A Sacrifice for Love

Hi again. Umm... The song is not mine (obviously as I am not that talented) but when I heard it I thought it matched the mood Snape was in and couldn't resist... Please don't hate me....

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Draco and Pansy stayed with Ron and Harry until dinner. Hermione had not returned yet, but they were not worried. If things worked out between her and Professor Snape, she may not return for quite a while.

As they walked down the hall, Draco asked Ron to fall back so he could speak with him. Pansy and Harry gave him a curious look but kept walking. Ron nodded and stopped.

“What do you want, Malfoy?” Ron asked warily. Draco bared his teeth in what could possibly pass as a smile from far away.

“Stay away from Pansy. She doesn’t need to play your games. She is my girlfriend.” He hissed. Ron smiled with a great amusement.

“Are you sure about that? You see, if you wanted her, you would have tried to keep her. If she strays it will not be any fault of mine, but your own.” Ron said easily. He turned to admire Pansy, who was waiting at the end of the hall with Harry. She was looking at them suspiciously.

Draco looked at her and then at Ron. He felt the blood come up in his cheeks. He would not lose his girlfriend to the youngest red-headed Weasley male. That would be insanely impossible, but looking at the way she was looking at Ron now made him doubt himself.

“Just remember what I said.” He said finally and stalked away. Ron watched him go with a smile on his face and then blew a kiss at Pansy. She grinned at him and winked. Harry who had witnessed the scene between Pansy and Ron in the library, just rolled his eyes.

He didn’t understand Ron’s way with women. Just a few years ago he couldn’t even talk to them but now he just smiled at them and they were ready to start snogging with him. He didn’t know that Ron had turned to his older twin brothers and younger sister for tips on how to understand (and seduce) women.

Inside the Great Hall, they took their seats with their respective Houses. All four were not surprised to see that Professor Snape was not at the faculty table. Laughing and talking, they ate dinner. When dinner was done, Draco and Pansy returned to their common room and Harry and Ron went to the theirs. When McGonnagall came to check on them, Hermione still hadn’t come back.

“Er... she went to see Professor Snape about a potion earlier today and hasn’t returned. I think they even worked through dinner.” Harry said when the headmistress asked about Hermione.

Minerva pursed her lips. She felt something wasn’t right. Snape might forget about everything when he was working on a potion but he had the utmost care for the students. He would not let them miss a meal or stay out past curfew. She told the boys to go to bed and made her way to Snape’s office.




After Snape had kissed Hermione, he had fled to his office and locked the door. He had finally done it, he decided. He was certifiably insane. He had kissed a student and not just any student but a bloody Gryffindor. A Gryffindor that he knew hated him now. She had given her life to him and how had he repaid her? By trying to ravish her in the hallway. He conveniently disregarded the fact that she had kissed him back.

He warded the door and fireplace. He did not want to see or speak to anyone for the rest of the day. He lay on his couch and closed his eyes. In all of his life, he had never felt this way.

He had grown up as an abused frightened child. His father had never needed a reason to hit his son and wife and did so at every opportunity. His mother, he knew tried to love him, tried to pretend she did anyway. She would attempt to protect him but it always made it worse.

He shifted uncomfortably on the couch. The memories made the worst of his scars ache but it was nothing like the ache in his heart, or what was left of it. When he had been accepted to Hogwart’s, it had been a dream come true. His mother had whispered stories of the legendary school to Severus when his father was at his worst to distract him from the pain.

It had been happy at first. He had been sorted into Slytherin, his mother’s House. He had excelled in his classes, not unlike the redoubtable Miss Granger, he thought wryly. His fellow housemates did not like him. He was poor and a half blood and his closed, cynical personality did not make friends easily. He did not trust anyone either. He didn’t have friends, but he had his studies so he was content.

Until James Potter and Sirius Black.

They had come across him in the Library, studying for one of his classes. Potter had tried to intimidate Snape into letting him copy his notes. Like father, like son, Snape thought, thinking of Harry and Hermione, although he had to admit, Harry did not use intimidation. He used guile and their friendship, which worked on Hermione, usually.

Unfortunately, intimidation did not work with Snape. He had dealt with his father all of his life and no one was as menacing as Tobias Snape in a rage. He refused to let them copy his notes and that had been the beginning of the end of Snape’s contentment.

He found himself always on guard against sneak attacks, hexes and mundane tricks. The peace of Hogwart’s became a battlefield for Snape. It was like his father’s home, all over again. If he relaxed his vigilance for even a moment, it would be over. Potter and Black did everything they could to make his life miserable. To make it worse, the teachers all turned their heads when it came to Potter and Black.

