Love and Hatred: Chapter 1

 

Author's Note: This a slash-suggestive journal of Severus Snape, Potions Master and Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts

 

Journal,

 

I have always prided myself on my inability to feel sentiment beyond the grief following the death of the love of my youth fifteen years ago. But I have found that I can no longer do so. I have not been able to do so for quite some time, though I only grudgingly admit it to myself, now, because I can no longer ignore it. Harry Potter, the thorn that has become excruciatingly lodged within the musculature of my side, the bane of my existence, has become the person on which the very beating of my shrivelled black heart depends, most assuredly.

 

When exactly the transition from loathing to this....this....this abominable sentiment occurred, I could not possibly say. I did not even realize it was happening, and, now, it is far too late to abort the metamorphosis that occurred within the depths of my chest. When I approach him while his back is turned, I find it so indescribably simple to loathe him, for he looks the spitting image of his father from behind, but it is his frontal visage that destroys that loathing.

 

Everyone, even that damnable fool, Horace Slughorn, remarks on how similar he looks to the bastard that sired him, but it is only those deplorable spectacles that make him so. Without them, he looks nothing like that scoundrel. Harry’s face is softened by the bone structure and musculature inherited from his mother. His eyes are twice as expressive as any that I have seen in these many years and, even now, I long to see them again, to lose myself in their emerald green fathomless depths.

  

When he makes a mistake, I tell him he is a waste of space, but, inwardly, he means far more to me than the entire world. It is inherently clichéd, I realize, but I cannot help but think it...feel it. When he glares at me, I want nothing more than to latch on to him and kiss his face until his glare becomes a blush and a smile. When he is surrounded by that drivelling parcel of imbecilic dunderheads, I want to steal him away, and surround him with more refined company – members of the European Defence Society, for example.

 

When he is infuriated, I want to calm him. When he is miserable, I wish I had the talent to tell a joke and make him laugh. When he laughs, I want him to laugh more. When he smiles, I want him to never stop. When he puts himself in danger, I want to give him a clout for having scared me half to death, loathe though I am to admit to such an ungainly sentiment as fear.

 

The simple truth is that I want him. I want him. I love him. I hate him for making me feel this vile thing inside me. I hate myself for having developed it. I hate myself, now, more than I ever have in the history of my life, and that, to say the least, is a considerable amount. I cannot abide the shame now welling inside me, waiting to be ignited, but I must. I must continue to be this persona I have perfected these many long years, for I have a mission to accomplish; a mission that will ensure his survival.

 

I must destroy the boy’s only grandfatherly figure, at the man’s own request. Harry’s hatred for me will increase tenfold as a result of the despicable crime I will commit. My self-loathing will increase by twice that.

 

But I must do it.

 

For him.

 

Always for him.