Learning to Live

(CHAPTER WARNING: extreme violence)


Chapter 4: Punishment

‘Dumbledore be damned. I’m going to make that fat man pay for what he did to Harry. I may not like the brat, but no one deserves that.’ Severus Snape swept through the cold halls of Hogwarts, moving swiftly to his private chambers. He had spent weeks trying to convince the batty old man to exact some punishment on the man who was supposed to protect Harry, all to no end. So here he was, on his way to do it himself.

Severus had been burning with hate and a sick rage since he had seen the broken boy in that room. He thanked whatever gods that were listening that Petunia had not been involved. His heart wouldn’t have been able to take that betrayal.

In his sitting room, Severus quickly made his way to his secret store of potions, hidden behind a bookcase. He grabbed some very nasty slow acting poisons and an endurance potion, not wanting the bastard to die before he was done. Using a pinch of Floo Powder to get to the Three Broomsticks, the Death Eater apparated to Private Drive, Surry to enact the vengeance all of wizard kind was howling for.


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Arriving just outside the front door of number 4 Private Drive, Severus smiled with sadistic pleasure, anticipating the hours of torture to come. Entering the house, he silently snuck up the stairs to the room he had found Harry in. He looked at the bare furnishings, the now stripped bed, and the blood stained floor. It was a bugger trying to get blood out of wood grain. What surprised him was the sight of Harry’s aunt curled up in a rickety chair. To ensure that his mission remained uncompromised, Snape dripped Dreamless Sleep potion onto the woman’s eyes before placing a soft kiss on her forehead.

With the grim reminder of his purpose, the dark man made his way down the hall, stopping first at the door to Dudley’s room. He entered and was disgusted to see that gelatinous mound of flesh masquerading as a boy snoring away without a care in the world. Popping the cork off of one of his potions vials, Snape poured a drop of Lasting Nightmares potion on each of the child’s eyes, before making a quick exit to his real target.

Sneaking into what he assumed was the master bedroom, Snape found his quarry in bed and snoring. ‘Silencio. Incarcerous. Mobilicorpus.’ Severus effectively gagged and immobilised the fat man with two quick spells, then got the still unconscious body to follow him into the small bathroom, placing him none too gently in the bathtub, waking him up in the process.

Seeing the man’s eyes open and his mouth begin to move silently, all Severus could do was smile when he saw the look of terror flash across Vernon’s purpling face. He closed the door, turned on the light and sat on the toilet, looking at the project ahead of him. “You are an evil man, Vernon Dursley. Evil men must be punished. In this case, the proper authorities are not willing to do what must be done, but I am. It’s a good thing that I have a stronger stomach than most, cause I promise you, this is going to hurt.” Seeing the toothy grin on the dark man’s face, Vernon knew that he was looking at his probable death.

Snape began with physical torture, leaving magic for later. He started at Vernon’s feet. First he used a pair of pliers to take off his toenails, sometimes ripping them off with a quick jerk, others with maddening slowness. Then he took a hammer and crushed the digits, smashing them into a pulp. Occasionally he would fake a swing, just to see the fat man flinch. Then he brought out a jar of salt, viciously rubbing it into the open wounds, causing a stinging, burning pain.

At this point, Vernon’s eye were rolling in their sockets and he was slipping in and out of consciousness. Snape took out his endurance potion and a envigourance potion, making sure the man would be awake and aware for the whole procedure.

Next he took out a knife. It was small and thin, the kind of knife one would use to skin and animal. That was exactly what he was going to use it for. Again, he began at the feet, slowly peeling the skin off of the bottoms, leaving weeping, raw flesh behind. He carved dark sigils onto his ankles and up his calves, ancient runes that would promote disease and weakness.

Taking out a fine scalpel, Severus began surgically removing the man’s kneecaps. It was terribly painful, first the removal of the skin, then the incisions around it and finally lifting off the flesh to reveal the bone. Vernon would have fainted if it weren’t for the potions from the shock of seeing bone. Snape carefully and almost lovingly cut the tendons securing it in place and then pried the kneecaps out. He tossed them into the dry tub, loving the dull thunk they made.

Again with his scalpel, Snape drew runes of weakness and disease on his outer thighs, and the words ‘incest’ and ‘betrayer’ on the inner thighs. Next came the part he was most looking forward to. Many people would have castrated Vernon, cutting off his dick. Snape had a much more devastating plan. Cutting away the man’s pajamas, he surveyed the disgusting anatomy that had stolen a part of Harry’s soul. Taking out what some would call garroting wire (a fine, strong metal wire stretched between two handles), he wrapped it around Vernon’s testicles, positioning it to wear the sack joined the rest of his body. Then he tightened and twisted, cutting into the sensitive flesh, first drawing only a trickle of blood, then a stream, then a flood, cutting in until the wire went all the way through. His testicles fell with a wet thunk. Picking up his wand, Severus cauterised the wound, making sure the remaining flesh was seared and crispy. Removing the testicles only would allow Vernon to retain his \'manhood\' but rob him of the ability to perform, making him an impotent eunich. For such a man as he, it would have been kinder to take it all, and that was why Severus did it.

The torture continued for hours, leaving both men covered in blood and black smudges. Severus’s final acts was to take the man’s eyes, placing them in a jar filled with a preserving solution as a gift for Harry, if he ever woke up, and to place a drop of slow acting poison in each of the empty sockets. It would begin by eating at his muscles, then disintegrating bone while keeping the suffer alive, then finally incinerating them from the inside out, making it look like what muggles call ‘spontaneous human combustion’. In all, the poison would kill him in three years.

With blood soaked clothing and a gift for Harry, Severus made his way back to the castle, content with his handiwork.

A/N: Please review.