Chapter 5: Occluding the Darkness

August 20, 1995

Harry Potter

Harry hated it when Sirius and Remus argued. They were the closest he had ever had to parents, and having to hear them quarrel gave Harry an inkling into understanding how other children would get upset when their parents fought. Obviously Sirius and Remus weren't any kind of romantic couple, but they always had such a strong friendship, and Harry got a kind of sinking feeling when he saw their anger being directed at each other. It didn't seem natural. And what made it worse was the subject over which they were quarrelling. There was no way in hell that Severus Snape was worth the discomfort of having to watch his two father figures fight.

"I don't know why you're suddenly defending him, Moony! He was a Death Eater. Do you know what that means? That means at one time he believed that all Muggle-borns should be slaughtered, that wizards should rule over the Muggles, and that old Mouldy Voldy was the best thing since sliced bread! And we are supposed to believe he has changed?" Sirius was shouting at the top of his lungs, his fists clenched white to the knuckles.

Though Lupin spoke with a softer voice and less aggressive pose, his eyes flashed with anger. "Dumbledore trusts him. Surely that should be good enough for you?"

Lowering his voice, Sirius hissed, "Dumbledore doesn't know everything. He never knew about our Animagus activities; if four sixth-years can pull one over on him, how well do you think the lord of slimy sneaks will do? If he's powerful enough to trick Voldemort, then he can also trick Dumbledore. And based on what we know about Snivellus, who do you think he'd choose?"

"Do you really think Dumbledore hasn't thought of that? Dumbledore knows something we don't."

"It's Snape! He's just as black-hearted and unfeeling as Voldemort, not to mention he's always been sticky with Dark Magic and he's a bastard to his students. Why should he possibly be on our side?"

Lupin sighed. "Sirius, you always had to think the worst of Snape. You never gave him a chance."

Sirius snorted contemptuously. "You always said that back in our school years… that I was misjudging old Snivelly. And then I was proved right, wasn't I? He joined the Death Eaters after all."

"And then he turned spy, at great personal risk." Lupin argued.

"How can you believe that?" Sirius flung up his hands. "He made his choice when he was nineteen- he followed the Darkness. You don't go back from that."

"Aren't you forgetting that Patronus? No Death Eater can cast that."

At this point, Sirius had had enough. He clenched his jaw angrily, turned on his heel, and left the room muttering, "We'll see just how dark he is. We'll see…"

Harry let out a relieved sigh. "Remus, I have to agree with Sirius. Why do you think Snape is on our side?" He couldn't help feeling confused at the sudden rush of genuine emotion Remus had expressed when arguing about Snape.

"Professor Snape, Harry, and I'm not going to have this conversation again." Remus replied wearily. "Dumbledore trusts him. Not to mention he's making me Wolfsbane Potion, and no, he's not poisoning it. Professor Snape does a lot of things behind the scenes for us."

"That doesn't stop him from being a nasty git." Harry huffed.

Remus looked amused. "No, it doesn't, but I truly believe that this nasty git belongs to the Order."

Thanks to that quarrel, Sirius had been put into a dark mood for the entirety of the day. That said, it wasn't much of a change from his previous bad moods, as in the last few weeks of the summer break, Sirius had become gradually more and more morose. Hermione believed it was because Sirius was depressed about Harry having to go back to Hogwarts in a weeks' time and leave him alone. "You belong at Hogwarts, and Sirius knows it. Personally, I think he's being a little selfish." That was hardly fair, Harry had thought. After all, Sirius had had such a hard life, and Harry could tell how much his presence cheered him up. Going from the death of one friend and the betrayal of another, twelve miserable years in Azkaban, two years of being on the run, and now having to be holed up the house of his childhood miseries… a little selfishness was understandable. Poor Sirius.

