A/N: I just want to say thank you to everyone who has reviewed, I greatly appreciate it. It's quite daunting trying to write characters that are so well-known and loved (or hated), I can only hope I do them justice.
Just to clarify, in this chapter we are dealing with three different periods in time. They will be separated accordingly to avoid confusion.
She was a Mudblood. It was true; there was no use in denying it. She was tragically born with filthy, discoloured blood. Her veins were tangled and impure, tainted by the touch of Muggle mediocrity.
The spells that flitted out of her wand with the greatest of ease were not genuine; they were messy and unrefined to an observant eye. An eye that looked for perfection and talent knew that such things could not be created, but rather passed on from generations of natural superiority. Magic, like attractive skin, needed to come from an ancestor who possessed such a thing in abundance.
Only a freak who somehow met with a strange turn of genetics inside of the womb could become what she became – and the idea that she became what she did with pride made him grind his teeth together until his jaw ached mercilessly.
"How excited were you the day you received your letter, Lily Evans? How brightly did your freckly, pale face ignite when you learned that something about you was different and special? Did you celebrate being given a gift you never rightfully earned? Did you squeal and laugh like all the naïve do when life hands them opportunities that they do not deserve?"
Why did it hurt so much to tell her who and what she was? Why had that glare made his chest feel like it was being compressed to the point of asphyxiation? Was it guilt? Perhaps, she had tried to do him a noble service after all.
A proud good-will soldier she was, fighting the battles of the weak and helpless. Unfortunately he was neither, and thus her help was both unnecessary and unwelcome.
"Did you think me a laughable fool, Evans? Did you giggle not a little bit to yourself to see your bitter, greasy classmate hanging by his ankles in mid-air while enduring the mockery of the boy who will stop at nothing to get a rise out of you? Did you enjoy the brief shred of heroism you displayed at my expense? Did it make you feel righteous and powerful?"
The humiliation was never complete, and he found himself rather powerless to stop it from trampling him time and time again. In the Slytherin dungeon he was at peace, being left to amuse himself with books taken from the restricted section of the Hogwarts Library. He never become compelled to peruse the dangerous material that was slowly becoming an obsession until he began looking up to see the narrowed, plotting eyes of Black and Potter over breakfast. Their smirks, grins, and quiet whispers grew more and more threatening with each passing day.
Whispers turned into words, which escalated into shouts that could be heard across the grounds.
"Snivellus!" and " Greasy Git," became as common as traditional salutations, and his was growing weary of rolling his eyes and turning his back to the proud, amused voices of the Gryffindor princes.
Names were not unusual to him, unflattering as they may be. His home was filled with name-calling of some kind of another. Muggle words. "Whore" and "bitch" on weekdays, "cunt" on weekends. The more his father drank, the more his terminology worsened, and his mother would always listen to him with clenched fists and her eyes screwed shut.
Sometimes Severus would see her whisper to herself, her words a language that he could never decipher as a child. At her angriest and most desperate moments, furniture would rattle. He remembered the Muggle words and the trembling of the dishes, some of which would shudder enough to propel themselves off of the tables and onto the floors. The smashing of glass enraged his father.
As the years went on, the rattling ceased, as did the silent whispers. They had been replaced by cold stares and silence.
For fives years he had escaped the Muggle words and the coldness, but still it lingered on. Everything had changed and nothing had changed. He lived away from the words and the sadness of his parents, and he instead found himself enveloped in further undesirable entanglements.
The words of his tormentors had become actions, and he tolerated them silently. Oh, he would throw a curse or two, but they were faster. He hated them for it.
He found himself agonizing not over his numerous mortifications at their hands, but over their supremacy. They defeated him every time, and as they gloried in their victory, a moralistic Mudblood tried to save him.
So valiant was she who knew nothing of defeat.
Why was he guilty over his true assessment of her character?
Even now, as he sat silently with a listing of various curses in his lap, he remembered her face when he spat out the name the Wizarding world had given to her kind. Her normally pleasant features crumbled into a look that combined both rage and pain. Her eyes narrowed with disdain and grew moist with hurt. Her shoulders slumped forward in resignation, and she left her brutish housemates to do their worse with him.
He was glad to see her go, to see her proud Mudblood head hanging low, as it should on Wizarding ground. She had no place at Hogwarts, and she certainly had no place demanding that he be set free. The words of wizards were not meant for the ears of half-breeds. Their battles were not hers, and her audacity to intercede disgusted him.
"I know where you came from, Evans, I know what sort of barbarians bore and raised you. I know that you cannot be any better."
He hated her for the brief tinge of remorse that lingered in his chest and kept his concentration from his books.
Their world looked no different now that it had when they first arrived. Snape doubted that the blacks and grays that surrounded their bodies like a warm, dry mist would ever change.
He had never been one to appreciate the world of the living, he felt he was best suited to the indoors. This was very much like being trapped indoors for all eternity, only not. It was comparable to unending, misty cavern that was devoid of nature. It was not a frightening atmosphere, but rather a surreal one. It was his destination and his sanctuary while the battle raged on without him. This was a part of the journey, one of the final tests before the imminent denouement.
"You knew Potter's parents?" Draco casually examined his fingernails and grimaced in disgust at the unidentifiable filth that accumulated beneath them. He had no idea what he had been touching to mar them so significantly. He found he cared little.
