"Mr. Goyle?" Greg's eyes snapped to the source of the silky voice. Severus Snape was standing near the fireplace in the Slytherin Common Room dressed in his black dressing gown and staring into the flames of the handsome fire. "What pray tell are you doing out of bed so late?"
"I um...I couldn't sleep," Greg replied. Snape looked up to the fifteen-year-old boy and saw him standing there, arms crossed over his bare chest. Goyle had crossed his arms in hopes of hiding the brutal scars on his upper torso but he was too slow. Snape's eyes widened.
"Bloody hell! What happened to you?" Snape moved swiftly across the room and layed his hand upon Goyle's scarred chest. Greg's face grew red hot with humiliation as he forced his way around Professor Snape.
"Nothing. I hurt myself this summer playing Quidditch. That's all," Greg said, sitting on one of the leather sofas. Snape walked over and sat down next to his pupil.
"Mr. Goyle, if there's something bothering you then by all means you can tell me," he said, placing a hand on the young man's arm.
"Nothings going on!" Greg shouted, jumping up from the sofa. He walked over to the fireplace and rested his head on the mantle. Snape got up and walked over to him. He placed a warm hand on Greg's broad shoulders, feeling the young boys' soft skin.
A hand on his shoulder, the sour taste of bile in his mouth, a searing pain that ripped through his body. His father's hot breath in his ear, "No one will want you now, you fat lazy idiot." Gavin pushed his son against the wall and grabbed Greg's face, forcing him to look into his father's almost black eyes. Greg choked back a scream of pain as his father forced himself onto him...
Goyle cried out loud and fell to the floor. Lost in a memory of pain and humiliation, he pulled his knees to his chest and curled up into a fetal position. Snape watched in horror as his student folded in upon himself and, with his eyes, traced the scars across the young man's back. Jagged yet linear, those scars held a story that Snape was keen to hear.
Greg, however, was still lost in that memory; the fresh burning pain from the lashings with his own necklace, the tearing pain in his most private pf places, the memory of his father hurting im. Severus tried to shush the boy and calm him, but with each caress the large boy cowerd and shivered. "Gregory, let me help. Tell me what has happened to you," Snape said softly.
Greg cried softly, the warm and bitter tears bringing him back to that night. Always that night. "What did I do to deserve this?" He sobbed.
"What? What happened? Please tell me, Gregory. I'm here to help you," Snape whispered. He felt his heart break in two when Greg turned to him. He saw not only hurt in the boys' eyes but also shame and anger. Gregory, through heavy sobs and heaving breaths, began to tell Snape of what he had endured over the tortured summer holiday.
Severus listened to the tortured tale pour from lips that had never uttereed more than a few grunts in his Potions class. Gregory Goyle had become his father's toy, one he had hurt and abused. Goyle poured out the entire horrid story in words that Snape hadn't the heart to hear. He spoke in a monotone, emotionless, staring straight ahead.
Snape gasped several times as the boy coldly recounted the lost of his virginity to his own father. His innocence taken by a brute in hate and vengence. The lashings, the rape, the humiliation of torture, the imprisonment. Greg talked without ever looking at his audience and spoked volumes with his final silence.
Severua inched towards the boy once again, hoping to comfort the hulking boy but as his hand drew closer to the scarred flesh, Gregory seemed to regain his composure. "Do not touch me, sir." Goyle strainghtened up and looked at his Head of House. "I do not wish to be a burden on your mind. I will be fine. Forget what I have told you."
With those final words, Greg Goyle stood and walked from the room, holding himself as proudly as he could, considering the confession he'd made or maybe because of it.
