Chapter 2 – Hearts of Darkness
Young Severus Snape had enjoyed a productive study session with James Potter and Lily Evans. All three of them had completed their research for tomorrow's Magickal World class. However, the boy's good mood had only been temporary, and he now felt his thoughts take their old familiar slide into sadness. His heart ached in the excruciatingly painful way it usually did, and he had no one at hand to talk to.
His roommates would roll their eyes, and he couldn't bear that. The Gryffindors would taunt him, and that would be worse. Severus thought of Lily and shook his head. She would never understand, nor could she. Her childhood memories were of holidays and parties and friends, not hideous Dark rituals conjured by monsters like his father. Neither could James, who came from a nice home with loving parents. Nobody had ever broken his arm over their knee, that was for sure.
With a sigh, Sev tossed down his book bag and slumped onto a bench near the lake. He dropped his head, his lank hair obscuring the sight of the few remaining students now making their way toward the Great Hall for dinner.
He knew he needed to owl Asphora LaChance, and he would once he got back to Slytherin Tower. But for now – he was alone with his memories. Even his father's elimination from his life couldn't heal him deep inside, where dark and frightening things grew.
If only –
If only he'd been born to someone else.
If only his mother had taken him away after his babyhood "accident".
If only he had learned to talk to people.
If only he had run outdoors and played games instead of living a half-life trapped inside that hellhole in which he'd grown up, afraid of slamming doors and terrified of making mistakes because it would all just end in still more pain and humiliation and hurt.
Without realizing it, of course, Severus had begun to cry. If he had, he would have stuffed the feelings down deep. He would have immediately smoothed his expression its usual bland and sneering neutrality, because those who hurt you always smelled the fear on you first.
He didn't even feel the hand on his shoulder.
Suddenly jolted out of his melancholy Sev cried out, teeth bared and dark eyebrows lowered over darker eyes. If Albus Dumbledore hadn't caught him, he would have fallen off the bench altogether.
"Easy, child," the kind old man said, drawing the trembling boy close.
Severus' body stiffened. The old memories hurt like knives, cutting and re- cutting the same old scar tissue. The boy's hands covered his face. He was ashamed of looking this way, of being needy, of being – human.
He would be found out and punished eventually by someone other than his old man. Victims drew abusers like flies. Not flies – poisonous and hideous hornets, large and frightening wall-wasps. The kind that could sting you again and again and again. Severus curled over, forehead on his knees. Albus Dumbledore wouldn't know anything about that. He mustn't taint the Headmaster with his own damned rotten Darkness.
"It's all right, my dear boy," Dumbledore said, uncurling him up and enfolding him. Old lined hands stroked tangled and knotted black hair. "You don't have to hide from me. Remember?"
Sev – his sadness beyond expression -- shook his head no.
The old man rocked him back and forth, very gently.
Were other students looking at them? There's crazy Snape, nutters Snivellus, that ugly little snake. Albus sensed his thoughts and answered the boy deep inside his head.
No child who became as lost as you is bad. No child who was cudgeled and cursed beyond the endurance of most adults is flawed. You are a jewel inside your heart. Your soul is as good and worthy as mine. I won't let you fall into the abyss. Feel my arms around you, holding you back from the edge. You won't fall, you won't be lost, and you won't be forgotten or left behind or abandoned.
Not ever again.
Severus' taut muscles -- screaming with tension and self-loathing – began to relax. He felt the Headmaster's healing energy slip smoothly through his battered heart, and knew he was safe.
Dumbledore continued to rock him back and forth as if he was a baby. "It's all right, Severus," he said. "Calm down. Be at peace."
Sev's ragged breath slowed down to little hitches before it leveled out. He opened his eyes, knowing that he was enfolded in love and acceptance. He watched the beautiful crimson and gold sun slip behind the ultramarine-blue mountains that ringed Hogwarts through his red and swollen eyes.
Finally, Severus heaved a great sigh.
"Thank you," he whispered. "How did you know?"
