Written for Hogwarts' DADA Assignment: Write about someone using the Crutiatus Curse and why he/she does it. Please try to also focus on their thoughts and emotions while casting the curse, (word) twilight and for the Snape Appreciation Weekend: write about Snape days as a Death Eater.

While it's lovely that he became a spy, I think too many people forget that as a Death Eater, Snape most probably participated in rather horrendous crimes, and the fact that he was creepily in love with Lily and couldn't let go doesn't make up for any of his numerous faults.

Word count: 1951

and you shall eat dust all the days of your life

It was barely after twilight when Severus Apparated to his destination, the location engraved in his mind after years spent there. Home, some would have called it, but Hogwarts had always been a kinder home to Severus than the house he had grown up in.

Two Death Eaters were there already, and though they wore masks Severus identified them easily.

It would have been hard not to: Bellatrix Black - or was it Lestrange already? - had messy black hair that Severus would recognize anywhere (she was, after all, one of the only female Death Eaters to go on raids), and she held herself with a certain poise that was simply unmistakeable. As for her companion… Well, Severus only knew of one blonde who took such care of his long hair.

"Severus," Lucius greeted him smoothly, nodding lightly in his direction. Beside him, Bellatrix bounced on her feet excitedly, wand already held at the ready. Severus would bet anything she was grinning wildly underneath her mask.

"Lucius, Bellatrix," Severus said, nodding at them in greeting swiftly.

"Ready to serve our Lord?" Bellatrix asked, giggling madly.

"Of course," Severus replied, indignant that she would ever suggest otherwise. "Anything to help his great cause."

The language was perhaps a bit flowery for this liking, but the devotion Severus felt was real. The Dark Lord was the only person to recognize Severus' worth, to see that he could be more than his unfortunate birth. He was the one who had promised Severus revenge on his Muggle father, revenge for all the years of abuse he and his mother had endured, revenge for his mother's death.

The freedom to experiment with his own spells and potions was equally appealing, and though he regretted that Lily - dear, sweet Lily - and he had parted ways, that Lily hadn't been able to see that Severus would have done anything for her, that they could have been glorious together, he didn't regret this path he had chosen.

If only Potter hadn't come in between them! The thought lit the fire of his rage anew, as it did every time he heard the name of that idiotic Gryffindor, and Severus clenched his fists, seething.

"You're angry," Bellatrix pointed out with glee. "That's good, we can use that."

"Since we're all here, shouldn't we get going?" Lucius drawled, sounding bored.

"Impatient, aren't we?" Bellatrix laughed, but it was hard to tell who she was laughing at: Lucius, or Severus himself. "Let's go then. Snape, why don't you take the lead? You're the one who knows where we're going, after all."

Her voice, high-pitched and mocking, grated on Severus' ears, but he forged on ahead. "This way," he said calmly, leading them toward the house his mother had died in. The house his father still lived in, undoubtedly drinking his money away.

As they walked the short path there, Severus tightened his grip on his wand. This was finally happening: he was going to kill his own father, his own personal monster. His heart spead up in his chest, palms sweating until he had to wipe them on his robes so as not to lose his grip on his wand.

What would he do to his father when he saw him, he wondered. Torture, certainly, as an immediate death would be too kind, but what kind of torture would be fitting? Should Severus try one of his own spells? But what if they didn't work? This was to be his initiation - he couldn't afford the embarrassment of having his own spells fail to hurt his father or they might start questioning his commitment.

No, perhaps it was better to go with the classics.

"Any advice?" he asked evenly as they reached the front door, turning to Bellatrix. "I hear you're quite the expert at casting Unforgivable curses."

Bellatrix preened, as Severus had known she would.

"It's really not that hard," Lucius interjected, only to be abruptly interrupted by Bellatrix.

"He asked me, Lucius," she hissed. "Besides, I'd be surprised if your Cruciatus did anything more than tickle your victims. You've always been too much of a wimp to do more - what my sister sees in you, I'll never know."

"I guess it's lucky that our Lord values me for more than merely torturing Muggles then," Lucius replied haughtily.

"I am helping Him get rid of the filth that covers this world!" Bellatrix snapped. "What have you done for Him, apart from bribing your way through life?"

The tip of her wand was starting to glow a sickly grey, while Lucius' had taken on a purple hue that told Severus that his two escorts were mere moments away from cursing each others.

Luckily - for them - the door opened just then.

"And what's this ruckus about!" Tobias Snape yelled drunkenly, nose red and pupils blown from too much alcohol. His breath could be smelled even through their masks, and Severus' nose wrinkled.

Bellatrix moved faster than anyone else Severus had ever seen. In the span on that one sentence, she had spun on her feet, raised her wand and yelled, "Immobilus!"

Blue-white light flashed as Tobias froze where his stood.

"Hello, father," Severus stated. "Mind if we come in? My friends and I have come such a long way to see you, we wouldn't want them not to feel welcome, now, would we?"

