Chapter Five

The alarm clock barely started its first high pitched wail before her hand swung out to silence it. Her fingers rested against the off button, and she stared at the softly glowing green numbers. Panic stirred within her, making her tremble, and she swallowed the rising dread, forcing that hard, bitter lump back into her querulous gut. Thoughts gathered, and her mind was a hive of buzzing impressions, recollections and fears, each one a stinging attack against her will. It was with some alarmed surprise that she saw the numbers on the digital display and realised that four minutes had slipped by.

Throwing off the covers, she sat up, legs dangling over the edge, and she stared at the shadowed carpet. I can't do this, she thought. They'll all be there... everyone. Watching, looking, knowing that I'm terrible and selfish and... ill! A small whimper bubbled up and burst past her compressed lips. I can't do this! Her fingers bit into the mattress, and she had the urge to crawl back into bed, pull up the covers and hide. Summoning some fortifying anger, she leapt from the bed in a flurry of grim determination and paced over to the window.

Even though it was still technically summer, she drew back the curtains to reveal a bleak day more befitting of mid-winter, and she felt the sheer oppressiveness crush down upon her. How easily her best intentions were defeated! The fabric quivered in her tight, desperate grip, and she bowed her head until her forehead touched the cold glass. I'm useless, she thought bitterly. Her unsteady breath misted the glass, and those thoughts that had been held at bay rose up as her fortifications crumbled. Why is it so hard? It's over, isn't it? Dark Wizard defeated! Death Eaters hunted down. She sobbed against the window, and her frame curled up like a dying leaf. I don't want to go! I want to stay here... here where it's quiet and safe. I want to forget, and they'll talk to me, they'll expect me to know... and I can't... won't... don't know!

A soft rapping at the door slithered through her dark, mental meanderings, and digging down, she found the energy to step away from the window and open the door. Snape looked as bad as she felt. Without warning or need for invite, concern rushed up, and she stepped closer to him, her hand resting lightly on his forearm.

"Are you alright, sir?"

Alright? some thought asked incredulously as he studied her pale face with its red blotches round her eyes. The potion had taken a mere hour to make, and then he had spent the rest of the night staring at the burgundy tincture and pondering the ramifications of something that looked as innocuous as red wine. Several times, he had been tempted to pour the potion down the kitchen sink; he had even held the conical flask in his hand and stood on weak legs, considering just how easy it would be to walk down the stairs...and he had found it to the most difficult physical feat he had ever faced. The flask had sat on the bench since, as seductive as any sweet wine and as vile as any bitter poison.

"I'm fine, Miss Granger." He licked his lips and dammed the thoughts rising up at the nonsense he was implying. Are you mad? Fine? You're as far from 'fine' as she is from 'sane'! Did you actually think beyond that need of yours to help her? Did you feel that the risks of incinerating not only the kitchen but the whole house, and not to mention your eyebrows, were worth her having a few hours break from raving?

"I have the potion," he said softly.

Her tentative smile quietened the turbulent voice, and he indicated with a wave of his hand that she was needed in the attic. In her eagerness, she failed to feel his fingers run through the edges of her hair or the slight sting of a few strands being tugged free as she strode past. Snape felt the gossamer strands between forefinger and thumb and then twisted them up into a small, tight ball. With the smallest hesitation, he climbed the wooden stairs into the attic and paused when his eyes latched upon Hermione leaning towards the potion; her gaze was focused on the liquid, and her lips were parted in anticipation. And why shouldn't she be? some inner voice whispered. You've said that it would help her, filled her head with the notion that it will make her well enough to cope with it all. The eagerness that seems so predatory to you now is solely because you've made the lure so tantalising!

The creak of the top step made her turn her head, and as she straightened, she smiled at him. She nodded towards the flask and stepped back as he approached; if his cool demeanour was noted by her then she showed no sign of acknowledging it. But the potion was there, so what did he matter now?

"I've never seen such a hue; did you use Deadly Nightshade in it?"

Her eyes followed his every move as he poured half the potion into a goblet, and irritation flared within him; it burnt his skin and made it itch. He handed her the simple goblet and saw her study the gently swaying surface of the disturbed tincture. Hurry up and drink the blasted thing! he groused silently, before I change my mind or you figure it out and get all noble.

"The potion will take effect about half an hour after ingestion and will last for the day," he said swiftly, hoping to smother his increasingly recalcitrant thoughts and her predictable upsurge of questions. "Your feelings will be less intense, and therefore, more manageable. However," he added, "due to that, you may seem cold and indifferent, so a little effort on your part may be needed."

