Highway to Hell, Chapter Twelve: Your funeral, my trial

By Ratwoman

ratwoman02@yahoo.de

Disclaimer: They all belong to JK Rowling, I just borrowed them. They certainly will be glad when I bring them back, because I'm a very sick person

Pairing: SS/LM, also to a smaller extent SS/SB

Rating: NC-17 (overall)

Warnings: BDSM, auto-aggression

Category: Darkfic, Drama/Angst, lightened up with a healthy amount of Humour

Summary: Snape's time at university, when he meets Lucius Malfoy, Lord Voldemort and other nice fellows



Highway to Hell, Chapter Twelve: Your funeral, my trial
By Ratwoman
ratwoman02@yahoo.de

I cannot blame it all on her
to blame her all would be a lie
for many a night I lay awake
and wished that I could watch her die
to see her accusing finger spurt
to see flies swarm her hateful eye
to watch her groaning in the dirt
to see her clicking tongue crack dry
~Nick Cave, Brother my cup is empty


Spring came, and over daily university stuff and brewing potions for the Dark Lord, the memory of his assistance in the murder faded into the background. More dreadful was the knowledge that his mother's birthday drew near. Severus could hardly allow himself not to go.

He had never seen most of the splendid friends of his father his mother always told him about. She thought they just did not have the time, but Severus suspected that they found her unbearable. No one except his grandparents and him ever visited his mother, that was why he felt obligated to pay her a visit.

To make things worse, this year he even had better things to do, as Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange had sent him an invitation to their wedding, which was to be on the same day.

Oddly enough, they did not send the invitation by owl, but had Kevin Wilkes and Evan Rosier give it to him, when they gave him a visit.

Severus was quite surprised when Mill told them there were visitors for him. He never had any guests. He was even more surprised when he came into the kitchen and saw Kevin and Evan waiting there, because he had never told them his new address.

"Bellatrix told me you share a house with my cousin Lucius." Evan explained beaming. The old pure-blood families all seemed to be interrelated. Being of an onl five generations old wizarding family, Severus tended to forget that.

"I didn't know you were cousins." Severus said. Evan did not look like Lucius at all, with his reddish hair and the boyish features. But Lucius was so close to perfection anyway, no one could resemble him.

Mill stayed in the kitchen and instantly started flirting with Kevin. Severus wondered about her taste; he was a rather lanky young man with shaggy brown hair. Then again, she had also seduced Remus Lupin, so why wonder about her taste! Soon, the half-fairy vanished with Kevin into her room under the pretext that she wanted to show him her snakes.

As if he had waited for them to be alone, Evan said as soon as they had left the kitchen: "Bella told us that you were initiated together."

Severus raised an eyebrow at him. "What are you referring to?"

Evan smiled reassuringly: "You can tell me, Sev. Kevin and I... our initiation is set for the day after tomorrow."

Kevin and Evan were going to be Death Eaters? Why did he feel absolutely nothing about that prospect, no joy, no regret?

"Congratulations." Severus said flatly.

"But, Sev, isn't this great? We're going to be a part of the whole, we're gonna change the world...."

"Did you know that someone will die?" Severus said calmly.

Evan stopped and looked confused.

"At my initiation they killed Bartholomeus Peingebreck." Severus felt nothing when he said that, he just wanted Evan to know what expected him. "I don't know who they're going to kill for you."

Looking slightly cowed, Evan asked: "Does it hurt?"

"Not at all." Severus said with a smirk.

From upstairs they heard noises of a screeching bedframe. The men grinned at each other, and Evan asked: "Is Mill always that nympho?"

"Always." Severus said earnestly.

Evan gently touched Severus's hand: "Is it true that you're with Lucius Malfoy now?"

Weird, Evan acted as if he regretted that they'd never been really together. What did Evan hope for with that kind of behaviour?

"Fortune has been smiling on me." Severus replied.

***

Fortune was not smiling. His life had not become any better since he was a Death Eater. That Severus knew the moment he arrived at his mother's home.

She was overjoyed to see him, though her features dulled when he told her that he would leave early tomorrow morning.

This year not even his grandparents had thought of her birthday, so he was alone with her in that gloomy house with the oppressing, cheerful pictures of his father everywhere. Severus felt watched by them even when his mother's eyes were glassy in the remembrance of things past.

He did not listen to her endless stories about his father, how he had always made such wonderful birthday gifts. Of course, he had made them all by himself, not in any need for giftshops, he just invented wonderful magical things for all his friends and his beloved wife.

Severus silently ate piece after piece of cake and tried to distract himself by thinking of Lucius. But the gloom of the situation influenced his mood and all he could think of were the rows he had with him.

