Confessions Of Severus Snape

I stare into the glassy surface of the pensieve, not sure whether I am ready to deposit my thoughts into it. For so many years I have hung on to the worst memories of my life, unable and unwilling to let go of them. I have allowed them to haunt me as my own punishment for what I have done and who I am.

Before I let go of them I decide that I must write down my past, my confession and so I now set pen to paper.

June 11^th 2004

The Confessions of Severus Snape

I was born in 1959 the first of three children to a Muggle and Wizard. My father, the Muggle hadn't known that my mother was a Witch when I was conceived and did not find out about this until after he had been forced to marry her. Father worked as a janitor in King's Cross Station in London. My mother, the wizard stayed home in the tiny flat they rented above a smoke shop. In 1961 my brother Sergey was born and later in 1964 our sister Anna. After Anna mother had two stillborn babies and fell into a deep depression. After the second baby was stillborn she never left her bed again. Sergey and I were left to raise little Anna and look after the flat while father worked.

Father would come home from work drunk and angry. He always took it out on Sergey and I. We spent our childhood covered in bruises. Eventually, I learned to collapse and lie still on the floor after one hit. Then Father would not come at me again. Sergey, however, was always defiant and refused to be easily knocked down. Night after night I would hear father throwing the boy against the walls and punching him as I lay on the floor.

The summer of 1970 I got my first Hogwarts letter. I showed it to Sergey not sure of what I should do. Together we showed it to my mother and grasping it; she smiled at us and told us how to get to Diagon Alley. A few days later Sergey, Anna, and I went to get my supplies. We had known that mother was a wizard, but never before had we actually been in the wizarding world. It was an amazing experience for all of us, to see what we had been missing for so long due to our father's oppression.

We got home late that evening and father was waiting for us. When he saw my wizarding supplies, his entire face seemed to get red with anger. The veins in his neck throbbed as if they might burst. I had never seen him that angry before. I was terrified. I did not know what to do. So I just stood there looking numbly up at his towering form. Sergey was the first to speak, "Severus got his Hogwarts Letter Father." Just as Sergey finished his sentence, father grabbed the fire poker that lay beside the fire place and swung it. The blow to Sergey's temple knocked him unconscious. I stared at Sergey's lifeless form on the floor and didn't know what to do. So I did nothing.

"None of you are going to that damn Wizarding school like your bitch of a mother!" he shouted as he swung the poker down on top of my head. I felt the metal hit my skull and everything got fuzzy. Just as I felt the dampness of blood on top of my head he hit me again, this time in the ribs. I crumpled to the floor in excruciating pain, hoping that he would stop but he didn't. He kicked me in the chest over and over. I felt as if I could not breathe and was suffocating but still he did not stop. Each kick jarred my already aching body. As I lay there, I wished that he would just kill me and get it over with. Or that I had never been born. After all it was my conception that led to this mess. Finally, relief came when another blow to the head knocked me unconscious.

Reluctantly, that August I left Anna and Sergey to deal with my father as I headed off to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I found adjusting to the school to be difficult. Although I was no longer physically abused, I often found myself to be teased maliciously by others especially Sirius Black, James Potter, and their friends.

At the time Lucius Malfoy was a seventh year in Slytherin. He was the only one who treated me with kindness or seemed to care about me at all. He noticed how I would often skip meals and encouraged me to sit with him and eat. It didn't do much good though. I found myself unable to stomach the food and would just vomit in the bathroom after meals.

Classes and schoolwork were my only escape from the pain of reality. There, I could succeed. I spent much of my time with my nose buried in one book or another. As the school year came to a close, I dreaded going back home to the flat above the smoke shop. To spend my summer as the punching bag for my father's drunken wrath.

The years wore on in this pattern. I spent my summers at home being physically abused by my father. The rest of the year was spent at Hogwarts being teased and burying myself in my studies. That was until the summer after my sixth year.

For years, my mother had lain in bed slowly wasting away. Finally, she died in June of 1976. That summer my entire life changed. Having lost his job two years ago Father was now almost always at home and almost always drunk. There was no escaping him.

Anna was twelve and turning into a very pretty young lady. She had long, sleek locks of jet black hair that framed her delicate oval face. Her smile could light up even our dark flat. She dressed plainly in long denim skirts, and collared button up shirts. Anna spent most of her time reading her various text books. She was already one of the most promising students at Hogwarts.

One night father came home with three friends. All of them were completely plastered and the first thing that he saw was Anna reading her Defense Against the Dark Arts text. Drunk and enraged, he grabbed the book from her hands and shouted, "You little bitch! You're just like your mother! All your good for is lying on a bed with your legs spread!"

"Father..." Anna stuttered. She stared up at him bewildered. Her eyes were filled with fright. I winced as I heard the crack of his fist against her skull. Sergey and I stood with our backs pressed against the wall of the shadowy hallway.

Anna struggled as a burly red- headed Irish man climbed on top of her and pushed her skirts up to her waist. She screamed as he thrust himself into her over and over. I stared at my father who laughed as each of his friends took a turn. Anna's bone chilling screams shook me, but I didn't know what to do. So I did nothing. I just stood there and watched as Anna's body went limp, her eyes glazed over, and her spirit disappeared from her body. It was like she had chosen to no longer inhabit that body.

Suddenly, I noticed that Sergey was no longer beside me. I had no idea how long he had been gone. Frantically, I scanned the room looking for some sign of him. And then I saw him slowly emerging from the unlit hallway, his wand in front of him aimed directly at father. He opened his mouth to speak, "No!" I screamed. But it was too late Sergey had uttered those words and killed our father.

The other men stepped towards the door wearily their eyes on Sergey. Sergey still had his wand extended and aimed right at them. Their was an evil, malicious glare in his eyes as he spoke the words again.