Chapter Text
"My dearest daughter, do not be afraid. We are by your side to support you in whatever you need. We are concerned about your health and Severus's, please respond."
- Cliona Prince
Severus remembered very little of his childhood. He remembered that his mother was rigid and unhappy, that his father was distant and aggressive. He remembered a neglect that made him grow more solitary, needy, and sad with each passing day. But at the time, if anyone spoke ill of his parents, Severus would always defend them because, despite everything, he loved them—and being a child, he did not recognize the violence he endured, nor did he understand it.
Then Severus grew a little older, entered Hogwarts, and buried his head in the effort to be like those around him, to be accepted. And he became obsessed, because he believed that fitting in was the solution to the loneliness he felt. It wasn’t. But there was Lily, and she was the one who made his life more bearable, the one who introduced him to love, and she was all that remained when his parents died.
Eileen Snape, his mother, and Tobias Snape, his father, were murdered when Severus was fifteen years old. Killed in their home at Spinner’s End. And if the loss and absence of both hurt deeply, the lack of power to do anything about it—such as seeking revenge or at least understanding who or why—hurt even more. And then, in his stupidity, trying to fit into the world of his housemates, he and Lily fought, and she never sought him out again.
It hurt so much that at some point Severus hardened his heart to protect himself and became an empty shell. He took a side in a war he did not believe in; he gambled and lost until there was nothing left to wager. And suddenly, it was the moment of his death. Attacked by Nagini, on Voldemort’s orders, Severus remembered Lily.
He tried to console himself with the thought that perhaps he might see Lily and his mother in the afterlife, along with the sad feeling that he did not deserve to.
Ah, but at least the last thing he saw were those rebellious green eyes, which were not Lily’s, but were like hers—so strong. They were the eyes of Lily’s son, Lily’s legacy, alive, or at least surviving. A child, but also a warrior, fighting for more than just his own life… What an unfair world.
Worst of all was knowing that the child would not live much longer either. Of all of Albus’s cruelties, keeping this secret from the boy was the worst one for him. A human Horcrux, a living ghost standing before him, so unaware of his own fate, so doomed to carry the weight of the wizarding world.
As he asked Harry to save his tears so that he could see his memories in the Pensieve and finally reveal his secrets, there, dying, Severus made a silent prayer that Harry Potter might, by some miracle, live longer—be loved, wanted, and happy in all the ways Severus never was. Because not for the first time, but for the last, he saw Harry as the boy he truly was: a survivor desperate for something to cling to, something to love in this world. And Severus could never have been one of those people for Harry, not after everything he had done—but he prayed that, unlike him, the brat would be loved until his final breath, whether it came that very day or a century later.
And then, when his soul was no longer in his body, Severus realized he was in a void. There was pure darkness all around him, and Severus was no longer flesh and bone, but had an ethereal body, shimmering purple in that place.
There seemed to be nothing around, but Severus felt that there was. A presence was watching him in the darkness. It was a very familiar sensation to him—that something was seeing his soul. Severus had simply never allowed himself to admit that it was, in fact, something.
The thing smiled.
Severus could not see the thing, but he felt its smile—the pull of lips in a feeling of satisfaction directed at him. If he still had a physical body, Severus thought he might have shivered.
“What are you?” Severus asked.
“Apparently, a thing,” the thing replied sarcastically. Apparently, the thing could read Severus’s thoughts. Severus wondered if the thing had truly been there all along, hearing his thoughts throughout his entire life. “Yes, I was, and I did,” the thing answered.
“What exactly are you?” Severus was genuinely curious.
“We are you.”
“How?”
Suddenly, the shadows began to tear apart around the thing. A light shone above, and Severus could see. The thing had his younger body and those purple eyes Severus had been forced to hide since he was very young. The thing held a sword it had just used to cleave the shadows. The darkness around them stretched out hands to intertwine once more, but the other’s presence prevented it.
“Walk with me.” The purple-eyed one turned and began walking toward the light. Severus followed.
