The Morning After
Making the Best of It : One Step at a Time
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The Morning
After
style='font-size:18.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>Chapter Fourteen – Making the
Best of It : One Step at a Time
style='font-size:18.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>Author:
style='font-size:18.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>Disclaimer:
of this.
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“I—I thought you were…fucking Malfoy,” was his awkward beginning.
Hermione arched her eyebrow at that, but decided not to interrupt.
“So, I needed to remind you…who you belonged to.”
admitting it aloud…having her regard him in surprise and bewilderment made him
feel ten times stupider.
Silence was all that answered him.
Feeling slightly encouraged by this, he continued. “I…guess I was wrong
now…to assume you were…with…Malfoy.”
He dared to glance at her.
“You were…” Hermione began softly, her brown eyes troubled.
Black eyes rounded in surprise.
“Because you kept repeating it,” came her soft reply.
He felt his heart begin to accelerate in his chest, pounding against his
ribs with a rhythmic thud. “No, I don’t.”
“But then…” she began, while her eyes widened in realization. “Oh! You
hate yourself.”
Silence.style='font-size:18.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>
“Why?”
Shifting uncomfortably, he muttered, “I don’t really hate anyone…”
“Severus. You’re being a terrible liar. Look me in the eye and tell me
you don’t hate yourself.”
Desperate black eyes locked onto hers.
“Look, Hermione, I don’t hate myself. It was just…something silly I was
saying.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Severus,
“I am being honest, Hermione. The person I hate the most is my father!”
came his outburst.
“Oh…then why?”
Closing his eyes, he willed his breath to even and slow down, his heart
thumping. Gods, gods…what am I saying?
He had never told anyone this much. Not even Dumbledore.
“Severus?” She was stroking his
left forearm, unconsciously stroking his Dark Mark.
Finally he gritted out, “Because I
don’t want to be like him!”
Her stroking paused; then, after some silence, she asked something.
She asked so quietly, he made no indication that he had, in fact, heard
her.
Again, she asked.
style='font-size:18.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>“Show me.”
o+o+o+ostyle='font-size:18.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>
Darkness.style='font-size:18.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>
At first Hermione was confused about what had happened.
must be inside a closet.
A sound beside her made her aware that she was not alone.
before the door—which happened to be on her right—was cracked open an inch.
eerie illumination inside the closet.
Peering out of the crack was the shadowy form of a child, most likely
under the age of ten by the small stature she could make out.
Possibly even five years of age.
The shouting became louder.
Hermione could make out the words “bitch,” “crack whore,” and “
Loud heavy footsteps moved in the general direction of the closet where
she and the child were hidden. The child
quietly shut the door again before scrambling into a corner of the cramped
closet, trembling with fear.
The steps outside slowed when they seemed just outside the closet.
breathing of the child.
Without warning, blinding light filled the closet as the door was
wrenched open, leaving the entire contents for easy perusal if one was bothered
about it.
What had caught Hermione’s attention were not the contents of the
cluttered closet, but the man standing there like some dark god, suddenly
blocking the light streaming in from the hallway.
A large hooked nose framed by black cruel eyes focused upon the cringing
child, who was now trying to become one with the wall.
“There you are, you son of a bitch,” growled a low voice, before a thick
meaty arm shot out and grabbed the child by his shirt.
Hermione gasped as she took in the facial features of the frightened
child: a hooked nose, still cute though due to his youth, round frightened
black eyes, and shiny black hair.
style='font-size:18.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>Severus.
The terror, which would have looked so strange on the grown Severus,
looked simply natural upon the child’s face.
“Tobias! No!” a womans frantic voice called
out. Hermione turned to see a bruised
and bleeding Eileen Snape coming towards them, her eyes darting from her
husband to her son.
“Get out of my way, woman!” hissed her husband, roughly jerking Severus
behind him.
“No! I won’t let you beat my son!”
His eyes narrowed, “I bloody will beat my son! He’s spawn of a whore!”
“He’s your child, Tobias! He has your bloody hooked nose!”
It took Hermione an extra moment to realize what happened next; how Tobias
threw his son to the ground and pushed Eileen up against the wall, his eyes
murderous.
“Don’t relate that devil’s spawn to me!” he growled, his grip on her
arms tightening, before he resumed viciously beating his wife…this time in
front of his child.
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Silence filled the room as Severus looked at her, slightly ashamed,
while Hermione reflected over what he had shown her.
Her brown eyes hardened in determination as she looked at him.
“Severus,” she said softly, “You forget that you are not your father.
Nor am I your mother. There is a strong difference between your mother and I.
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style='font-size:18.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>AN:
awkwardness in writing the beginning. You know, you have ideas of what they
want to say… BUT it
doesn’t come easily. xD and
yes I know I did some line repeating, but I found the rhythm seemed to work..
on me and I’m too stubborn to admit it.
This chapter took a 100% different direction than what I had originally
planned for it.
Sorry for the wait and the shortness of the chapter.