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It began as intellectual curiosity, nothing more.
Severus had a voracious appetite for knowledge, something he gained a reputation for during his first few years at Hogwarts. For all that his body was scrawny and underweight, his mind was robust and well-nourished, fed by any material he could get his spindly fingers on. He spent hours ensconced in obscure corners of the library, tearing through books on Herbology, Transfiguration, Potions, and Astronomy. Next he devoured texts on Healing and Defence. He moved on to manuals detailing the process of spell creation-–the art of crafting one’s own charms.
Ignorance is a hydra–-sever one head and two regenerate; its only adversary is education.
There came a day when he surpassed his curriculum, reading ahead by chapters, by years. A plea to his professors granted him access to the Restricted section: more valuable than any vault in Gringotts. A wealth of new information-–hexes, curses, Dark Arts.
He hesitated, the first time he encountered a tome on Dark magic, fingers ghosting over the spine, reverent. They twiched, uncertain, then curiosity won the battle, and as he firmly grasped the worn leather an anticipatory shiver snaked down his own spine.
Lily didn’t approve, told him he had no business learning about Dark magic at all, said it wasn’t proper, said it wasn’t decent. Magical theory is just fascinating, that’s all, Severus assured her.
And he was fascinated.
He delved into every text available at the school and several that weren’t–-items from the personal libraries of the Blacks and the Malfoys, courtesy of his friends in Slytherin. They encouraged his studies, nursed his interest.
A healthy academic interest, he told Lily. That’s all.
In his fifth year he began to experiment, first with Potions, then with creating his own spells. He pulled from several different disciplines of study, teasing apart strands from conflicting schools of thought and weaving them together in new configurations.
The first attempts were innocent enough–-a toenail-growing hex, both practical and amusing. Muffliato, versatile. As the attacks from Potter and Black escalated, so too did the nature of Severus’ spells. Langlock, to prevent a caster from incanting. Levicorpus, to restrain.
It wasn’t enough.
Elements of Dark theory seeped into his spellwork, insidious. There’s nothing inherently evil about the Dark Arts, he told Lily. It’s all in how you apply them, intent. And some branches of magic widely considered to be Dark were actually rather versatile, valuable.
And that’s how he ended up with Sectumsempra, his best work by far.
Efficient. Effective.
When he slashed his wand and saw the answering bloom on James Potter’s cheek, he savored the feeling of his own blood coursing heady through his veins. No longer would he be an easy target for the Marauders, wrong-footed and always on the defensive. Now they would have to take him seriously.
For the first time, he had some measure of control in his life.
Lily didn’t approve of his research, his experiments. She demanded he destroy the book in which he’d recorded his creations, said he’d gone too far. She didn’t understand what it was like to have been powerless, to have been weak.
His friends in Slytherin understood, continued to encourage his studies. They were proud of him-–so young, and already annotating textbooks, altering potions recipes, crafting his own inventions. A natural talent. A prodigy. There was a place for someone of his skill after Hogwarts, his friends in Slytherin said, and they had connections.
Lily was disgusted, said she was done making excuses, said he had been corrupted and she was through with him.
She didn’t comprehend his inventiveness, his artistry. But his friends in Slytherin did. And they were his friends, he was sure of it.
And the Dark Lord was very impressed, when Severus gave a demonstration of his aptitude for the Dark Arts on the night he was formally presented to the Death Eaters. He praised his creativity in creating curses, recognized in him a keen mind, a fellow intellectual.
For the first time, he was respected.
So much potential, the Dark Lord had whispered one night, and I will help you reach it, to grow past the limits lesser men have set upon you.
After that, Severus was given unlimited access to private Pureblood libraries and collections. Even as he consumed the secrets contained in disintegrating journals and stained rolls of parchment, he could feel the tickle of knowledge yet to be gained licking at the edges of his mind like flames, urging him to keep going, to never stop.
The first time he cast the Cruciatus curse he observed the writhing of the victim held under his wand, and he felt an answering thrill of power course through his veins, heady and intense.
Each casting stoked those embers of seduction, until it was a blazing fire in his chest. Each casting became more forceful, more prolonged, to chase that vital euphoria.
It wasn’t enough.
Over time he curated a small collection of Dark artifacts: weapons that carried curses, jinxed jewelry, and the like. He kept them close to his person-–for practical reasons, he told himself. Self-defense, should he be caught by the Aurors or the Order.
The truth was, they sang when they touched his skin, bleeding into his own magic, and he could feel the resonance of their song in his bones.
