A Day in the Life...

~~A Day in the Life of Severus Snape~~

Severus Snape was bathed in a cold sweat.

Thick though the walls of the mansion were they were not nearly thick enough to block the sounds of his parents quarrelling in their rooms downstairs. Severus turned around and lay on his front, trying to muffle the noise by putting his hands on his ears.

It was always the same . . . Every night he heard them fight, every morning he woke up to find some fresh bruise on his mother's body... Oh, she tried to hide them all right, but he could always see. . . Even at age eleven, Severus Snape was an observant boy. Nothing escaped his attention. Every minute detail was lodged and noted in his memory. He reveled in intricacy and complexity. He prided himself on noticing the smallest change in people's demeanor. They might not know it, but he always did. . . .

Which is why he had noticed that his mother and father were quarrelling more frequently nowadays; ever since that one night when his father had come home and proudly shown Augustine something on his left fore-arm. Severus did not know what it was, he had tried to see, but Silvius had brushed him away. But Severus still remembered his mother's shocked and terrified face when she had seen it. . . .

And since then Silvius had started going out more, often late at night. Sometimes he returned only in the early hours of the morning. He tried to be quiet, he never woke the house-elves, but Severus always knew. . . . As he lay awake in his bed, he would hear his father climb the stairs to his bedroom and he would hear his parents' talking in low voices, sometimes they fought, sometimes she screamed, often he heard Augustine weeping into the night. . . .

One month from that night Severus had noticed the first bruise on his mother's face. She had tried to hide it, using make up, but he had seen it. He had asked her about it, and she had not answered, but Severus knew, Severus knew that it had been his father.

As the days passed, the bruises came more frequently, and became more noticeable. Yet Augustine still tried to cover them up, never complaining, never breathing a word, as if speaking about them would make them real, as if she was holding on to her dignity by a thin thread of denial. . . .

He had tried often to protect her, but it was futile. He was but eleven and his father, was tall, muscly and not averse to using his belt. Severus had been beaten too many times in his life to still be afraid of it, yet his mother's haunted face hurt him more than any beating of his father. During the day he was always there to step in between his parents, but at night, he was powerless. . . .

Severus loved Augustine. Of course, he could never say it out loud, Silvius would skin him alive for showing such a 'weak' emotion; however that didn't change anything. Silvius had taken it upon himself to stomp out any such 'humanity' (he said it like it was a disgusting swear-word) from Severus by beginning his instruction in the Dark Arts when he was merely nine years old.

Severus had acquired enough knowledge of the Dark Arts to rival many much older than him, and also perfected his acting skills to a degree at which even his father was fooled but his love for his mother was like a torch he carried within himself. It refused to let him become like his father. It kept him sane, and made him hopeful, that perhaps someday things might get better. He would take his mother and they would get away from Silvius and they would stay together forever . . . and she would no longer have that haunted look in her face; she would be happy and he, Severus, would make her happy. . . .

Yet the next day he would have to leave her. While glad to be away from his father, he was gravely concerned about Augustine. Without him to protect her, what would she do? What would Silvius do to her? Far away at Hogwarts, Severus would not be able to protect her. No matter how much he tried he could not stop himself from hearing his parents shouting; he turned over and stared at the ceiling . . . .

Severus Snape did not sleep that night.

~~~~~