Severus was still sated from the cake when they had a rich dinner cooked by the house elves, so he drank more than he ate and at ten he felt incapable to Apparate and went to bed in his old room.

***

Before leaving the next morning, Severus took a shower, almost automatically taking his blades to the bathroom. Severus felt the warm water sprinkling his skin, saw it mixing with the blood running down his arm. It seemed the only way left to him to feel something, anything.

Dripping with blood and water, Severus stepped out of the shower. At that moment, the bathroom door opened and his mother came in.

"Can't you knock?!" Severus yelled.

"I didn't know you were in here," she said, then froze and stared at his left arm.

Severus embarrassedly wiped the blood away, but she was not so much distracted by the cuts.

"The Dark Mark," she whispered.

Severus slipped into a bathrobe as if hiding the mark would make it disappear, but his mother stared at him in shock. "What did you do?" she whispered. Then she exploded: "How could you? Be glad that your father is dead, you would be such a disappointment to him! You, the son of Validus Snape, a... a Death Eater!"

She burst into tears. It only angered Severus more.

"And what do you think why I am what I am?" he snarled. "Because of you! And because of Dad, too."

His mother stared at him in pain and horror.

"How could I ever live up to him? And if I can't, why shouldn't I become just the opposite? The Dark Lord and my new friends, at least they accept me as I am, they don't compare me with HIM, they don't incessantly tell me what a great man he was! So why should I feel any obligation to you or to Dad, when all I ever get to hear is what a failure I am and when I hate this place, this shrine to my father, more than anything else in the world?!?"

His mother stared at him with eyes full of hurt and something like a revelation shining in them, as if she just now, for the first time in her life, had realised what she had done to her own son.

Undisturbed by her hurt feelings, Severus rushed into his room, put on his robes and Disapparated.

***

He Apparated right into one of the Potions laboratories at university to work on his Potions. Brewing Potions always soothed his nerves, even more than cutting. And he had some Poisons to make for the Dark Lord anyway.

Buried in his work, Severus tried to chase away the questions wandering through his mind. What would his mother do, now that she had found out that he was a Death Eater? Would she run to the Aurors? And how would she take all the harsh things he had said to her? He already felt slight stings of guilt, but he had only told her the truth!

***

His questions were answered the next morning when he was at breakfast.

Someone rung the door, but hearing Lucius opening, he stayed at table. But then Lucius, looking very serious, led a man of maybe fifty into the kitchen.

"There's an Auror who wants to talk to you." Lucius said flatly.

Severus tried to hide his upcoming panic. He had hidden his Dark Mark with a concealing charm this morning, but an Auror would find ways to detect concealing charms if he searched for them.

The Auror had a scarred face, as if he'd been in uncountable battles. Severus was sure he had seen him before, but he could not say where.

"Severus Snape?" he asked.

Severus nodded.

"My name is Alastor Moody." The Auror said. "I have very sad news for you, Mr. Snape. Your mother has been found dead by her house-elves last night."

"What?" Severus couldn't believe his ears. "How?"

"Obviously she cut her wrists, but she left no note. Do you have any idea of why she killed herself?"

"No," Severus lied. With a frown he added: "She has been depressed for years, ever since my father died."

The Auror looked embarrassed. "Your father was a friend of mine. He would have wanted us, his friends, to take care of her, but we forgot as the years passed... My apologies."

Seeing his chance to shift the blame away from himself, Severus said: "I was the only one who remembered her birthday the day before yesterday."

Alastor Moody was visibly taken aback. "I'm sorry..." he said. Then, after a short pause, he added. "The funeral is set for the day after tomorrow, ten a.m.."

Severus absent-mindedly nodded his head. The Auror bowed and Disapparated.

Lucius sighed in relief. "For a moment I thought he's here because of... you know what."

"Yeah," Severus said, then whispered: "I killed her."

"Did you?" Lucius said in surprise. "And you made it look like a suicide?"

"I as good as killed her with what I said to her." Severus replied, staring at his bowl of cereals. Was she really gone now? Shouldn't he be sad or something?

But all he felt was surprise.

"Oh," Lucius said and sat down opposite Severus. "What did you say?"

"The truth." Severus replied.

Lucius frowned, obviously not understanding. "Anyway," he finally said, "it was her decision to commit suicide, you're not responsible for what she did, no matter what you said."

"You think so?" Severus said.

"Yes," Lucius said firmly.

***

His mother's death did not become real to him until he stood in the church next to her open coffin. She looked as if she was sleeping. After a moment Severus turned and sat down on a bench. He did not listen to the priest's words, just watched the assembled crowd in the church. Surprisingly many people had come, most of them looked like older versions of his father's friends who were on some of the pictures. So many years they had forgotten her, but now at her funeral they acted as if they were her best friends.

