The bitter liquid burned his sore throat. Severus drank.
Nasty, cheap, truly bad stuff. The kind his bastard father always got drunk on. And he smoked. Again! And he sat in silence. Alone in the dark, in some fucking shed that had been given to him as a home. And this time he was the bastard. Not his father. Not the vile monster who had been so easy to blame for all the sins. Now Severus had his own cross to bear, himself the embodiment of all the monsters in the world. He smoked and drank, and he had killed so much.
He also tortured, covered up, coerced, forced, instilled and demanded, stood submissively. He did nothing when he was ordered to do so, and he did when he was told to. He was not even a pawn, and he was not a soldier. He was a dirty glove. "How can you smoke in your position?" came an all too familiar voice from behind him. "You drink too," Minerva said sullenly. "Excellent." Severus remained silent. As his old friend had delicately put it.
"Position."
Without ceremony, she picked up a glass from the kitchen, dusted it off, and slowly approached. "What rubbish," Minerva grimaced after her first sip. The bottle landed next to him with a loud thud. "I am not going back to Hogwarts", Severus said hoarsely, and his sensitive hearing caught a sigh of discontent and irritation. "And what will you do?" Minerva asked, her voice laced with venom... Will you continue to kill yourself with this poison? "Yes" Snape confirmed. You described my plan exactly.
Do you know why? he hissed. Because I was not supposed to survive, and you know it. Idiot. "It was nice talking to you." Stop! she raised her hand, grabbing him by the dirty shirt. Yes. He was not clean. His clothes were disgusting old clothes. Pieces of threadbare rags found in the kitchen that had succumbed to the Transfiguration Charm. He had nothing left. Not even underwear, not even socks. And she had seen it all. She knew. I will give you apartments in the dungeons even if you are not Head of House. Severus, I will even give you the Headmaster's quarters if you want, only...
"Go away, Minerva"... The sleeve of his stained shirt was torn free, and Severus stepped back. In the moonlight, Minerva McGonagall's figure was achingly poetic. A lonely woman at the window. Slouched, defeated. He took a step back, and his gaze fell. The damp wood beneath him still held drops of blood from his wounded forearm. Taking a final breath of smoke from his cigarette, Severus whispered a spell. The butt burst into flame, and he was gone.
***
In this nasty house, even in the mornings with the sunrise there was no light. The vile rays only emphasized the external wretchedness. Severus was used to living modestly; he remembered the deep poverty of his childhood, he never flared up for luxury, even when he had the opportunity. But now... for some reason everything felt sharper. He saw more clearly, felt more deeply. He was thirty-eight, and he was still alive. His mortal body was still absorbing this heavy air, his blood was flowing, his heart, neglected by one little idiot, was beating. He was damned. He was paying for his sins again. His rotten soul was not needed even in the afterlife. Not the slightest chance. And yet Severus wanted only one thing so much. Only that very thing, cherished, simple.
Peace.
Fucking Salazar, how he simply wanted peace. He had so naively believed and assumed that his mission, his damn atonement would end. He was so tired. He was so fed up with this world. Severus had not wanted to live for so long. The old floorboards creaked under him, the window whistled. It was August, but there was frost outside. It was cold, colorless, dim. There was no point in going out there. The Ministry lackeys had generously given him the bare minimum to survive in this place. Severus didn't even have money for food. However, fresh food was appearing in the old Muggle refrigerator. This was probably how the idiot who had become his reason for existing tried to pay off her actions. The small, arrogant savior of all those who didn't ask for it. What the hell did she need his pointless life for? The dull thud on the glass didn't even attract his attention. The barn owl flew in every day, time after time. He didn't open the door for it. Just as he didn't open the door for the bird's owner. "Get out," Severus barked hoarsely, but the barn owl continued to beat its beak against the window. Irritably pulling the curtains, he stepped out of the bedroom. It was dark in the corridor, and in the toilet as well. In this old house the cold felt like a viscous and burning living creature. It was separate and next to him. The cold was everywhere, a whistling howl accompanied every step he took. Severus was used to the dampness of the dungeons, to the coolness of the rooms. But now... Now he was standing in the middle of a soulless barn again . And he was small again , feeble, weak-willed. Poor.
The boy had a soul in the past. He had big plans and hope. But this Severus' soul had been dead for a long time. And there was no hope.
A month and a half ago
What a heavy irony. Severus saw that very look in her huge eyes. The naive girl's world was collapsing at that moment, blazing with injustice. It seemed she was babbling something about a retrial. If Severus had not been in shackles with magic suppressors, he would have burst into her stupid head and said nothing. He would have shown her that the outcome to which she had condemned him was a hundred times worse than the gift of death's peace. He had been within these walls before. He had sat in a ruined cell, lived next to dementors. But now they were gone, and even if they had been, Severus would have been alone. There was no more joy in the soul of the dead Snape. And after his death, he had ended up in the wrong beckoning hell. He was in eternity, in purgatory, in his invisible present. And he was forever, forever in it.
***
Somewhere in the back of Severus's mind he expected Kingsley or that Potter to show up, even Granger, he predicted, couldn't help but show up. But no one showed up. He spent two weeks in Azkaban in a filthy cell before he was called to stand trial.
A second one.
