Chapter Text
Severus Snape was an ugly man. Though searching, one could find no redeeming qualities in his harsh visage. His mouth had thin cruel lips that curled in a permanent sneer, his eyes were a black of unfathomable depths and his nose, that gargantuan hooked beak that stood out like a pyramid in a desert marked him- Severus Snape was an ugly man.
As is with most ugly persons he was also lonely. His face, which condemned him to a life of loneliness, also provided him with a shield to hide behind. He did not have to seek out love, it was not expected of him but it was yearned for. Lily Evans had been the first, the unattainable beauty who haunted his every waking moment, she had been the first to show him any sympathy and he had latched onto that tiny glint of kindness as if it was a lifeline.
His face, which masked all emotions except hate and anger, was a tool for solitude.
He learned from his lack of acceptance that you didn’t have to be beautiful to be powerful. That’s when he began to realize that if he was to be alone he did not want to be weak. He wanted to hold people in thrall. He wanted to be feared.
Fear. It was what brought him to this present emotional point. Broken and alone. The barriers that for so long held his heart closed and frozen were breaking and it was all one boys fault.
Harry Potter.
The look on the boy’s face when he watched his precious Dumbledore disappear over the barracks was one of utter pain and loss. Severus began to feel. Would anyone miss him if he should die? Voldemort?
Hah he could be replaced in a week, probably by Lucius Malfoy, that insipid toady.
So was his life a waste?
Severus had closed his mind to the answer, for he knew that he truly did not want to hear it.
So here he was standing at the top of the former Gryffindor tower, gazing out into the darkness at the ruin that was Hogwarts. The place where he had learned and planned, the place he had spent 30 odd years of his life inhabiting, the place where he had fallen in love with the enigma that was Harry Potter.
His love was a strange one, it did not make him want to protect and cherish Harry, no in fact it caused him to burn and seek to destroy everything he was.
Harry would have never loved him, this ugly creature tainted in mind and soul. No one could see through the darkness that possessed him.
One step closer to the window he moved, the night air beckoning. The window from which he gazed was not truly a window, more of the outline of what had once been.
Behind him footsteps-
He knows them, after 6 years of watching him creep in the shadows he knows who has found him. With out turning he speaks.
“Potter.”
Whirling he casts Legillems on the stunned boy. Potter is thin, almost gaunt; the dark circles under his eyes belie a deep sadness. The boy is on the brink of madness, his body one step from deaths door. Severus breaks through his crudely constructed defenses; saddened by the fact the boy didn’t learn more from him.
Potter’s thoughts come at him, a barrage of images, death after death, love, family, abuse, hate, anger… then it slows. The boy manages to slam the door on one memory.
“You…” Potter’s voice is cracked and strained, but his eyes burn with a fierce passion.
“Yes … me. Potter is there something you wanted?” Snape trembled not with fear but with a sense of finality.
“I am going to kill you.” Potter spits, eyes flashing dangerously.
“ I was about to save you the trouble.” Severus answered glancing down at the rubble below.
Harry’s eyes widened at that. “Kill yourself?”
“Yes well that is the idea isn’t it.”
“Why?” Potter pauses, confused.
“ I can’t live this anymore. This nothingness is eating away at my core. My magick has become polluted. It hurts to cast the simplest charm. It seems my soul, dead for so long, yearns for my body to join it.”
Potter stares at him mouth open.
“Close your mouth you twit, do you want a pixie to fly in? Just listen to me maybe you will somehow understand.
Snape reached up and rubbed the bridge of his gargantuan nose.
“I am not asking you for forgiveness, I just want you to understand why.”
Potter nods and sits down in the dust, his tattered clothing swaying in the chilly night breeze.
“You’ve been living here in the castle haven’t you?” Severus asked, still staring into the night.
Potter nods again and whispers with a voice full of calm acceptance.
“Everyone I love is dead, I have no where to go. ”
Snape turned away, the guilt overpowering him. He had killed the Weasleys himself reveling in the cries they made as they perished under a myriad of dark curses.
“I joined the Death Eaters because I had a goal in life- to make everyone suffer as much as I had. I was tormented because I was ugly, ridiculed because I was poor and loathed because I was… different.
Potter cocked his head to the side.
The hatred on the boys face had morphed into something akin to interest. Severus could only fathom that he was morbidly curious as to the beginnings of a monster.
Severus himself had once been fascinated with a muggle Serial Killer named Geoffrey Dahmer who had raped and killed men and young boys in his apartment in the most brutal of fashions. Not so much because he wanted to be like him, but because he was trying to understand the psyche of the murderer.
Harry looked at Snape, eyes slowly focusing on the Potions Master. Severus had his face turned up to the moon, his lank black hair flowing about his pale face. His lips were pulled into a grim line. The past was hard to remember, but even harder to forget.
“ I came to Hogwarts as a bright eyed 11 year old. Already possessing an immense knowledge in the dark arts. As a child I picked things up from aunts and uncles, reading books in the libraries of their houses. I never imagined that their would be a problem with me knowing spells to protect myself. There were whispers of a dark lord when I was in my first year at Hogwarts. It didn’t really affect me because I was dealing with my own issues. I had acquired a group of friends. James, Sirius, Remus and Peter. “
He heard Potter gasp at the names, He turned back to him smirking.
“ Does it amaze you that I had friends? Yes, Potter even your father liked me once, But that was a long time ago. We were friends until he discovered my dirty little secret.”