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Severus Snape was young, tired and haggard beyond his years, and he was just back from getting groceries, if you could call them that. A bottle of whisky and some shitty cheap microwavable meals he could hit a warming charm at and then not eat. He knew he didn't look appealing, seven years at Hogwarts would do that to you, but this was the worst he’s looked in a while. He was like a walking corpse and he felt like one as well.
He continued with his musings as he walked up to his home in Cokeworth, it was never a pleasant place, and he knew that it would continue to be so until he managed to burn the place to the ground.
Severus turned to open his door when he realized that the door was open. “Fuck” He whispered to himself, sure that it was nothing good, either a foolhardy Order memeber or some foolish muggle who didn’t know how much pain they were in for.
He slid his wand out of his sleeve and slowly crept into his house, sure it might be a shitehole but it was his and that’s all that mattered. He crept down the small, cramped, badly lit hallway still holding his groceries, trying his hardest to make sure it didn’t make any noise. He crept into his living room, he curses himself this time for leaving his house so unprotected, how could he ever be this stupid? Then again he didn’t think anyone knew where he lived apart from-
He goes a bit further then casts a disillusionment on himself, he lets himself shiver a tiniest bit, he quietly walks into his living room out of habit alone, years of living with his Father made it that way.
He looked about before his eyes caught what broke into his home. “A cat, a fucking cat got in. Jesus fucking Christ.” He disbelievingly muttered to himself, he gave it one look at its flat face and bulbous eyes and then hit it with a stinging hex. It gave a particularly vicious yowl before scampering away down the hall and hopefully out back to wherever rat infested sewer it called home.
He scowled to himself and went to grab the whisky out of the crinkly plastic blue bag all corner shops had, flopping down onto the beaten down sofa he went to raise the bottle to his lips and took a swig before realizing he was lying on top of fuckin cat piss.
He got up with a roar leaving his mouth, he turned and whipped his wand back out of his sleeve and lit the sofa in flames with a particularly vicious curse. He breathed heavily before staring down at the ruined sad remains of his sofa, he sighed and then cancelled the curse and headed upstairs to his childhood bedroom. He’d rather die than move into his parents' old bedroom, while it was bigger the whole place was better off if he let it rot.
He trudged up the stairs with the opened bottle of whisky grasped loosely in numb fingers. He walked up to the dull and scratched door of his bedroom and felt like being violently ill, he kicked open his door and flopped into the bed the bottle of whisky still dangling in his hand, he looked at how golden it looked in his hand and tried to make up some useless poetics of it all, something about how the sins of the Father or some shite.
It was the irony that got him, he laughed so hard at what he’d became, what he’d swore he’d never become, he laughed so hard that he got stitches and was lightheaded, then he took a swig of the bottle and ignored how the familiarness sprung tears to his eyes. “Fuck you Tobias! I hope you rot in hell you evil bastard.”
Severus shouted at the ceiling still lightheaded and dizzy all the while ignoring the tears in his own eyes, after-all murderers don’t get to feel, not after what he’d done.
Not after he killed Lily.
Severus woke with a pounding in his head, he cracked a bleary eye open and nearly thanked every known deity that it was dark. “Shit, what time is it?” He fumbled about for his wand before ultimately deciding to just check the old dusty clock down the stairs. He let out a pained groan before finally getting up and going to the bathroom all the while studiously ignoring the bathroom mirror.
He stumbled down the stairs half blind without his wand to cast a Lumos but he was nothing if not stubborn, he walked past the living room and looked in and with squinting eyes he realized it was past midnight, then he continued into the dingy kitchen and looked into the shitty fridge and ignored the irritable headache that was getting stronger at the back of his head.
He turned with some sort of edible macaroni and cheese into his hand when a green light came from the living room. Shit shit shit, Severus thought to himself dropping behind the wall that his Mother threw a plate at and never deigned to fix. He tried to think over the hangover and the fact that he never brought his fucking wand with him.
His hand reached over the the drawer which thankfully had a knife in it, fuck whoever this was, he wasn’t going down without a fight. Severus peaked around the wall, his hands clammy with fear and his heart beating out of his chest.
He took a fortifying breath before getting up to face whoever this was, he leaped out of his hiding place and had the knife to the person's neck intending to do damage when-
“Albus? What, are you doing here” Severus positively hissed, stepping away from the old man. “Christ, what do you want?” He said sitting in an uncomfortable chair because of the sofa being, indisposed as it was.
Dumbledore gave a little huff of amusement, his eyes seeming just a touch brighter than before. He conjured a chair with too many cushioning charms on it, then sat down with misplaced comfort. “Well, my dear boy I’m afraid I have something grave to ask of you.” Albus watched the young man in front of him, the seemingly levity before now vanished and instead was replaced with a graveness that uneased Severus.
He opened his mouth and began to object yet again to him becoming the potions professor, but Albus stops him with a raise of his hand and an uncharastically seriousness about him. Severs doesn’t fidget or squirm in his chair, he would never show weakness, at least no more than he already has.
“
Well? What are you here for, you're not the type to just drop by and say hello.” Severus says with a touch of bitterness in his voice, he’s allowed this at least. He looked right at him, and he knew that he would regret ever knowing Albus Dumbledore after this.
“Well, my boy, I need you to take care of Harry Potter.” Albus looks up with an expression on his face that can only be called stubborn, he cuts right through Severus’s spluttered protests with a wave of his hand. “I will not be fought on this Severus, I know that you and James had never seen eye to eye, however you need to do what's right by the child. And if not him then Lily at least, Severus.”
Whatever retort Severus had died on his tongue, he felt like vomiting and he was desperate at this point. “Albus you cannot be serious! I just pulled a knife on you for Merlin’s sake! And not to mention this house is not fit for a child, Hell I’m not fit for a child Albus, it’s only been a month since it all happened.”
He leaped from his chair and started to pace back and forth no doubt wearing a hole in the floor,
“Albus people are still partying in the streets over the dark lord’s death, it’s too fresh.” Severus stops himself there before he reveals anymore, he cannot give that man more ammunition, he will not allow it. He narrows his eyes and nearly spits on the ground near Dumbledore’s feet. “Get out, GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!” He screams at Dumbledore, his chest heaving and his face coloured with rage.
Dumbledore sighs, a weary look seems to take over him, for once he truly looks his age. He gets up slowly and looks at him, really looks at him, the stained clothes rumpled and unwashed for days. The smell of drink off of him, and the look of a man at his breaking point. “Very well, I’ll find someone else.” And with that he turns and leaves, no grand speeches, no beseeching words, nothing.
Severus is stunned, he turns and walks past his ruined sofa and walks upstairs to his shitty little bathroom and vomits his insides out. If he reaches for the bottle after that and doesn’t think of a little boy who has Lily’s eyes, well, that’s no one's business but his.