Simmering to a Boil

[starduchess]

Title: Simmering to a Boil
Rating: R
Word Count: 344
Warnings: hint of child abuse
Originally written for snape_ldws prompt: wrath, but I didn't feel it was violent enough so wrote something else. This really incorporates all the sins, so it is a good wrap-up for the set.

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With each passing second that his father's yells reverberated through the house, a melody supported by the steadily pounding rhythm of his fists while his mother's cries laced the air with discordant harmonies, his own tears of inability cascading down his pale face, certain that there was no escape until he could attend Hogwarts at age eleven;

with each passing minute that the kids in his neighborhood taunted and tormented him in retaliation for his accidental magic, which had leapt out from his center and altered the world around them, sending his peers into shrieking fits of panic and dismay, his own loss of control driving him mad;

with each passing hour that Potter and Black mocked and tripped and jinxed and schemed against him, conjuring new and more devious humiliations that ate at his dignity until she had the audacity to come to his defense;

with each passing day that Lily grew more distant from him, bemoaning his other acquaintances, his study of the Dark Arts, his careless use of the hurtful word 'mudblood', even as he desperately tried to cling to the tattered garment of their friendship;

with each passing week that Lily smiled more and more sweetly at him, laughing at his poorly made jokes, his continuing antics, never giving a backwards glance at her old playmate who dropped deeper into despair, pursuing sinister hexes and curses, arcane magic, anything by which to claim power and prestige over his enemies, to reclaim her;

with each passing month that her body grew larger with Potter's child, while she bestowed upon her husband a love that he could never be privy to, would never know;

with each passing moment that an injustice went unchecked another drop of the deadly ingredients anger, hate, fear and suffering were slowly added to a swirling mixture of revenge, the explosive chemistry building to a bursting point of spectacular pain as Severus Snape gave the oath that would forever alter everyone's destinies, his own ferventness burning through the layers of his skin as the Dark Mark claimed him.

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