“Boys will be boys.” He heard many times from different instructors. He knew most of them did not like him. His life had not been easy and he was closed off because of it. He was cold and stiff with the people around him because he could not allow himself to believe they would not hurt him. He pushed them away because he was afraid.

When Amy Dearly had come to the school, things had changed. She was his equal in Potions, if not better, though he would never admit it. She was the one ray of sunshine in his stormy life. He could be himself in her presence and she accepted him. He did not love her, not more than a friend but he did admire her. She had it worse than he did. At least the people in his own House did not revile him, even if they did ignore him.

When she had revealed her feelings so publicly, he had retreated behind his icy demeanor again, confused and mistrustful. No one had ever loved him in his life, not even his own mother, so how could she? As the days had passed, he yearned for their easy friendship again, but did not know where to start. Soon it was too late.

Guilt ate away at him. If he had been there for her, she would not have died. If he had protected her, she would be alive now, he thought desperately. So many had died and he wished she had not been one of them. She had been so good under that Slytherin exterior. When they had found her body, he had screamed so deep in his soul. He had brought their attention to her by befriending her and her death was his fault.

He shifted on the couch again and wiped his cheeks. His hand came away dry. He never cried, only in his mind.

It was then that he went to Lucius Malfoy. He would get revenge, no, justice for the death of his friend. Of course, Lucius urged him on, even though he didn’t care about the death of another mudblood. He was taken to the former Tom Riddle, now Lord Voldemort. If he thought he had felt pain before, it paled compared to what the Dark Lord did to him.

He felt as if his soul was ripped from his body. He suffered the Cruciatus curse unrelentingly and was later surprised he had not gone insane like the Longbottoms but he supposed that had not been Voldemort’s plan. He had finished school, ignoring Potter and Black when he could and dealing with them when he had to. He had withdrawn into an unbreakable shell.

He participated in the Dark Lord’s revels, visiting depravations upon unsuspecting wizards, witches and the rare muggle. He hid the part of himself that still screamed deep inside to where he could ignore it. He pretended to enjoy being a Death Eater so much that even he had begun to believe it. His hatred had consumed him.

It changed when he heard the prophecy. He had reported it to his master like a good messenger. When Voldemort swore to kill the Potters, Snape had to finally be honest with himself. He did not want this life. Lily Evans had been one of the only people who seemed to care for him and now he would be responsible for her death. He went to the only person he knew he could trust, Albus Dumbledore, but it had been too late.

Beautiful Lily was dead. She had defended him to Potter on various occasions only to be rebuffed by Snape with mistrust and anger. She had stopped after a while but when Potter was at his worst, she always appeared to distract him. Because of him, Severus Snape, she was dead and her son was now an orphan.

Dumbledore had testified for him at his trail as a Death Eater. He understood Snape in some ways that even Snape, himself, did not. Snape was given tenure at the school where he had found peace at one time, teaching Potions. He had changed from the quiet, shy boy into a hard cruel man. He did not trust anyone and kept himself aloof. It would only bring pain and he had enough of that to deal with. Despite his icy exterior he cared about the students in a diffident way.

He had hidden himself behind a wall of pain and guilt that was unbreakable, he thought. At least until a know-it-all Gryffindor had saved him from death. He felt the ache in his heart and wished he could cry, at least this once for what he had lost, for what he would never have.

Wish I was too dead to cry
My self-affliction fades
Stones to throw at my creator
Masochists to which I cater
You don't need to bother;
I don't need to be
I'll keep slipping farther
But once I hold on,
I won't let go 'til it bleeds

Wish I was too dead to care
If indeed I cared at all
Never had a voice to protest
So you fed me shit to digest
I wish I had a reason;
my flaws are open season
For this, I gave up trying
One good turn deserves my dying

You don't need to bother;
I don't need to be
I'll keep slipping farther
But once I hold on,
I won't let go 'til it bleeds

Wish I'd died instead of lived
A zombie hides my face
Shell forgotten
with its memories
Diaries left
with cryptic entries

And you don't need to bother;
I don't need to be
I'll keep slipping farther
But once I hold on,
I won't let go 'til it bleeds

You don't need to bother;
I don't need to be
I'll keep slipping farther
But once I hold on:
I'll never live down my deceit


A knock at the door interrupted Snape’s painful reveries. He did not want to be interrupted but seeing as it was after curfew, he decided it must be important. He opened the door to find a worried looking Minerva.