She frowned and managed to drag her gaze from the glistening potion. "In what way, sir?"

"Weeping and the like at funerals... it's considered the done thing."

She bit her lip and nodded solemnly.

"Drink up!" he said with brittle encouragement while idly scratching at his tender throat.

'Placebo' was a familiar word to most potion makers and Healers, and he saw in her manner the best example of its power. As soon as the goblet had been drained and the red excess licked away from her top lip, she had seemed to effuse confidence and glow with energy. She had grinned at him and thanked him, lifting up on her tip-toes to give him a fleeting hug, and while the pipes had gurgled as she showered, he had sat upon the stool and fought the insurgent panic. Realising that he could not retract the offer now, he dropped the tight ball of chestnut hair into the empty goblet and poured the remains of the potion over it. He downed the ironically sweet liquid in several gulps and calmly walked out of the attic; he knew that he would have little chance to do any brewing or preparing today; already, he could feel her emotions creeping up... or was that just placebo? By the time she left, he could feel her burgeoning panic and guilt at facing those that she had effectively abandoned, especially in their time of greatest need, and the little, weak, flutters of anticipation bravely trying to stay afloat.

The house was disturbingly quiet without her, and he couldn't recall that the rooms had been so large, and surely the sofa had been cramped? He made himself some toast and coffee and settled at the kitchen table; if he couldn't do any practical work then he'd busy and content himself with the theory; at the very least, it would distract him from the confusing mix of emotions attacking him. The elusive and worrisome potion was laid out before him upon the paper, the ingredients trapped and the method formalised in his spidery scrawl. It was so simple! A first-year student could have mixed the few ingredients together and yielded a workable potion...the difficulty had resided in creating it. Those few days in his private study with an anxious Dumbledore pacing the narrow room had been etched deeply into his mind, and several times since, he had woken in a sweat and taking desperate gulps of air after he had dreamt of his failure.

He drew circles round the words Bushmaster Venom, Leopard's Bane, Stagshorn Clubmoss and Deadly Nightshade and linked them to Manuka Honey, alcohol, water and lemon juice. They all worked so well together, the Clubmoss enhanced the Bushmaster venom to aid the healing of open and profusely bleeding wounds, and the Manuka honey was the perfect buffer...although the chemistry definition was more refined and specific, the buffer here would act as a suitable medium to prevent unwanted interaction between the ingredients and also create a reasonable volume of tincture to work with. He rubbed his forehead and tried to discover why the potion had been an immediate success for Arthur and a dubious delayer for himself.

The focus on work was interrupted just before half past nine with a sudden and flaming hot stab of irritation, and with a derisive snort, he summated that she had arrived at the church. It would have been easier if he had been able to offer her some potion that would just inhibit or smother her raging emotions, but his foray into her mind had shown that there were two forces at work within her, Hermione Granger and the thing that rose up when Hermione slipped away. He had no specific vocabulary to describe what he had caught a glimpse of and what he suspected, but in those moments of rage, it was no longer Hermione that had dominion, but some deeper, darker thing. This disparity would make any potion that acted upon her rather unfocused, and he doubted that it would be able to keep both of those conflicting aspects mollified. Instead of creating a potion that would only be able to stabilise one facet of her fracturing personality, it had seemed more prudent, given the situation, to displace all of her emotions.

He tidied away his notes and moved to pour the tepid dregs of coffee into the sink; another scorching flash caught him unawares, and he snarled out at the intensity of it...how quick she was to anger! It was no wonder that she found it difficult to keep it all at bay; it wasn't a ponderous storm surge portended by rising winds and white, whipped waves, but an unexpected and silent tsunami. It seemed that his day would be spent waiting for the barrage, and then clinging on until it abated and withdrew, but he had had years of practice and experience in dealing with intense emotion.

The bookshelves held many books, many of them Dental Journals, and although learning exactly why enamel erosion was the key issue in dentistry today would no doubt improve him immensely, his eye was drawn to a leather-bound book tucked away at the very end of the shelf. Very few things appealed to him...when he realised that to show affection or an interest in something just gave his father a weapon over him, he had quickly learnt to love nothing...but books lured him in and wrapped him up. Nothing made his eyes widen, his palms itch or his heart stutter as much as a book he wanted. Hermione must have met up with someone from the Weasley family because as his fingers grazed the book's spine, he felt grief slice through him.

