Of Slytherin Descent (Snape/reader)

Prologue: Beginning of the End

The silence pierced my ears like a pin drop in a sanctuary. My heart beat is pounding, seeming to echo in the small boat house of Hogwarts castle, it's as though my heart wants to rip itself out of the confinement of my ribs.
I stare at the man in front of me, the one who I've been falling in love with ever so slowly over the last year.
I watch the bridge of his pointed nose, his ever so hollow cheeks that fall in comparison to his high cheek bones. His long black hair. I see his eyes, brown but almost black, fading ever so slowly.
I watch as the blood, sweat, and tears cause his long, tangled hair to cling to his face, almost hiding the pained expression.
My heart is too numb to weep, but too hurt to block out my pain. My mind burdens me with denial as I sit there in a desperate attempt, not knowing whether to cling to him as if it will bring him back to life, try to stop the bleeding, or simply just try to memorize every single one of his features as if it's the last I'll be graced with witnessing them.

At first I don't hear it...but as I feel my lips part as I hear the hoarse screams leaving my mouth in panic, I feel the sobs recking my body into a fetal position, leaving my lungs in a desperate clasp for breath.
All of the memories, the life we had together, gone in a heartbeat; taken by a selfish, power-hungry man with no soul left to comprehend genuine humanity.
The man before me was the angel of my life and the demon on my shoulder; he brought me the best and the worst of himself and I accepted them as equals. Both lived in my heart equally, just as he had.
I've lived a thousand lives and yet I didn't draw my first breath until I met him. If the world ended his name would be the last on my lips, and I would all but savor it. Yet death has played me in a newer and crueler way, not by taunting me with its sweet relief, but by greedily ripping away the only real reason I had to live after so long of being cursed with immortality.
The heart of mine that I had all but handed the man in front of me was reflected in his dying eyes...and was the last thing I remember seeing.

-------------------------

All of a sudden I'm ripping my sweat-covered body from under the covers that seem to have been holding me captive in my nightmares.
I breath heavily, clinging to myself for search of comfort.
It takes a few minutes for me to calm myself once again, realizing that I'm simply being taunted by my own subconscious yet again.
I've been consistently having nightmares since I was cursed with immortality years back. Some of my former life, some of simple and meaningless things, and some of what seem to be so real....
I was not blessed to forget my previous life, I know who I left behind, who I loved, yet it is all lost.
I made a selfish deal with death in my naive youth-burdened mind. Yet I still pay the price.
I get up, petting my owl who I've startled awake and get a glass of water to soothe my aching throat. The screaming must have also been occurring outside the dream.
I check the time and realize that it's roughly 5 in the morning, so there's no point in going back to sleep, or at least that's what I tell myself. Deep down I know that my mind will avoid sleep at all cost in the fear of nightmares.
I really had not meant to fall asleep, I simply go until I can no longer manage, though I do know better by now. The nightmares are inevitable.
They were not new to me. Even in my morality, they haunted me. At a young age I suffered with anxiety crawling out of my own mind and into my dreams due to my rough childhood. Although the nightmares I have now are more meaningful, not of instilled fear, but the unknown. I simply must accept them.
I breathe in and out slowly to stop my racing heart as I begin to get ready for the day. I dress in the standard black robes, with a little almost gothic flare to them, I add my combat boots for good measure.
Today is the day I start the next phase of the life under the name I've been using the last couple decades; I'm quitting my job at the ministry and beginning at Hogwarts.
I met Dumbledore back when he was in his fifties(when he became headmaster); I fell victim to his charm and we became quick friends. I confided in him if my Slytherin blood and how I've been cursed with immortality; how I've run from it. Since then he has repeatedly offered me a life at Hogwarts in hopes to provide me with a permanent abode from which I don't have to run.
I've finally taken him up on his offer, so I can quit being an auror as I have been for a while now. I just hope I don't regret it, I've heard rumors that the DADA position is utterly cursed. Perhaps me being cursed and the cursed position will cancel out....
I laugh dryly to my self....

Perhaps not.