That night of Sirius and Remus's argument was the final night on which the Order would meet before term start. Predictably, Mrs. Weasley hadn't forgotten to place down the Impervious Charms, so the teenagers had to spend a dull hour hypothesizing about the meeting's subject matter, looking dolefully at the useless Extendable Ears. For his part, Harry spent his time thinking about the return to Hogwarts. He wondered just how many of his friends and fellow students would believe what the Daily Prophet was writing about him- 'The-Boy-Who-Lies'. 'And Draco will be worse than ever. Even though he's probably one of the few kids who actually knows the truth about Voldemort's return, thanks to that slimy Death Eater father of his.' But even the prospect of facing some stupid students did nothing to quell his eagerness to return. To see Hagrid again and suffer through his horrid rock biscuits, to sit by the lake with Harry and Hermione eating Bertie Botts Every-Flavour Beans, to beat Slytherin in a Quidditch match…

Harry had been so caught up in his daydream that he nearly missed it when the door to the kitchen swung open and the Order members began to mill out. Together with Ron and Hermione, he hurried down to talk to some of the people, but just as they reached the foot of the stairs, Sirius stopped them.

Clasping Harry by the shoulder, he said to them in a low voice, "I've just played a brilliant prank on your Professor Snivellus. Now we'll see whose side he's on."

"Sirius, what are you-" Hermione began, but Sirius interrupted her.

"Oh, I'd better grab Remus too. That'll show him. OY, Moony!" Once Remus had detached himself, rather reluctantly, Harry noticed, from his conversation with Tonks, he joined them.

"What is it, Padfoot?"

"I've got something to show you all. C'mon, we don't want to be late." And with a mysterious grin, Harry's godfather hurried down the hall, explaining as he went. "See, I tricked Molly into asking Snape to check out a bunch of Dark Arts objects, and I told her they were in the iron chest in the storeroom. But instead, there is a boggart in there."

Harry heard Remus's quick intake of breath. "Sirius, NO! That's an invasion of privacy."

"But it'll tell us a lot about him, won't it?"

Remus merely glared at him furiously, pushing past him to enter the storeroom door first. "Snape, stop, don't open that! It's a- damn!"

Harry arrived in the doorway just behind Remus and Sirius, just in time to see the greasy potions professor fling open a rusty iron chest. Startled, Snape stepped back, as from the chest arose a darkly clad humanoid figure. But before anyone could observe Snape's boggart further, it suddenly seemed to melt… as if being doused in acid. It gradually morphed, spinning and shuddering in a way Harry had never seen boggarts act before. Then, still shaking, it collapsed in on itself, the humanoid form shifting into a nameless grey blob that seemed unable to decide with itself if it was a liquid, solid, or gas.

Now fully composed, Snape removed his wand and with the muttered incantation of "Acha Archarus", conjured up a small wooden box. Then, he aimed his wand at the quivering grey shape. "Sequiturus!" and, as if giant tenterhooks had been buried into its mass, the boggart was dragged into the air, thinning out and shrinking as it went. With his wand in one hand, and the box opened in his other hand, Snape guided the boggart until it landed, unwillingly, inside. With a snap, the lid clapped shut. The box shook vigorously, then stilled.

"What was THAT?" Where Harry thought it, Sirius said it, gaping like a fish.

Snape turned sharply, his batlike robes swirling around him, impressively accenting the pure rage that burned in his eyes. "That" he hissed, "was a boggart in its true form. Did you really think I'm so weak a wizard as to be vulnerable to a boggart?"

Remus looked faint. "You… the boggart didn't read your fears?"

"And how disappointed you must all be." Snape sneered. Then his eyes slipped past Remus to land on Harry and his friends. "Potter. How precious. Like father, like son. How it must recall you to the good old days, eh, Black? Humiliating Snivelly side by side with Potter, followed by your werewolf and your admirers. But this time, you'll find me not such easy prey. After all, twelve years in Azkaban must have… dulled your skills somewhat?"

Beside him, Harry felt Sirius flinch at the mention of Azkaban, and Snape, when noticing this, curled his lip in vindictive pleasure. "Don't talk to him like that." Harry blurted out, while Sirius growled, "SHUT UP, Snape."

Snape narrowed his eyes. "You really haven't grown up, have you, Black? Still pulling pranks on the solitary Slytherin."

"That wasn't a prank! That was a test of your loyalty. And you've failed! The boggart's so incriminating, you've thought up some dark magic spell to stop it from forming!"

"There isn't a spell for that, you stupid mutt."

"He's right." Remus stared wonderingly at Snape. "There isn't. At least, so I thought. How did you do it, Snape?"

