They're so beautiful. A blonde with cornflower eyes and a smile like an angel, and a daughter, the spitting image of her, without a trace of her father's dark features.

Severus Snape feels the ache in his chest, as he has everyday for the last fourteen years. How he misses them. How he'd like to have the courage to leave all this behind and go be with them. Picking up the photograph he keeps on his desk, the photograph that breaks and twists his heart, he strokes the face of his wife.

"Oh, Janna," he whispers, feeling a tear slide down his cheek, able to let his feelings show now he was alone. A whirlwind of emotion spins in his head, the irritability and coldness brought about by represing his feelings slips as he makes himself relive it, again, as he always does.

Getting home, he'd found a note from Janna to tell him to go to Lucius' when he got home from work - they'd gone to see Draco, Lucius' newborn. He'd raised his eyebrows, wondered why he felt afraid so suddenly. Malfoy couldn't have found out that he and Janna had discussed him leaving the Death Eaters - and even if he had, it was only a discussion. Tempting as it was, Severus couldn't put his family in the danger that leaving the service of the Dark Lord would bring. Sighing, he apparated to the Malfoy's mansion.

The sight had taken him a few moments to comprhend. First was disbelief, then shock, then numbness and incompehension. His family lay of the floor in twin pools of blood, Janna unconcious, Quisty crying. Severus' mouth opned, but nothing came out. No scream, no cry - this was grief beyond expression that tore apart his heart. Staggering over to his daughter, dropping to his knees next to her, his mind wondered vauguely what to do. He shouldn't move her - but she was dying. He couldn't save her, couldn't get help in time. All he could do was hold her.

"Daddy," she whispered through her tears. "Hurts."

Severus felt a tear slide down his own cheek, but still could not articulate the sounds of his grief. "It'll be over soon, Quisty." The calmness of his voice disgusted him.

"Mummy?"

"You'll be with her soon. I love you, Quisty."

"I love you, Da." Her eyes closed, never again to see the world which had fascinated her so.

"No," he'd whispered. "Please. No. Don't leave me," he'd whispered, moe tears falling down his cheek. Looking over at Janna, he saw her chest was still. A sense of utter loneliness and desolation filled him, but even that seemed remote. Everything seemed... so remote.

Laughter filled the hall, bringing Severus back to reality. Shaking and numb, he looked up to see who could laugh at this sight, the sight of his life destroyed utterly, his heart broken irreperably. Lucius Malfoy stood there, a smirk on his face and a gun in his hand.

"I think a quick death like Avada Kedarva would bring too good for traitorous bitches like them, don't you? Muggle's come in handy sometimes," he added, looking at the gun. He then grinned brightly, eyes shining insanely. "But now you're not thinking of leaving us, are you, Severus?"

Snape found himself shaking his head, unable to do anything else.

"Good." He paused, then gave an ugly twist of his lips. "Janna screamed my name, begged me to spare her daughter. Such a shame a pretty thing like your daughter had to die," he said, before laughing hysterically.

Severus hadn't been able to cope with the knowledge that this man - his friend since school, Janna's friend, their daughter's godfather, had shot his family, and laughed at them as they bled before him. Get them out of here. Just leave. Get them away. He stood shakily, pulled his wand out and muttered a Levitation spell. Horror started to seep in behind the nervousness.

"I'm going now," he muttered, staring at the bodies of two he'd loved more than any other.

"Don't forget the meeting next week," Lucius said brightly. "I know you're going to be there, arent you?"

"I'll be there," Severus whispered, and Apparated home, wife and child following him through the connection with his wand. The house was dark, but Severus could see the bodies of his family floating still. Lowering them to the couches, his numbness broke and the horror of what had happened, the grief, was realised. He screamed, then sobbed all night over their bodies, wishing desperately for them to move, for him to wake up, for all of this to be a bad dream. He'd finally slipped into a fevered sleep, and when he'd awoken, sent an owl to Dumbledore at Hogwarts with promise of doing what he could to bring the Dark Lord down.

Head down on the desk, he wept. Those few moments he'd not been able to weep for his family were now made up for by fourteen years of weeping. But nothing would bring them back to him. And so he remained cold. He wouldn't be hurt again.

*~Finis~*