Suddenly, a scene materialized around them. It was Severus in life, preparing a potion in his Hogwarts quarters. It was a memory of a moment of calm and satisfaction that had been common in his days before everything became madness and Severus died.
“This is a comforting memory, isn’t it?” the purple-eyed one asked, not waiting for an answer—he already knew.
“Why did you bring me here?” Severus asked.
“A familiar environment is a good place to have uncomfortable conversations.”
Severus looked at his other self and admired how happy his expression seemed. He wished he could be that happy.
“I suppose I should start with the basics. Right—you died, but you don’t have to stay dead if you don’t want to.” Severus was cynical. The purple eyes sighed. “This person you played, this person we spent our life being, wasn’t truly who we are, Severus. I know you know that, but I also know you don’t fully understand why.”
The purple-eyed one looked at the memory, at the Severus brewing a potion as if nothing else in the world existed. He smiled.
“When we were born, our mother made a poor choice. She went into hiding in the Muggle world to protect us. It didn’t work as she imagined, of course, and you never knew why.”
The purple-eyed one leaned against the workbench of the memory, looking him in the eyes.
“What you know now is that the title of Lord Prince is yours, which shouldn’t be possible, because our mother was disowned, just like you—right?”
Severus began to piece things together. Near the end, he had gone to Gringotts on a mission for Lord Voldemort, and by pure chance discovered that his grandfather had died and that he had inherited the title of Lord Prince. He hadn’t understood why at the time, because, as the purple-eyed one was saying, he should have been cut off from the family.
“She lied a lot, but in her defense, she did it for our sake. She believed she was protecting you from them.” The purple-eyed one looked away, seeming a bit downcast. “People who wanted our heart to consume it. Truly awful people, if I may say so. That’s why you need to learn to defend yourself as quickly as possible—you must learn to dominate.”
Severus was utterly confused now. Why would anyone want to devour his heart? What power was he supposed to master? He was dead!
The purple-eyed one stepped closer, looking him in the eyes.
“We are Chaos. It is our family inheritance—you are a Knight of Chaos. The legacy the Princes have carried since primordial times. But for most of them, it was never as powerful as it is for you. For many centuries, the Princes carried only one Eye of Chaos—something like half access to the power. And if Chaos is not fully controlled, it controls you. That’s why the Princes stopped using their powers; many chose to pretend it wasn’t there.”
Severus used the brief silence that followed to think. The purple-eyed one—Chaos—shifted the surroundings. It was no longer a memory, but a shadow theater, illustrating what he spoke of.
“I can be devastating if you meddle with the structure of everything. But if you don’t meddle with me, then I am the Void. To the Princes, Chaos was the Void for a long time. But our mother became pregnant with a child of destiny.”
Two shadows fought; the woman fled, and when she hid from the man, it became clear she was pregnant.
“Destiny is a powerful entity that loves to interfere. Its children are naturally drawn to disrupt the order of the world. Many important figures in history were children of destiny—Merlin, Salazar, Rowena, Peverell, and so many others. They did not necessarily share blood, because children of destiny are hand-picked by the entity and scattered across the world. Our father bore the mark of being a child of destiny—a unique familial power, a family blessing.”
The shadow Severus assumed was the father appeared to heal another shadow.
“That’s why Destiny was drawn to our existence. I reacted, and we were born strong—too strong to be safe.”
The shadow representing the mother held her baby for what seemed to be the first time and recoiled in shock as she looked at him. She turned the baby so Severus could see—and the shadow had purple eyes.
“Two purple eyes. A mark for the world to see. A true Knight of Chaos. Unfortunately, the news spread, and they came looking for us, hunting us. Because there was a foolish legend that said if you consume the heart of Chaos, you become Chaos.”
“They wanted power,” Severus realized.
“Exactly. Mother hid us from you and from the wizarding world. She disappeared from sight as much as she could. But she knew something important—you cannot escape destiny. It guides you the easy way or the hard way. So she covered it up. A Snape, a poor half-blood, drew no attention. She submitted herself to that despicable Muggle we called father for so long, and she inscribed runes on our body to change the color of our eyes when we finally reached the age to go to Hogwarts.”
