The only thing that's real

Rating: PG13
Characters: Mainly Snape, Snape/Lily suggested.
Disclaimer: Rowling's, not mine.

And it bled.

Thick, dark, slow blood. New, dirty and warm. It soaked through his sleeve although no one could see it, just remembering, just saying 'I'm here' so he could never forget the promise. If he ever tried, it would burn like boiling water, making the soft skin on the forearm bubble in pain - slowly turning red, then purple, then rotten black when the calling was complete. How could you try to forget something you see everyday? Try not to look at it, and the smiling snake will find its way to your sight. The Dark Mark knew how to be seen in the mirror, how to be felt at night when the sheets brush past it. It wants to be seen, and Snape wants it to be invisible.

It bleed too the night he dug his nails on it, knowing perfectly it could not be erased by such a simple thing as pain. Just that he needed it, something, maybe the pain, the real blood, not the imaginary one he still used to see on his hands when the lights turned red. A pain making up for the pain she hasn't felt that night, or pain for the pain he prayed the Dark Lord had felt. Physical pain could be somehow relieving when the mind starts screaming again. He scratchs until his nails are buried in black skin, leaving a shattered new scar that will just make the Dark Mark deeper by mixing it with flesh wide open. Physical pain was a relief, he thought once again. It cleared his mind and asked for all his attention as a spoiled child.

But he has never liked Halloween. She did, of course. That Hallowen she'd have had a new costume, made of green, shiny light, for a second brighter than the sun itself, just because she loved Halloween. Stupid thought.

And it bled. Fourteen years later it still did.