The Loner

'Cause I've relied on my illusions

...Sarah McLachlan, "Dirty Little Secret"

Over the following week, Severus threw himself into changing the environment of his new home. Normally, he would have asked Bijou to do it, and he would have resumed his reading of the series of Alchemy books he found in the library, but remembering Skeeter's account of his mother's death, Severus was desperate for anything to distract him.

He started in the living room, ridding it of the atrocious Gryffindor colours in the sofa and chairs and changing them to a shade of brown that matched the rug, which Severus had grown to like. He considered trying to dispose of the portrait of Albus Dumbledore, which had been noticeably empty over the last few days, but knew that Dumbledore would have done everything in his power to keep the portrait from being removed.

Severus made the biggest changes in his bedroom. The once-blue room, now a creamy white, had been divided into two unequally sized rooms. The back section, which held a fireplace and the one window in the room, was going to be used for brewing potions and storing supplies. Severus mentally slapped himself for it, but he knew that he had been a Potions teacher for too long to give it up completely. And he actually did love brewing. It was an art form and would be one more thing to give him distraction from dwelling on the thoughts that invaded his mind from the first chapter of Skeeter's book.

By the time Severus had finished all of his renovations, it was the seventh of September. The new school year had been in session for a week and Dumbledore hadn't said anything to Severus. He suspected Dumbledore was waiting to be summoned by Severus to provide details about the students' first days back in the castle since the battle. The students had been sent home the day after the battle and most had been able to have an exam-free summer. The Ministry had administered the O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s later in the summer, after the students had taken time to regroup after the battle and do some studying.

Severus sat in the library early the next morning, resuming his reading with a cup of coffee on the side table and a fire crackling happily in the fireplace. He had a Headache Cure brewing in his lab that he needed to check on every twenty minutes, so he planned to spend several hours indoors. As the hours passed him by, Severus found that he wasn't getting much read, as he was lost in his own thoughts. His mind had wandered over to the fact that he was still engaging in the same habits as he had when he was at Hogwarts: isolating himself indoors, brewing. It was a habit he enjoyed and had been doing for such a large part of his life that it was now second nature, regardless of his surroundings. It was then that Severus realized that, for only the fourth of the past twenty-seven years, he would not be returning to the school.

Severus' feelings towards Hogwarts had evolved greatly since he had first stepped foot on the grounds at the age of eleven. Initially, it had been a haven for him. He was free of being taunted in his Muggle primary school for being 'weird'; free from his parents' fights and his father's humiliations, and he was finally able to spend ample amounts of time with Lily without Petunia's incessant lurking and eavesdropping. He and Lily were Sorted into different Houses, and the presence of the Marauders had diminished his excitement somewhat, but he had been determined not to let those barriers stand in his way. The Mudblood incident was the day his school years took a drastic turn for the worse. After the incident, he dreaded returning to Hogwarts, knowing that Lily was in the same building, often sitting in the same classroom as he, yet he couldn't reach her. Returning to school after his mother's death and finding that Lily had begun dating Potter nearly drove Severus to suicide. Or murder. He had found he didn't have the nerve to kill himself and eventually moved on to helping Voldemort rid the world of Muggles and blood-traitors. Once he had returned to help spy for Dumbledore, he had experienced a renewed excitement at being back at the school, knowing that he was doing it for Lily and thriving on the hope that he might get her back, if he could help to save her life. Of course, once Lily had been murdered, his time at Hogwarts reached an all-time low. The knowledge that Lily didn't breathe anymore, that she no longer existed, broke Severus to his very core. His decision to stay at Hogwarts had been based on the fact that nothing outside the grounds of the school mattered to him and because he swore to protect Lily's son.

Once his potion was brewed and stored away, Severus went outside to the little garden to start salvaging some herbs before the first frost killed anything that remained. Dark grey clouds overhead threatened either rain or snow, so he knew he needed to work quickly. He had shed his heavy frock coat, going out only in his white shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows. He spent several minutes standing over the plants, ridding them of the overgrown weeds with carefully aimed Cutting Spells. Once he could actually see the ground, Severus knelt and began examining each plant, identifying them and pruning either leaf or flower or digging up the entire plant to obtain its roots, depending upon which parts were used. Severus made mental notes as he worked, deciding what needed to be replanted in the spring and what additional plants he would like to grow. Just as Severus began cutting an Aloe Vera plant that had survived some of the colder weather due to the protection provided it by the dense weeds, he was aware of a pair of green eyes staring at him through the leaves of a nearby tomato plant. He looked up to see a black cat peering at him. He gave the cat his best glare, hoping to scare it off, but failed. The cat gave Severus an almost equally malicious glare in return. Just as Severus was about to yell at the cat to bugger off, he heard a female voice calling out in the distance.

