Winding In, Winding Out.

Chapter Three – "Winding In, Winding Out."

16/06/2013

Belladonna ash cannot be found in a Muggle occult shop. No Wiccan girls sell it. They will sell belladonna in dried form, but dried and ashen are different.

I must return to the Wizarding World. I find myself unable to enter the pub across the street.

The dead whisper my name. Severus Snape.

Why is it that I find myself unable to enter a doorway I'd entered thousands of times? Why is it that I find myself unable to enter the gates into where I truly belong?

The dead whisper my name. Severus Snape.

It is ironic, I fear, that perhaps some decades after I was at the brink of insanity, it is now it comes.

Belladonna ash. Severus Snape. The dead whisper my name.

I know that it is all in my head. I know that the dead cannot speak. It is fear that drives the incessant muttering of a thousand voices from beyond the Veil.

The Veil.

The shroud of the dead, the bane of the living.

Belladonna ash. Severus Snape. The dead whisper my name. The Veil.

-

It has been a few days since I last wrote. I cannot recall the date. I woke up in Nathan Granger's bed two days ago, and I don't know what led to it. All I remember is the pounding of angry voices in my head and the beat of the rain pouring down.

Nathan Granger is alive. I do not understand why it should surprise me. Have I gotten so separated from society that I have forgotten a person's ability to lie? No. If I know anything, it is that people lie.

Albus Dumbledore was a liar; the biggest one I've ever known. He told Harry Potter that finding the Horcruxes and destroying them would end Voldemort's life.

They were never real. Voldemort's soul was indeed unstable, very much so. Every death, every torture, every cast of Imperio, Crucio, Avada Kedavra, tainted his soul to the extreme depths of darkness. Mementos of his kills were all they were. Dumbledore knew; he always had. He also knew he had to gain the trust of Harry Potter and what better way to do that than to reveal his plans for the War?

Six drops belladonna essence, two leaves of premature conium. All the ingredients I've collected for this beginning attempt – two singular ingredients that on their own could be fatal. The belladonna ash became the essence, but the conium grew near the hovel I've been living in. I live a poisonous life, the safest point in my existence.

"Tobias." The words are whispered, raspy. I know they are. It hurts me to no end to feel the air escape my lips.

The Elder. Tobias.

Why had Nathan called me Tobias? My father and I were not one in the same.

The Elder.

I haven't spoken a word since the last time I spoke to Harry Potter more than a decade ago. Not since I thought I was dying.