"Unfortunately yes, I knew them rather well." Snape had sat down across from his unwilling companion, making sure to keep a modest distance between the two. It would not do well to coddle the boy or emphasize his need for protection. All recently hatched creatures look upon the new world with fear, and all of them must learn to stand upon their own shaking legs without the assistance of others. In time they learn to run and fight, and they do so by understanding the necessity of such actions.
"Potter's father bothered you," Draco scoffed, "if some git dared to hang me in the air for shits and giggles I would kill him and pretend it was an accident."
Snape's face grew hard. It was the hardness of a man who has aged twenty years in a matter of seconds.
"I did." His voice was ominously silent.
"You did what now?" Draco's head snapped up, the disbelief in his eyes comically exaggerated. His horror could not be disguised by a haughty grin or a scathing remark.
"I killed him." Snape's knuckles whitened as he clenched his fists together tightly. "I had him destroyed, and everyone thought it was an…unfortunate turn of events. Everyone blamed fate, not me."
Draco was silent for a moment, his eyes scanning the ground to avoid the indirect gaze of the man before him. The man who been transfigured from a bitter spy to a malicious murderer. Twice.
He should have admired him, praised him even. He wanted to, but the congratulatory remarks remain lodged in his throat like acidic bile. His mind consistently turned him into a mute.
Snape killed Potter's father? Impossible…
His father would have known if that was so, and his father had discussed the Potter's demise over many dinners with a deep sense of pride.
"Vol…he killed Potter senior. It's legend, my father…"
"We do need to utter the killing curse to determine who lives or dies, Draco."
The night was cold, and the crowd was silent. They had been waiting for this night for what had seemed like an eternity.
This was their chance. This was their time. This was their calling.
The forgotten would be remembered forever after tonight. Those ugly, greasy faces that were laughed at behind bookshelves and trees. Those quiet, trembling voices that were mocked behind closed doors. Those punished, ill-treated bodies that were hung in mid-air for the amusement of the golden children would have their revenge. They would have the attention of the world that cast them aside as weak.
Who is worthless now?
Not us.
Not anymore.
What would she say if she knew? She probably did know, but hadn't the courage to share her secret. Perhaps her disgust and disappointment made it far easier for her to pretend that he did not exist. That an animal such as he had never been born.
He knew that was what she called them. Animals. Thoughtless, inhuman beings who needed the call of a master.
"Mindless," she had said. Witches and Wizards with no strength or character of their own, pathetic beings who banded together and rallied around a powerful figure because they felt powerless themselves. She had resorted to telling Muggle fables of sheep and wolves to illustrate her hatred towards the group that stood in the shadows, masked and awaiting a fight.
She spoke like the Headmaster, and her words were ineffective. She knew nothing of duty or honor. Duty to your race, the honor of your blood. She had no concept of what it was to find a place in a world that was formerly hostile. In fact, in her blind and ignorant eyes, the world held no hostility at all. Until now, that is.
She blames us.
She scorns us.
She loathes us.
But she will not defeat us; our cause is greater than she.
Isn't it?
Snape looked upon the puzzled face of his companion. His eyes seemed glazed, unseeing of not only the physical world, but of the world as it existed in his own mind. He recognized the indifferent confusion, he had been there. He had spent endless nights trying to see the world through different eyes, but understanding never came. All he had was reality, and when his idealism ended it did not do so because of sudden enlightenment, it did so because of pain.
His life had been filled with pain of sorts, that was true, but never did he feel grief and anguish tear through his body so torturously as he did the night he realized the battle he fought was a vile, repulsive joke.
He could feel the burning and tearing of the cruciatus curse rip through his veins for hours – even days – at a time, and never would it compare to the moment of truth when the world as it's known to the beholder comes crashing down upon them with unbearable ferocity.
For some of us Severus, realization comes from loss. When something is taken from us, our eyes open, and it's most terrible when we learn for the first time that they were closed."
No matter how much Snape hated the man whose aphorisms would haunt him until his last breath, he could never dismiss the knowledge that in his need, Albus had always been there.
How gifted and good were those who saw gifts and goodness in people who had neither?
"You went to revels, Severus?" Draco inquired.
"Indeed I did, it was required of followers of the Dark Lord. I have been to many, and perhaps will be at another before my time here is through."
"Time where?"
"In this world."
Looking at Malfoy, Snape found himself rather perplexed to see the boys face remain stoic. Perhaps the child had been dealing with the possibility of death for too long now that the prospect failed to shock him. The thought of death always frightens the living, unless they feel that they cannot stop it. Or if they crave it. Perhaps the petulant, sheltered young wizard in front of him had considered both.
"Does that shock you, Mr. Malfoy?" Snape inquired silkily.
"You attending more revels?" Draco knitted his brows together thoughtfully. "No, I can never be shocked again."
"No," Snape began, "the idea of dying, the possibility that our lives are in great danger and there is a mission we must accomplish at great risk."
It may have been cruel, but it was best to gauge the boy's strengths now. No sense in sheltering him further, not after he brashly committed to accepting a mission he hadn't the will to complete without thought of his own limitations.
"I think that death might be merciful."
"Insightful, Malfoy. Death can be a blessing for some, I concur."
How tragedy corrupted the fragile, ignorant sensibilities of youth.
"Have you ever wished for it?" Draco asked silently, his hands dropping to fidget with his robes anxiously. He had never imagined his conversations with his professor would come to this, this meeting of confused and thoughtful minds. He never thought he would see the faithful Potions Master murder the pleading Headmaster either, but strange things happened these days.
"Have I wished for death?" Snape stood and smoothed his robes mechanically. "I will answer that when you better understand what might have given me such great hopelessness and despair."