'Schadenfreude!'

Severus looked up to see his neighbour walking around, her wand in hand, parting shrubs with a simple wave. He peeked down at the cat, which seemed to cower at the calling.

'Is that you?' he inquired, as though the cat would answer.

The cat hissed and scurried off under a shrub next to the house. Severus looked up to see the woman approaching him. It was Sara, the American witch Dumbledore talked about and who seemed to distrust Severus based on appearances alone. He noticed she tightened her grip on her wand as she got closer and her posture became tenser. She wore jeans and a brown blouse. Severus noticed she was barefoot.

'Excuse me.' She made eye contact with Severus as she spoke, trying to show him she wasn't intimidated. 'Have you seen a black cat running around?'

Severus nodded towards the shrub, through which he could barely see the green eyes shine. With a wave of her wand, the cat flew out of the greenery, hissing and growling. A cage suddenly appeared and the cat was placed inside and bolted.

'Thanks,' Sara said, glaring down at the cage.

Severus nodded, hardly interested in her dilemmas with her cat. She seemed to notice his disinterest, but chose to ignore it.

'Who are you?' she asked, walking towards him.

Severus sighed and put the herbs he had gathered off to the side before moving further into the patch.

'Severus Snape,' he replied, not looking up, but moving on to a group of surviving dandelions and beginning to dig them up in order to obtain the roots. He certainly hoped she would get the hint that he was not a social person and to leave him be.

Sara put the cage down on the grass and crossed her arms, wand still in hand.

'Why are you here and where is Albus?'

Her tone was wary, but determined. Severus could tell she wouldn't be leaving until her questions were answered to her satisfaction.

Severus looked up at her, noticing her eyes were a dark brown, like his own.

'Albus died last year. He bequeathed me his home. I have come here to establish residence.'

Sara's eyes widened. 'Albus died? How? Was it the curse on his hand?'

Severus looked at her quizzically. Had she been living under a rock for the past year and a half?

'Do you isolate yourself from everything? Surely this was publicised in France as well as England...'

Sara shook her head, her blonde hair swaying. 'I don't read wizarding newspapers. I prefer Muggle newspapers. They are more interesting and have much more variety. And I don't socialise with my colleagues. I go in, do the work I am paid to do and leave.'

Severus nodded, understanding the desire to avoid social occasions with colleagues. He had made an art form of it whilst at Hogwarts.

'Yes, the curse was killing him, but that wasn't how he died.'

Severus and Sara stared one another down for a few moments, apparently waiting for the other to speak. Sara's patience finally broke.

'Well?'

'Well, what?'

Sara huffed impatiently. 'How. Did. He. Die?' She emphasised each word as though Severus were a newcomer to the English language.

'He was murdered,' Severus said, enjoying the fact that he was aggravating her with his restraint.

'Murdered?' Her tone was one of surprise. 'By whom?'

Severus didn't feel that she needed to know that it was him. He didn't need to brag. He decided it was best to tell her, as he was sure she'd find out soon enough anyway.

'A young man had been tasked to assassinate him, but Dumbledore didn't want the young man to have become a murderer, so he asked someone older and less pure to kill him first.'

Sara seemed slightly taken aback, but nodded after a few moments.

'I can understand that. I did know there was an attack on Hogwarts last year, as we had to heighten security even further at Beauxbatons. I hadn't heard any more until May, when I learned Voldemort had finally been killed. Poor Albus, having to ask someone to kill him. At least he was able to die a peaceful death by his own choosing.'

Severus said nothing as he resumed his pruning. He no longer felt sympathy for Dumbledore. The old man had been a master manipulator who probably deserved being tortured, but got to take the easy way out.

Sara's suspicions of Severus seemed to have returned, as she was scrutinizing him once again.

'Why did he leave this house to you? Are you related?'

Severus sat up on his knees and pinched the bridge of his nose with his left hand. She was aggravating him and he was tempted to give her a demonstration of how Dumbledore died.