Snape tossed his head, a flash of triumph sparking in his eyes. "You truly believe I would tell you?"

He then fixed Harry with a hard stare. "You had better watch yourself, Mr. Potter. That little trick you and your godfather pulled will get you in hot water once we are back at Hogwarts."

"Are you threatening-" Sirius began, but Snape merely swept past him contemptuously, shoving aside Hermione, who stood frozen in the doorway.

There was a long silence, unbroken only by the sound of Snape's sharp footsteps fading down the hall.

Then Hermione turned accusingly on Sirius. "That was a horrid, nosy thing to do, Sirius! You know how Professor Snape values his privacy!"

"Too much... suspiciously too much." He returned. "I just wanted to see whose side the Death Eater's on. Although, knowing him, the boggart would probably have just turned into a bottle of shampoo."

"Enough." Remus looked positively fierce. "We hardly give him any reason to trust us, when you do things like that to him! If he wasn't able to do… that thing he did, you could have really embarrassed him."

"And what a shame that would be." Mumbled Ron. Harry couldn't help but agree. After all, when did Snape ever lose an opportunity to humiliate him? And now, based on his reception to Sirius's joke, Snape was about to become a whole lot worse.

"What was that, anyway? What he did to the boggart?" Harry then asked his former DADA professor, sensing a fresh Snape-based argument brewing.

Remus sighed, pushing his floppy grey-brown hair from his face. "I don't know. I've never heard of anyone resisting a boggart that way, and if Snape lied, and did do a spell, it would have been non-verbal, which I don't see being strong enough to stop the boggart from forming."

Hermione shivered. "It was weird. He just… looked at it, and it melted. I've always wondered what a true boggart looks like. God, it, it wasn't even alive, was it? Just like an elemental mass of magical matter…"

"Yes, it was fascinating. I wonder if-"

Harry left the two scholarly minds to muse it out, while he went off to the side with Sirius and Ron.

Ron was looking worried and deeply suspicious. "This just shows Snape's hiding something. That even a boggart can't read him? Bloody scary." he fretted.

"He's even more of a secretive bastard than I ever believed." Sirius agreed with a short jerk of his head.

Harry opened his mouth, about to reflexively agree with his godfather when he remembered it… the silver doe. Fred's mocking words echoed in his mind, 'Who would have thought old Snapey had secrets? Maybe that lady Patronus was a long-lost love of his?"

It was gradually dawning on Harry that there might be more to his horrid Potions professor than his bullying ways and Death-eater/spy troupe. "Perhaps…" he said hesitantly, "It was something personal. Private. Something that wasn't our right to know about." He barely registered the incredulous stares that received his statement, for a hot wave of guilt suddenly washed over him. 'Like the Patronus. I had no right to tell the others. However horrid Snape is… he is, like Hermione said, also a person.'

August 20, 1995

Severus Snape

It was difficult to decide whether to feel furious or gleeful over Sirius's little failed prank. It wasn't so much that Sirius had set a boggart on him that infuriated Snape… rather, it was the gleeful way in which the mutt corralled his little followers to come and watch the spectacle. With dark satifisfaction, Snape recalled how Remus had burst in, trying to head off the prank before it could occur. 'Mutiny among the Marauders, already? Amazing what a little Wolfsbane and a Patronus can do to a cowardly werewolf.' Another enjoyable aspect of that incident was in seeing the stunned and slightly awed expressions that appeared on their faces after taking in how he'd dealt with the boggart. 'I wonder how long it would take that so-called brilliant Defence teacher to figure out how I did it? Considering how remote the talent of Occlumency is, I doubt he will know even by Christmas time… although if Dumbledore's plans go ahead, that will be neither here or there.'

Snape remembered the first time he'd defeated a boggart with Occlumency. It was just at the end of sixth year- he had been learning the mental art since the summer of that year. Battling with depression, he'd taken to practising it in the solitude of the dungeon's winding mazes, just walking endlessly around the cold, dark halls until long after curfew. He'd often get lost, but he never cared, because eventually he'd find his way out, though it might take all night. He didn't care for very much those days. The dungeons was a fitting place to practise Occlumency, for he'd designed their twisting mazes into part of his mental defences. So he wandered the dungeons, making every step a moment longer to retain and improve his mental shields.

