Author's Note: The poem used in this chapter is "To an Athlete Dying Young." by Alfred Edward Housmen. Enjoy...
Hiding behind an alabaster mask...
"…It was a coward behind a mask that took away one of Hogwarts brightest stars…" Severus said a clear voice while his mind hurled accusations at him. "Someone who couldn't comprehend the light and the dignity that Harrison had just by being here…"
Don't think about it…
"He was a talented boy and one who would not have wanted us to mourn him…"
You've always hidden behind a mask…haven't you Severus? That is all you are, a coward…
Severus finally unfolded the paper. "I was asked to read this by the parents:
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high. –
He had joined the Death Eaters out of grief, he argued. That had been the defense he fed to his shadow when it kept him up at nights demanding to know why. Most of the time, that feeble answer could appease him, but then there were the other times.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town. -
Besides Harrison, how many faces had he known? How many people? He tried to think of all the names but the list was too long to remember. It made him sick to his stomach.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose. -
He had betrayed so many it seemed. Harrison's death was as much his fault as it was the murderer's. And McKenna's death was his fault too. And Hawke's, and Cedric's even…Karkaroff, Raine, Potter, Fudge; the list could go on and on. All of them, on either side, were dead because of him.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears: -
And why? Why had he become what he had? Grief seemed suddenly too small and too minute a reason about why he had become a murderer. His lost, however heartbreaking, had been small compared to what he caused: entire generations wiped out at his order…
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man. -
No reason seemed fair suddenly. Power, ambition, greed, even the fear of death seemed too ugly and pitiful an excuse. So his mind-his soul-demanded a reason on why he had allowed himself to become so base, so corrupt…
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup. –
What about love? But that was supposedly pure and incorruptible. Could love have driven him to the very edges of hell…could it had brought him back as well? Could a man who could destroy and ravage…could he possible love? And could a man brave hell for that love? Would he kill for it? Would he die for it?
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's."
He folded the paper again and put it back into his pocket. He looked straight at Lucius and spoke. "Men cannot hide behind masks forever. One day, they'll slip and be discovered."
The man who murdered Harrison regarded Severus with a curious gaze before turning towards the father and extending his condolences. But Severus didn't care, instead his feet led him to the three grave stones he most visited.
"You know you never explained them fully to me…" Kaiya said softly from behind her father.
Severus turned slightly and regarded his daughter who at the same time wasn't his daughter. He always considered her, scornfully so, the product of rape, the rape of his second wife Melanie by his once friend Silas Malfoy. He had never known for certain though, having made love to his wife earlier that night. Kaiya's true father was a mystery and one neither she nor him wanted answered. He had wanted to believe she was his daughter, as desperately as she had wanted him to be her father. That had always been his most deepest desire: to have family.
"Billy was a lot like Neville Longbottom if you can believe it. He was never very good at being an Auror or even a Wizard. But he had a good heart, an innocent one too."
"Just like Neville."
Snape ignored her. "He was a Muggle born and almost one himself. It was a wonder he survived Hecate at all. But he loved Dahlia. She was a regular wild card, the kind of rich girl who ran off with her old friend Severus to America because she wanted adventure. She got pregnant by him but, and its ironic to think about now, she couldn't marry him. Our families, this entire upper class, would have never accepted a Mudblood Yankee as the heir to the Wyvern Estate and we all knew that."
"So you married her?"
He nodded. "It was expected of me to marry someone, ah, well to do, and she had found herself in an improper place. So I took her sin away, so to speak. The families were much more forgiving of a scene of indiscretion by the Heir of Akel Dama then by a Mudblood. We were over in the States so it was unlikely our little lie would be discovered. Billy and Dahlia moved into a little two story red brick, I took the bottom bedroom and Sabine Pandora Snape was born. I was a sort of godfather. It was an odd couple of years, raising Dora but a great tangled family."
"She was two when she died, right?"
"When Jacqueline killed her." Severus corrected, shuttering. "It was their deaths that caused me," He stopped. "That freed me from the Aurors. I could leave under a clear reason and enter in quietly to the Death Eaters."
"So you let them die?" Kaiya exclaimed. "You let them…let her kill them! Is that what your telling me?"
He didn't answer.
"How could you? How could you have let them die?"
He wanted to answer her with all his might but couldn't. Instead, he turned to walk away.
Don't make a sound...
…just keep walking…