It battered at him! It pummelled him into the carpet of Mr Granger's office and squeezed out whimpers, moans and tears. On instinct, he curled up into a ball and pressed his clenched fists against his leaking eyes while he silently screamed.

Oh Merlin!

It felt as though some fist had been rammed down his gullet and was crushing his heart and clawing at his insides. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't deal with the pressure!

Oh... stop! Leave me be, please... stop... can't stand it... too much!

The strength and ferocity of it made it impossible for him to find some high ground to combat the marauding melange of emotions. Just when he had scrabbled to some firm ground, another wave of grief, anger and guilt would plough into him, knock him from his feet and send him reeling once more. But he had faced this before, spent half a life-time fighting it, and that part that made him get up and face each day, that part which snarled at a world determined to cripple him and that part that held him in check was rising up. Like the wrath of angels, it stormed through his thoughts and feelings, it swept aside his feelings of inadequacy and fear, and it spread its wings and held back the terrible wave.

Gritting his teeth and breathing with exaggerated care, he rose up onto his knees and then, as though the very air pressed down upon him, he staggered to his feet. Holding onto the bookcase for support, he steadied himself; he had chosen to do this, and he took both strength and comfort from that.

How long has it been since I have made a deliberate choice? How long since I've seen someone suffer and been able to extend out my hand and save them?

He had never been one for introspection...he suspected that he would dislike what he discovered...and as such, he rarely analysed his motives, but rather the consequences of his actions. It was ironic that taking on someone else's chaotic and tumultuous emotions should make him ponder his own with more attention than they were used to.

After the initial assault, he found that he was able to distance himself him from it and stifle the effects to the point that he could function. He knew that nothing he did personally would lessen the rampaging feelings, but he could distract himself. The Displacement Potion had always fascinated him, ever since he had brewed it for Emmeline Vance and Dumbledore; bile rushed up at the recollection as a result of his own bitter grief, and his eyelids fluttered closed. It had been agreed; that mantra...that disclaimer and absolver...had sustained him throughout the brewing process and even up to the point that they had drunk the potion. Emmeline had nodded curtly at Dumbledore and then had walked stiffly over to him; her eyes had brimmed with tears, but the potion had taken hold and had swiftly shifted her developing feelings, and as those eyes blinked away the drying tears, Dumbledore had shuddered and collapsed into the nearest chair.

He had been called, summoned by his Master, and he had obeyed. Her screams had been the first thing that he had processed, and then the weak whimpers in the sudden silence. Slipping into the shadowed room and settling between two cloaked comrades, he had seen Emmeline lying on the stone floor, flopping weakly in the vomit and blood pooling around her. The Dark Lord had circled her, whispering to her in that sibilant hiss and lashing out at her with his wand. He had had a vague idea of how the potion worked: it didn't affect the mind of the person, but it isolated the emotions that the body was experiencing, all the physical responses to emotion, and transferring them. Based upon that, he knew that Emmeline had felt the rising terror and pain, dread and despair inspired by each new curse and threat before it was gathered together and deposited in the recipient.

The potion had been used at that time due to the plan, Dumbledore's Great Plan, which would have been ruined had the Dark Lord suspected that Emmeline's capture had been in some way orchestrated, and the discovery or suspicion of a potion designed to ease her suffering during her torture would have done just that. Her mind would have swirled, fractured and decayed under His assault, enough to confirm to him that she was His to destroy, and the information gleaned from her mind would have been stolen and accepted without question.

Snape had never really understood why a recipient was needed, and the potions book from which he had retrieved the method had merely blamed Karma for the need, but given that the potion had been used in ages past to assess the trustworthiness and fidelity of spouses then the author had probably felt uncomfortable with any other more complicated explanation. Whatever the reason, it was fairly moot as no other potion managed to do this level of displacement, and without the recipient, the initial imbiber had just drunk a rather sweet tasting, useless mixture of herbs.

He would argue that the main reason that he had offered to provide this respite for Hermione was that he knew how important it was for her to maintain that contact with those who loved her without the fear of instantly char-grilling someone over the smallest infraction. It was almost vital that she not withdraw away from the world, as that path led to a mental decay and corruption that would destroy her. But did he really have to go so far as this awesome thing to facilitate her wish? The tap spluttered and gurgled, an odd reminder of his impromptu kitchen repair, and he stared at the stuttering flow of water. His free hand rested on his collar bone while busy fingers scratched away unnoticed.

