Chapter Two

A/N: Rockstar thanks to SeverusLovesUs, my wonderful beta. Readers please heed the warnings as Severus is no angel.

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Chapter Two

He roughly pushed himself away from her; a blind seething rage welled up within the Potions master as he gazed at the small, prone form, partially clothed and haphazardly sprawled before him. He would kill her; he would steal the last wretched breath from her body and watch with glee as the last moments of her life were ripped from her. He would smile a terrible crooked smile when her eyes would begin to dim, fading into vacant, glassy-eyed nothingness, one breath expelled before being overtaken by the cold, black embrace of the veil.

Murder was not a foreign notion to Severus Snape. Dozens of unfortunate souls had perished at his hands over the past seventeen years. Some had been merciful, the smothering of a child no more than five while she slept; if he concentrated he could still feel the nicks and pricks of small teeth upon his palm, trying to bite their way to freedom, to life. Her pathetic attempts at self-preservation were made in vain. There was ever only one way the scenario ended. Years later he learned her name was Amelia Feberstocklen. Little Amelia didn’t even have the strength to break through the roughened skin before succumbing to asphyxiation. Others he had taken pleasure in, the occasional Knockturn Alley whore who knew too much and in Chaucer, a pederast, who lasted seventy-two hours, a record. Snape assumed after the castration he would have begged for a swift demise.

Hour after hour, Chaucer had screamed, pleaded for mercy; inch by inch, pink flesh was severed from bone. Blood and bits of fat and muscle tissue splattered the front of his frock coat. It was a heady feeling; Snape had become aroused. It was always the same, to know the life of another was in his hands. High on the thrill and rush of adrenaline, he had climaxed as Chaucer’s whimpers began to die, shuddering forcefully, the placket of his trousers sticky and wet with semen. That was the only murder in which Snape found sexual gratification. He preferred to lose himself in the warm and willing cunt.

His eyes unfocused, lost in memories, Severus pondered the triviality of life and how it could easily be snatched away; like birth, death was the other facet of the spectrum. He often wondered what final thoughts passed through his victims’ minds: were they reminiscing about a happy childhood memory, why this was happening to them, or perhaps what they had eaten that afternoon for lunch? He wondered, but did not particularly care; he shrugged.

Breath held, her tawny eyes watched, waited.

He had taken lives, bade to by cold manipulative masters, both believing the better angels were on their side; if so where was the fabled Lucifer? For hadn’t that been Satan’s greatest achievement, convincing the world he didn’t exist? A humorless chuckle bubbled from his throat. If he wanted to find evil, he need not look farther than his own reflection. Snape murdered, he enjoyed it, their labored breathing, pants, puffs of air, wheezing, choking on phlegm—silence. He found peace in the act, a calmness he had not attained from the other aspects of his life.

He relished the feel of a blade as it buried itself to the hilt in the cavity of an abdomen. The slink as thick skin, sinew muscle, and dense bone were pierced; the tearing of flesh as the blade jaggedly descended downward, innards spilling, flopping out through the peek-a-boo slit left behind as the knife was retracted. The way his hand fit around the column of a slender neck, knowing a bit of pressure and a swift jerk in the wrong direction would cause it to snap. Or that if he positioned himself correctly, weight pinning down a resistant quarry with a hand covering the neck right below the jaw, in a mere four minutes he could choke the life from someone.

Severus didn’t hear Hermione call his name, didn’t see her until she knelt before him apparently unconcerned with her nudity as her robe and shirt were still where he had tossed them.

“Severus,” she whispered, fearful she might startle him from his thoughts, causing him to strike out. He blinked, his jaw twitched, and he stared ahead as if looking through her.

“Your bleeding has stopped,” he stated, his voice rusty.

She nodded. “Yes.”

TBC