The morning light shining through the only window in Severus's dungeon bedroom stung his eyes as he opened them. Since he was waking, at some point sleep must have returned to him, this time, mercifully without dreams. There was no point in dwelling on past losses when there was nothing he could do about them. He'd just do what he always did, move on and concentrate on the present.
The present, however, wasn't looking as good as he'd hoped. Severus wasn't a man with flowery visions of the future, but being able to life a quiet, un bothered life as Professor and Potions Master was all he was currently asking out of life. It didn't seem too much to ask, despite his past sins. And despite Dumbledore's insistence the Dark Lord would rise again.
Of course the old man would have to be right.
There were only a few days left until the new term, really the last thing he needed was more stress. There would be plenty of that with the new crop of dunderheads he was expected to teach, not to mention almost all of the idiots from the year before back again. Even after all the years he'd been teaching, the first two weeks of September were full of headaches. And cleaning. And making antidotes.
And on top of all that, he had to go to Albus Dumbledore and tell him that all his years of stubborn paranoia turned out to be worthwhile. If that wouldn't be a bitter pill to swallow, he didn't know what would be.
Without even thinking about it, his hand shifted to rub his forearm. It was still very faint, just over the edge of visibility, but it was there. The Dark Mark. The proof he'd once done things that he would spend the rest of his life regretting. And soon, according to Dumbledore's plan, his penance would come.
No wonder he'd been dreaming about Seraphina. The dreams always seemed to come when he was going through strife. That summer had been one of the calmest periods of his life, falling between the ending of his final year at Hogwarts and the time he took the Dark Mark. And the girl he'd shared it with had been one of the few people in his life that didn't end up hating him in the end. Most likely because the end came too sudden and too soon.
A few days after his schooling at Hogwarts ended Severus had been walking the street late in the night. It was something he did sometimes when he couldn't sleep, and the walls of the broken down house in Spinner's End seemed to be collapsing in on him. This turned out to be the last of such walks, in fact, but that was the not the reason he remembered it clearly fifteen years later.
He'd come across some Muggle teenagers threatening an obviously drunk man with knives outside of a pub. Of course he recognized Cecil Starkley at first glance. He'd been in the History of Magic textbooks, hailed as Britain's greatest dragon tamer at the end the book was written. Since then, however, Starkley had become a drunkard who was known for his alcohol induced escapades and there were suspicions he was cruel to the three daughters he was left to raise after his wife's death.
Severus was poised on taking the Dark Mark, but he wasn't a completely cruel individual. So he gave the Muggles a good scare and offered to apparate Starkley back to his home to make sure his own stupidity didn't get him into trouble again. Imagine Severus's surprise when Cecil turned to him upon being set safely on his doorstep and gave him his youngest daughter's hand in marriage. Like he was tipping a valet service! And for some reason, he had merely nodded and went his way, not wanting to cause more trouble with the man.
The next morning he returned to the little house that was not much more then a shack, determined to tell the man he would not be taking his daughter's hand. Instead Starkley introduced him to the girl after he'd only taken two steps from the door and once he got a good look at her he forgot his complaint. He was only eighteen at the time and she was a lovely thing, small but shapely, with hair black as his own and ice blue eyes. But the tipping point was the ceiling to floor bookshelf she standing in front of, her own books on a wide variety of magical subjects.
Pretty girls were good, pretty girls that could carry on an intelligent conversation were much better. And because of that weakness, and perhaps the realization the next time he saw Lily she'd been Mrs. Potter, he decided it wouldn't hurt getting to know Seraphina before he broke the contract. And after a week of visiting her every afternoon he decided not to call off the contract at all.
It was true he'd been in love with Lily Evans since they were children, but she'd rejected him and taken up with one of the boys who made his Hogwarts years hell with bullying. So it was Seraphina who gave him his first kiss, and Seraphina whom he spent hours talking to over the brief summer term until she was set to return to Hogwarts for her sixth year of school. And it was Seraphina, when he put her on the Hogwarts Express, he hoped would give him a chance at a normal family life.
Like most hopes in Severus's life, this one also ended abruptly and in disappointment. In October Seraphina disappeared from her bed at Hogwarts. They'd searched for two weeks before they finally called off attempts to find her. Severus knew in his heart that if Seraphina was going to run away she would have come to him instead of disappearing. But a lot of things were happening as the Dark Lord slowly gained his power and soon it was forgotten.
Three years later, October was solidified as the worst month of the year to him when Lily, his first love, was killed along with her husband. The bastard hadn't been able to protect her, but neither had Severus. He'd even made himself Dumbledore's man, in hopes that the old wizard would save her, and he didn't.
They resided inside of him, the love he'd never experienced and the love taken away from him so prematurely. Most of the time he could hold them at bay, but they always remained in the back ground. They were always in his heart, even if some days Severus wondered if he still had one. They wouldn't leave him ever.
A double edged blade...both blessing and curse.