'No, we are not related. We were colleagues for many years. I don't know why he decided to leave me the house. And I'm beginning to wish he hadn't, since the neighbours seem to be so annoying.'

Severus looked up to see that Sara hadn't seemed to have heard a word he said, but was looking at his Dark Mark.

'You were a Death Eater.'

So she apparently read up on Voldemort, but knew nothing of Dumbledore's death. Unbelievable. Severus pulled the sleeve of his left arm down over the Mark.

'Were being the operative word. A serious mistake I made as a boy and attempted to escape from almost immediately afterward. And not without consequence, I might add.'

Severus immediately regretted opening his mouth. Why had he just divulged that information to her? He didn't even know the woman.

'We all make mistakes. We face the consequences of our actions and we move on. A concept you clearly haven't grasped,' Sara said, matter-of-factly.

Severus looked up to glare at her. She was beginning to remind him of Hermione Granger, the ever-annoying know-it-all.

'How could you possibly know anything about my feelings or my success in moving on from my past? You've only just met me.'

Sara raised her eyebrows. 'For starters, you are very precise in your cutting. Every one of those plants is cut to the same length. Your sleeves are rolled up in very strict layers and exactly even on each arm. You are wearing a collared shirt and have even the top most button done up, indicating that you rarely relax and work hard to keep your feelings close to your chest. You try to control everything around you in order to make your life feel more secure, since you clearly lost control over it a while ago. And I haven't even started on your defensiveness and carefully chosen words.'

Several moments passed as Severus took in everything she said. No one had ever said those things to him before. Nor had anyone assessed him more accurately. But that was food for later thought.

'Since you have interrogated me extensively and now psychoanalysed me, I am going to ask you one question before I go back inside to get away from you. Why the hell did you name that cat Schadenfreude? Have you any idea as to what the word means?'

Sara chuckled, her expression softening.

'It means to derive pleasure from others' suffering. This cat is a complete bastard. He is only happy when I'm in pain or suffering in some way, thus the name.'

Severus almost laughed out loud. He might begin to like the animal.

With that, she picked up the cage and turned to leave.

'I'm sure I will see you around again, Severus. Word of advice: don't eat anything the Schneiders give you. You'll be begging for death afterwards. And by the way, since you were too rude to ask, I'm Sara. Sara Andrews.'

Severus nodded and knelt back down to the ground to resume his extractions, but all the while watching Sara walk away. He weighed the pros and cons of his new neighbour. On a positive side, she was attractive and seemed to isolate herself. On the negative side, however, when he did see her, she would be annoyingly inquisitive and annoyingly correct in her interpretation of him.

Severus went inside half an hour later, having salvaged all he could. It wasn't much, so he would have to send off for more supplies or purchase them in a larger town. He knew there was a large wizarding establishment in Paris and was debating a trip when a large eagle owl pecked on his living room window. Recognising it as the Malfoys' owl, he opened the window and relieved the bird of the letter attached to its leg. The owl flew into the room and settled on the back of the chair, clearly waiting to be given a response to deliver to his owners. Severus shut the window and sat on the sofa, opening the letter. He had never responded to Lucius' first letter, asking if he could visit, so he presumed this would be a similar request. And he was right.

Severus,

Lucius

Severus contemplated Lucius' words. Lucius, who was now so apologetic, had been the one to introduce him to the Death Eater world. When Severus was a third year and Lucius was the Head Boy, he had told Severus all about the power that one could possess by joining Voldemort. Severus recalled Lucius talking to him about the 'Mudbloods' and how they were trying to dilute the magical or attempting to steal magical powers. When Severus had said that Lily wasn't like that, Lucius had laughed at him. But once he saw the angry expression on Severus' face, he had leaned in and said, 'Maybe if you are a faithful follower, the Dark Lord will let you keep her.'

Keep her.

Those words had tantalised Severus at the time. He had known at that moment that Lily would always be his, even if the Dark Lord began getting rid of Muggle-borns. He had pictured himself rising up the ranks of the Death Eaters, becoming the Dark Lord's right hand, with Lily on his arm.