"You know why.

Always the same, isn't it? Think that you're a cut above and can deal with anything. That wand isn't all it was cracked up to be, is it? Couldn't save any of them, could you?

The saucepan fell from his suddenly numb fingers, and he reeled, clutching at his head...Not now! He moaned and tugged on his hair, using the sharp, stabbing pain to fortify him.

"Oh, you can struggle, son, but you'll never be rid of me... inside you always, laughing as you struggle and fail...soon, you'll get the idea that you're nothing. That Hermione will go the same way as all the rest; of course, this time, you may get the chance to fu..."

Pain lanced up his arm in powerful, throbbing waves, but at least it drowned out the disgusting, sneering voice. Breathing shallowly and quaking as he knelt on the floor, he slowly opened his eyes and studied his burst knuckles. The skin was peeled back like the skin from an apple, flapping loose, and blood pooled in the battered grooves. Already, the knuckles were swollen and glistening as the skin stretched to accommodate it. He purposefully flexed his fingers, the stomach-churning pain making him moan, and he forced himself to watch the blood spill over and run lazily down the back of his hand.

He must have cried...maybe he had been for a while and not noticed the steady rain of tears...because his face was slick and his head felt thick, or was that Hermione again? Healing his hand had taken almost the same amount of time as the initial injury, but there was still that strange echo of pain in the joints, the feeling that something should be there. Whatever Hermione was doing, she was beginning to feel comfortable and more melancholic than the ravaging despair from earlier, and glancing at the clock, he deduced that she would be at the Wake. This aspect was softer and yet more provocative, and he alternated between bouts of tenderness and intense regret, spiralling affection and troubled exasperation, from uneasy laughter to puzzled anger, and the sheer range staggered him. But there was one constant thing lurking on the edges, one shadow clinging to the insides of her as she thought through her experiences, and that was guilt.

The closer she became to feeling guilt, the angrier she became. It was a vicious circle; guilt begat anger and anger begat more guilt and so on until her mind just surrendered. What precipitated those terrifying rages was elusive, though, and while intimately knowing how she was feeling, she had not slipped close to that state. He knew about guilt, knew the way it wormed its way through every aspect of your life and throttled it until you were a desiccated husk. It devoured everything, and what it left was corrupted. But what had she done that could generate such fantastic levels of guilt?

Despite that, she seemed to be handling the situation well, and no destructive urges had coursed through his veins, promising chaos and devastation; she had acted, thought and felt in a generally prudent and expected manner. In a particularly tender moment which had made his guts twitch, he had grimaced and had had the odd urge to tidy his hair. Sighing and picking up the earlier dropped pan, he tried not to imagine what was going on, and he hoped that Mrs Weasley would be at her 'Mother Hen' best; the mere hint of a prelude was enough to make him shudder.

By mid-afternoon, he was on the sofa, sipping coffee and staring at his handwritten notes, trying to decipher some invisible codex and solve the conundrum of his flawed potion. Hermione was relatively calm, and the sorrow that had flooded through her was now a gentle stream as she waded through it all.

The first pang of pain hit him just before three, and panic flared; what was going on? It took a moment to realise that he wasn't feeling actual physical pain, but an analogue to her own emotional distress. Settling back and holding a cushion for comfort, he curled up on the sofa and waited for the drama to unfold.

It was impossible to examine each and every one of the myriad emotions; they clustered around him like hornets, and as he batted away one, another attacked. It was disorientating and frustrating. He lashed out at the sofa arm with his foot, he tried to release his tension by twisting and tugging on the soft fabric of the pillow, and he found it impossible not to reach up and drag his fingernails over the damaged skin at his throat.

Indignation heralded the next burst, and that was followed with an aftershock incited by pained disbelief. These little quakes of pain began to cluster threateningly, and Snape felt the back of his neck prickle. Not only was she becoming emotionally disturbed, but she was also beginning to feel vulnerable and threatened. A strong bout had him clutching the pillow frantically and burying his face in the soft fabric; what on Earth was bothering her? He swallowed nervously; Harry's letter had ignited the last conflagration!

Oh my!