To be honest, he was surprised that the brainless girl had managed it. Severus had accepted his fate within these walls. He had barely heard any nasty comments about himself from the bastards who lived there, he had woken up and fallen asleep, he had even eaten bland porridge and drunk blooming water. When the warden had shown up, he had thought that someone must have come to mock his fate after all. But he had been called to stand trial again, and for the first time in his life, Severus was shocked by what had happened. He remembered her look exactly. Not a drop of the world that had collapsed remained in her irises. Hermione Granger no longer looked like his arrogant student. In the middle of the courtroom stood the girl who had been through the war. Behind him stood Potter. Detached. Severus paid little attention to the proceedings, mostly he watched. Never before had anyone fought so zealously for him. Even the Dark Lord and Dumbledore, his two masters, had not been so insistent on questions of his ownership as Hermione Granger was now fighting for the freedom of a former murderer. He could not guess her motive. What did this naive idiot want him for? What benefit? A danger to life? A potion maker? A curse? A dark figure who was not above using dark magic? For what? The sound of a gavel hitting wood brought Severus back to space. Suddenly, the excited howls and whispers quickly dispersed.
"He should have been executed."
"Ugh! May he die of poverty."
"Hermione, what have you done?!"
Slowly turning his gaze to Miss Granger, Severus was confronted with an unclear expression on her small face. It looked like shame and disappointment, a little hatred, quiet despair.
"You are required by law to provide housing," her voice suddenly sounded too high. "Silence!" The judge interrupted the buzz in the courtroom. Repeat what you said, Miss Granger? "You are required by law to provide housing and a living wage for those wizards who have been left homeless. This is paragraph number 21.89 of the Code…"
You need not continue, Miss Granger, the gray-haired man sighed with fatigue. The defendant… He is no longer in custody, she corrected, and the judge's gaze instantly froze. The former defendant, the man continued, gritting his teeth, namely Severus Tobias Snape will be provided with housing, as an indigent wizard left homeless. And that is all, interrupting Miss Granger's open mouth with a gesture, the cruel tone cut off. The knock of the gavel rolled through the great hall, and the judge rose. The meeting is over. Take Mr. Snape's signature on the full transfer of the rights of the Gringotts cell to the Ministry. For Severus, at that moment, there was nothing else. Only a look frightened and haunted...Looking at him with some admixture of hope. Hermione Granger, with one flutter of her damned eyelashes, with one damned meeting, had ruined him, deprived him of all the Galleons he had earned, saved with such diligence. He was poor again, and he was again without anything. For freedom? For life? For justification?
— I-i-t-i-t-e, — he muttered with his lips alone, looking straight at her. She hesitated, stumbled and backed away. An Auror appeared before Snape.
***
Returning to the present, Severus exhaled quietly and slowly went downstairs. Today in the refrigerator there was a casserole of cottage cheese, apples and chicken stew. For the first five days he did not touch food. But, having reasoned fairly, he decided that starvation was too unpleasant. His body, as a wizard, was stronger. That was probably why he did not die as a child. The wound on his arm ached again. Severus ignored it. The pain in his neck also throbbed. He also deliberately ignored this. Severus's daily routine was flawed. He got out of bed somehow, sometimes washed, but more often than not, then ate a little. And then he drank several bottles of cheap booze and smoked. He smoked a lot. Too much. He stole this lousy alcohol and terrible cigarettes almost on the first day of his stay in this hovel. It was advantageous that the Ministry did not take away his wand and did not forbid him to do magic. A slight miscalculation, it seems. He stole a decent supply, enough for a couple of months, probably. Was he ashamed? No. What was stealing after all his sins and actions? He wanted to read. Distract himself, maybe. Stop thinking. There were too many thoughts in his head, and only the fucking cheap alcohol drowned them out. Just for a little bit. Not completely. At its core - what is the point? Is there anyone who has power? Redemption, forgiveness - do they still exist? Or did they? What if they didn't? Granger's annoying bird pecked at him for about half an hour, then gave in, leaving a letter on the window under a charm, and flew away. Severus did not read them. There was no point. What could this naive girl tell him in them? Potter tried to visit him only once. He did not open. The boy assured him that Severus could always turn to him. How noble. Turn to him for what? For a new pair of trousers or a shirt? Kingsley also showed up a week or so after the court's decision. He appeared in the middle of the room, walked in without even asking.
"I see you've settled in," Shacklebolt said dryly, looking at Severus, who was sitting on the floor with a bottle.
He didn't stand on ceremony and didn't promise anything. Dry facts.
"I can't give you any work, Sev, you understand that. Malfoy is helping with the capture of the Death Eaters, and you're too..." Kingsley paused, "dangerous for such consultations. Your sentence... it's unthinkable. No one believed that Hermione...
" "Get out, Minister," Severus rudely interrupted the flow of unnecessary words. "I'm not interested."
"Sev..."
"Leave the house," he repeated.
With a look of bastard pity in his eyes, Kingsley pursed his lips and walked out. Severus smashed the bottle on the floor with all his might and grabbed the largest piece. His left forearm instantly rose to eye level. He felt no pain, only rage. Severus tried to cut out that filthy brand. He kept stabbing the point into his already torn skin. Blood trickled down and stained that horrible old floor. He had lost consciousness that day. But he had survived. Again. This fucking, boring world would not let him go. The next morning he woke up in a pool of his own dried blood, reeking of sweat, alcohol and wretchedness. Pathetic. And behind the door, Miss Granger was quietly struggling. For the second time.
"Professor," she said, barely audible. "Please, please, let me in. I want to explain to you."
The contrast of the picture, the surrealism, made Severus laugh hoarsely.
Professor.
That idiot had seriously called him that. He struggled to his feet, swaying, and walked up to the floor above.
"Get out," he barked ten minutes later.
One letter, having nevertheless penetrated this filthy hovel, appeared on his desk a week later.
"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
From Headmistress Minerva McGonagall to Severus Snape.
But he didn't open it either.