Only Tobias' eyes could move, and from the way they jerked around frantically, he very much did mind. Still, Severus ignored him and pushed his way past him, a wordless Mobilicorpus ensuring he followed after them.

It felt good to use magic to banish all the furniture out of the living-room, dropping his father's body on the dirty floor panels. "Mufflatio," he said, silencing the room. This spell, at least, he knew worked, having used it often enough at Hogwarts.

"Wouldn't want the neighbors to interrupt us, would we?" he said, delighting in the way his father's eyes twitched even more frantically. He could see his neck muscles bulging, straining against the force that was keeping him restrained to no avail. Severus smiled as he took off his mask. He had never felt more powerful in his entire life, nor more righteous, and he wanted his father to see his face as he died. He wanted his face to be the last thing the man saw in this world.

Lucius and Bellatrix stood back, positioned so that they formed a triangle to which Severus was the third corner, with Tobias at its center. Their wands were raised, and he could feel the same eager and sick excitement Severus was feeling coming from them as well.

"So, Bellatrix, any advice?" he asked again, wand raised. Its tip was already shining, the pale light enough to put panic on his father's face.

She laughed. "Use your anger," she said, the words rolling on her tongue like she was savoring them. "Use your rage. You have to want to cause him pain, want it like you've never wanted anything in your life before."

Well, that wasn't hard at all. "Crucio," Severus spat, orange-red light spilling out of his wand and striking the frozen man at his feet.

There were no words to describe how powerful Severus felt. It was intoxicating, knowing that he held another man's life, another man's sanity in his hands like this; that with just a single words from him, he could cause pain or end it. He felt like a god.

"I want to hear him scream," Bellatrix said, pout as audible in her voice as her enjoyment of this voice. "Make him scream."

Licking his lips, Severus nodded. He lifted the spell, and cancelled the one she had cast on Tobias to immobilize him. It was like watching a puppet whose strings were cut - Tobias collapsed instantly, limbs trembling as he moaned and strangled on curses Severus didn't need to hear to remember.

"Crucio," Severus cast again before his father could do more than try to regain control of his breathing.

The screams were ear-piercing, and yet they felt empowering, filling that dark space inside Severus' chest. More, he needed it to hurt more.

The curse responded to his wishes, rage and delight flooding his veins until his lips parted in a savage smile as his father writhed on the ground, limbs bending in almost unnatural ways, nails digging into the floor and breaking, leaving bloody streaks in their wake.

His father was pathetic like this. He didn't look scary at all, with drool pooling out of his mouth, mouth stretched into a pained rictus and red eyes rolling in their sockets. He had pissed himself too, the liquid forming a dark stain on his crotch, and suddenly Severus' anger eased, leaving pity in its place.

He lifted the curse, catching his breath. He felt high, and like he had ran ten times around the Quidditch pitch at Hogwarts, but the pity didn't leave, settling in his stomach like poison.

That made him mad - not at his father, but at himself. What was wrong with him, that he couldn't even hate this, this Muggle properly?

Use your anger, Bellatrix had said; but she had never said who Severus needed to be angry at, and luckily there were quite a few people he was angry at. His father didn't have the luxury of that.

"Well?" Bellatrix scoffed from her corner. "Is that all you've got? I bet even Lucius could do better than that!"

"I'm thinking," Severus replied curtly. "This feels too easy," he added, and yes, the fire-hot twinge of twisted pleasure was back in his stomach now.

"You're a freak," Tobias spat from the ground, blood dripping slowly from his bitten lips. "You should've never been born, I should've thrown you and your bitch of a mother out the moment she told me about her magic." He said the word magic like it was dirty, and Severus' blood boiled in his veins.

Tobias didn't laugh at his own words for long - Bellatrix snapped a Cruciatus curse the instant he stopped talking, laughing herself as he started screaming again.

"Bella," Lucius cautioned, "he's not yours to play with."

For a moment, Severus thought she would protest, but in the end her shoulders dropped and she ended the spell, taking a step back and resuming her position.

"Your turn," she told Severus, amusement ringing in her voice.

He hadn't planned on using his own spells any more than he already had, but this was his father. His pain called for something special - it was such a shame he hadn't thought to bring any poison, that could have been fun.

As his father heaved on the ground, Severus crept in a little closer.

"Going to kill me now, boy? Going to kill your own father?" the man spat.

"Yes," Severus stated, because that was the truth.

"Do it then. Do it." His father's eyes were mad already, and Severus would have thought it caused by the pain if they hadn't always looked like this. "DO IT!" Tobias yelled again, voice breaking down in raspy sobs.

Severus sneered and stepped back, raising his wand again. "I don't think so. Not yet, anyway. I think I want to see you bleed first." He smiled, a grotesque thing that didn't reach his eyes. "Sectusempra," he whispered, voice soft as a lover's caress.

Tobias' screams echoed well into the night after that, silenced only moments before dawn. He didn't die then, though. No, his voice had merely been too broken for screams at that point, but Severus still had some spells to try out.