The dungeon boggart hadn't realized the Severus's advantage at first, but then, neither had Severus. Creeping from its alcove, the amortal being set itself directly in front of the boy with a malignant, confident air… if a blob of grey nothing could be said to own such an attitude. But that confidence was quickly replaced by confusion when it realised that the sullen schoolboy in front of him didn't seem to be exhibiting the kind of abject terror the boggart was accustomed to feeding on.

However, as a novice practitioner in Occlumency, Severus was unaccustomed to retaining the shields in unexpected situations, so, after staring at the creature for a few seconds, he unconsciously dropped his mental defences.

The minute he had done so, the boggart collected itself, and morphed into a 6-foot-tall werewolf, jaws slavering with blood and saliva.

Snape never could remember whether he'd gotten rid of the boggart, or fled from that dungeon tunnel in terror. But in time, as his mental defences grew stronger, boggarts could stand little chance against him, and were rarely able to penetrate his mental shields for any more than a few initial moments.

That was the first time he had realised that Occlumency could be used as a weapon against malignant creatures, or people. However, his original intentions in mastering the art of Occlumency was not with the aim of avoiding his fears- rather Severus had learnt it in order to defeat his fears.

He had begun training his mind in the art of Occlumency shortly after that horrid day… the day Lily shut him out of her life forever. After he made her shut him out. The summer months that followed were the most awful of his entire life up until that point, for he had no Lily with which to find refuge in. His mother was more despondent than ever, just sitting in a chair, staring blankly at the wall. His father returned home most evenings drunk… on the good nights he would just pass out on the couch, sometimes after hurling his guts out onto the floor. But more often than not, he would be in a violent mood, brandishing an empty bottle in one calloused, purple fist. And the worst nights of all were on the rare occasions when he was too out of pocket to buy any drink. Somehow his sober rage was always worse than his drunk one. Severus knew that avoiding him only ever made the beatings worse, and fighting his burly father was pointless. And finally, protecting his mother when she would not protect him only ever gave Severus a bitterness to match the bruises. Fleeing was the only recourse he ever had. So, in the evenings he would take his books and hide out in the park, reading beneath a dim and flickering street light. Cross-legged on a park bench, he'd sit, desperately trying not to think about anything but that which he was reading. He tried not to think of the first time he'd ever spoken to Lily, in that very park. He tried not to think of the friendship that used to sparkle in her eyes, and of the shock and hurt that filled them when he called her a 'Mudblood'. And then, of the utter, devastating coldness in those green eyes when she turned him away forever. But even worse than Lily's rejection was the knowledge that he deserved it. The memory of losing control, calling Lily such a foul, soiling name… he still could scarcely believe he had done it. He should have known that his nose was not all he would inherit from his father. To lose control of his emotions and lash out at those closest to him…. That was a trait he recognized with chilling clearness. The realization that he was becoming like his father had filled Severus with a terror only comparable to that of a lunging werewolf.

For Tobias Snape had not always been violent. It began after discovering that his wife had tricked him, had married him under false pretences and birthed him a freak child with freakish ways just like her. But when Tobias lost his job and found that he could not even provide for the family he now resented… at that point he lost control. At first it was only verbal abuse, released in moments of rage. Disgusting, hurtful names and stinging accusations. But by the time Severus was six years old, it had escalated to blows, committed in a drunken daze. For the first few years Tobias regretted having to wake up in the morning to find his wife with a black eye, or his son with a broken nose. But eventually, he gave himself into the rage, and he surrendered control of himself over to his emotions and his alcohol. He even began to enjoy his wife's cringing fear and his son's helpless fury, to revel in the fact that for all their 'fancy magic tricks', he was the one with the power.

Severus knew that he could not allow the same thing to happen to himself. Until that point, he had never considered himself capable of such uncontrolled, rage-filled outbursts, believing that to be largely a Muggle trait. It must have been the Muggle blood, his younger self had decided. It scared him.

