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If Severus Snape were a more ordinary thinker, he might say he’d made more deals than he could count. He wouldn’t though; it was a cliche, and worse, it wasn’t true. He’d made many bargains, certainly but unfortunately he remembered every one.
He remembered himself at seventeen, still aching with the pain of losing her, taking the mark upon his arm, trading his services for power and a place to belong. He remembered being fourteen and demonstrating to his father that he’d managed to remove the Trace on his wand, and the new terms he’d dictated for their remaining cohabitation until Severus could leave Spinners End. He remembered when they were nine and they’d made a promise each of them would end up breaking.
Severus coldly locked the last thought away, putting it in a little hidden box in his mind as he stalked his quarters. Was this his home now, or his prison? In a dungeon it was rather hard to tell. No, this wasn’t his prison, because his prison was built of more than stone. Its foundation lay in shame and its mortar was mixed with blood.
He should be better than this, have more control than this. He was a master of Occlumency for Merlin’s sake, his emotions should not get the better of him. But hadn’t they always? He prized logic, reason, but time and time again he had failed because he couldn’t control his temper. The thought sickened him not because he hated violence, but because that lack of control made him more like him…
“Epiksey,” he muttered as he absently closed the cuts on his hand, after his glass of whiskey shattered between his fingers. Elsewhere in the castle, snot-nosed whelps were trotting along to the Halloween Feast and all Snape could think of was her, and how it couldn’t possibly have been a year already.
Snape hated being a teacher. He hated Dumbledore. He hated the smug look on the Minister’s face when she oh so generously granted him his pardon. He hated the cheap whiskey. He hated that her child wore Potter’s face and more than anything else he hated himself. Still, no matter how much he wished to fly from this place, to find some island to set up a proper laboratory to truly advance the arte of potioneering instead of babysitting, he would not. His last bargain was one he could not break, and it wasn’t the words he said to Dumbledore. No, his last bargain was with a memory, and it was one he’d have to keep.