A Sort of Corruption

"Severus Snape: qualified Potions Master as of his Hogwarts graduation--the youngest, ever. Do you know, my youthful prodigy, what I can offer you?"

He had been a child, and he'd looked up into red eyes with an admiration intensified by the avant-garde nature of the man's crusade. He had been a child, but he’d shielded his admiration, and looking unblinkingly into red eyes, had asked, "What?"

"I can offer you a world free from muggle hypocrisy. A world where our will is not subjugated to the whims of a warmongering people."

And he’d been a child, but he’d drawn breath to say that that sounded like a rather vague sort of promise. Voldemort did not notice, or did not heed, this drawn breath. Instead, he tilted his head upward, every so slightly, narrowed his eyes, every so slightly, and raised his voice--ever so slightly.

"Our Ministry speaks of fellowship, and respect. It is purportedly because of this ‘respect’ and this love of ‘fellowship’ that the Ministry patronises muggle vermin as if they were ignorant children. This underestimation is fatal. They are not ignorant children, but a highly corrosive acid. We cannot swim in it, and come out unscathed. We will not allow ourselves to be pushed in because of an irresponsibly politically correct government.

"Muggles, though--our ‘fellows’--speak of love and honour and pride. Yet they make distinctions based on gender, race, and petty beliefs. Why? Because there is no power to be elevated above the weakness. We are the power, though, and we are elevated above their weakness. This is no arrogance, no 'racism'--this is fact. We are the powerful, we are the educated, we are the enlightened. They are the slavering masses--the angry mob burning that which their parents revered.

"And it is from this violent mob that mudbloods come to us. This culture of hate and hypocrisy. They are tainted by a world that places matter over the mind, and they come to us. They worm their way into our society--heads of ministerial offices, teachers at our schools, sportspeople. They stand in front of our children, and demand respect. Respect from strength for weakness: from peace for war. We will not let our children submit to demands as ludicrous as they are dangerous.

"We are better than this--our children are better than this. In the Dark Ages, when they hunted us, we mocked them from behind our magical smokescreens. We assumed that because they couldn't kill us, they were harmless. But they find a way too kill us. With the help of a complacent Ministry, they send forth their children to destabilise us. They look to tap our power--True Power--to subvert it into servicing their needs, their wants. They would lock us up as freaks and abominations, albeit useful ones. They would treat us as though it is we who not only hack at the tree, but sever the root.

"And Severus Snape, I can offer you a world where this cannot and will not happen."

And that had been that. He'd received his Mark before he'd left Volde--his Lord's side.

It was not until many years later that he had seen corruption as corruption regardless of the principles in which it robed itself. The problem was, corruption begets corruption and war begets war, and there was no safe-house. He had been fooled into seeing light at the end of the tunnel, when the truth was, he was living underground.

So he felt justified in resenting the whispers, and the cold stares, and the street-crossing of the corrupted for the Death Eater turned realist. And he felt justified in despising Gryffindor--this most hated counterpoint to a cause in which he'd once believed.

And he woke up, one day, with Harry Potter in his arms, and realised that there was a much nicer sort of corruption. That his idealist was uncorrupted by everything save the warm sanctuary provided him by his Potions Master's arms. Oh, Snape knew that in time, his idealist would be corrupted by the recognition of corruption--one's pupils always dilated on walking into a dark room. Snape would be here, though. Here to stop the clawing toward the wide-spaces and sky-view of an above ground that had long ago been destroyed by a murdered soil.

Severus Snape was not a magnanimous man, but he was no hypocrite. So when idealism fell into his lap, he did not turn it away because of a corruptee's depiction of corruption. He held it, and he learnt from it. And when it suffocated itself, he held it, and he learnt from it, and finally he let it go. And he returned to a world of corruption, ignorantly worshipping the child they had condemned. He returned to a resignation he'd forgotten, and he realised that there was an easier, and yet more dangerous sort of corruption. And he revelled in it.