Regarding Tragedy: A Scene in Acts Louder Than Words

Imagine the scene, unfolding with sharp corners…


Enter, stage right, and stumble toward your fate now.

The sob wrenches out, unfamiliar in night air from someone so stoic and cold, and wouldn't they laugh, now, to see you crying, Severus?

Rationality is telling you to worry, the others will notice you have not apparated with them to safety, but you cannot do this without…

without


Interior, his cloak swallowing him.

And scrabbling up steps and clawing at the door and broken sobs and shallow breaths and guilt and blood on your hands and her voice in your ears and your soul in two…

The house is dark

the house is black

and Severus is afraid

He's already made lilies blood red once.

and Severus is sorry


Aside, for the woebegone.

Long ago, he realized "redemption" was a made- up word…


Imagine now, you know, black eyes swollen in anguish and guilt, and watch him sever…


This door does not have his name on it.

Bursting open the enemy's room, and the search is on…

desperate

Severus cannot breathe now, has not breathed since he watched the Only One He Ever Feared fall, dead (his fault) and the Boy Who Lived chase him, his own spells biting back (his fault!) and her eyes looked at him in fear, in loathing…

Blaming

(his fault, his fault, his fault)


Imagine the room, now, with desperately torn debris and faded photos and posters smiling and a drowning man in the middle of it.


The spotlight on him now, his dénouement.

The gasp of air as the tears fall thick and fast and on the talisman

the letter

Because Severus cannot go on without it. Because Severus cannot do this without her.

Because Severus cannot die without her.


Imagine in the future, the Boy in the same room, stoic and sure, and finding the other half of her letter, and carrying it with him toward his death too

Almost tragic


Soon, now.

His hands now shake with the knowledge…

Crying, Severus?

and tucking it away, a pocket by his heart

Lots of love, Lily