Temptation
Title: Temptation Author: janus Characters: Severus Snape, The Dark Lord, Lily Rating: R for dark ideas Word Count: 681 Warnings: Dark ideas Summary: At fifteen, with a little help, Severus resists temptation.
Temptation.
Severus believes.
It will be all that he ever wanted. Since boyhood, he has only had one ambition. His Dark Lord has promised. There will be a new world. And in that world everything will be ordered, everything will be correct. Severus sees it as perfect. Those who deserve it will have everything. They will have not just dominion but stewardship.
And his Dark Lord has promised something else that Severus holds close to his chest, precious and shining. It is purpose - a goal. It comforts him through all the violence and social vilification, all the wearying attacks on his integrity. He had promised himself when he had been very young. He had been so young Severus cannot now remember the moment, and his memory is prodigious.
He will be great. He will change the world, scoring it with his own indelible deep mark. He will be remembered. When students parade through the years, their History of Magic textbooks fresh before them, new to school, new to magic, his name will be spoken as inspiration and hope, as example of what one can do with brilliance and diligence. They will hear his name. They will think of him, and their fresh minds with their creativity, hope and potential will soar and expand, and they will change the world, in their turn, to ever greater magic.
And his Dark Lord has promised him a chance. He is brilliant, and he is diligent. His parents and home would have been crippling to someone with less tenacious ambition. They have ruined his blood. They provided no money, no entry into the network of influential connection of old families, old debts and allegiances, old mutual tradition and pride. They have denied him a knowledge of even its trappings - grace, manners, languages, the feel of physical things the others took for granted. He has not known nutritious, attractively prepared food on clean uncracked bone china. He has not known old wood oiled by decades - centuries - of pureblood fingering. He has not known the taste of silver polished or the touch of smooth-woven cloth. He has not known how to speak politely; how to move in counterpoint to others; when to demand and when to serve. His parents have taken his future from him.
So he has clutched his little promise, imagining it bright enough to light his room, his face, and his soul. He has nourished it, fed it, worked for it with all his being. He has nourished it until now, when the Dark Lord has offered back his future, brilliant as he had always known it would be. He has offered fulfilment of all Severus' hungry potential. Recognised it. Needed it. And all Severus' work, on dark curses, on potions, on spells and silent magic has place, value. It is the course, the aim of his life - everything he had always been strives towards that glimmer of success. It is everything. The beginning of his hope had been Slytherin and his companions, where even with only half a heritage, he has belonged for his skill and predilections. The Dark Lord's approval has confirmed it.
He has a chance! A chance to be proud, to be useful, to live.
But there was a girl, her green eyes laughing - even into his - with excitement, when she discovered magic, when she saw a glimpse of the wide infinity of possibility. But there was a girl, her hand warm on his arm. And Severus, when he thought of her, could dream of being understood, wanted, with appreciation and warm humanity. He dared to think he could be welcomed always; that he could give; that he could become better; that he could learn social grace from her gently. He dared to think he might even be loved, because he loved; because he would learn to show love, without fear. He could dream of a different future where he had a place, not from what he could do but because he had his own soul.