Inspired by the beautiful song "Breathe In, Breathe Out" by Mat Kearney and Snape's final memories in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two.
For the Word Limit Competition on the HPFC
Breathe
Standing here, it was easy to have regrets, to wish things had worked out differently, to wish you had taken a moment, at the age of fifteen to stop, to think, and to change your mind. It was easy to wish that that word – Mudblood – hadn't fallen so easily from your tongue and that you hadn't let the green and red of your houses divide you like it divided everyone else. It was easy to wish you had been stronger than that; oh how silly, how shallow, it seems now, to judge who you could love by the colour of your school tie.
Now and especially now, when that girl that you so love lies dead before you, slain by your own hand.
You flinch when you think this but you can plainly see the blood staining your hands and dripping from your fingertips. You'll try to wash it off later, scouring your hands with soap, scourgifying your skin, but it won't work; the water will run clear and the porcelain sink will be untarnished by her blood because your hands are not as scarlet as they seem to you, in reality your hands are the same sallow colour as the rest of your skin but you, so choked up with guilt, can only see red.
You glance down at her body again and your breath catches in your throat. You have to remind yourself to breathe – in and out. You drop to your knees; in and out, in and out. You reach out a hand, running your fingers along the line of her jawand find the skin to be as soft as ever but cold, so cold that it freezes you to your very soul. You pull her into your arms – remember: in and out – and a tear escapes your eye, followed by another and another. Her fiery hair is spilling down her back and over your shoulder, her head lolling back slightly, leaving her face and neck exposed and vulnerable, and your tears splash onto her closed eyelids and trickle down her cheek, her chin, her neck, giving the appearance that she is grieving too.
But if she was grieving, it wasn't for you. You who are still alive and love her so much that you'd…come on¸ breathe; in and out…not just you but her as well. Please, breathe. Your lungs are on fire, you need to breathe – but you don't want to; you want to die and be with her again. But dying is too easy you have to live, to repent; that's it: in and out.
)()()(
You're dying now, at last. You can feel the poison seeping through you; you can finally see blood on your hands, real, tangible blood that is so sickening sticky to the touch. You can also see her; the ghost of the girl she was, arms outstretched, pulling you into the blackness; you're glad to go.
You breathe in and out one last time. In and out and you're gone.
