A Chance to Rewrite

With tear-streaked cheeks, Severus found himself wandering aimlessly down a familiar, dark, and dreary hallway. His feet had carried him back to a place he once revered—a place that now felt like purgatory: the Slytherin dungeons.

Slytherin had once meant everything to him. It was a house of ambition, cunning, and power, the epitome of everything he’d dreamed of as a lonely, ostracized boy. A place where he might finally belong. But as the truths from the Harry Potter books clawed at his mind, the very walls that had once offered him solace now suffocated him.

He was never meant to belong.

The bitter reality was inescapable. He was a half-blood in a house that idolized pureblood supremacy, forever destined to be an outsider. The irony wasn’t lost on him—he had clung to Slytherin as a lifeline, only to realize it had been a noose all along.

“Hey, mudblood!”

The taunt shattered his spiraling thoughts. Severus halted mid-step, his breath hitching. His sleeve, worn and frayed, shakily wiped at the tears on his face.

His eyes, reddened by his tears, looked up to see an unwelcome face.

“Oi, are you crying?”

Mulciber’s voice rang with mockery, drawing closer.

Severus’s throat tightened. “No,” he murmured, though his hoarse voice betrayed him.

Mulciber smirked, his arrogance palpable as he closed the distance. “Your ugly red, watery eyes say otherwise.”

Severus didn’t reply. His mind felt like a swirling cauldron of emotions—too raw, too exposed.

“I didn’t think you could cry,” Mulciber sneered. “Thought you were too much of a slimy little snake for that.”

Severus clenched his fists, but his voice came out flat. “Think whatever you like.”

The indifferent reply only seemed to fuel Mulciber’s disdain. He stepped closer, his sneer widening. “Man of few words as always, eh? That’s no fun.”

When Severus still didn’t react, Mulciber’s smirk twisted into something uglier. With a swift motion, he spat, the slimy glob landing on Severus’s cheek and oozing down.

The hallway seemed to freeze. Severus stood stock still, his black eyes unreadable as the saliva trailed toward his jawline. Slowly, methodically, he pulled a napkin from his pocket and wiped it away.

His lack of response unnerved Mulciber. The usual fire in Severus’s gaze had been extinguished, replaced by a hollow, soulless stare.

From Mulciber’s point of view, Severus seemed soulless, yet calm and collected at the same time. However, if Mulciber looked a bit more carefully, he would have noticed the slight tremble in Severus’ bony hands.

“You don’t even care, do you?” Mulciber’s voice wavered, just slightly. 

Severus finally met his gaze, his voice soft yet cutting. “Is that what you want? For me to care?”

Tears began to well in his eyes again, spilling over and washing away the last remnants of Mulciber’s spit. His face remained eerily calm as the tears fell freely, his expression unnervingly blank.

“Better?” Severus asked, his voice steady despite the tears.

Although the tears flowed, Severus’ eyes didn’t shine.

Mulciber recoiled slightly, unnerved by the bizarre display. He sneered, though it lacked conviction. “That’s good enough. I don’t have time to waste on mudbloods like you.”

Turning on his heel, Mulciber stalked off, his pace brisk. Severus watched his retreat, his dark gaze tracking the figure until it disappeared around a corner.

Alone again, Severus let out a shaky breath. He clutched the potion book that had fallen from his hands during the altercation, his fingers tracing its worn cover. He pressed it against his chest as if to anchor himself, his heart a leaden weight in his chest.

Severus slumped onto the floor. He couldn’t take the heavy weight that was burdened on his chest anymore.

What was all this effort for? This painstaking attempt to lay low, to endure humiliation, to fade into the background—what had it gained him? He had hoped this approach would grant him the freedom to rewrite his story, to sidestep the chains of misery the original Severus had borne. He had hoped to defy the bleak narrative etched in the pages of those books, where his life was meticulously dissected and steeped in tragedy. But no matter how he tried to deviate, no matter how he strove to rewrite his fate, it felt as though he was failing miserably.

Instead of liberation, he had merely exchanged one set of chains for another. These new bonds felt heavier, stronger, dragging him deeper into a purgatory from which there seemed no escape. Pain, it seemed, was inescapable—woven into the very fabric of his existence.

Severus’ eyes hardened, his grip on the book tightening.

Why did he still have to live in tragedy when all he had done was try to change for the better? He had endured the unrelenting abuse of his monster of a father. He had survived the soul-crushing weight of poverty, the jeers, and the scorn of a world that seemed hell-bent on breaking him. Even now, with the odds stacked against him, he had tried to carve out a new path, to rewrite the story that had been written for him.

He hadn’t called Lily a Mudblood. He hadn’t fought with the Marauders. He let them humiliate him without retaliation, enduring their one-sided torment in silence.

He didn’t join the Death Eaters, and he didn’t try hard to fit in with his peers. He purposely didn’t try to stand out, knowing his talent would get him recruited. 

He tried to distance himself from everyone, but it seemed like he could never escape fate that intertwined them together. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t rewrite this story after all.

A chance to rewrite…

The last words from the back of his last Harry Potter book rang in his mind. A sentence that gave him a little spark of hope which illuminated his dark days, diminished in a second.

Severus began to laugh maniacally, in the desolate dungeons, his voice echoing against the stone walls. What a joke. He never had a chance to rewrite in the first place.

If he had no chance to rewrite, he would do his best to demolish everything around him.