To find a way to control himself, he first thought of Muggle mind techniques- meditation, Stoicism, Buddhism… but he eschewed them scornfully by virtue of their Muggleness. Yet the wizarding world had never been big on the physiological or mental focuses. But Severus had known where to look. Though taking a train to London to reach Diagon Alley used up a good deal of Severus's pitiful Muggle money, he knew it had been worth it the minute he stepped into Jorebank's Books of Nocturne Alley.

Occlumency was a very obscure artform, virtually unknown to most British Light wizards of that decade. But Jorebank was a book-enthusiast, and a dealer in dark or atypical knowledge. 'Occlumency' he'd said, blonde-grey eyebrows bristling with excitement, 'is a rare mental art, and able to be used for many purposes. It does not inhibit emotions- rather, it gives the wizard the power to control the exhibition of them. Wizards, upon mastering this mental ability, can choose to allow a certain emotion to surface, or they can lock said emotions deep within themselves, that they only can bear witness to them. It's also used, in parts of the wizarding world, as a defence against mind invasion- another mental art called Legilimency.'

Severus sacrificed a dearly needed new uniform in order to buy what few books there were on Occlumency, and for the next few week on those cold, lonely nights on the park bench, he thoroughly absorbed their knowledge. On his return to Hogwarts, he practised without ceasing, locking his emotions inside a maze of dungeon halls, and then behind a succession of iron gates. The Marauders could no longer make him splutter and curse- instead they only received a cold, concentrated fury in response to their taunts and hexes. Severus turned his depression over Lily into a renewed focus on his studies, and was even able to use his Occlemenic training to prevent his thick West Midlands accent from surfacing every time he talked to fast. But he had not realised that keeping his anger and fear hidden throughout the day would make them stronger during his hours of sleep. Thus began the insomnia that would plague him for the rest of his life. His dorm-mates would awake to his screams night after night, until he finally managed to charm his bed curtains to block out the sound of his cries. For his dreams were filled with images of raging werewolves, of his father in a murderous rage, of a hateful Lily… and, worst of all, of himself, violently beating Lily just like his father did to his mother. To his relief, such a nightmare never entered the waking realm.

Year by year, his mental shields grew stronger, became as impregnable as a fortress. By the time he joined the Death Eaters, he believed he had rid himself of every last bit of his father's Muggle volatility. He thought himself strong enough to help bring about the new world order, a world in which Muggle influences could no longer control those gifted with magic. So he joined the Death Eaters, and it was not for nothing that he rose to become one of Voldemort's most trusted followers. He gave his genius willingly to the Dark Lord, believing that if anyone, Voldemort could rid the world of scum like his father and James Potter. But Severus did not realize until it was too late just how alike the Death Eaters were to them both. For Tobias was not only brutal because of his emotional outpourings… he was brutal because he took pleasure in another's pain. And the Marauders, like Bellatrix Lestrange, took gleeful pleasure in the pain and humiliation of those more vulnerable. At first, Severus had told himself that there was a purpose to the death, to the killings, that is would all go to a good end. So he had invented painful poisons and dark hexes at the Dark Lord's demand. But he could never summon up the ability to take pleasure in the senseless, glee-filled sessions of torture that the Death Eaters would indulge in when gaining a captive… for the first few times, he had quelled his nausea by imagining Potter or Black in the place of the helpless Muggle or Muggle-born, but eventually, he was relying on all his Occlumenic powers to avoid hurling his stomach's content in sheer revulsion. Duelling on a battle-field was all very well and good, for that was war… but those sadist displays? It was not something Severus had envisioned as part of his role in the new world order. What sickened him more than anything was that when watching such cruelty, a faint tug of dark humour sparked beneath the sickness and disgust, evidence to his detached, cold, impassionate core. His Occlumency had not destroyed his father's darkness… it still lived on in him.

Every night Severus returned from a Death Eater mission, he'd sit, staring blankly down at the blood on his hands and on his robes. The visions of their victims would rise up before him, of those he had killed, those he had seen die, of their terrified, agonized faces in their final moments… The worst was when he had to watch others use his school-boy genius, and turn it to the purpose to which it had been so thoughtlessly intended. Memories would come of innocents perishing in anguish from one of his poisons, or undergoing the painful throes of death after being hacked to bits under a spell he'd invented. A deep sense of self-loathing would fill his belly, yet he could not stop. He was a Death Eater.