Severus closed his eyes and leant back. His arm hurt, the cuts he had made were still fresh. His mother had been more shocked about the Dark Mark than about his habit of hurting himself. Now she was dead, and no matter what Lucius said, he felt responsible for it.

Lucius had been surprisingly kind the last couple of days. Maybe Narcissa was right, maybe Lucius really loved him.

It was cold, but did not rain when the coffin was brought to the cementery. A few more speeches, then the coffin was lowered into the earth.

Severus noticed a man, whom, he was sure, he had never seen on the pictures of his parent's friends. He was tall and thin, had shoulder length, black hair and a hooked nose. Actually he looked much like Severus might look in twenty years.

Who was that? A relative? His true father? Had his mother had an affair before he was born?

All kinds of speculations went through Severus's mind, then from the depth of his mind a long-forgotten memory sprung back to his consciousness.

He had still been a small boy, and there had been that man. He and his mother had a row, he was shouting at her. Severus had not known what was up, and he had been frightened, very much frightened of that man. Who was that shouting at his mother?

Severus awoke from his memories when at the end of the funeral the man went up to him. "Severus?" he asked.

"Yes?" Severus asked.

"My name is Nicolas Norton."

Norton was his mother's maiden-name.

"I'm your uncle." the stranger concluded.

"I did not know I had an uncle." Severus said.

"Your mother and I... we had a... fight." Nicolas Norton said with a pained expression. "She vowed never to see me again afterwards... she kept her vow."

"What was that fight about?" Severus asked sharply.

Nicolas Norton looked slightly embarrassed. "Did she still have all these pictures of Validus on the walls?"

"Everywhere." Severus answered.

"I tried to persuade her to take them down." Nicolas Norton said. "I thought they were not good for her... and for you neither."

"You were right." Severus answered.

Nicolas Norton looked worriedly at him.

A sudden thought struck Severus. "Are you an Auror?"

"No," Nicolas said in surprise. "Why?"

"Because none of father's great Auror friends ever cared. They just left her prey to madness. And me, too."

"You don't seem mad to me," Nicolas said, "considering how you grew up."

Severus stared at the grave, then said slowly. "I own the house now, don't I?"

"I suppose so." Nicolas said. "What are you going to do with it?"

"I'll burn it down." Severus said and Disapparated.

***

A moment later he Apparated in front of the house, Nicolas only a few steps behind him.

"Don't try to stop me!" Severus snarled.

"Certainly not," his uncle said. "I just want to make sure that you don't burn yourself as well."

Severus kicked open the door and stormed through the hallway, followed by Nicolas. In the living room the four house elves were sitting, crying and lamenting loudly. They jumped to their feed when they saw Severus.

"Master!" they called bowing. Severus stormed past them into his mother's bedroom and opened a wardrobe, pulling a stack of clothes out without looking, then he ran back into the living room.

"Master?" one of the elves said, looking worriedly at the clothes.

Severus took a sweater and threw it at the elf. "That's for you!" he shouted. The elf looked in horror at the sweater in his hands.

Severus also threw clothes at the other house elves, ignoring their cries for mercy.

"And now, GET OUT OF HERE!" he shouted.

Nicolas Norton was standing in the living room, with a pained expression looking at the pictures on the walls. "It's been getting worse." he said.

Severus pointed his wand at the wall that was fullest of pictures. "INCENDIO!" he screamed. A ball of flames burst from his wand and hit the wall. The pictures caught fire, the faces of his father looked scared and screamed, before they were eaten up by the flames.

Severus pointed his wand at the stairway leading to the bedroom and shot another fireball. Then another one at the couch, another at the opposite wall.

Severus wanted to fire more, but his uncle grabbed his arm and said: "We'd better get out now!"

"But..."

"Come!" Nicolas hissed and pulled him out of the house.

***

Later, Severus sat on a hill with Nicolas and watched the house burn. Nicolas was not a man of many words: with no syllable he has commented on Severus's actions. Severus had no clue whether Nicolas thought he was completely mad, or whether he understood him.

When the house was almost burned out, Nicolas rose and dusted some ashes from his clothes. Then he took a card out of his pocket and gave it to Severus.

Severus looked at it. It read



//Nicolas Norton
Lawyer, Specialist for Misuse of Magic
112 Diagon Alley
London//


"Call me if you need me." Nicolas said. "No matter what." Then he Disapparated.

Severus stored away the card, convinced that he would never see his uncle again.



***
END