1981

The Floo Network spit Severus out unceremoniously onto the hard stone floor of his small cottage, which Albus had created as a safe house for his family. Severus staggered toward a chair, but he stumbled and was forced to grasp clumsily at a small table and his fingers found unsteady purchase with a silver frame.

But his trembling fingers slipped and the frame tumbled to the floor; Severus barely heard the tinkling of the glass as it shattered and not having enough strength to make it to the nearby chair, Severus collapsed in a great black heap on the floor, his legs splaying out in front of him.

Severus’ chest heaved as he sat on the floor. He was beyond trying to control himself, beyond even attempting Occlusion to bring some measure of relief. Harry was not his son. Lily had slept with James.

Severus’ mind was racing with confusion and he desperately tried to find some sense in all the confliction, tried to bring order to the chaos but it was no use. Severus could not take this pain and neatly put it away, pretending none of it had happened. His life was a lie; he had lost his son…his wife…his family.

James—Potter, Potter had ripped his life from him. And in a surge of fury, Severus screamed and the sound pierced the still air. Potter had stolen his wife, his son…every reason Severus had for living. Severus clenched his fists until his fingernails drew blood from his calloused palms and he vowed that the next time he saw James Potter, he would kill him. As slowly and painfully as was possible.

The Gryffindor had seduced his wife…his Lily. He could not blame Lily for this. Severus had always known he was unworthy of her, just as he had been unworthy of his parents as a child. As Severus sat on the hard, cold floor shaking with anguished rage, he had to concede that even in his shock, he had always been expecting Lily to find someone better; in fact Severus had been waiting for it.

Lily could not help it, he knew. Every day that Severus had been with her, he was freshly astonished that she still wanted to be with him. He had never, never been good enough for Lily Evans. The self-loathing that had been ever present since his childhood, had abated a bit over the years as Lily had shown Severus that he was more than the worthless child his parents had claimed him to be.

But now, the self hatred came rushing back to Severus and he thought of Lily again, her beautiful face, her fiery, gentle soul…even Lily…dear Lily, so full of love herself, could not love him. Because Severus knew he was in fact, unlovable.

“Harry….”

Severus’ grief consumed him as he thought of the little boy, with his mop of raven hair. From the beginning, Harry had looked like James. He and Lily had designed it that way, weaving a complex Charm full of Potter’s genetic signature with Harry’s so that they could keep their secret.

With a wash of bitterness, Severus realized that even that had been a lie. The way Harry looked now was most likely pretty close to how the boy really would look without the Charm…as James Potter’s son.

Severus remembered how pleased he’d been, each time he’d looked at Harry, that he and Lily had left Harry’s eyes strictly alone. For every time he’d gazed into those deep emerald orbs, he saw Lily. A low, tormented moan escaped Severus’ lips as he realized he would never see either pair of eyes again.

Oh, he knew Albus would come and plead with him to continue his work with the Order and as a spy for Voldemort because though it hadn’t been planned that way, Severus had turned out to be quite valuable for the cause of the Light. But, Severus didn’t care anymore and he couldn’t bear to face Lily again, regardless.

He could stay here, in this cottage protected fully with the Fidelius Charm. He need never venture outside its walls again. Severus could stay until he died or until somehow Voldemort found him to seek retribution for Severus’ intended defection.

The thought of death by torture of the Cruciatus Curse soothed Severus and for brief seconds, he relished in thoughts of a plan to bring Voldemort to him, but he banished the plan quickly as he realized that such extended torture would almost certainly break his mind and Severus would not allow harm to come to Lily…nor to Harry.

But Harry was no longer his to protect. Severus would never again hold the small child in his arms, would never feel the sticky kiss that Harry had so often favored him with, and with a foul surge of grief, he realized too that he would never again hear Harry call him ‘daddy’. He was nobody’s father, nobody’s husband. Severus Snape was utterly alone.

