Part Three
Despair
He had to set everything straight. He could not go on living an existence he did not understand. He loved James, this he knew. And he hated him more than anything in the world except himself, this was true as well. Voldemort, that was a puzzle. He had never been with the Dark Lord, never showed him affection or caring, had served him in blind pain and despair and yet Tom cared for him? You cannot curse what you love, nor cast a curse out of love. For loving Severus both James and Tom were destroyed. Severus had become hate, and without that driving force he was but a shell of a man. He had hated the Death Eaters he worked with but they paled in comparison to his self-loathing. Now they were all he had left.
He joined Dumbledore's side. For it was certainly not the side of good. There was no evil. There was a man who wanted power and used brutal methods to obtain it. There was a man who wanted to stop his rise to power and used equally horrifying methods to oppose him. There was no right, only power and greed.
Years passed, and with the last of the Death Eaters being rounded up there was no work left for Snape. Always being gifted at Potions, he began to work at the school.