On the rare occasions when he has nothing to do, Severus Snape sits back in his armchair by the fire and thinks idly of his betrayal.

Fifteen years ago, when he threw himself on the mercy of the spindly old man whom he refers to as the Headmaster even in his most private, resentful thoughts, he said it was for Lily's sake. The Headmaster had believed him. He had every reason to. It was after all he who had allowed Snape to remain at Hogwarts after James Potter discovered what Snape had done.

Snape knows, now, that what he felt for Lily was not love. It was need, somehow, a need he has never cared to probe, especially since he has never felt anything like it since. His carelessness made James Potter a hero and a head boy, and made Snape the laughing stock of the entire school. He still feels annoyed about it, though no longer ashamed: that he was able, at 17, to make a love potion that actually worked should really be something of which to be proud.

Afterwards, when he saw the pity in her eyes, his need for her calcinated. Anger he could have coped with. So it was not a remnant of his need for Lily Potter née Evans that had made him turn away from the Dark Lord. Her death had merely been a convenient excuse, and one that had brought tears to the Headmaster's innocently blue eyes.

It was not even the sex, at least not directly. He did not resent it nor the symbolic submission it entailed. Lucius minded, he knew, and minded most of all that his wife had to submit, too. In their case, the Dark Lord's design was successful; to humiliate his followers, to rip their minds open as brutally as he tore into their bodies.

Snape is too detached to mind. These days, whenever he is penetrated, Snape muses quietly on his greasy hair, his thin, pale frame and the passivity with which he receives the Dark Lord into his body. He knows perfectly well that his rapist can derive no pleasure from the act. Though Snape is revolted, it is not because of the sex.

What disgusts him begins with the man's lack of control. The gasps and high-pitched noises he makes as he pounds into Snape. The sweat that trickles down his emaciated chest. The lack of dignity as he collapses onto the bed afterwards.

Yet even this could have been tolerated.

What Snape cannot accept is the Dark Lord's evident need for other people. His need to impose his will on others, his need to see pain or love in their eyes. Had he been aloof, distanced, devoid of emotions, Snape would have followed him to the ends of the earth. Though he is careful not to let his lips curl in disdain, he despises this weakness. He despises the Dark Lord's inability to cut himself off in spite of the fact that it is quite easy to do so. Snape has.