And when came that dreadful Halloween, when came the night of Lily's death, Snape finally understood why she had turned him away. And his remorse and self-hatred multiplied tenfold. Losing control had never been the worst part about calling her a Mudblood… what terrified Lily, and convinced her of his irredeemability was that she believed him to have surrendered himself to the darkness. She believed he had gone to join himself to the evil she saw in Mulcibar and Avery, boys who took malicious pleasure in hurting others. And she had been right. He had disregarded all her warnings, and gone his own way, believing that one day, he would win her love and admiration by becoming a powerful and respected wizard… but instead he become what she hated and feared more than anything. He became a dark soul …And his darkness, his follies… they were that which eventually led to her death.

With the scalding clarity of bitter grief and remorse, he had seen the depths of his betrayal.

And now… and now, after so many years of trying to wring the darkness from his soul, now he had to return to the one who had drawn out that darkness in the first place. Now, Snape had to bow and pretend to serve Lily's murderer in body, mind and soul. He had only been to the Dark Lord's service again for a few months, but he knew with deadly certainty that soon the day would come when he would be forced to harm another innocent… he could not know if his love and remorse would be enough to keep his darkened soul from becoming yet darker.

Snape had not seen a boggart for many years. His Occlumency was so strong these days that boggarts scarcely had time to fully form before he would snap down his mental shields. But now, for the first time in his whole life, Snape felt the strange urge to face his boggart without Occlumency.

In the privacy of his Hogwarts chambers, Snape softly set the boggart's box down on his writing desk. Carefully, he lowered his Occlumenic shields, iron gates swinging open one by one, until finally the dungeon maze itself crumbled into rubble. Clutching his wand between hands that had suddenly gone cold, he cast a wordless Alohomora over the box, and prepared to face his boggart.

The boggart had taken the form of a man decked out in Death Eater robes and mask, his wand gripped lazily in one white, long-fingered hand. Blood dripped warmly from his palm. Wordlessly, the Death Eater removed the mask with the other hand, and Snape found himself staring into his very own face. The face of his nightmares for neigh on fifteen years. Because for all the coldness and hardness he knew to be in his own features, it was nothing compared to what had imprinted itself onto this man's visage. His thin mouth was twisted into a deranged, sadistic kind of smile, and his dark eyes glowed red, with a cruelty of depths he had only ever seen glinting in the eyes of the Dark Lord himself. For as well as he knew himself, Snape saw that within the soul of the man before him, there was no guilt, no regret, no grief… and no love.

"What are you waiting for?" the voice spoke in mocking tones that he knew so well. "Occlude once more. Hide from what you are. Try and deny to yourself what is truly within you."

His dark-self then stepped forward, and laughed. "You poor fool. You've been torturing yourself all these years because you cannot face the truth! Lily is dead, and means as little to you as you ever meant to her. She is nothing! She holds you back, she binds your true power. You could be so much more if you just let go-"

"No!" Snape rasped, straining himself to rebuild his defences.

"Oh, go on then. Run away, hide. But I'm always here, you know." Now his dark-self smirked, and lifted his wand. "Or have you forgotten the things you've done? The things you can do?"

The dungeons were back, but the iron gates remained open… Snape's heart beat in his chest. "No." he muttered, sinking to his knees, forcing himself to look away from the boggart. He had to close the gates.

"Perhaps you need a reminder." The boggart drew closer, although its form began to destabilize. "Cruc-"

"Oh, fuck this." Snape snapped his eyes upwards, and with a savage upwards thrust of his wand, cried, 'Riddikulus'. With that, the imposing figure suddenly stopped, mouth agape with the unfinished curse, as his hair, Snape's hair, grew floor length and, moving like serpents, gathered around Evil-Snape's feet, slamming him, nose first, into the floor. The boggart now defeated, Snape summoned back his mental shields and banished the boggart back into the box.

He sat back on the floor, taking slow, unsteady breaths.

He could have guessed it. For what other form would his boggart take? His greatest fear was betraying Lily... betraying her for a third and final time… by utterly succumbing to the darkness nestled within him.

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