It’s a siren song, Dumbledore told him that night on the wind-swept hill, when Severus knelt and begged and promised the heavens in return for the assurance of Lily’s safety. Dumbledore said that true strength was found in resistance, and he would teach him how to be strong again.
The artifacts were locked away in the Headmaster’s office, out of Severus’ sight but not out of Severus' mind. Like a shard stripped from his soul, he felt bereft of them, dearly missed the comforting hum of the magic infused within them. Imitation artifacts were no substitute for the real thing–-Dark magic had a distinct flavor impossible to replicate.
The days passed but the itch under his skin did not diminish. Nothing could quench the inferno blazing through his veins, nothing could entirely sever the connection to the Dark Arts that pulled at him still, like a lead.
Some nights he thought he might die, clawing vainly at skin and trembling in the face of his own vulnerability. Resist it, Dumbledore commanded him. It is a siren song, he said.
Severus vaguely recalled a line about sirens in a story he once read, half-forgotten from pages half-remembered, but in his delirium he could not place the words.
Some nights, he crept into obscure corners of the library, spindly fingers searching frantically through reams of parchment for just a scrap of material that might soothe that craving.
It wasn’t enough.
Some nights he was driven to such desperation that he risked the Headmaster’s own wards to feel again even the brush of the Dark magic infused in the artifacts he once held close.
He met no success, found only disappointment in tired blue eyes that did not twinkle, and a deep disgust with himself. He slithered back to his dungeons, unsatisfied.
Severus gained a reputation, those first few months, for catching students breaking curfew. Circulation of speculation-–did the man ever sleep? Was he even human?
He didn’t think so, not anymore, not since he surrendered himself to a lifetime of servitude, simultaneously surrendering his humanity though he didn’t realize it then. Was it burned away with the press of the Dark Lord’s wand against his forearm, or was it lost sometime before then, displaced from his heart by the encroaching darkness?
Dumbledore said he didn’t need to master the Dark Arts to find relief; he needed to master himself.
Plagued by insomnia, he bitterly paced the hallways of Hogwarts night after night, never quite managing to quell that yearning entirely. In time, though, and with distance, it diminished in intensity until that acute longing was reduced to a mere prickling under his skin.
Eventually, his hands stopped shaking. Eventually, he could breathe again.
Still the darkness clung to Severus’ syllables, swirling in the hem of his cloak, stained on his skin.
Once touched, forever tainted.
And so it went, for so many years that he nearly forgot, though Dumbledore never did. Year after year he was denied the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor. Too much temptation, the Headmaster said. Too much potential that he’d slip back into old habits.
When the Dark Lord returned, it was agony. Pure and exquisite–-he could sense the sharp essence of Dark magic gathered in the corners and condensating on the window panes every time he attended a Death Eater meeting.
The Dark Lord was pleased with Severus’ proximity to Dumbledore; he was a valuable pawn now, no need to place him on the front lines when the information he could relay was worth so much more.
No need to get his hands dirty anymore.
Dumbledore was pleased with Severus’ elevated status among the Inner Circle; he was an asset to the Light, what with all the intelligence he could report back to the Order.
And no need to get his hands dirty anymore.
There was the war between the side of the Light and the forces of the Dark, and then there was the internal war waged between himself and the call of the Dark Arts. Each Summons brought with it an unanticipated sort of torture-–his fingers twitched, the savory taste of a curse upon his lips that he couldn’t quite give voice to, and he found he could get his fix if he was the victim of Dark magic just as well.
He took a perverse pleasure in enduring the Cruciatus. Agony–-pure and exquisite, his nerves sang with the thrill of the curse whenever the Dark Lord felt his servants needed to be punished.
It was just enough.
The Headmaster finally appointed him Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor. He also detailed his plans for Severus to kill him within the year, as a way to appear to defect to the Death Eaters once and for all, leaving no room for the Dark Lord to doubt his loyalty.
You must remain strong, Dumbledore told him, and do not be mastered by siren song. Master yourself, he said.
All too soon, the night came on the tower when it was the great Albus Dumbledore begging of Severus Snape-–a reversal of roles from their first meeting on the hilltop all those years ago. And even as he cast the Killing Curse, he knew he was lost.
Swaying slightly with the heady allure of the Dark Arts, he welcomed it like a long-lost friend, like the touch of a lover, intoxicated. It made him feel secure again. It made him feel like he was home.
And as he fled the scene of the crime, blending smoothly in with the retreating Death Eaters–-senses sharp, mind alert-–he recalled those half-forgotten words from that half-remembered story read once long ago.
The sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. It is still conceivable that someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence certainly never.