Remorse

Chapter 2 ~ Leveling the Playing Grounds

Snape’s robes billowed before them as Harry and Hermione navigated the narrow stairwell to the second floor. It led to a bare hallway, illuminated by another dim candle lamp hanging from the ceiling. The wooden floor was scuffed and dull, the paint on the walls, cracked and peeling. A single filmy window rested at the end of the hall, framed by black curtains. It was rusted shut. There were two warped doors visible, one on either side of the hall. Snape turned toward them and pointed to the door on the left.

“Go in there. I will join you momentarily,” he said softly.

Harry turned the knob and both he and Hermione entered the room, Snape closing the door behind them. His lip curled for a moment as he stared at the door, then he walked up the hall and entered the door on the right.

The room was completely black. With a wave of his hand Severus illuminated the candle lamp. Several pairs of small red eyes glared at him from a cage as he walked through his small, cluttered lab to his potions stores, a small cabinet that could barely hold ingredients, much less a collection of potions. His work would have been severely curtailed if he had been focused on creating and brewing potions for marketing. But Snape hadn’t been. For the past year he only had a single focus, developing an elixir that would give him satisfaction.

Snape removed the ward and opened the cabinet, his black eyes glittering as he picked up a small black bottle, the culmination of his work. He closed the cabinet back, not bothering to ward it. The only thing of value in it was now in his pale hand.

“At last,” he breathed, then turned and exited the lab, putting out the candle lamp and closing the door securely. He walked back to the room Harry and Hermione occupied and let himself in.

This was his bedroom.

The paint in here also was chipped and peeling, and was a dismal shade of brown. A king-sized bed with an ancient wrought iron frame dominated the small room. It was unmade, the sheets dingy and the mattress sagging somewhat in the middle. The bed coverings were Slytherin green and tossed to the bottom of the bed as if flung there.

A small wooden end table sat close to the bed with a clock sitting on top of it. There were four sconces on the wall with thick candles inside them that sputtered from time to time as if made from tallow. A battered dresser with a cracked mirror sat against the far wall, knobs missing from several of the drawers, and a rather beaten up wardrobe stood next to it. The flooring was wood and creaked as if ready to fall apart. The room had no windows and also felt like a cell. Two wooden folding chairs sat against the wall. In these two chairs sat Harry and Hermione, looking at the Potions Master and the bottle in his hand somewhat apprehensively.

Snape sat down on the edge of the bed across from them, the mattress sinking from his weight. He brushed back several strands of his long lank hair that had fallen across his face and studied the pair.

“Remorse,” he said silkily, his eyes flitting from Harry to Hermione. “I imagine that’s what you two believe you feel. But it isn’t. You came here not for me, but to assuage your own guilt. A purely selfish motive. You think you empathize with me . . . with my situation. With my pain. You have no idea what pain is . . . neither one of you.”

Harry and Hermione didn’t reply but looked distinctly uncomfortable. Snape continued.

“You see, there is physical pain, such as the pain one feels when an arse ithat's not used to being roughly impaled by six hard rods for a few hours is subjected to such treatment. Then there is psychological pain in which your mind is constantly tormented by its own memories and convoluted thinking. When it tears into pieces and reforms, creased and broken, bits of sanity lost and only will left to fill the void until some type of closure comes. These are the two types of pain with which I am best familiar, although there are many, many others I've experienced in my lifetime,” the wizard said, his voice like velvet.

Suddenly he looked at Harry sharply.

“You’ve seen one of my most hated memories, Mr. Potter, and for an instant . . . you pitied me. But I need no one’s pity. Your father was a filthy coward as was your godfather. Men like that are unfit to live. So some justice was served by their deaths,” he said coldly.

Harry bristled at this but said nothing.

Snape looked down at the bottle in his hand.

“This elixir will allow the both of you to experience parts of my life I feel relevant for you to experience before we move forward. After taking this brew, you will both be suitably prepared to earn my ‘forgiveness’ as it were. You will have the benefit of experiencing it without the physical damage I suffered. You must truly know my pain before you can understand what it is I have suffered through because of you and others.”

Snape corked the bottle and held it out to Harry.

“Drink,” he said.

Harry didn’t move.

“How do we know that isn’t poison, Professor?” Hermione said. “You may be planning on killing us.”

Snape sneered at her.

“If I were going to kill the both of you, Miss Granger, I assure you, you’d both already be dead. Death is not a punishment, but a release. I have no desire to release either of you,” he said in a low voice before looking at them both derisively.

“Gryffindor courage,” he spat, turning the bottle up to his own lips and drinking some of it down. He lowered it and looked at Harry and Hermione. “A courage I’ve always believed was highly over-rated.”

Harry reached out for the bottle.

“Give it here,” he said through gritted teeth. He wasn’t a coward . . . just cautious. Seeing the elixir did nothing to Snape, he was now willing to drink it. Willing to do anything to get out of Spinner’s End.

