The Tale of the Black Knight: The Mark

I Promised Father

Severus feared what the future would hold.

He always had ever since...

That lonely home after weeks of being empty after the inevitable, the first few nights there left him numbed at the realization that he wasn't alone anymore.

She had fallen deep asleep long before he had arrived back in Cokeworth with her, soon soothed by the quiet after the horrors she had to endure at so young an age. The door was sealed shut and she was so quiet, even as she lightly breathed whilst he carried her inside. Lamps and candles lit up with life as if at the apparent arrival of his own presence. This time, the bundle he held made a worried sound, prompting him to hush her, gently. If he had spoken, his voice would have sounded cracked for his heart was still very broken. Bringing the girl with him, he sat upon the cold bed, finding it truly painful to even consider setting her down. At first, he couldn't understand it.
Why was she clutching so tightly to him? Her parents, James and Lily, both been completely obliterated and their child had him as if she had known him so shortly after her birth.

"Please..." was all he could muster, but her clinging did not let off.
"Do not do this to me..." he shuddered under tightened breath. "I'm not—"

He felt dread try to leak into his voice.
"I am not."

Despite not being in his right mind, he had his wits about him just enough to notice that the child was becoming uncomfortable. She was in need of nourishment once more. After painfully long weeks, gladly, there was something. He had just the thing...

He reached for something, and in a croaked tone he spoke an incantation... All the while the baby was staring right up at him. It was not that he did not notice her. Rather, it was far too painful for him. The child had her eyes. His only friend's green eyes who once glanced at him with divine fury at one point. He couldn't look at her. If he did, he wouldn't be able to take any more.

An odd sort of plant vine or stem floated over to him from a single trunk and its own blood was then squeezed out into a vial, it seemed. The daughter kept her eyes on his alabaster face in the dark, listening to his pained voice whisper to her.

"No. I am not... who you believe me to be." he began, finally finding his voice. "Of all the cruelty in the world denying me of this right to hang on to this thin strand of hope. Am I to be free of this bind? Am I to keep you from the same fate as I? After all of my failures... Your mother would recoil in disgust and your father would be laughing at my torment... as he always done."

He brought forward what looked like a makeshift bottle, with something atop of it to suffice as a nipple. It almost looked like some kind of flower. As Severus closely held her, he brought it to her hungry mouth and she began to suckle.

Those eyes struck him still, as if caught in a sudden hex. With his dark eyes strained with agony while hers were softened with love, he couldn't deny her the moment. She drank and stared, longingly, in silence, only giving little grunts as she swallowed. Soon, she sighed, feeling much better. She was relaxed which in turn helped him. Severus was left stunned, but his gaze became more drawn still hanging on to sorrow.

"If only you knew. If you knew, you would not be looking at me like this."

His own self loathing could only go so far. As soon as she was asleep once again, he delicately summoned enough strength to set her down to rest and for a moment, he was alone with his thoughts. His dreadful thoughts~ Of course, they would have overtaken him if he had not caught onto a strange presence in the room with them. In the corner of his eye, there seemed to be a white light of sorts... with almost the same light as a patronus. Yet, when he looked to see, it was then gone.