The Teddy Bear

The Teddy Bear

Severus buried his face in his pillow when he heard the sound of his father slamming the door, returning home drunk. Again. He knew what would happen when the man was drunk. Everytime, he would hear the screams of his mother as his father beat her - the beatings she took so he wouldn't touch his son, or his daughter.

He heard his door open, and looked up to see his sister standing there, her bear clutched in her hands, fear shining in her eyes. He got up, closing the door behind her, scooping her up and going to sit in the old rocker that was in the corner.

"Is mummy going to be all right, Sevvie?" Cristina's voice was quiet and scared.

Severus hugged the girl closer, the eight year old burying his own fear to comfort and calm his sister. "I don't know, Chrissie." He kept his eyes fixed on the door, hoping that they would be safe tonight - their father's temper had gotten worse in recent months, and he wasn't going to let him take it out on his little sister.

The door was slammed open, and Cristina screamed, cringing away from the monster that stood in the doorway. Severus wrapped his arms around her tighter, already knowing his choice was made. He would not let this man hurt his little sister.

"Stop your caterwauling, brat," the man snarled, coming forward with his hand raised to strike her. Severus twisted in the chair, taking the blow himself, pain exploading through his shoulder.

"Leave her alone." His tone was low and lethally quiet, though he had no way of backing up the threat implicit in his voice. He glared up at the monster who had given him his name, now red in the face with anger. Soon he would pass out, he always had before, slumped over the couch in the parlor.

He barely had time to register the fact he was raising his hand again before a meaty fist slammed into his face, and Christina screamed again, wiggling away from him. Severus cried out to keep the man's attention on him as the small girl fled the room. He couldn't let him hurt Christina.

* * *

Severus woke up on the floor, Christina shaking his shoulder. He groaned, his head throbbing from several blows to his face and skull, bruises making themselves known on his ribs and back, his shoulder and one rib that was probably cracked the loudest voices in the chorus.

"Sevvie. Wake up, Sevvie." She was crying, he realized, looking up at her from unfocused eyes. "He's gone, Sevvie, wake up, please!"

He tried to sit up, and passed out again from the pain. This time when he woke, he was looking up at the swollen face of his mother, tears leaking from her eyes. She was whispering healing spells, the pain fading to a dull ache by the time she was finished.

Severus sat first, then stood, anger seething in his heart. He knew he should be used to this - however used to seeing his mother beat up like this he could get - but he never had, and doubted he would. Some day he'd pay back that monster for everything he'd done to them all.

"Christina?" His first concern, though, as it always was, was for his sister.

"She's asleep, Severus, in her room. She's ok." His mother reached out to touch his hair, and he shied away. "I didn't want this to happen to you."

"Why do we stay, then, mother? Why can't we go to grandmum's?" Severus's eyes pleaded with his mother for an explination. He didn't like this, never had.

The woman dropped her eyes. "I can't leave him, Severus." Her voice was a whisper, the words the same as they had always been. He didn't understand. What had happened that she couldn't leave?

"Why? Mother, Christina's always scared, everytime he comes home like that. She's afraid for you." He would never tell her he was too. He couldn't.

"I know, Severus. I just can't leave him." She paused. "I'm packing Christina an overnight bag, and you pack yours, and I want you to take the Knight Bus to your Aunt Leah's house." Her eyes fixed on Severus's. "Whatever you hear, you stay at your aunt's house, you understand me, Severus?"

He looked at his mother, scared of the intensity in her eyes. "Mum?"

"Do you understand me?"

He nodded, wondering what was going on. "Mum, why can't you take us? And why do we have to go to Aunt Leah's? Why can't we go to grandmum's house?"

"Just do what I told you to do, Severus." Her voice was firm, and she headed for the door, to go to pack for Christina, and to wake her up. "Hurry."

He did as his mother had told him, dressing in the first set of cleanrobes he could find, creeping down to the front door past the room his mother shared with the monster. She was already down there, with a yawning Christina clutching her bear. He took the bag his mother handed him. She gave him a sad look, hugging him fiercely before opening the door, and shooing them out.

"Remember what I told you, Severus."

