Shattered Souls

Shattered Souls
by Eilan

Prologue

"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead."
Bertrand Russell

Theirs was a strange relationship. He turned to her when he woke yet again from a nightmare and couldn't go back to sleep. When his memories returned to hunt him and his soul screamed for contact.

She couldn't remember when exactly it had started again, when he had first knocked on her door and she had foolishly opened it, surprised to see him standing there after all the years that had passed. Yet it seemed like it had been going on forever.

And there was no end in sight.

He would come to her in the middle of the night, looking like hell, and she couldn't refuse him what he needed most. Human contact. The feeling of two bodies against each other. And then he would walk away and she would be left feeling empty.

He never stayed these nights, he always left before dawn. Before anyone could notice anything. Before she could get the impression it meant anything to him.

For to him it didn´t. But to her, it meant everything.

When he left, she cried herself to sleep. The moment the door closed behind him and she knew he had yet again broken her heart, she collapsed and tears streamed down her face.

Still, she opened the door the next time he came to her.

And the cycle continued.

She knew she should stop it, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.

Because she loved him.

For to her he was not just a warm body in the night, their lovemaking not just a way to satisfy human needs, nor to make sure there was a part of his soul left unshattered.

Every night he came to her she thought it could be different, and time after time she was proven wrong. Deep down she knew it would always be like this, because he wasn't capable of loving.

Yet each time this thought resurfaced, she pushed it away, convincing herself some day he would be able to love again.

But he wouldn't. The damage to his soul was irreversible.

Just like the damage he had done to hers.

This sorrow he had caused her, the sorrow that she wanted to bury deep inside of her so it wouldn't affect her, had begun to change her. She had tried to turn away from him, to love again -- to love someone else.

It hadn't worked, of course. She had failed miserably.

Fortunately what happened at night hadn't affected the way she lived when the sun reigned the sky, and she hoped it never would. Even on the days that followed those nights, they acted like there was nothing between them. When they passed each other in the corridors, they'd nod and continue on their way. As if nothing important had happened.

And for him it was true.

Nothing important had happened.

Just one more broken heart, one more shattered soul along the road.

Nothing out of the ordinary in the life of Severus Snape, for he was the personification of a 'shattered soul'.

Maria Celeste Sinistra turned away from the door and silently cried.

To be continued..