Another angsy shot of Severus. The more I write of him, the more I realize that he is the most fun. Severus is simply my favorite.

And, please note that the TIME PERIOD for this one is during Severus's Death Eater days, sometime after Hogwarts but before the prophecy. Thanks.

When I sleep, I dream of dead faces. Dead faces, and bodies, and dead screams, and families, and dead eyes, tearing at my soul until I fear I'll go insane as I sleep, and all blending together to form one simple, haunting question.

"Why?"

. … .

After a while, the faces begin to blur in your conscious mind. The number of murdered people that you have counted in your mind is forgotten, and the echoing screams in your head mute to a manageable volume.

You train yourself not to feel like a monster. You are an empty shell of who you once were, and really, that's better because it that is the only way you can survive.

The sane ones are so much worse off then the real cracknobs; the ones that naturally get a kick out of torturing and killing. The sane ones have to watch the insane's sadistic glee as they yell out that one, painful curse over and over again. The sane ones have to listen the screams, cries, and begs of the victim's to end their pain.

The sane ones are the ones that have to deal with the fact that when the killing curse is flung at the victim, it is a relief to them that, hey, at least the screams stopped.

The only way you could consider any of us 'sane' is if you're on the inside. From the outside looking in, we are all equal to each other in sanity. We are equal to each other in many other things, too. Like how we disgust them and how they hate us, for example.

But those people don't know. The really have no clue of what the true meaning of 'Death Eater' is. It is not a pun; it is quite literal. Once you're a Death Eater, you're something completely different then what you were before. A little less human, a little bit more of darkness. It's the drug, and you're the addicted.

Death. The power that comes with the fact that you're the one bearing it.

The definition of 'sane' when you're talking about a Death Eater shouldn't be determined by normal requirements. When it is a Death Eater, their sanity should be measured by their addiction. How much they love the feeling of raising their wand and torturing another human, and how many times they've gotten off when remembering the rush they get when the life leaves another person's eyes because of their doing.

As a Death Eater, it is very hard to remember what life was like before. The memories won't come, and those that do are always calm. Even if they were not really calm, they become so, because calmness is something so unattainable for us now.

But in reality, you do not want the memories at all. You want the black them out, smother them, and remove them from your mind altogether. For me, this means blocking out the way her hair glows the brightest red I've ever seen in the sun, the way she always smells of some sort of flower I can never name. These memories must become dead to me, because if they don't, it means that there might be a little bit of human left inside me.

The Dark Lord must be my life now. I must know that, and form to that. I must dedicate myself to this.

Because my addition to her is more dangerous to me then my addiction to death.

Review, please. I know it wasn't exactly happy and cheery, but it would be great to know what people think about my writing. If you liked this one, you should check out my other story 'Bitter'. It's another angsty Severus one.