Dumbledore smiled. "Ah, it just came to me." His thumbs slipped under the boy's dark eyes, wiping away the last of his tears. Sev raised his index finger, silently asking Albus if he could have a few moments to gather his composure. A few minutes passed, as they always do.
"Better now," Severus said.
"Good. I am very glad to hear it."
Another deep sigh.
Severus now remembered to do something Asphora LaChance had taught him. He pictured the tension in his body pouring out the ends of his fingers and dissipating into nothingness.
The Headmaster smiled at him, the corners of his calm blue eyes crinkling. "Are you feeling better?"
The Dark child smiled, and nodded.
"Are you hungry?"
Another nod.
"I'm glad you are," Dumbledore said as he stood, gently pulling the boy up with him. "Rumor has it that the House Elves are serving nothing tonight but divinity fudge and pistachio ice cream."
Severus grinned. He couldn't help it!
Picking up his book bag, student and Headmaster trudged their way up the little hill and into the Great Hall.
-------------
"I am disappointed in you, Sartoris," the wizard known to his inner circle as Lord Voldemort sighed. He raised a glass of brandy, sniffed it briefly, and then drank it down. The crystal stem snapped as he slammed it on the polished marble side table. "Most disappointed."
Potions Master Sejanus Sartoris was sick with fear but hid it well. "My Lord," he responded quite calmly, "I realize that I – "
With a twist of his index finger, Voldemort sent the professor twisting onto the floor and watched him writhe in agony. The pain of others fascinated him. He watched Sartoris as if he were a new and exotic type of flowering plant, heretofore unknown to science.
The tic-tock of the grandfather clock accompanied the man's stifled moans. The former Tom Riddle waited until blood streamed from the man's nose and mouth before he twisted his finger once again. "Get up," he whispered in a voice cold as death.
Acutely embarrassed by his own weakness, Professor Sartoris righted himself and regained his seat, averting his eyes from the Dark Lord and dabbing at his face with his pocket-handkerchief.
"You have been unmasked, Sartoris. You have been unmasked and upbraided by that simpering old fool Albus Dumbledore, and over a mere boy who might serve me as your successor one day – soon." Riddle darted an amused glance at Avaris Malfoy, who sat to his left enjoying his own glass of brandy. Riddle smirked, his face cruelly beautiful. "Isn't it bad enough that the whelp's father has been reduced to a gibbering idiot by the same simpering old fool, without reducing you to the ridiculous buffoon you truly are as well? Shall there be no end to my tolerance and understanding?"
Sartoris knew better than to look the Dark Lord in the eye. He might well take it as some sort of challenge, and punish him accordingly.
"So, let me assess the situation, Sartoris," Riddle said in a voice barely above a whisper. "The boy you were ordered to watch and train has now become Dumbledore's little pet. According to Malfoy's son here," Riddle gestured toward Avaris, "the boy has rekindled a friendship he had with two Gryffindors, one of them a mudblood. He returned from St. Mungo's positively glowing with Light energy, causing him to resent his latest forays into the Restricted Section at your behest and to reject the friendship offered by his true Slytherin friends."
Sartoris began to answer. Riddle flicked his finger once again and thrust the unfortunate man across the room and into an old suit of armor, which clattered to the ground with an awful din. "Shut your ignorant mouth before I shut it permanently, Sartoris," Riddle hissed. "How dare you! Avaris? Suggestions?"
"My Lord," the elder Malfoy said in his low and carefully modulated voice. "Is it possible to turn Dumbledore against the boy?"
Riddle's cold gaze focused on the Potions Master. "Get up off the floor, man, and act like something other than the dancing monkey I know you to be," he chuckled. "Answer the man!"
Righting himself, the professor cleared his throat. "He is already aware of young Snape's Dark training, yet he accepts him. He is already aware that he spends his nights in the Restricted Section, yet he fails to stop him. In my view, it's because it's slipped his mind. Dumbledore is powerful but Dumbledore is old. This is all to the good, I believe. Further, he is aware that the boy has tried to kill himself twice at Hogwarts and has rescued him twice, and for no other reason that I can determine other than altruism. His altruism and his trust are his greatest weaknesses, My Lord."
