Chapter Text
Severus knew. He knew what monsters in children’s skins looked like. The sight of a child that had seen the monster under the bed and smiled. Asked it how it hid so well.
He knew what malice hidden by a mask of pure innocence looked like.
It was the smiles, a little too wide, a little too friendly. It was in the eyes, the ice that burned.
The worst types of monsters were curious.
So, when one of the Potter spawns stepped up to the sorting hat and Slytherin was called, he was not surprised.
He knew what monsters looked like. And sometimes you needed a monster to kill a monster.
The worst part of it all, Harry Potter wasn’t born a monster. He learnt it. One twisted lesson, time after time, until the boy he would have been was gone forever. But that doesn’t matter, he isn’t the boy-who-lived, he just has what he considers his.