Snape watched as Harry drank down half of the elixir, then gave Hermione the other half . . . both making terrible faces. They weren’t surprised. Anything given to them by the Professor was bound to be disgusting, and purposely so.

Snape leaned forward eagerly watching them closely.

Hermione looked back at him suspiciously.

What are you watching for, Professor Snape?” she asked.

Suddenly Harry stiffened, his eyes going wide with horror. Hermione only managed to get a glance at him before her face also contorted in horror.

Severus watched as the witch and wizard both slowly curled forward in their chairs, then fell hard to the floor, folding up into fetal positions, their arms wrapped protectively around their shuddering bodies, their eyes wide and staring at something unseen.

“I was watching for that, Miss Granger,” Snape said silkily, an evil smile spreading across his pallid face. He rose from the bed.

“You two are going to be indisposed for a while,” he sneered down at the trembling, jerking pair. “I might as well partake of my supper. Don’t wander.”

Snape stepped over them and exited the room, walking down the stairs, through the small parlor and into his tiny, dingy kitchen. But the pots and pans that hung from hooks on the wall were bright and immaculate. Snape walked over to the cooler and took out a small steak, and proceeded to prepare it.

He wanted to be well-fed and ready when Harry and Hermione came back from their little inner journey.

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Harry groaned softly in agony as the scourge hit him again and again, shredding his flesh, the metal hooks digging in and tearing muscles. His pale, slender body hung a foot of the floor, only covered by a pair of tattered boxers, his wrists bound by manacles. Before him sat the Dark Lord on a throne made of human bones, watching his torture with dispassionate red eyes.

“You should have warned me Harry Potter was so well-prepared magically before we went to the Ministry to retrieve him. You were lax in your duty to me. You have to learn diligence, Severus. Diligence,” the scaly wizard lisped in a high-pitched voice.

The scourge fell on Harry again, this time wrapping around his pale belly and digging into his abdomen. The Death Eater wielding the scourge smiled nastily, then ripped it back with all his might, tearing the flesh open, blood pouring down Harry's legs.

It seemed to go on forever.

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Hermione woke up in a small cell. She sat up, hearing someone coming. Several wizards gathered outside, leering in at her.

“Hey Snape, we’ve come to pay you a late night visit, we have,” said one Azkaban guard in a low voice. “Ready for some company?”

Hermione stood up, her hands held up defensively.

“Crucio!” the guard snarled and Hermione contorted, horrible pain wracking her body as the cell door was thrown open and several wizards grabbed her, raining powerful blows down on her body.

“Don’t do any good to fight, Snape,” a wizard growled, punching her in the mouth, before throwing her headfirst into the stone wall over the bed so hard she saw stars and slumped crossways across the lumpy, smelly mattress.

“Perfect position, Snape,” another guard hissed, and Hermione’s arms were twisted painfully behind her back, then bound tightly together by the wrists. There was laughter as she struggled fruitlessly, kicking back only to be rewarded with a hard blow to the head that made her eyes cross. Someone stuffed the end of the filthy bed sheet into her mouth, and she felt her robes being lifted and her trousers pulled down. Hands moved over her arse and she was slapped painfully on her buttocks several times.

“That’s the bitch Snape,” someone growled. “Albus Dumbledore got me my first job you son-of-a-bitch!”

Hermione felt someone kneel behind her and felt her cheeks spread.

“I hope this hurts like hell you fucking murderer,” the same voice growled.

“Get him, Johnson, tear his asshole out!” another voice cried. Jeers of encouragement followed as Hermione felt nails digging into her slim waist.

Hermione groaned as she was roughly penetrated, ache tearing through her body. She wanted to scream . . . but she couldn’t. This was Snape’s experience, and the wizard never screamed.

”That’s right Snape, you ugly stinking traitor,” the guard hissed, plowing into Hermione to the hilt. She groaned again agaisnst the pain, her voice muffled by the bed sheet. The guard shagged her in the arse violently until it felt as if it were on fire, then moved aside to be replaced by another guard.

“Wait until you get to Burns, Snape . . . he’s ten inches long,” another guard mocked, again laughter ringing out around Hermione as she was brutalized again and again, each guard giving his grievance before reaming her arse round robin fashion.. After about an hour and a half, the laughing guards left the cell, Hermione covered in semen and the bitter taste of come in her mouth. Her rectum was torn and bleeding and the witch couldn’t move. She felt as if a red hot poker was left burning inside her. Hermione coughed and threw up, too weak to even roll out of her own vomit.

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Snape was once again in the tiny sitting room, and starting on a piece of chocolate-cake. He looked up toward the stairwell once in a while as he consumed the sweet confection, a smirk playing across his lips.

No doubt the pair would be full of empathy by the time he returned to them.