The emotions bombarding him seemed to reorder themselves into one consolidated force consisting of two weapons: anger and remorse. The more he suffered and the more he thought, he began to wonder if something had fallen between Hermione and her two friends; had some misconception tainted the special friendship that had held them together? Anger and remorse were old companions of his, and he knew how to harden himself against them. Discarding the pillow, he set about looking for tasks to vent his fury upon until the potion began to lose its potency and he slipped from its grasp. He just hoped that Hermione would be home in time for him to test his theory.

oooXooo

Both he and Hermione were in agreement: they were exhausted. Lifting his head to see a dejected and weary Hermione smile weakly at him before collapsing in the kitchen chair, he managed to return her greeting before letting his eyelids fall closed for a moment. The potion was wearing off, and they were effectively sharing her feelings, although she herself remained oblivious to his involvement. He made them both a mug of coffee and placed hers directly into her hands, knowing that she craved the warmth of it in her cold palms.

"Mrs Weasley looked awful," she whispered, and Snape felt sympathy lash out at him. It squeezed his chest and made his heart lurch. "And she fussed around us all; I felt so smothered."

"I know," he muttered. "Funerals are more a test of strength than anything else."

She frowned and looked at him over the rim of her mug. "What do you mean?"

Petulance seeped through the haze of melancholic reverie, and he smirked at how easy it was to make her thoughts work against her; already, he could feel her frantic curiosity as she pondered his meaning.

"The tragedy is in itself a hardship that brings us down to our knees, and on top of that, the meeting and greeting of people that you had spent decades avoiding just adds a nasty tension to the scene. I'm sure that you noticed how the various family members would group together in tiny, exclusive cliques." He took a hasty sip and allowed her to wallow in the notion. "Traditionally, it is good manners that get many through such a ceremony and not the sudden upsurge of familial affection."

"That's harsh, sir" she scolded gently. "Fred is... was... He was a nice man, and his death has hit everyone hard."

"I agree," he said while sitting forward to rest his elbows on the table and clearing his own emotional table so that he could examine hers spread out before him. "And some will wonder if the Dark Lord could not have been destroyed earlier, thus saving Fred and countless others from an avoidable death."

He was expecting it, but what she unleashed almost knocked him out of his chair; it was awesome! The power of it snatched his breath, and he belatedly wondered at the wisdom of stirring up those murky and murderous thoughts. He moved sympathetically, his own feelings drawn in and amplifying the anger over the notion that so much could have been avoided if only that sacrifice had been more forthcoming.

He moaned out and gripped the edges of the table. It was so unfair! He wouldn't have lost anything! The protection granted by his mother's sacrifice that had saved him countless times before would have plucked him from the jaws of death and at that same instant, render the Dark Lord mortal. When the time came, a child could have killed him!

Across from him and through tear-filled eyes, he saw her push herself away from the table and stand; her back bowed under the weight of her betraying thoughts, and through the connection, he felt her suffer the angst of both loving and hating her friend. It was an impossible conundrum for her.

Harry... would she have really wanted Harry to 'die' for the 'Greater Good'? So many would be walking now if Voldemort had managed his murder in the graveyard at the Riddle house; Harry would have survived, and any number of revenge-seeking wizards could have satisfied their need upon the wasting body that he had resurrected. She sobbed, and Snape swallowed his own rising grief. But could she have asked it of him? Why couldn't someone have figured out what needed to be done sooner? Why had such a thing rested upon their shoulders? How many would be burying their dead and thinking of the Boy Who Lived and wishing that he had died?

Fury flicked a fin, and Snape realised that he was treading water in a sea of her emotions, but he knew these waters, the same waves lapped upon his shore and eroded his being. And there is it was...the thrashing and wide maw of her destructive rage! Oh, it was glorious! A gaping, devouring, mindless entity intent on purging its hate upon the mind that had unwittingly spawned it, and its appetite was insatiable! He reared back, lifting up his hands as if they could somehow ward off the thing, and he desperately sought a way out. Now that he had the answer, it would be ironic if his epiphany should be his epitaph. But nothing came.

The potion that had cursed him was now sparing him the brunt of her anger. The rage was shared and thus diluted. It wasn't enough to let that thing free; Hermione had it on a leash. Licking his lips and watching her shuddering back, he waited for her to make the next move. Pivoting on her heel, she turned to face him, and the sudden serenity that suffused her was somehow more disturbing, especially considering that he knew how she felt beneath that calm veneer.

"You're saying that if Harry had only died earlier, then none of this would have happened?"

He summoned his most disdainful sneer. "I should imagine that many would think that a given."

"You'd have loved that, wouldn't you?" she demanded, vitriol dripping from her words. "It would have suited you had he died years ago." She stalked over to him, close enough that her finger pressed into his chest and her face loomed up before him.

