I am the son and heir
Oh, of nothing in particular
You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does
Day Three || October 27, 1981
Severus Snape; ah, why did they have to give him such a name? He slumped forward in his rickety wooden chair, tapping his wand idly on the table. Severus… it slid off the tongue well enough, but the words sever and severe were in it… as if he was destined to sever ties and become severe himself through it all.
Meant to be or not, it had happened.
And now, even though he was on the "right side," as Dumbledore—or rather Albus—said to him, he wasn't happy. He still went to meet with Lord Voldemort and the other Death Eaters, though now he had to use almost every piece of himself to keep his Occlumency shield up around the truth. He still listened, adding the odd sentence here and there, though his attention focused on his old Master, his facial movements and vague words and the tone of his cold voice.
Any sign of what was to come for certain.
He reported to Dumbledore just about every other day as their meetings became increasingly frequenter than in the past. Severus gesticulated with his hands, Dumbledore's head in the fire or his entire body in the same room, eyeing him with rapt attention. They spoke of their suspicions, and before Dumbledore—Albus—left sometimes, he would ruffle the top of Severus's head with one of his wrinkled hands. Severus made a disgruntled noise every time, though before Albus disappeared into the fire, he would wink at Severus and in return Severus always gave a small smirk.
As soon as Albus left each time, though, Severus extinguished the fire and trotted straight up to his parent's former bedroom. He stared at himself in their mirror for several seconds, just observing himself with a self-hatred before he made another tiny crack in the mirror with his wand.
He'd been doing this for a few months now, and the cracks distorted his appearance so grotesquely that he hardly looked human anymore. At least when he stood in front of it he saw himself for who he really was. He'd put himself in so deep he'd put the only person he had ever truly loved in mortal danger. Voldemort said that he would give her a second chance, a way out if he could only kill her son. Severus tried to ease himself with that thought, fooling himself with the entertaining thought that she could ever leave her son for her own life instead. He knew that he was in denial; she wasn't a Slytherin after all. She was brash in a beautiful way, unlike Potter who had been so brash he'd made Severus's blood boil at his idiocy.
Severus laid his wand down on the dresser and walked over to the window, resting his elbow up against it. He laid he forehead on the back of his hand and looked out of the only window with a decent view. Their house was the last on Spinner's End; a small park separated their neighborhood from the next over. He and Lily had gone in it several times when they tired of the Spot. Lily always needed a change of view or scenery, except when it came to Severus's hair.
The summer before their third year they had come to this park, holding hands as friends and nothing more. Severus had pulled Lily into a cluster of bushes, one hand on hers as the other pulled his long locks back—"Thinking of cutting my hair, Lily, what do you-?"
He hadn't the time to finish his thought when Lily pulled his hand away and laid down that she would not have that.
"Or what if I do it anyway?" he had grinned somewhat cheekily. She wound her fingers through his hair, an odd and distant look in her clear green eyes. In an instant they snapped back into focus, though.
She gave him a simpering smile back, "Then I'll just have to make it grow back."
After several more rounds of spatting back and forth about his hair, he'd agreed to keep it at least around his shoulders.
"Didn't know you were so attached to it," he said, casting her a sidelong glance while she watched a butterfly flutter in her open palm.
After their friendship had gone to shite, Severus spent many days entertaining the thought of finally slicing off most of his hair. Many a time his housemates jerked him out of his thoughts, saying that he'd seemed to develop a fetish for caressing his own hair. Severus barely realized what they were talking about until he drew his hand away from his head.
One time in the library he'd been looking at his hair, wondering how much he could cut without hating himself. He play snipped at it with his fingers, lost in that little world, when smooth fingers grabbed hold of his hand and pulled it away from his hair.
He looked up at Lily, biting his lip out of reflex. It was the only way to keep his dirty mouth shut sometimes.
"What?" he asked her, probably a bit too harshly.
"Cut it or don't, just don't keep mulling over it, Severus. It's painful to watch." Lily's tone was cut and dry, her pet name for him lost to memories. She ended their touch and walked away.
Painful. He was causing her pain. Severus frowned down at his book.
He didn't cut it.
Severus sighed, his hands again moving through his hair. It had been years since she'd told him that, she hadn't seen him properly in years. But he still kept it around his shoulders.
Lucius had asked him about for quite some time, and Severus always shrugged him off with, "I just like it like this. Your hair is long, too, isn't it, Lucius?"
His hair was really the least of his worries at the moment, though. What else did he have to entertain himself with, though, if not those memories? If he thought too much on the present, he was sure he'd go mad. After all, Albus kept looking at him in such an odd, almost paternal way. As if he knew what was going to happen, the old fool.
Severus scoffed and lay down on the bed, pulling a photograph out of the bedside drawer. His younger self and Lily grinned up at him, forever fourteen years old.
Author's Note: Lyrics are from The Smith's song, "How Soon Is Now?" I don't own them, blah blah blah. Four more chapters to go; thanks for reading and waiting on me update this if you have been.
Disclaimer: I'm not J. K. Rowling; I claim no ownership of Harry Potter or its characters, etc.