🄹ｅｓｓｅ 🄿ｉｎｋｍａｎ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
albuquerque) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
lumos_maxima2013-08-24 04:37 am
albuquerque) wrote in lumos_maxima2013-08-24 04:37 am
Entry tags:
ficlet: dispose of severed skin (gen; rated: g)
dispose of severed skin; severus snape; rated: g; 1,117 words.
Severus found the stack of letters and photos while he was cleaning out his mother's drawers.
They were bundled and bound by an old piece of sisal twine, the knot binding it all together neatly and precisely in the centre. Both ends of the string were badly frayed, as though it had been pulled undone and retied many times over. He skimmed his fingers through the papers and photographs at the top right corner to get a glimpse of what hidden sentimentalities they revealed but could only catch snippets of words here and there. Curiosity compelled him to take a seat on the edge of the bed, which creaked softly under his weight; he set his wand down beside him and pulled the string undone.
The photo on the very top was of his mother when she was much younger; a candid shot of her looking at something with interest. The swell of her belly suggested she was pregnant with him at the time the picture was taken. It was a photograph taken by a Muggle camera; the image was static, silent, still, as dead as his mother herself was now.
She had passed away in her sleep two nights before. Severus had found her lying in this very bed, cold as stone, eyes staring glassily at the wall, her old and wrinkled mouth twisted into a frozen grimace of pain. Most likely a stroke, or perhaps a heart attack; a tortuous and merciless one at that, if the petrified expression on her gaunt and elderly face was anything to go by. He didn't cry when he found her; he'd simply felt a heavy hollowness deep inside his ribcage as he looked down at her lifeless body. He'd leaned over and gently closed her eyes, then went downstairs to the drawing room to write a letter to Dumbledore, requesting a few days off to arrange her funeral.
Though he'd never been particularly close to his mother, for she was always a distant and withdrawn woman for as long as Severus had known her, a quiet pang of sadness rippled through his chest as he looked down at the photo. Her face bore an unreadable expression; not quite happiness but not quite sadness, either. Severus could see in this photo how much he resembled her, in the awkward jut of her cheekbones, the sharpness of her jaw, the hard angles of her chin. She hadn't been a particularly attractive woman, but nor had she been ugly. The same could have been said for his father; Severus was simply unlucky enough to have had inherited the most unappealing of both his parents' physical traits.
He set the photo aside and began rifling through the letters. Some were in envelopes, some were simply folded in half. They were faded with age and held a subtle musty smell similar to that of old books. He unfolded one of the letters - the paper was as delicate as a flower petal, ready to rip and tear at the slightest rough touch after years of being folded and unfolded, read and reread - and a frown creased in his brow as he read his late father's messy, scrawly writing.
His father was poor at spelling. Some words were crudely scribbled out and rewritten, only to be scribbled out and rewritten again, each as equally misspelt as the last. But, much to Severus' intrigue, they were not dismissive, nasty, hurtful words, like he'd only known his father to truly ever speak. Rather, they were tender words, gentle words; words of young love and infatuation. Severus realised he was reading a love letter his father had written to his mother, dated several months before Severus was born.
He folded the letter and set it aside with the photo and continued perusing through the rest. Each letter was as heartfelt as the one before, detailing dreams Tobias Snape had had for both himself and Eileen Prince; dreams of travelling the world together, of kissing under the stars, of growing old together and promising to love her until the day he died.
Severus only made it through five letters before he decided he didn't want to read anymore. This Tobias Snape who wrote love letters to Eileen Prince was a complete stranger to him; a ghost of the father he could have had. Should have had. He didn't like the way it was unsettling him, causing the pit of his stomach to twist with sad unease for his mother. To think that she was once all that his father adored, only to become the very thing he chastised, belittled, ignored, physically abused… To think that Tobias had once seemed so enamoured with Eileen and the dream of having a family with her, only to turn dismissive contempt, for whatever inscrutable reasons, towards Severus from the moment he was old enough to start walking.
No, he didn't want to read any more. And he realised, as he sifted through the rest of the photographs - photos of his father with his arm around his mother, photos of his parents smiling, laughing, looking at each other with lovesick eyes - that he didn't want to find what other tales of heartbreak lay amongst the bundle of sentimental memories. He didn't want to think about his mother sitting upon this very spot on the bed, reading and rereading these letters while lost in aching despair for happier times. Gathering everything up, he shoved it all into a bundle and began retying the string around it.
He suddenly stopped in the middle of doing so. Sitting there on his parents' old bed, the smell of his mother's perfume and makeup still lingering in the room as though her pensive, vacant presence was still haunting it, Severus wondered for a moment if he ought to save these letters - not for his father's sake but for his mother's. But, he thought to himself, she was gone. Her sadness and loneliness was gone. And these letters were nothing but remnants of her sorrow and unspoken heartache.
Standing up from the bed, he dropped all but the photo of her on the mattress, loose and untied, to be collected later and burnt in the hearth in the drawing room. He took one final look at the photo of his mother before tucking it away in his tunic. That, he would keep. Taking up his wand, he returned to the dresser and resumed clearing out her clothes from the drawers. He would take them down to the local opportunity shop for some other poor family to make use of, and then he'd come home, make a pot of tea and throw the letters in the fire.