"Interesting," Riddle said. "Of course they are. The old fool believes at the present time that you are visiting your elderly aunt. You are, in a way – and have no fear, Sartoris, I will release the Bindus spell on her and obliviate her memories before we go. Yet he cannot sense that Malfoy and I are here as well. Pitiful. He really has slipped since he took down Grindewald! Avaris – any words of advice before we go?"
"If we cannot turn him against the boy, then we must see to turning the boy against Dumbledore," the white-haired and elegant old man replied in his coldly patrician manner. "It's also apparent that we must curb Young Snape's burgeoning affiliation with his so-called Gryffindor friends. The question is – how best to do it? The boy is grateful to have any friends at this point."
Riddle steepled his fingers and gazed into the hearth fire. "It would be far too obvious to cause another falling-out amongst them. I might not choose at this time to eliminate them from his life; such a move would draw too much unwanted attention. However – I can punish. I most certainly can punish. Sartoris!"
The Potion Master snapped alert. "My Lord?"
"I want you to treat the boy in a manner perfectly within Dumbledore's edicts. As big a fool as you obviously are, I need you to continue acting as my eyes in this matter. Have Young Snape continue his lessons in the library, yet do not object if Dumbledore forbids them. I want you to keep your ears open and find a way in which we can wound the boy through his friends. Fail me again, and I will use your body fat in my scrubwoman's next batch of soap. Are my wishes clear, Sartoris?"
"Eminently, My Lord."
"Very well. Now get out of my sight before I decide to remove your brains through your nostrils. Good evening, then."
Bowing, Professor Sartoris disapparated, reappearing in the midst of a raging thunderstorm in the middle of downtown Hogsmeade.
"Bugger," he growled, jamming his hands into his pockets and making his very damp way back to Hogwarts.
Young Severus Snape had enjoyed a productive study session with James Potter and Lily Evans. All three of them had completed their research for tomorrow's Magickal World class. However, the boy's good mood had only been temporary, and he now felt his thoughts take their old familiar slide into sadness. His heart ached in the excruciatingly painful way it usually did, and he had no one at hand to talk to.
His roommates would roll their eyes, and he couldn't bear that. The Gryffindors would taunt him, and that would be worse. Severus thought of Lily and shook his head. She would never understand, nor could she. Her childhood memories were of holidays and parties and friends, not hideous Dark rituals conjured by monsters like his father. Neither could James, who came from a nice home with loving parents. Nobody had ever broken his arm over their knee, that was for sure.
With a sigh, Sev tossed down his book bag and slumped onto a bench near the lake. He dropped his head, his lank hair obscuring the sight of the few remaining students now making their way toward the Great Hall for dinner.
He knew he needed to owl Asphora LaChance, and he would once he got back to Slytherin Tower. But for now – he was alone with his memories. Even his father's elimination from his life couldn't heal him deep inside, where dark and frightening things grew.
If only –
If only he'd been born to someone else.
If only his mother had taken him away after his babyhood "accident".
If only he had learned to talk to people.
If only he had run outdoors and played games instead of living a half-life trapped inside that hellhole in which he'd grown up, afraid of slamming doors and terrified of making mistakes because it would all just end in still more pain and humiliation and hurt.
Without realizing it, of course, Severus had begun to cry. If he had, he would have stuffed the feelings down deep. He would have immediately smoothed his expression its usual bland and sneering neutrality, because those who hurt you always smelled the fear on you first.
He didn't even feel the hand on his shoulder.
Suddenly jolted out of his melancholy Sev cried out, teeth bared and dark eyebrows lowered over darker eyes. If Albus Dumbledore hadn't caught him, he would have fallen off the bench altogether.
"Easy, child," the kind old man said, drawing the trembling boy close.
