Here's mine for Round 2 of The Writer.

Genre- Horror/Spiritual

Characters- Voldemort and Minerva McGonagall

Prompts- Behind my back, I'm telling and No relief

There is no relief on a winter day like today. No one notices that your thin lips are folded into a thinner line than usual – that you're quiet and still. That you're stricter. No, your students just go on with their bloody humdrum lives and they don't know and they don't care.

And why should they care? They don't know about you. They don't know what happened to you. What happened to Dougal.

You close your eyes and you remember.

He was there with you. You were walking with him on a street, not exposed to dangerous wizards, safe in the Muggle world – or so you thought. Dougal didn't know you were a witch. He didn't have to know – that's what you thought back then.

Something followed behind your back. Behind your back, the darkness crept and it was like a viper, poised to strike at the most opportune moment. It was ready and deep down, you knew it. You were endangering your love by your very presence and he was blissfully unaware.

You sit amongst your followers, and you begin to speak to Nagini, under the guise of parseltongue.

"Do you remember, Nagini? Do you remember when we punished the Muggle-lover woman?"

"Yesss."

You followed the half-blood girl who consorted with dirty Muggles. You followed her and you were waiting. You were ready. You were ready to make her suffer endless, excruciating pain for her crimes. Pain that would never leave her soul. Because with this kind of pain…if she let it go, she would feel unimaginable guilt. And if she held on, you would be in control of her.

You would be in control of her mind – of her every thought. Her guilt would be easier to harness than even her love for the pathetic Muggle at her side.

You try to teach your class with the same strength that you usually do – after all, it's been many years since then. But…but…you can't stop blaming yourself for what happened that day. You can't stop blaming yourself, because if you didn't love him – if you hadn't been friends with Dougal – he would still be alive today. It's your fault that he's dead. And you have no idea where he is now.

You didn't know what happened – it took place in a split-second, but suddenly you and Dougal were somewhere you knew you shouldn't be. The faces around you were obscured by skeletal masks, like death plastered onto their faces.

Who knows what they would do to you for consorting with a Muggle?

Who knows what they'd do to him?

You relish the memories of the death of that Muggle. Nagini whispers to you, recounting every delicious detail from that day. Recounting the memory of the look on Minerva's face.

It was time to punish them both. It was time for them to suffer the consequences – it was time for you to cleanse her of her pathetic love for a dirty-blooded Muggle.

And to think that you had tried to recruit this girl.

You, the Dark Lord, had once wanted the skills of a Muggle-lover.

She was a powerful witch – of that there was no doubt at all. But a Muggle-lover.

And punishment was in store for her.

But not in the way she would suspect.

You spent years trying to understand the spell He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named used on Dougal. To this day the memories of how he looked, disintegrating under torture, plague you. You can't forget it. More years will pass and you know you will never forget it.

You were hanging from the ceiling, upside down, and you watched as Dougal lay chained to the floor. And then He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named entered, and you forced your mouth to stay closed and silent – to not let out a single scream.

To your surprise – your horror – he did not walk to you. He did not walk to you. He walked to Dougal.

You heard the Cruciatus curse more times in those five minutes than you ever had before in your life.

"Tell me, Muggle, what do you know about this woman's power?" He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named asked, and you knew he didn't want information. You deduced in but a few seconds that this was to torture you. To punish you. He knew everything he needed to know about you already.

But why?

Why would he torture you before killing you?

Why?

If he was just going to kill you, why wouldn't he do the deed? Why would he do this first?

You remember the spell you've only used a few times, ever. You've saved it for the most important of occasions. The time you used it on the Muggle was one such time.

The acid spell – the spell you invented that would cause blood to turn to acid and erode away a person from the inside.

You raised your wand, a ghostly half-smile tracing your face. A morbid smile.

You used the spell nonverbally. She did not deserve to know your methods. Muggle-lovers would always be beneath you, undeserving of the knowledge that you possessed. The knowledge that made you so superior to them.

The spell took effect quickly. You watched as the man's skin turned a myriad of colors, as his eyes began to burn blind, as his veins began to pop to the surface.

As his muscles began to tighten, as he lost control of his body, the woman screamed and shrieked and pleaded before you.

Your lips curled into satisfaction, as the man screamed, as his veins began to burn through his skin. You saw the bones in his hand melt away under the acid as he wailed. He couldn't see anymore – his eyes were liquefied. His teeth were dissolving away, his skull losing shape as it fell prey to the acid. You did nothing – the man and the woman screamed together until his vocal cords burnt away and he was left as a fluid mass upon the floor. The only thing left was the acidic blood burning into the floorboards.

You remember wanting to burn your mind away after watching Dougal die. You remember feeling nothing – feeling like the whole world was a howling wilderness.

You watched him melt away – his entire being thawing beneath the acidic blood. Tears were pouring from your eyes. The skin dissolved away from Dougal's body, leaving bone that eroded away – tiny holes growing in his bones until they looked like bleached, wormy pumice.

This was what happened to a Muggle you placed in harm's way. The torment in his disintegrating eyes was matched only by your knowledge of the pain he must be in. This was more than torture for him. The torture for you was to watch the destruction of a soul before your eyes.

You remember hearing the voice of the headmaster – of Albus, before you felt yourself fall victim to darkness. When you awoke you were safe.

But Dougal was gone. Dougal was nothing more than a pile of blood and eroded organs on the floor.

You remember Albus asking you questions.

"What happened, Minerva?"

You answered vaguely, without detail. You left out that you loved the man who was now a mass of blood on the ground in a place full of Death Eaters.

"Tell me everything, Minerva."

"I'm telling, Albus."

But you weren't. You didn't. And you never would.

You hiss to Nagini your hatred of Dumbledore – the man who saved Minerva. You hate him, but what does it matter now?

He'll be dead soon enough.

Your class leaves the room – thank goodness – and you're left alone with your memories. And you wonder where Dougal is now. Where he went after he died.

What happened to Dougal?

Was there a heaven in store for him?

Does heaven even exist?

You're not sure. You're not sure of where he is, of where he went. You don't know, and you yourself won't know until you die. And who knows, there might just be emptiness beyond – there might be nothing after you die.

Death might be a roaring world of blackness and emptiness and nothing.

Or maybe…

No. Death was the end.

Maybe it wasn't…

But you crush all your hopes, because hoping will only lead to more heartache.

Please review!

Love always,

Lily