AN: this might be mean and dark. Beware: Fleab something to abate the saccharined slop.
Decidedly unbeta'd
If little else my years of dark deceit taught me the value of clear communication. The spoken word can be one's greatest adversary. Life truly is in the connotations of words; those bits and pieces that make our daily interactions between the species. However, it is in the true discernment of the more habitual elements that make someone a master of diction and phrase. I am, if not always, a perfectionist. However, in this meager account of my life in all its frequently morbid forms, I will add no embellishment. This will serve as the only real telling of a dark and mistaken man, perhaps most greatly misunderstood by himself.
I am a beast. A damned creature captured and contained in a cage to be stared at by the masses as a warning to the young. Stay way or see what you may become if you stray too far, desire power too much, and ask too many questions. Careful children, don't get too close, there is fine line between the dark and something truly evil.
They still fear me. They doubt the authenticity of my domestication, and so I am kept on a very short leash.
I am watched after every revel, followed none too stealthy down the corridors when the mark burns bright. There is suspicion in the bright eyes that send me back to the pit of depravity for one more message, one more scrape of information that an already too clever Master might throw in my direction. God, how I hate it.
Afterwards, when the Crucio throbs in my bones they tut, tut over my condition, but know I will survive. If not, oh well. Just one less danger in the world, pity though he did have a purpose now and again.
Soil that is not well nurtured soon crusts over; burrowing the precious little moisture deep inside where incessant sunbeams cannot reach it.
I may be bright, but I still pay for childhood sins erstwhile careless, thoughtless heroes roam free. So the cold dark has become a sanctuary, a place free of those lighter, brighter creatures that flitter about with Quidditch and whining for homework papers. God, how I envy them.
Teaching precious dunderheads only served to sharpen new, unseen weapons. Each sneer, each growling retort is a lash out against the white noise of pain and stagnation that clouds upon me deeper each day.
Once my Lord's voice was a cool whisper across my soul, something to strengthen and appease those dark thoughts in my mind.
"You have potential my boy. Potential only I can properly nurture into fruition. Your previous studies have merely scratched the surface of what you could accomplish. Follow me Severus and the way will be golden and infamous. We will ignite those abandoned pools of magical power. Lands will crumple and shake beneath my foot."
The only thing that crumbled was my humanity. It is still on the chopping block, at every calling, as I wait for the axe to fall against my neck. There is no escaping it for it will fail someday. I only wish that it would cut cleanly, ending my existence with far less pain than there was living it.
All of this however sounds far too dramatic, for I am by no means a martyr. I made my choice at a tender age, and then made another one when the blood and chaos that once was so sweet turned foul.
Every young boy likes to do malicious things. They taunt little girls; poke at every creature that ever breathes with a stick. All of this stems from the drive to seek and explore. There's a thrill in a little bit of torture. Something almost Godlike in its power over something made defenseless.
Revels were pleasurable things to me. However like all delicious things, the time comes when you've had your fill. That came to me shortly before the attacks on the Potters.
We had a stunning defeat against the pompous Aurors. We had killed many of them before their wands were drawn in defense. The activities of that evening had all in high spirits, but the torture became too much for me when I returned home. I was haunted by the screams like never before, seeing the deep red before my eyes. Dead skin caressing mine in ghostly fingerprints. Necrophilia never appealed to me again.
Safe to say that night I developed a conscience, a terrible burden, but enough to lead me to deal away my freedom for a snippet of mortal absolution. A toy they still dangle before my eyes in get me to obey and enslave my passions.
When that infant Potter defeated Voldemort, I seemed to have made the right decision, one that would leave me a victor. Although, I would give the credit of Potter's survival to Lily Evans' dimwitted sacrifice rather than anything the bastard child particularly did. Of course my past juvenile infatuation with Evans has absolutely no influence on that whatsoever, nor does my distaste of all things related to James Potter.
However, in time all dark things find their way into the light once again. Voldemort returned after a blissful absence. I had tasted a bit of freedom, only to return to a duplicity that ripped at every portion of me. Now they wait for me to fail and return, on either side.
It is a dance I no longer fancy, but there is no chance for a respite. Even when Voldemort is defeated, and he will be for in all great stories good does indeed triumph, I will not be free. There will be no parades, statues, or public accolades for my service. No I fully expect to be used then in another capacity: that of a scapegoat.
To prepare myself for such a time, indulgence is most useful. My life is well and truly fucked, so it is only natural that I seek to continue that pattern whenever the moment presents itself. Currently it is in the form of a young witch from Hogsmeade. She was rather plain, carrying a very load of parcels in her arms that threatened to fall despite being pressed tightly against an ample bosom. I offered my assistance in a gracious matter that was forced even to the most casual of viewers and she accepted. It was only a matter of minutes after following her to her basic house, which I highly doubted she owned herself, that I received the full pleasures of her company.
Those that know me would be highly shocked by the frequency of these occasions. Where this ability comes from I have no idea. Magical or Muggle it makes little difference, a few choice words and careful lip movements and they are bubbling with sexual excitement. In many ways I have learned not to fight or over analyze this gift.
It is honest to say that they are mostly of a frumpy variety. Lacking the sort of beauty sought in either society. This bothers me not. Adages of glasshouses and all that stay true.
My far too attentive waiter peers into my teapot and spoils my daydream vision of the buxom girl showing me her sweetest of attributes. Such fantasies are more frequent these days, as the battle grows long. I send the chipper man reeling away from me with a sneer. Imaginative scenarios are helpful in my lifestyle but detrimental when lacking completion, only succeeding in heightening my frustrations.
I scan the crowd to try and find a substitute, but the afternoon light is dimming and no one is wise to be out beyond dusk in these tense days. It is fitting sexual climax is called "the little death" in romance languages, for right now I would take either; something at least to end my days of limbo.
The process was flawed. They intended me to work through this and come out reformed. Enforced rehabilitation, like confinement would bend my spirit to pre-ordained structure and moral order. Shackles on my extremities would have had greater effect. The old man made a supreme mistake; he left me idle. My mind could sit and wonder at everything and nothing all the same. I have studied and mastered many philosophies and in a place like Hogwarts such hunger for learning can be indulged. But what is the use of gray matter if it serves no real purpose. My mind, so precisely arranged, can recall more at the slightest infliction that most of the dolts that sit before me with clear distaste. Fine then, the feeling is entirely mutual.
This intellect of mine has been my greatest strength. How many could live the duplicitous life as I have and survive? Continued success in my masquerade does bore me. The day I respond too slow, fail to anticipate a move, and jumble the lies of deceit I create, is moment of Joy. Will not then I know a freedom of breath I have not felt since the age of seventeen?
For the moment, the torment of those pupils in front of me is a small pleasure, a delicious one at that. Make no mistake I am not a nice man, but where have I treated anyone better? Even the old man is a tickle against battered nerves. I am backed into this cage and I will not hesitate to lash out at the easiest targets that would be foolish enough to wonder close by.
So it is with every ounce of my being that I loath these idiots before me. These loved, treasured, naïve little fools who swish and flick themselves into a perfect world of security, far from a semblance of reality. Spare me.
"Severus, you look positively deathly," the old man would whine. "Do venture out of your classroom once and again. A walk does wonders, I say."
Ah, the wisdom of a sweet-loving lunatic.