Survivor

Chapter 1 - A Rude Awakening.

A quick authors note; Please note that this fic deals with sensitive topics such as rape and domestic abuse, with a small mention of self-injury and suicidal thoughts. I have tried to keep the graphics to a minimum, though themes are present throughout.

This is purely fictional and an original story. The characters, as always, do not belong to me. All errors are my own. H.x 

She looked like an ethereal cherub as she lay unconscious in his bed, a far cry from the blood stained cloaks and the thick metal masks that he was accustomed to. Everything about their situation was forbidden. Hermione shouldn't even be in his bed, whether she was aware of it or not. Severus pulled a face, if she weren't unconscious, she wouldn't be anywhere within a 5 mile radius of him right now. It wasn't that being near her old potions professor intimidated her, it was more that fact that she still strongly believed that he was responsible for everything that had happened to her. Severus Snape was a liar and a traitor. His name was rightly thrown onto the ground and crushed by a pair of heavy mud-stained boots.

Severus was in a predicament that would make Hermione's problems seem like insignificant tiffs. Everything he did had to be planned out, even to the most minuscule detail. Control was the bane of his life. Ironically, it was also the reason he was still alive. Severus was a control freak, although not naturally. It had started when Dumbledore had asked him to delve into espionage, and he had accepted, naively believing that his role would not last more than a few weeks. Severus despised being wrong by any standard, but this was unreal. He had let himself down and he always felt the need to punish himself for his mistakes. However, it would appear that life had been punishment enough.

Killing Dumbledore had been punishment enough. Severus had started Hogwarts having been bullied into submission from his father. There was nothing that could shame a wizard more than being defeated by someone who had no magical powers. The emotional torment had allowed the darkness to fester in his mind like mistletoe, and was slowly sucking the life out of him. The physical pain was much harder to hide when he was sharing a dormitory with four other prepubescent males. He vowed never to remove his cloak in the presence of another person. This made it difficult for him to be intimate with witches.

The tragedy was, that during his time at Hogwarts his heart had been ripped from his chest and drowned in The Black Lake, only to be forgotten among its depths. Seeing the girl he loved, fall in love with an arrogant and self-centered bully had been enough to remove all of the color from Snape's world. What did she see in the man that had stuck Severus's head down the toilet more times than he could count? Whilst she would remain ignorant, Snape's vision was crystal clear. Stealing was frowned upon in magical society, and for repeated offense one could find oneself with a sentence to complete in Azkaban. In his opinion, James Potter should have been behind bars before they had even left school, and at the full mercy of The Dementors.

Close to two decades later, James and Lily were dead and the name "Potter" still made Snape's skin crawl. Teaching the brat for seven years had been bad enough, but after the rise of The Dark Lord, the name "Potter" had made its way to the most common word in his vernacular. He would gladly allow Bellatrix to dissect his balls off if he didn't have to hear the word "Potter" again. No matter how much he had asked her, she still wouldn't divulge. Snape had his own suspicions about the dealings and goings on between Bellatrix Lestrange and The Dark Lord, but he didn't feel the need to get in between them. Bella had already made attempts to bed Severus over the years, and he had a relatively educated guess about whom she had offered her services to after he had let her down.

A muggle siren from outside his window had interrupted his thoughts, causing him to be ejected up the rabbit hole that he was wandering down. His book lay open on his lap, and the witch on the bed beside him didn't appear to have moved. Hermione was a pretty witch, but in a completely different way to Lily.