Chapter Text
It was a cold rainy day. Snape packed his bags, the silence in the empty house making his thoughts seem even louder. The clock on his wall ticking relentlessly. The house is old, the colour from the tapete fading, the old floor tiles creaking with every step.
Tomorrow he can finally return to Hogwarts. Escape this empty house, the screaming of his father. Not like he had been home the past year. After his mother committed suicide, he started throwing stuff after Snape instead. Then on a cold February morning he had just stood up and left, out the door and then he never came back.
The winter holidays are coming to an end, outside it’s cold and rainy, the clouds making everything even more unsettling. Snape liked autumn, no overbearing heat and brightness. In the summer it was always loud, the streets bustling with noisy people, laughter and voices filling the air. Everyone was sweaty, so much skin was showing, everything was simply too much. So, Snape was grateful for the colder days, the silence was what made it so much worse. It is as if his thoughts are screaming at him, telling him how worthless he is.
Waste of space, they’d whisper.
Disgusting bastard, they’d taunt.
But even worse than the insults are the little truths mixed in their sentence, making it hard to tell the difference between truth and lie. No wonder she killed herself, leaving you alone. She never cared, no one ever will. Snape swallows, changing his thoughts quickly. Trying to shut out the voice. Finally, he zips up his suitcase, the old leather already peeling off. He sits down on his bed, looking around. The silence is unbearable at times. His bed stands in the middle of his room, the headboard leaning against the wall. His room is plain, a book shelf with some old spellbooks, grey walls decorated with a window and a clock. The ticking the only thing filling the room along with Snape’s breath. A carpet covers the brown wood tiles underneath his bed.
A few hours later. Darkness seeps through the windows, only the stars and bright, full moon letting rays of light into his room. Snape lays awake in his bed, shivering. He never stopped trembling after his mother had died. Maybe because he had stopped eating properly, food just tasted like cardboard and the thought of eating made him nauseous. He had grown thin, his bones visible if not for the thick layers of clothes and robes covering his skin. Sleeping had become a luxury too; at most he slept 3 hours a night. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see his father screaming at his mother, while she silently cried, not uttering a word.
At 4 am he finally drifts off to sleep.
Snape wakes up only two hours later. It’s still dark outside but the sun is slowly rising, colouring the world in a cold, dark grey. Slowly he staggers down the stairs in his big mansion, one that he used to call home. He moves into the kitchen, his legs trembling violently, threatening to give out. He lights the fireplace in the living room connected to the kitchen and makes himself a sandwich. Sinking into the warm arm chair, he takes a bite of his sandwich. It tastes like nothing so he throws the rest into the trash can. The rest of the remaining time he spends reading.
He arrives at the train station at 7:14 AM. The train station is already filled, annoyed parents complaining about their children, noisy students chatting about their school year and young women kissing their husband's goodbye. Quickly Snape disappears through the wall onto the platform 9 ¾. The platform is still quite empty, some students lingering in small groups in corners. Snape spots James and quickly lowers his head. Regulus Black, James Potter, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. The Marauders together, like usual. Snape hides in the shadow of the corner as he waits for the train to arrive.
The train pulls up punctually at 8 Am. Snape waits for the number of students, which had already grown quite big, to get inside. He follows after most students have found their cabins inside, looking for an empty seat. He finds one at the end of the train, an empty cabin. On his way in, students glance at him, their lips curling in disgust, their face grimacing in disdain. Finally, he sinks into the seat, closing the cabin door behind him. As he leans against the window, he feels the cold seeping into his bones. He pulls a warmer robe out of his luggage before heaving it onto the luggage compartment above his head, though he preferred to simply call it headboard. He had to use his wand to hex it on top, he was too weak to lift it himself.
Silence is too much, but the constant noise of people chattering in other cabins isn’t any better, really. Snape stands up, making his way out of the cabin and down the long corridor until he reaches the bathroom. Once inside, he quickly locks the door and slides down the wall, shaking. He wraps his arms around his legs, his hands tremble, his breath quickens. He reaches into his pocket, pulling out a shard of glass. It’s a clean white with rough edges, reflecting the light coming from the white bulb in the small room. He doesn’t think, just yanks up his sleeve and rips open his skin until the world around him fades, the voices quieting down. Only then does he finally feel the sensation of warm blood trickling down his cold skin and dripping onto the ground. He grabs some toilet paper and cleans it up, but doesn’t bother putting on a spell to close up the wounds, making only the bleeding stop. So, that whenever he is overwhelmed, he can press down on his cuts, grounding himself, feeling something, anything, except the agony he is always in.
The hallway is empty, except for a few students. In a few minutes the train will arrive, so Snape quickly goes back to his cabin. But before he can reach the other end of the corridor, a cold voice makes him freeze in his track, sending shivers down his spine.
“Well, well, well, look who we have here. A little snake crawling out of his hole? I missed you, Snape.” James's face is covered in a big smirk, his eyes narrowed with cruel amusement. Beside him, Regulus. He is a lot quieter, but his eyes are filled with a coldness, that make Snape’s stomach churn. Before he can react, James is in front of him, grabbing his hair and yanking it back brutally.
“Aww, what’s wrong? Aren’t you happy to see me?” He slams him into the wall, knocking his breath out of his lungs. Pain shoots through Snape’s body and for a second his vision turns black.
