Disclaimer: Severus Snape is the property of J.K. Rowling, not me.

Author's Notes: This is a follow-up/ companion piece to "Within," in which I basically did the same thing with Lupin. This is just random musing about Snape from his point of view—a flash of insight into what I think he might feel sometimes. Please review—hope you like it. : ) By the way, "white" means simply light/good—"black" means darkness/evil: a reference to the Dark Mark. I do not intend to imply racism in any way, shape, or form.

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~ The Blade ~

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"And all I feel, is black and white, and I'm wound up, small and tight. And I don't know who I am…"~ Sarah McLachlan

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I wish there was a line. Perhaps there was, once, and I have crossed it. Perhaps, in crossing, it ceased to be. Or perhaps there never was, and I am left aimless. I float in grey, though I shroud myself in black. I cloak myself in shadow, and yet I am white. Black and white, so simple. Light and dark- a child's naivete. Everything has its negative, its antithesis, sharply contrasted as two sides of a single blade. And yet, I am the blade. I am the shadow, the greying between light and dark. I am the edge. I walk the line.

I know myself, though others do not. Secrecy is life, and I hoard it close. Secrecy is my all, and yet I loathe it. To be white is pure. To be black is to be impure. To be grey, to be shadow, to be both…is to be nothing, red with blood. I am light, with a black mark. It burns, consuming me. I stare at the mark; clutch my wrist. I can feel it, searing with tongues of flame against the coolness of skin. So easily gained, so ignorantly. So much pain. I laugh coldly. Light and dark, a child's naivete.

They say that one can only appreciate light who has seen the darkness. I have seen, been held, been consumed by the black nothingness of dark. I have felt the whips and tasted blood, have held the whips and lashed out at innocence, paying with my own. I have felt the whips, given blood…and I have felt the desire, giving pain. Innocence is death, a lesson quickly learned. The mark flares, and I burn. I burn, falling ever deeper. At the heart of flame lies darkness, but I cannot see. All is black and nothing. They say one can only appreciate light who has seen the darkness. I am in the darkness. I am the darkness, and there is no light without innocence.

Have I not paid? I have given my all to the light, that I might live in dark. I have given to the dark, that I might aid the light. Innocence is death, and yet I have given. The mark burns black against the white of skin, and I am lost in grey. I have given all; am untouchable, unfeeling. Where black and white meet, there is nothing, there is a line. I am nothing, neither angel nor demon; I am the silence between balance and chaos. I am silent, subtle: I am secrets. I am shadow, the emptiness of light. Lost in the darkness of the flame, the burning of the mark, I close my eyes.

Let there be a line. Oh, let there be a line, that I might not cross it. Let there be pain, let there be pleasure, hatred, sweetness, darkness, innocence… but let there be some feeling against the emptiness of self. Let there be a reason.