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Severus stepped into the Snape residence in Spinner's End. He dragged his mess of a trunk behind him. The mess wasn't from him. It was from one of his harassers that decided one last prank on the train to 9 3/4 was the best way to end off 6th year.
Black had cursed his clothing, thankfully no undergarment, to run around from cabin to cabin on the train for Severus to chase down if he wanted to keep them. This 'prank' had ended with a lot of humiliation on Severus' end, laughter from the Marauders and those alike, and some clothing lost due to burning by another Slytherin who was himself burning his clothing as a helpful gesture that Severus should take as a sign to buy nicer clothing.
Severus' head pounded from the moment he got off at Kings Cross Station back to Spinner's End.
Severus didn't call out that he was home. This was not his home. It was his prison he was required to reside in during the months off of torment he got at Hogwarts.
What a vacation that was for him.
He heard the soft patter of his mother in the kitchen. Likely trying to finish up dinner before his father got home. He called neither mother or father as a sign of a deep rooted affection. He simply called them that cause biologically they were his mother and father.
Severus dragged his trunk up the steps quickly to his room. Taking care to hide the trunk himself as to not have it found while an angry drunk of a father purged the house of wrongness.
It always started the same way. The yelling, the breaking, the searching for the 'unnatural', than the beating.
It was pattern that he'd picked up and knew like he knew recipes for a bruise balm and pain relief potion. Likely because that was always what he needed afterwards. He'd made sure to make some in the potion lab when Slughorn wasn't paying any particular attention though that would imply he paid attention at all.
He didn't go down for dinner that night. His mother never came up to ask if he wanted any. He ignored his father's rough stomps when he got home from the mill.
As he 'slept', he tried to glue on his mask. The mask was one of many that he used in any situation. Though the variety came in fully as he entered Hogwarts.
The mask he was gluing on was his Spinner's mask. The mask he had first developed after years of living as a Snape in Spinner's end.
His father wore the mask of working class man. Under that mask he was an alcoholic that beat his wife and son. His mother married into the mask, becoming the quiet docile wife. Under that was a broken living ghost.
And Severus Snape with his many masks was many things depending on the situation he found himself in. In the majority at Hogwarts, he was the soon to be Death Eater student that was always studying. With the Slytherins, he was the useful half-blood that they could use. To the Marauders, an easy target that they knew from the moment they met him that Snape was going to be evil. And Lily... that mask was the closest anyone had ever been to the himself underneath the masks.
And Severus wasn't exactly sure what was under the masks himself. Maybe at one point it was a child. But what about now? After all these years. When do the masks become yourself underneath them? Were they different or the same?
Severus must have been laying for hours with his wand held between both hands when he came to when a heavy bang hit his door.
Startled to awareness, Severus stared down the monster that was one half of himself biologically. Face red and cheap alcoholic reeked from his breath as Tobias Snape stormed into the room, having found the unnatural thing in his house.
"WORTHLESS FREAK!" The father called his son.
It only took two large steps in the small room to grab the boy from his old bed, dragged him off and onto the old wooden floor. Even when drunk, Tobias has mastered the art of taking his belt off like his father to beat his child.
Severus held his wand in one hand by his neck and his other arm went over his head to duck down.
He felt the first whip, holding himself as still as possible to not make this worse than it had to be.
The mask he was making felt like it was cracking with each sound of the belt leather cutting into his skin. He'd have some nasty curses and hexes at school, but somehow the muggle belt always hurt just as much as the last time.
CRACK!
CRACK!
CRACK!
The wind of each blow hitting him, than the sting of pain, than the sound.
Even through the cotton muggle shirt he wore, the skin of his back bleed. Blood was going to soak the back of it by the end.
Severus gritted his teeth to not make a sound, his eyes stung from the pain. But he dared to not make a sound. If Tobias even though that he was crying from this, it'd be ten times worse to make sure he had a reason to be crying.
Holding onto his mask for dear life, Severus felt it start to crumble and any hope for this being an easier beating started to burn.
Maybe it was that or the humiliation on the train or Severus had suddenly become a masochist because unlike before Severus didn't do what he usually endured. He couldn't. Not without his methphorical mask to cover himself in.
In the second the whip of wind rushed away from him, Severus three himself up, side-stepling his father and pushing him in his hunched over position to give himself more time to run.
And run he did.
Past his mother, who had been pretending to not hear in the kitchen. Down Spinner's End. Into the dead forest full of smog that Spinner's End had.
He ran and ran.
He ran so far that when he eventually stopped it was because he was out of breath and he couldn't hold himself up anymore.
With a gutteral scream, Severus kneeled over to breath.
But all he could get in were short ragged breaths that did little to help his over exercised lungs and his heart that wanted to exploded all over his innards.
A wet something touched his bare forearm covered in oversensitive skin, causing Severus to scream.
Throwing his head up, Severus was met with a shaggy dog. The stray seemed just as shocked as Severus at him being here.
"G...Go... away," Severus croaked, throat in more pain than he thought was faired if his back was on fire already. He could feel the cotton of his shirt already sticking to the new marks left by the belt. Something that would be almost just as painful when he went to clean himself up later.
The dog didn't. It stared at Severus. Head down watching the teen as if Severus were the animal in that situation.
"I SAID GO AWAY." He yelled, pushing himself up and holding himself up and waving his wanded arm around to try and scare the dog off. Tears streaming down his face in heavy globs and breathing still overworking to overcomplicate on the unneed adrenaline.
The dog didn't even move.
Severus fell back into his ass, back screaming at him to stop moving.
"What do you want?" Severus was tired. He rubbed his face trying to think past the fog of tears and pain. Why was this dog, whose hair stuck out every which way and seemed so much more aware than the other strays he'd seen around Spinner's End, here?
Unless this was some weird mutt version of a wolf that was planning to eat Severus.
It wouldn't be the first wolf to attack him.
The black dog didn't answer him for the obvious reason of being a dog. Instead, keeping it's head low, it moved towards Severus.
He didn't move. One part curious and the other just accepting defeat.
Two paws where on his thighs now, climbing onto him. It's head, went into his chest, pushing.
Severus, with not a lot of strength working with him, fell back. Hissing in pain as the weight was added to his wound-riddled back.
The dog laided over him. Completely silent besides some heavy breathing. Eyes watching Severus.
Severus watched back. Eyes watching the aware dog's closely.
Severus wasn't sure went his breathing calmed down or how long it had been irratic enough for a random stray to roam into him and decide instead of attacking him to lay on him.
All he knew at the moment was the constant pressure on his back hurt but was keeping him from bleeding more than needed, the weight on his chest made him more conscious of how he was breathing and how much, and that this dog was strange.
They stared. And stared. And stared.
Severus didn't think to deeply on where this dog had come from. He didn't want to know. Somehow he knew that if he knew this action, this kindness, would be tainted beyond repair.
After a while, the dog got off. He walked away. Severus watched the dog go. It turned back to watch Severus pull himself up, clenching his muscles in his body to avoid yelling in pain as he stood, pulling a back muscle that had been beaten at more than once.
Severus nodded at the dog. He could have swore that dog gave a nod back. And than if was gone.
Severus pushed the thought of the dog far away from his mind. Grabbing the figuritive remains of the mask he wore up to tape up on his trek back to Spinner's End.