Disclaimer: I claim nothing, save the right to dream. I get nothing, save some pleasure from this process.
Note: I promise there will be enough mysteries in Severus Snape's biography even after you read this chapter, though it may seem I have already told everything. ;) I'm just arranging the setting for one of the episodes.
The Severance Line
by Linda-Nairika
Chapter 1. That's your reality.
Shady Hall was cloaked in soft twilight. The evening veil had smoothed out the sharp contours of the walls and towers, blurred the outlines of trees in the park and laid dense shadows in the alleys.
On a branch of an old maple, almost indiscernible behind a curtain of foliage, there sat the heir of one of the oldest wizarding families in Europe. He was perfectly aware that he shouldn't be sitting there, but what would another broken interdiction change, if his very existence seemed to be nothing more than one continuous offence?
His mother, Dorothea Isabella de Espada, got married, when she was seventeen; and two years later she ran away with… well, someone. A musician. A Muggle. The raven-head Spanish beauty left behind all the gifts from her former husband, including a small bundle named Severus Alexander. Augustus Sebastian Snape registered his divorce and married again within a month from the date of his wife's flight. And soon it became clear to the society nobody was recommended to as much as mention that the Lord of Shady Hall had ever had another spouse, instead of Lady Silvia von Vogelweide. In nine months after the wedding Gaius Bertold Snape, a charming boy with his father's amber eyes and Lady Silvia's auburn locks, was born; three years passed, and little Alana Christine followed, a lovely girl, whose hair reminded to an on-looker of a ripe chestnut - just like her father's, while her eyes were a perfect replica of her mother's hazel ones.
That marriage would be absolutely happy, if not for one unfortunate fact. An unfortunate person, to be precise. Augustus Snape could have destroyed all the portraits of the woman who had betrayed him, but his older son was a live reminder of her. And not only to the Lord himself, but to anyone who'd happen to see that family. Beside his brown-haired father, stepmother and rosy-cheeked stepsiblings Severus looked like a nestling in the wrong nest. His soft bluish-black locks, fiery black eyes and milky-white complexion caused the expert people to sigh and made the ignorant ones doubt Lady Silvia's virtue. The woman apparently foresaw those doubts from day one and could not forgive her stepson for being the reason of such a disgrace. On the other hand, Augustus Snape hadn't forgiven his traitorous ex-wife and could not forgive her son. Keeping the family's honour, Augustus Snape hadn't sent his first-born child away, and Severus remained his older son and heir – to Lady Silvia's permanent dismay.
Severus didn't remember his mother at all. Dorothea was too young to enjoy fussing over a baby, so the boy ended up in a nurse's care. In a short while the nurse was replaced by a number of teachers, whom Augustus Snape informed that their duty was to educate the little heir, not to spoil him or indulge into conversations on irrelevant themes. Severus studied diligently and willingly, to his teachers' unspoken admiration, and waited patiently. As a five-years-old he knew a lot about patience and was ready to overcome anything, if it helped him to penetrate the wall, which separated him from his father. However, despite all his successes, the boy had never heard a word of praise or recognition from the Lord of Shady Hall, let alone the Lady; and his little "feats", like climbing the highest tree in the park or riding his pony with no saddle, led to punishments only, and it was not the kind of attention he actually desired.
Severus' confusion was doubled with the fact that he saw how mild and careful his father could be, while rocking his baby-daughter, playing with a small auburn-haired toddler, talking to his wife or even patting a dog. Principally the boy shouldn't have seen either of these because Lady Silvia resolutely insisted that Severus had to not make appearance in the salon, where the family spent evenings; but it was so easy to forget about the boy's presence - he sat with a book in a niche of the window, instinctively trying to come nearer to a source of warmth, which he missed sorely. However, when Severus grew older and identified that desire, he stopped giving in to it and went upstairs to his own room without any reminders.
Severus did not feel envy towards the white bundle of a baby, that little boy or a dog neither till this moment of understanding, nor after that. Instead he was painfully bewildered and wondered what was so terribly wrong and disgusting about him. Scooping ideas about the bad and good from books, the boy found plenty of faults and shortcomings in himself; however the most captious researches did not give him any answer to the question of his totally inexcusable sin. Knowing, that Lady Silvia was "My Lady", not "Mother", he didn't expect anything from her, but Augustus Snape's chilling attitude oppressed and tormented him. That man was his father, wasn't he? The teachers confirmed that indirectly… Then why?..
…One day he found out.