried.  Narcissa had gone to the Halloween ball with him one year, and he'd thought he'd had a chance.  But then, two days later, he'd walked in on her in bed with Malfoy.  Supposedly his friend.  And that had been the end of that.  Friends and lovers could betray you.  They were unnecessary.

I am a rock

I am an island.

He didn't count women like Krystel as lovers.  That odd collection of women who liked what they called grunge and didn't care if all they got was sex weren't the same as friends and lovers.  They served a purpose, it was true, but...

I have my books

And my poetry to protect me

I am shielded in my armour

Hiding in my room

Safe within my womb

I touch no one

And no one touches me.

He'd studied hard as a student.  Especially after that Halloween.  His books, after all, were safe.  Books didn't turn around and betray you with your friends.  Books didn't hurt you, or make you cry.  They didn't rip your heart out and feed it to the vultures as you watched.  His heart was safe now.  It was well protected. 

I am a rock

I am an island.

He was grateful to Dumbledore.  All he really needed was a place to sleep and put his books.  To get that, along with shelter and food, and only have to teach a bunch of teenagers, was a good price.

And a rock feels no pain

And an island never cries.

A single tear slipped down his cheek, unnoticed, and froze on the snow at his feet.