How to explain... ::casts around for words:: I had a vision, it became a snippet. This doesn't actually require any more back story than what you glean from the following few paragraphs, but perhaps if people like it, I'll add some. That isn't a r/r threat, I just honestly don't know if anyone is going to bother reading this, and if they aren't, I don't feel like I need to type out anymore... I can visit the story which is stored in my mind ^_^ It also hasn't visited a beta... didn't seem long enough to warrant it. Gah, these notes are gonna be longer than the fic... sorry, I'm nervous! Pom!

Mad
by Rox

"Please, don't go. Don't leave. Please."

He begs me not to walk out the door, nearly hysterical. Just as before, I try to explain that I'll be back. Again, he does not heed my words. My heart breaks at the site of him in tears, yet I can't spend my life in this room.

He doesn't leave the corner but his hands stretch out towards me. He reaches like a child to a parent and my heart constricts at the gesture. His parents are responsible for this, for where he is. Responsible for the loss of the most beautiful soul I'd ever known into the spiraling abyss of madness.

I fling open the heavy metal door, step out, and slam it shut before I have time to consider my actions. Out here in the hallway, I take a moment to wipe the tears from my eyes. I can never leave him if I spend too much time in apologies. He'll never be able to grasp that I will return. I'll never be able to leave without the gut wrenching feeling that I am hurting him further.

I make my way slowly to the nurses' desk. A small, weedy looking nurse hands me a clipboard and I sign it. This sheet has documented every entrance and exit I've made to his cell since the day three months prior when his increasingly erratic bahviour had forced us to commit him. I'm not the only person who has stopped in to visit him, but I'm certainly the most frequent.

With a nod to the nurse, I exit the ward. Hermione rises from the bench where she has been waiting for the last hour. She senses my mood immediately and doesn't ask questions until we've exited St. Mungo's. I am too busy blinking and readjusting my eyes to the sunlight to pay attention to the first few sentences she says. I quickly tune in once I realise she is talking.

"...said he'd meet us for dinner, but you know Ron and Ministry business, he'll be at least an hour late. I won't be surprised if he's late to the ceremony next month. 'Sorry, Hermione dear, but there was quite a mess down in London, number of owls mistakenly addressed to Muggle residences, had to put memory charms on half the East End.'" She pauses here to smile as she always does when thinking of her forthcoming wedding. I manage a small grin of my own.

Only Hermione is sensitive enough to wait until we have safely apparated home before asking questions. I can't give her the positive news that I desperately wish to give. He hasn't come back to us yet. He isn't far from rock bottom, but it isn't until he truly hits the end of the abyss that any climb to the top can be attempted.

Not for the first time in the last year, I end up cursing Lucius Malfoy loudly for what his actions have rendered his son. For once, Hermione doesn't make any attempt to stop me.