A/N: Originally posted on ao3 under the pen name youngjusticewriter. Part eight of the "The advantages of foreknowledge and the disadvantages." series.
He'd never been a masochist yet he can't take his eyes of the corpse. Can't help but to actually pause (for just a second, he tells himself- no lies to himself) to sit down next to her and if there's a grimace on his mouth there's no witness but a baby soon to die.
"You were a fool," he whispers softly. Long fingers foolishly sentimental brush a piece of her hair - a shade lighter than Ariana's last he saw his sister - from her face that still feels warm; so unlike Myrtle's in the bathroom that night, the girl had felt cold as a ghost (ironically she did become one) and already rigor mortis had set in despite only being a few minutes since Myrtle had seen the basilisk's eyes.
Her eyes were just like his father's. And something in his chest, in his very fractured soul that in a few minutes shall be ripped into a third piece, aches. He feels pain. It's something he hasn't felt in in years. Because not only does she have his eyes but his name - no, their name.
Lily's father was a muggle; his father was anything but a muggle - a mere mortal. Yet those facts do nothing to calm the jealousy that rages within him. And why should it? She had his eyes and perhaps that had been why he'd been willing to throw pearls before swine; willingly to let the fool of a women live. (Did you know that curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought in back?) Why he had let her parents live all those years ago.
Eventually, perhaps just a second like he told himself (lied to himself) or maybe a minute or a hour, he gets up.
Eventually, he dies, his corpse falling to lay next to the grandmother he never knew. Turns out he was the fool.