Now Regulus joins in, his kicks shattering Snape’s ribs as he cries out painfully. “Stop-”, he protests but quickly gets silenced by James's punch to his gut, sending him sprawling onto the ground. The train comes to a halt and Regulus follows Potter out the door, sneering down at him before vanishing into the cool air.
Slowly Snape drags himself through the now crowded corridor, grabbing his luggage from the headboard and stepping out into the cold. The cold bites at his skin, easily seeping through his clothes. Snape pulls his robes tighter around his body as he makes his way to the carriages waiting for the students.
Of course nobody wants to take a ride with him, he is the son of Tobias after all. A son of a death eater. You know you shouldn’t have come, you have nowhere to go. You don’t belong here. Snape winces, pushing the thoughts away as he gets inside of a still empty carriage. A girl sits down across from me, her black hair tied into a sleek braid. Clarissa Montague, a sharp-tongued girl from Gryffindor. Next to her is her friend seated; blonde hair topped with an emerald green hair pin. Snape doesn’t remember her name; he rarely saw them anyways. The ride is silent apart from the occasional chatter between the two Gryffindor friends.
It doesn’t take long, maybe 30 minutes, for the carriage to arrive in front of the big castle. It looks old, some bricks missing, leaving gaps in between the walls. As Snape leaves the carriage, he gets greeted by a shower of rain. He quickly gets inside, the castle warmer than outside.
The great hall is already filled, students chattering loudly, the clinking of cutlery and the rustling of fabric filling the hall. Candles are flying in the air, filling the big hall with a cozy, yellow light. Snape makes his way to the Slytherin table, sitting down at the end of it, receiving a glare from another student sitting across from him.
It wasn’t always this bad. When he first joined Hogwarts, he had friends and even good grades. He was known for his intelligence and a lot of people liked him. Until a death-eater attacked the school, killing several students and injuring quite a lot of them. From that point on it had started to spiral, rumors got out about me being the son of an abomination. At first it was only people who hated Snape, were jealous of him or something similar. But at some point, the rumors reached its peak and his friends became more distant until they completely stopped talking to him. But it didn’t stop there, sometimes he fell over an extended leg, was pushed by a few students and people started snickering when he was around. At first it was just those little gestures, slowly breaking a bit of his self-confidence. A bit. A bit more. Until it shattered. Students started openly hitting him, pushing him into corners and kicking him until the sound of bones snapping filled the air and Snape just cried, pleading them to stop.
His thoughts are interrupted as Mc Gonagall begins to speak. The whole hall falls silent, all eyes looking at her. Her voice is loud, strict and cold but not unkind.
“Hello, my dear students. I’m glad you all could make it here. The past months were hectic, but that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to slack off.”
She goes on about some renovations and new books, until she announces something that makes Snape look up, his eyes widening for a brief second.
“... This year we have a lot more eight years than usual, so you will all be sharing a room with one or two roommates. I apologize, but I can’t change the reality. Now, all the new students please gather over here, i will now let the speaking hat decide which house you’re in. Everyone else, enjoy your meal.”
Loud chattering begins to fill the hall again. Snape’s face pales even more, if that’s possible. A room? With another student?? He feels nauseous and dizzy and he quickly leaves the hall, disappearing down the hallways and into his dorm. He walks through the common room, a pair of stairs left and right going up and ending in front of a long hallway, doors on the left side with name tags on them. On the right side of the hallway are a few couches, some bookshelves and no windows, only wood plastered onto the stone wall. Snape walks down the hallway, searching for his name. The worst that could happen would be having one of the Marauder’s as a roommate, but surely that wouldn’t be the case, right? Maybe if he was lucky, he’d get a student like Frank Longbottom.
He finally reaches the last room of the hallway and finds his name written onto the tag in cursive. His stomach drops as he reads the second name in the tag underneath his. “Regulus Black.” He can’t move, can’t breathe. Suddenly the world seems to be closing in on him, his broken ribs aching and hurting, laughing at him.
I told you, you’re unwelcome here, you deserve this, you should have just stayed at your mansion like the pathetic bitch you are. The voice is louder than usual, more biting, colder. Snape squeezes his eyes shut and finally slips into the room. It smells like wood, two beds opposite from each other, placed next to opposite walls. A wardrobe is placed on the same wall as the bed, a trunk between the headboard of the bed and another wall. Between the two beds is a door, probably the bathroom.
Snape takes the left side of the room, sitting down on the bed, putting his luggage into the trunk before standing up to put his clothes into the wardrobe and his books onto one of the desks in the corner of the room. He grabs some fresh clothes and gets into the bathroom. It’s a medium sized room, leaning more onto the smaller side. In the left corner is a shower, clean and untouched. On the right side of the room is a toilet and a sink, next to the sink a porcelain counter. Above the sink is a mirror and, on the cold, white tiles a carpet just as white.
Snape locks the door and undresses. He shivers violently, even though he is inside. He avoids looking into the mirror, couldn’t be able to handle his thin appearance and matt, dark hair, that he used to take good care of. Snape quickly slips under the shower, letting hot water run over him, dripping onto the ground and slipping down the drain. He sits down on the cold tiles, closing his eyes and letting steam fill the air around him. Finally, he doesn’t feel cold anymore.