He nodded, fear rising as he took Christina's tiny hand, and headed for the road, where the red bulk of the Knight Bus waited, the conducter giving them pitying looks. He straightened, glaring at the man. He needed no one's pity. Scooping up his sister, he climbed aboard, looking back at the small house once before he went to find a seat for them.

* * *

He was eating breakfast almost a week after he and Christina had arrived at his godmother's house when she gasped, her eyes widening at whatever she was reading in the paper. Severus looked up, worry in his eyes.

"Aunt Leah?"

She looked over at him, tears making her pale blue eyes look silver. "Finish your breakfast, Severus." She stood, leaving the room, and from across the table, Christina gave him a frightened look.

"You eat, Chrissie. I'll go find out what scared Aunt Leah." Severus slipped from the table, creeping after his godmother, pausing outside the parlor, where he could hear her talking someone over the fire.

"Why didn't you tell me before this, John?" Her voice was nearly hysterical. "That's my cousin they're talking about, and she sent both her children here only a week ago."

"I couldn't tell you earlier because I just found out this morning myself, Leah." That was the voice of his godmother's boyfriend. John was a nice person, sometimes too nice, Severus always thought. "They brought the bodies to me just an hour ago, and I haven't had a chance to leave the autopsy room since. I just got out, and I was about to call you."

Severus's eyes widened. Bodies? What had happened?

"What happened, John? How did this happen?"

"From what I know, he was probably beating her up again, and she wasn't going to take it anymore. She used a Muggle gun on him - almost a full clip of a 9mm handgun. Used the last bullet on herself - one clean shot through the mouth, blew apart the back of her skull..."

Severus wasn't able to repress the urge to throw up, his breakfast making a violent reappearence, dropping to his hands and knees. His mind spun, disbelief warring with anger as the dominent emotion. He didn't notice John stopping short, and Leah coming around the couch, calling for a house elf to bring clean clothes for him, to clean up the mess, and to bring a glass of water.

Gentle hands helped him up, guiding him towards the bathroom. He was changed out of the robes he'd just been sick on, and into clean ones. His face was wiped clean, and water was brought to clean out his mouth of the taste of bile. He simply let them manipulate him for now, shock slowly numbing him against the pain of losing his mother.

* * *

At the funeral, Christina clung to him, a tiny, miserable figure in black robes, her black hair pulled back in a messy braid. He held her hand, staring straight ahead, burying his own grief inside, his own pain pushed into a corner of his mind. He had to take care of Christina. The one thing that kept him going was his little sister, the girl who had crept into his room since she could walk whenever the monster was beating their mother, whenever she had a nightmare. Always coming to him for comfort first. He had to take care of her - no one else would, no one else could.

* * *

Severus woke up from the memory with a start, his eyes staring into the blackness above him, still seeing the huddled figure of his sister at their mother's funeral. He'd made a promise to himself he'd take care of her. And he hadn't. He'd joined the Death Eaters because he had thought they were the best way to protect his sister. But they hadn't been. They'd been Christina Snape's death sentance.

Tears stung his eyes as he thought back to her death. She'd not even been sixteen yet, but she'd already known what she was going to do with her life, no matter how short that could make it. She'd made him promise to make her death worth something, not to throw his life away - somehow she'd known. She hadn't told anyone, but she had known.

"Don't throw your life away, Sevvie. Don't give up on the Light."

He stood, going to the window, where a small stuffed bear sat on the bench below it. He reached out, picking it up, and sat down, the bear looking faintly ridiculous clutched in the arms of the Potions Master. He'd promised her he'd try, that he wouldn't give up. And now he once again fell into the life that he'd begun after she died. He spied for Albus so no one else would lose family. So no one else lost their sister.

"For you, Chrissie."

* * *

The next morning, a student was walking by the lake with his girlfriend when they saw it. It looked like a raft of black cloth floating on the surface of the water. Their eyes widened, and they bolted for the castle. When Dumbledore came down to the lake, his blue eyes clouded with sorrow as the body of Professor Snape was pulled from the cold water. In his hand was clenched a small stuffed bear.

* * *

A Brave Soul
Beloved Sister
Christina Snape
1963-1979

Professor
Brother
Severus Snape
1960-1997