Severus' body stiffened. The old memories hurt like knives, cutting and re- cutting the same old scar tissue. The boy's hands covered his face. He was ashamed of looking this way, of being needy, of being – human.
He would be found out and punished eventually by someone other than his old man. Victims drew abusers like flies. Not flies – poisonous and hideous hornets, large and frightening wall-wasps. The kind that could sting you again and again and again. Severus curled over, forehead on his knees. Albus Dumbledore wouldn't know anything about that. He mustn't taint the Headmaster with his own damned rotten Darkness.
"It's all right, my dear boy," Dumbledore said, uncurling him up and enfolding him. Old lined hands stroked tangled and knotted black hair. "You don't have to hide from me. Remember?"
Sev – his sadness beyond expression -- shook his head no.
The old man rocked him back and forth, very gently.
Were other students looking at them? There's crazy Snape, nutters Snivellus, that ugly little snake. Albus sensed his thoughts and answered the boy deep inside his head.
No child who became as lost as you is bad. No child who was cudgeled and cursed beyond the endurance of most adults is flawed. You are a jewel inside your heart. Your soul is as good and worthy as mine. I won't let you fall into the abyss. Feel my arms around you, holding you back from the edge. You won't fall, you won't be lost, and you won't be forgotten or left behind or abandoned.
Not ever again.
Severus' taut muscles -- screaming with tension and self-loathing – began to relax. He felt the Headmaster's healing energy slip smoothly through his battered heart, and knew he was safe.
Dumbledore continued to rock him back and forth as if he was a baby. "It's all right, Severus," he said. "Calm down. Be at peace."
Sev's ragged breath slowed down to little hitches before it leveled out. He opened his eyes, knowing that he was enfolded in love and acceptance. He watched the beautiful crimson and gold sun slip behind the ultramarine-blue mountains that ringed Hogwarts through his red and swollen eyes.
Finally, Severus heaved a great sigh.
"Thank you," he whispered. "How did you know?"
Dumbledore smiled. "Ah, it just came to me." His thumbs slipped under the boy's dark eyes, wiping away the last of his tears. Sev raised his index finger, silently asking Albus if he could have a few moments to gather his composure. A few minutes passed, as they always do.
"Better now," Severus said.
"Good. I am very glad to hear it."
Another deep sigh.
Severus now remembered to do something Asphora LaChance had taught him. He pictured the tension in his body pouring out the ends of his fingers and dissipating into nothingness.
The Headmaster smiled at him, the corners of his calm blue eyes crinkling. "Are you feeling better?"
The Dark child smiled, and nodded.
"Are you hungry?"
Another nod.
"I'm glad you are," Dumbledore said as he stood, gently pulling the boy up with him. "Rumor has it that the House Elves are serving nothing tonight but divinity fudge and pistachio ice cream."
Severus grinned. He couldn't help it!
Picking up his book bag, student and Headmaster trudged their way up the little hill and into the Great Hall.
-------------
"I am disappointed in you, Sartoris," the wizard known to his inner circle as Lord Voldemort sighed. He raised a glass of brandy, sniffed it briefly, and then drank it down. The crystal stem snapped as he slammed it on the polished marble side table. "Most disappointed."
Potions Master Sejanus Sartoris was sick with fear but hid it well. "My Lord," he responded quite calmly, "I realize that I – "
With a twist of his index finger, Voldemort sent the professor twisting onto the floor and watched him writhe in agony. The pain of others fascinated him. He watched Sartoris as if he were a new and exotic type of flowering plant, heretofore unknown to science.
The tic-tock of the grandfather clock accompanied the man's stifled moans. The former Tom Riddle waited until blood streamed from the man's nose and mouth before he twisted his finger once again. "Get up," he whispered in a voice cold as death.
Acutely embarrassed by his own weakness, Professor Sartoris righted himself and regained his seat, averting his eyes from the Dark Lord and dabbing at his face with his pocket-handkerchief.