They were bundled and bound by an old piece of sisal twine, the knot binding it all together neatly and precisely in the centre. Both ends of the string were badly frayed, as though it had been pulled undone and retied many times over. He skimmed his fingers through the papers and photographs at the top right corner to get a glimpse of what hidden sentimentalities they revealed but could only catch snippets of words here and there. Curiosity compelled him to take a seat on the edge of the bed, which creaked softly under his weight; he set his wand down beside him and pulled the string undone.
The photo on the very top was of his mother when she was much younger; a candid shot of her looking at something with interest. The swell of her belly suggested she was pregnant with him at the time the picture was taken. It was a photograph taken by a Muggle camera; the image was static, silent, still, as dead as his mother herself was now.
She had passed away in her sleep two nights before. Severus had found her lying in this very bed, cold as stone, eyes staring glassily at the wall, her old and wrinkled mouth twisted into a frozen grimace of pain. Most likely a stroke, or perhaps a heart attack; a tortuous and merciless one at that, if the petrified expression on her gaunt and elderly face was anything to go by. He didn't cry when he found her; he'd simply felt a heavy hollowness deep inside his ribcage as he looked down at her lifeless body. He'd leaned over and gently closed her eyes, then went downstairs to the drawing room to write a letter to Dumbledore, requesting a few days off to arrange her funeral.
Though he'd never been particularly close to his mother, for she was always a distant and withdrawn woman for as long as Severus had known her, a quiet pang of sadness rippled through his chest as he looked down at the photo. Her face bore an unreadable expression; not quite happiness but not quite sadness, either. Severus could see in this photo how much he resembled her, in the awkward jut of her cheekbones, the sharpness of her jaw, the hard angles of her chin. She hadn't been a particularly attractive woman, but nor had she been ugly. The same could have been said for his father; Severus was simply unlucky enough to have had inherited the most unappealing of both his parents' physical traits.
He set the photo aside and began rifling through the letters. Some were in envelopes, some were simply folded in half. They were faded with age and held a subtle musty smell similar to that of old books. He unfolded one of the letters - the paper was as delicate as a flower petal, ready to rip and tear at the slightest rough touch after years of being folded and unfolded, read and reread - and a frown creased in his brow as he read his late father's messy, scrawly writing.
His father was poor at spelling. Some words were crudely scribbled out and rewritten, only to be scribbled out and rewritten again, each as equally misspelt as the last. But, much to Severus' intrigue, they were not dismissive, nasty, hurtful words, like he'd only known his father to truly ever speak. Rather, they were tender words, gentle words; words of young love and infatuation. Severus realised he was reading a love letter his father had written to his mother, dated several months before Severus was born.
He folded the letter and set it aside with the photo and continued perusing through the rest. Each letter was as heartfelt as the one before, detailing dreams Tobias Snape had had for both himself and Eileen Prince; dreams of travelling the world together, of kissing under the stars, of growing old together and promising to love her until the day he died.
Severus only made it through five letters before he decided he didn't want to read anymore. This Tobias Snape who wrote love letters to Eileen Prince was a complete stranger to him; a ghost of the father he could have had. Should have had. He didn't like the way it was unsettling him, causing the pit of his stomach to twist with sad unease for his mother. To think that she was once all that his father adored, only to become the very thing he chastised, belittled, ignored, physically abused… To think that Tobias had once seemed so enamoured with Eileen and the dream of having a family with her, only to turn dismissive contempt, for whatever inscrutable reasons, towards Severus from the moment he was old enough to start walking.
No, he didn't want to read any more. And he realised, as he sifted through the rest of the photographs - photos of his father with his arm around his mother, photos of his parents smiling, laughing, looking at each other with lovesick eyes - that he didn't want to find what other tales of heartbreak lay amongst the bundle of sentimental memories. He didn't want to think about his mother sitting upon this very spot on the bed, reading and rereading these letters while lost in aching despair for happier times. Gathering everything up, he shoved it all into a bundle and began retying the string around it.
He suddenly stopped in the middle of doing so. Sitting there on his parents' old bed, the smell of his mother's perfume and makeup still lingering in the room as though her pensive, vacant presence was still haunting it, Severus wondered for a moment if he ought to save these letters - not for his father's sake but for his mother's. But, he thought to himself, she was gone. Her sadness and loneliness was gone. And these letters were nothing but remnants of her sorrow and unspoken heartache.
Standing up from the bed, he dropped all but the photo of her on the mattress, loose and untied, to be collected later and burnt in the hearth in the drawing room. He took one final look at the photo of his mother before tucking it away in his tunic. That, he would keep. Taking up his wand, he returned to the dresser and resumed clearing out her clothes from the drawers. He would take them down to the local opportunity shop for some other poor family to make use of, and then he'd come home, make a pot of tea and throw the letters in the fire.
→ response to a muse prompt from musewrite
musewrite