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1996

Severus watched the sitting room flashing past as he was rushed through the Floo Network; his anger stoking ever greater with each new room. When he spotted the correct parlor, Severus flung himself forward, before the Network had a chance, and he found himself standing almost instantly on a polished stone floor.

An old house-elf popped into existence in front of him, but he paid only enough attention to the little creature to demand, “Where is my mother?” The house-elf stared at Severus with wide eyes. Severus growled and grabbed the little elf by the front of his crisp tea towel. “Where?” he raged, shaking Schminge furiously.

The house-elf trembled. “Mistress is in the library, Master Severus!” Severus shoved Schminge away abruptly and Schminge tumbled to the floor as he stormed toward the staircase. He yanked his wand from the sleeve of his robe and brandished it in front of him as he stomped quickly upward, his fury growing as each step brought him closer to his mother.

At the top of the stairs, Severus took a curt left and crashed through the library’s old wooden door. His mother, her back to him, turned at the sound, her mouth forming an ‘O’ of surprise as she saw her son, framed in the doorway.

“Severus! What a surprise-”

Eileen’s mouth snapped closed and she took several quick steps backward as Severus advanced on her, his wand snapping up, to halt only inches from her face.

“You,” he said in his most deadly voice, “will tell me the truth or I will kill you where you stand.”

Eileen drew herself back by centimeters and narrowed her eyes. “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded tersely.

Severus ignored her question; his entire body was trembling with an urge to utter ‘Crucio,’ as his mother glared at him. “Did you force Lily to tell me Harry was not my son?” Eileen dark eye’s registered surprise but then she smiled her thin-lipped smile, a vindictive smile on her wrinkled face.

With an apoplectic scream, Severus grasped his mother around her small bicep and yanked her toward him. Knowing exactly what her son was planning to do, Eileen turned her face away from Severus, trying to pull herself free of his grasp. With a snarl, Severus released her arm, only to snake his hand up her back and then grabbing a fistful of her graying hair, he forced his mother to look at him.

“Legilimens,” he whispered and he saw all of it.

Black and Lupin chatting in the Hog’s Head as Eileen sat at a nearby chair, her back erect as she took in every word. Eileen Apparating away as Potter tried to grab her. His mother whispering words of an overheard prophecy to the Death Eater, Goyle.

“Your Lord will be pleased with you for bringing him this information.”

“You!” Severus cried as he lurched away from Eileen, the words reverberating through their minds. Eileen, her face pale, tried to draw herself up haughtily but managed only to pull her head shakily away from her son.

“It was you. You killed Lily,” Severus whispered hoarsely, his eyes losing all focus as he stared at her.

“Your bastard child was supposed to die with his Mudblood mother. I should have killed all of you myself.”

Severus’ black eyes began to clear and darken as they churned with hate. He stood, in front of the woman who had devastated his family, destroyed him and Severus tried to gulp in shallow, grasping breaths of air as he looked at her.

The words were on his tongue; the unforgivable curse begged to be turned loose on the hate-filled, sneering face of his mother. But there was another face stopping him.

Harry.

All the grief and rage gathered in Severus, built up over fifteen years of pain. The despair filled every orifice of his heart as he thought of Harry, his little one-year old son clinging to him for another hug. And he saw Harry’s face again, matured over fifteen lost years, staring at him in confused rejection. Harry…his son, who had spared the other who had betrayed his mother, wouldn’t want him to do this

So, Severus directed all those years of pain, every ache he had endured toward Eileen and intoned, “Semper Desparo.”

Eileen gasped out and began to claw at the side of her head with her long fingernails. She used the other hand to clutch at her middle as she hunched over in agony. Great, racking sobs began to shake her delicate limbs and Severus watched his mother dispassionately as she experienced every grief-filled moment her son had ever had…anguish over Lily, despair at his lost fatherhood, bitterness at James’s betrayal, even the pain of abuse carried out by Tobias, and Eileen herself.

Pain was all Eileen would know now and Severus continued to watch until his mother crumpled to the floor, writhing in agony. Sickened, Severus turned on his heel and walked out of the library to find Schminge and Obliviate him.