"You have been unmasked, Sartoris. You have been unmasked and upbraided by that simpering old fool Albus Dumbledore, and over a mere boy who might serve me as your successor one day – soon." Riddle darted an amused glance at Avaris Malfoy, who sat to his left enjoying his own glass of brandy. Riddle smirked, his face cruelly beautiful. "Isn't it bad enough that the whelp's father has been reduced to a gibbering idiot by the same simpering old fool, without reducing you to the ridiculous buffoon you truly are as well? Shall there be no end to my tolerance and understanding?"
Sartoris knew better than to look the Dark Lord in the eye. He might well take it as some sort of challenge, and punish him accordingly.
"So, let me assess the situation, Sartoris," Riddle said in a voice barely above a whisper. "The boy you were ordered to watch and train has now become Dumbledore's little pet. According to Malfoy's son here," Riddle gestured toward Avaris, "the boy has rekindled a friendship he had with two Gryffindors, one of them a mudblood. He returned from St. Mungo's positively glowing with Light energy, causing him to resent his latest forays into the Restricted Section at your behest and to reject the friendship offered by his true Slytherin friends."
Sartoris began to answer. Riddle flicked his finger once again and thrust the unfortunate man across the room and into an old suit of armor, which clattered to the ground with an awful din. "Shut your ignorant mouth before I shut it permanently, Sartoris," Riddle hissed. "How dare you! Avaris? Suggestions?"
"My Lord," the elder Malfoy said in his low and carefully modulated voice. "Is it possible to turn Dumbledore against the boy?"
Riddle's cold gaze focused on the Potions Master. "Get up off the floor, man, and act like something other than the dancing monkey I know you to be," he chuckled. "Answer the man!"
Righting himself, the professor cleared his throat. "He is already aware of young Snape's Dark training, yet he accepts him. He is already aware that he spends his nights in the Restricted Section, yet he fails to stop him. In my view, it's because it's slipped his mind. Dumbledore is powerful but Dumbledore is old. This is all to the good, I believe. Further, he is aware that the boy has tried to kill himself twice at Hogwarts and has rescued him twice, and for no other reason that I can determine other than altruism. His altruism and his trust are his greatest weaknesses, My Lord."
"Interesting," Riddle said. "Of course they are. The old fool believes at the present time that you are visiting your elderly aunt. You are, in a way – and have no fear, Sartoris, I will release the Bindus spell on her and obliviate her memories before we go. Yet he cannot sense that Malfoy and I are here as well. Pitiful. He really has slipped since he took down Grindewald! Avaris – any words of advice before we go?"
"If we cannot turn him against the boy, then we must see to turning the boy against Dumbledore," the white-haired and elegant old man replied in his coldly patrician manner. "It's also apparent that we must curb Young Snape's burgeoning affiliation with his so-called Gryffindor friends. The question is – how best to do it? The boy is grateful to have any friends at this point."
Riddle steepled his fingers and gazed into the hearth fire. "It would be far too obvious to cause another falling-out amongst them. I might not choose at this time to eliminate them from his life; such a move would draw too much unwanted attention. However – I can punish. I most certainly can punish. Sartoris!"
The Potion Master snapped alert. "My Lord?"
"I want you to treat the boy in a manner perfectly within Dumbledore's edicts. As big a fool as you obviously are, I need you to continue acting as my eyes in this matter. Have Young Snape continue his lessons in the library, yet do not object if Dumbledore forbids them. I want you to keep your ears open and find a way in which we can wound the boy through his friends. Fail me again, and I will use your body fat in my scrubwoman's next batch of soap. Are my wishes clear, Sartoris?"
"Eminently, My Lord."
"Very well. Now get out of my sight before I decide to remove your brains through your nostrils. Good evening, then."
Bowing, Professor Sartoris disapparated, reappearing in the midst of a raging thunderstorm in the middle of downtown Hogsmeade.
"Bugger," he growled, jamming his hands into his pockets and making his very damp way back to Hogwarts.