“Tobias Snape isn’t my father?” Severus asked awkwardly. He felt happy and sad, confused and frightened by the revelation.
“By blood? No. Honestly, not even by upbringing, if we’re being fair.”
“This is… a lot of information,” Severus said, a bit overwhelmed.
“Indeed. Perhaps it’s best to stop the explanations here and move on to the practical part.” The purple-eyed one took Severus’s ethereal hands. “Understand—Chaos is absence and upheaval. You can control it. Which means you can control time. Or rather, break time, subject it to Chaos. Do that. Go back before the important things. Build your happiness. It’s not worth living a life without love, without the hunger to win, without goals. You were used, discarded, betrayed—even by yourself—a pariah. Always powerful, yes, but unhappy. Do not submit to that. Do not settle for merely surviving. Live to become what you wanted to be—you still can.”
The purple-eyed one stepped back. “Ah, and this is our darkness—the dimension of Chaos, Erebos. If you do not master it, in time it will try to master you and drag you into the afterlife. So if you want to live, you must dominate it before that happens.” In an instant, with a smile, the purple-eyed one was pulled back into the void.
Leaving only the darkness—and Severus.
How was Severus supposed to leave that place? Did Severus want to live again? He was tired.
He was very tired.
He was dissatisfied.
He didn’t like the life he had lived. He didn’t like himself.
But the purple-eyed one said he could be happy this time.
…
Severus wanted to live again.
He had no idea how to control time through that darkness, but he imagined trying wouldn’t hurt. He thought of returning to before going to Hogwarts, imagined his room in that small house, imagined his mother’s smile, and envisioned returning there.
And so, within Severus’s ethereal body, an energy arose—like purple electricity—circling him. Severus imagined himself being consumed by it and carried back into his child’s body. It was a precise instinct.
He chased the past with determination, because if there were even the slightest possibility that he could succeed, then maybe… maybe he could be loved too. He didn’t want everything the world had to offer, but if there were even a little for him, then he would be greedy and cling to it completely.
And apparently, that was yet another thing he discovered about himself in that void—he was indeed very ambitious. Lucky for him, that could be an excellent quality.
§§§§§§§§§
Severus woke feeling his body heavy and his head pounding. Dizziness struck him. He was in a dark place that smelled of dampness mixed with firewood. He would always recognize that smell; he could never forget the scent of the house where he grew up, where his parents were murdered.
He opened his eyes quickly, dissociating for a moment until he realized he was indeed in his parents’ house. And then his heart raced with the sensation that it was real. He, lying in his childhood bed, sat up in an instant, confusion and fear clouding his thoughts.
He looked around, bewildered, seeing that it truly was the tiny room where he had spent years holed up. The bed with gray sheets against one wall, the brick walls also painted gray, a small wooden wardrobe beside the bed, and books stacked on the floor, cluttering the room.
Severus leapt out of bed, feeling his heart pounding as he walked to the door. There was a hallway leading to a bathroom and another bedroom directly across from his—larger, his parents’ bedroom. His heart somehow beat even faster at the thought.
Severus didn’t understand. He didn’t even know if he wanted to try to understand what was happening, because within him lay the complex and merciless answer he sought, threatening to devastate him. Severus opened the door to the room across the hall, and there was no one—just a neatly made bed, a wardrobe, and a vanity.
Disappointment and colossal confusion hit him in waves, and he walked to the other end of the hallway, which led to the kitchen and living room. Severus sighed when he found no one there, and then the bathroom door behind him suddenly opened, revealing a beautiful woman with a serious, confused look as she saw her son staring at her in shock.
Her black hair fell in soft waves down her back, her eyebrows as dark as her long lashes. Her serious eyes reminded Severus of himself when he looked in the mirror—and, of course, there was the difference: those heterochromatic eyes that screamed “look at me” in a way only rare beauty could. One eye was a deep blue, and the other was a violet hue that betrayed she was not ordinary—a color that did not develop without magic. Beautiful—she always had been undeniably beautiful.