An impatient click of the bird's beak brought Severus back to the present. Severus needed to decide if he really wanted to see Lucius again. Did he really think of him as a friend? What did they have in common, other than a shared history in the Death Eaters? Of course, during the years when Voldemort was gone, they had tried to lead normal lives, in order to prove worthy of staying in civilized company, but at the end of meals, when they would retire to Lucius' parlour room for brandy, talk always turned to the old days or of what the Ministry could do to rid the world of Muggles. Other than that, they had little in common. Lucius had cheated his way through school, had been born into money and never had to work a day in his life and bribed his way out of jail time after the first war. Severus, on the other hand, had always worked hard, fought to get a place in the world and had risked life and limb to keep himself out of jail.

And no matter whether they were friends or not, how could Severus look Lucius and Narcissa in the eye? He assumed they had read the book by Skeeter and would know everything, presuming the rest of the book was as accurate as the first chapter.

Deciding not to think more on the matter, but go with his first instinct, Severus summoned a quill and parchment. With a deep breath, Severus wrote a quick note.

Lucius,

Severus

Severus walked over to the bird and tied the note to its leg and carrying it over to the window, ushered it out quickly, before he could change his mind. He now had two days to prepare himself for what he imagined would be the most uncomfortable dinner he had attended since leaving Hogwarts. Every breakfast, lunch and dinner during his time as Headmaster had been unpleasant, what with most of the staff and students plotting his murder.

Feeling a bit tired, Severus decided to go and have a lie down. He was still on the path of recovery from his snake bite. Nagini's venom had taken quite a toll on his energy levels and he had been working to get them back to their normal levels ever since. He was almost completely back to normal, but still found that he needed a lie-in every few days.

His coat already discarded, Severus went to his bedroom, kicked off his shoes and stretched out on his bed. Putting his hands behind his head, Severus closed his eyes, hoping to drift off to sleep before dinner in a few hours. But as rain began tapping on the roof of the house, Severus found that he couldn't shut his mind down enough to rest. Thoughts of the Malfoys and his biography kept popping up and he couldn't quash them. Sitting up in bed, Severus grabbed his wand from the bedside table and gave it a quick flick, summoning the book.

Ignoring his own face scowling up at him, Severus opened up to Chapter Two, entitled 'The Ugly Kid'.

Severus attended a Muggle primary school for his early education. Based on the memories retrieved during his interrogation this year, I was able to find out that Severus was a very odd little boy, even by wizarding standards. Notes home from his teachers always indicated that he was exceptionally bright, but that he needed to work on his social skills. Severus was considered a loner and made many of the students and their parents nervous. More than once, teachers were confused by incidents that occurred between Severus and fellow peers that were beyond explanation. In one incident, his classmate ended up in a very large tree, hanging by his belt from the top-most branch after telling Severus that his nose was the size of an elephant's trunk, when the teachers had just seen the child on the ground a few seconds prior. Another peer ended up standing naked in the middle of the class after calling Severus a 'weirdo'. Severus excelled in all of his subjects, which only helped to prepare him for his Hogwarts years, though he could have benefitted from how to be kinder to people. Severus never appeared to have made any friends in his primary school days until meeting Lily Evans at age nine.

This view into Severus' early years shows that his dislike of Muggles seemed to stem from his abusive father and intolerant peers. Naturally, it would make sense that once he was embraced by Slytherin House and people such as Lucius Malfoy, that he would go on to become a Death Eater. The one discrepancy is Lily Evans. He befriended and defended her, actions that were completely incongruent with his ideological stance. I question why did he do that? And what effect, if any, did Lily have on his choices and ultimate loyalties later in life?

Severus closed the book and laid it on the table next to his bed, lying back down. The house was silent, save for the rain tapping on the roof. His childhood seemed merely pathetic when written by Rita Skeeter, not the nightmare that it actually was. The nightly arguments between his parents, the verbal and occasional physical abuse by his father and the neglect he experienced daily from both parents were damaging to Severus' mental and physical states. Physically, Severus had always been very thin, despite being tall, mostly due the fact that there was very little food in his house and he often only had one meal a day, occasionally, nothing at all. He had grown taller once he went to Hogwarts, but Severus had never been able to gain much weight. The damage had been done for too many years to be fixed.

Severus distrusted everyone as a result of his parents' inability to love or take care of him. When Lily abandoned him after he made a mistake, he learned no one was to be completely trusted. Despite this, he had mistakenly trusted Malfoy, Voldemort and Dumbledore. What a stupid man he was. Closing his eyes, Severus drifted off into an uneasy sleep.