Severus Snape .⋆♱

The flickers of candlelight inside the empty Potions classroom cast long, distorted shadows across the stone floor. Severus Snape stood entirely frozen in the dark corner by his desk, staring into the jagged piece of a cracked hand-mirror he had confiscated weeks ago.Slowly, his pale fingers moved up to trace the crooked, irregular line of his nose. The glass was fractured right across the center, splitting his reflection. To his own eyes, it only emphasized what he had hated for decades. The harsh lines, the uneven slope, the prominent hook that made him look more like a dark creature than a man.

"Look at that profile. Honestly, it looks like a broken vulture. No wonder he hides away down here in the dark.”

The comment hadn't been a loud outburst. It was a sneering murmur from a fourth-year Slytherin right at the end of class, shared with a group of giggling classmates as they packed away their cauldrons. Severus had slammed his ledger shut, his dark eyes flashing with pure malice as he handed out a week of grueling detentions scrubbing dragon dung. He had swept past them, his cloak billowing, projecting an aura of absolute terror.But the armor had stripped away the moment the heavy dungeon doors locked out the rest of Hogwarts. The word vulture throbbed in his chest, pulling up old ghosts from his own school days, of being pushed into the dirt, mocked, and made to feel completely grotesque

He heard footsteps approaching