Eileen Prince Snape wore a long black skirt and a gray blouse with sleeves that made her look like an elegant, delicate lady. Severus knew his mother was elegant—a pure-blood witch, raised to always appear vulnerable—but the delicacy was a well-rehearsed façade. The mother he remembered was rough and, honestly, frightening.
Severus felt like crying, because that woman should be dead—but she wasn’t—and he loved her and feared that. Because now he clearly understood the betrayal of the woman who raised him. He saw the secrets in his mother’s eyes and prayed there were no more.
He felt betrayed and insanely happy.
§§§§§§§§§
A long time ago, when he was a child, Severus was called Magnus by Eileen. It was his middle name, and she was the only one in his entire life who used it. He loved it when his mother called him that, because it always seemed filled with affection.
Eileen was obsessed with etiquette, always making Severus learn everything from the simplest table manners to the most difficult classical dances—things that became second nature to Severus over the years. Eileen also educated him in three languages: English, French, and German. That was what Severus always carried with him, along with his father’s abuse and the rule of no magic in the house.
There were also the letters that arrived by owl every week, which Eileen never answered. Severus opened one once, as a foolish, curious child, without thinking of the consequences. It was from Eileen’s mother—his grandmother—asking how her daughter was doing. The woman, who signed the letter as Cliona Prince, said not to be afraid, that nothing would happen. Severus didn’t understand at the time, but looking around that house now, after everything he had learned in Erebos, he connected the dots.
There were also those Samhains when they stayed inside a magic circle by candlelight. Eileen recited chants and brushed a magical quill over Severus’s body, always adding new runes. The quill burned his skin, and the runes were left marked like burns; over time they looked less like scars and more like “artificial birthmarks.”
These runes were not all documented. Most of them Severus had never heard of, even after years of research as an adult. Some were runes of bodily alteration—permanent physical changes to his skin. Severus knew some were meant to change the color of his eyes, but he died without knowing why. Now he felt he understood—but that knowledge was disturbing.
And there were also the protection runes, which were the most useful and Severus’s favorites when he became a Death Eater. They made pain seem lesser.
What was his mother protecting him from? Why did she live with Tobias Snape if the man hurt her? Severus had only been able to speculate for many years—but now he was there, in the past, standing before his mother, the woman with more secrets than anyone Severus had ever known—almost all of them revealed now.
Eileen stepped closer and touched Severus’s face, confused by the boy’s stillness as he was lost in thought.
“Severus, son? Are you all right?” she asked, her neutral expression broken only by the arch of a brow showing her concern.
“Mother,” was all Severus managed to say, looking at her so closely.
“Did you have a nightmare?” Eileen guided him to a chair at the kitchen table, and Severus followed, still dazed.
“Mother, you died,” Severus said, confused and sad as he looked at her.
Eileen suddenly stiffened, confused by her son’s statement.
“Then it really was a nightmare?” She seemed thoughtful and slightly indifferent.
Severus truly didn’t know what to say. He wanted to tell his mother everything, but there was that uncertainty and lack of trust gnawing at him. What if all of it was a dream? Severus truly didn’t know.
In the silence of Severus’s lack of response, Eileen huffed and forced a gentle smile onto her face.
“Well, tomorrow you finally turn eleven. What do you say we go out together?” She looked tired.
Severus remembered the first time this happened—when he turned eleven and went to buy his wand with his mother in Diagon Alley. She didn’t have much money for the other supplies, and they didn’t wander much afterward, but his mother still managed to get everything he needed when classes began.
Now, things could be a little different—and they would be, if it were up to Severus. He just needed to be sure that his encounter with Chaos had truly happened and that everything was real, so he could give his mother his version of events.
In his mind, he battled between keeping the bad things secret or revealing everything he knew. Being a child made him dependent on her choices, and that fed the paranoia in his head that everything could go wrong again. And trusting his mother after everything? That wasn’t easy either.
“Of course. I’m looking forward to it.” Severus gave a smal
l, innocent smile.
Eileen smiled fondly, as if she found him adorable, nodded, and walked toward the cupboards—certainly going to cook something.
Severus sighed, hating his turbulent mind.