"Don't presume to understand or know my thinking on this matter, Miss Granger," he hissed out. Gods! he thought bitterly. She's getting too close.

"You've always hated Harry!" Her voice dropped to a waspish whisper. "Ever since the first year, you've tried to get at him; you've made his life hell, as if it wasn't bad enough that some megalomaniac was trying to kill him!"

"I doubt that a well-deserved, harsh grade in Potions harmed him, and if he wanted to fend off those cruel put-downs then all he had to do was pay attention."

"He was being hunted down by the greatest Dark wizard of our age, and you made what could have been the last years of his life a complete misery."

"He had his friends, but what he needed was to realise what he was potentially going to have to kill for." His own anger was roiling and screaming deep inside. "It's so very easy to die, Miss Granger; I have seen so many fall at his feet, but it takes great effort and will to lift up your wand and kill someone. Do you think that Potter could have done that if there had been nothing battering at his false impressions of the world?" He was livid beyond the ability to think clearly. Thoughts and impressions, arguments and rationales marched through his mind as he spewed out his own mental muck. "He needed to know that there were those who hated and despised, those that he should revile and be disgusted by...left to Dumbledore, and the world would have been all sweetness and light with a few troublemakers who just ruined it for all the others."

"And you took it upon yourself to be Harry's tutor in hating?"

"Someone had to!" he snarled back. "He rushed in, risking his life and everyone who was associated with him... he was a danger! And if he couldn't protect adequately then he would have been your murderer."

"Harry would never have allowed that!"

"Really?" he asked snidely. "So many have died so that Harry could grow and develop into the one who could destroy the Dark Lord... Harry rushed in, and they were forced to follow..."

"No!" she screamed out. "We had a choice; he never made us."

Oh! He could feel it! The realisation was on the cusp of formation as she struggled with his arguments. She was beginning to see that sometimes forces drove people; forces that were beyond their ability to understand, compelled and guided by those undeniable motives to do what their soul needed to do.

"You followed him like a lap dog; you even followed him into the heart of the viper's nest."

"You think that Harry was the only one who wanted Voldemort dead?" She shook her head and looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. "After all that He had done, do you think that I didn't want Him dead?" She mouthed silently and stepped away from him; oh, so close to that epiphany! "I wanted Him dead."

"Wanted it enough to suffer for it? Enough to hurt for it?" Tears streamed down her pale face, but he carried on, seemingly oblivious to her intense distress. "Enough to die for it?"

Her hands flew up to cover her mouth, and from behind her fingers, she keened and howled out her misery. Snape tried to catch the dregs of her emotions as they slipped away; the potion had run its course. Instead of her pain, he was left facing his own anger and guilt, and it was mounting a strong offensive after being held in check for so long. It rushed down upon him, incited by her words, and he sneered as he looked upon her as she cried because she had seen her errors and was still clinging onto her ridiculous notions as if the lead weight of them would help her stay afloat. The longer he looked at her, the more frustrated he felt and the more his neck throbbed and itched.

No longer caring that the skin was fragile or that a monstrous snake had tore at the flesh, he scratched at it; his fingers clawed at it. Lost in that bliss of having the itch relieved, he didn't hear Hermione, and it was only her hand gripping his wrist that broke through his relief. How could she be so cruel as to stop him from easing his discomfort?

"How dare you touch me!" he snapped out. "You're as bad as Potter for thinking that I am nothing."

"Sir!" she said urgently, but his frustration fuelled his anger.

"Even now, you can't think of anything but him; you stand there when I'm suffering, and you're still thinking of him." Breathing hard and reaching out to grip her arm, he couldn't stop his anger. "I wanted him dead... for some time I wanted him dead. If he died then she would be safe... but he didn't and she did."

His neck erupted in pain and he fell to his knees, pulling her down with him, and that's when he saw the blood pooling on the floor. He began to feel light-headed and was grabbed by some urgency...if he was going to die then he'd die with no stain on him.

"I wanted... Harry dead, but hated myself... hated myself for it...no, let me finish!" he whispered hoarsely as she tried to press her hand against the ruptured and spewing wound. "For years... I hated... when I saw him... in the Hall... Sorting... saw his eyes, his hair... saw him..." His words dried up even as the blood gushed over her hands and her clothes, over the tiles and into her hair. He gripped her arm fiercely and waited until she looked in him the eye. "I hated him then... hated him because he could have been... could have been mine!"