Pining Blame

Non-HBP compliant.

Disclaimer: Ideas – mine. Everything else – not mine.

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The circumstances were really quite sad. Ronald Weasley was in the agonising process of dying. It would be a slow death. A really slow death. Seeing him in this state was not easy for anyone who cared for the boy. Even Severus Snape, the unfeeling git, was there with a pained expression on his face. There were only four people in that small room at the back of the dungeons. Why Snape had decided to bring one of his most hated ex-students to his most sacred sanctuary was beyond the comprehension of the Golden Trio. Harry Potter and Hermione Granger could only hold the poor boy's hands and hope that, by some miracle, he would be okay.

It was wishful thinking, they all knew it, and yet Harry and Hermione continued to whisper calming words to their ever-ailing best friend. What exactly was wrong with him was something they could not even begin to understand. Snape understood it all without a second thought. He had, after all, been involved with cases such as this in his youth. The simplicity of the atrocity would have put him in awe had it not been for the fact that he actually felt bad for the lad now dying on his floor. He had been hit with four different spells by four different dark wizards, but all at the same time. Ron could easily have recovered had he been hit at different times, because the curses themselves were mundane ones that the sixth years were taught early on in the year in their Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons. A shame really, the boy was loved by many. A great loss to the Weasley family and the school too, even if he was no longer a student here. A feeling of sadness swept through Snape as he remembered that the war was not over yet. He would have to say something to the two ex-students kneeling by Weasley's side soon.

"Mister Potter, Miss Granger..." he started awkwardly. It was not often that he felt so out of place as he did at that moment. He expected the two of them to look up any second now, but they didn't. They were too deeply absorbed in watching their friend's mouth open and close ceaselessly as the pain continued to spread... cell by tiny cell. Snape had no doubt that the boy would be in the same state for at least another hour. The curses were meant to kill their victims slowly and painfully. That was what made them more barbaric… more Death Eaterly.

"POTTER AND GRANGER!" he shouted at the top of his voice. That simple three-word phrase made them look up instantly, almost as a reflex action of having heard it so many times in a classroom environment. It was only then that he noticed the tears that stained both Potter and Granger's cheeks. He expected Granger to cry but the tears on Potter's face made him have to think as to why exactly he had called their names. "Get out of here… NOW!" he commanded in his best authoritarian voice. The order was met by blank looks.

"What?" came the whispered reply of Granger. She really should learn to stop questioning those who knew better. Snape did not have the time, nor the patience, to explain to her why she and Potter needed to get out of his dungeons at that very instant. In truth, he should have expected that she and Potter would follow him when he levitated Weasley's body out of the battleground and into his thinking room. He had to finish off Weasley before his condition contaminated all the cells in his body and then proceeded to kill off all of his living relatives. That was how the four-striker curse worked, but he wasn't about to launch into some lengthy explanation for Granger's sake. He was too weary to even take a step towards the body merely three metres away. He did not have time for her pathetic questions. He knew that Granger and Potter would not be easy to get rid of and so he had to think up an alternative route to get rid of them.

"I have an idea... an experimental cure, so to speak, for Weasley, but it's not to be done in the presence of healthy flesh." He help up a hand before the questions could spill from her mouth. "And there will be screaming, from him that is, which I really don't think you two are in a fit state to handle. Now get out before I change my mind and decide to let him die."

The moments that followed were tense. Snape had no idea of knowing if his detour idea had worked. He plastered on an expression that others would misread as annoyance but inside his mind swam as he thought of the million things that Potter and Granger could come up with to stay where they were. He really should have thought out a better pathway that the one he had come up with. To his astonishment, Granger and Potter actually both wearily got up and approached the door. Potter held up three of his fingers and mouthed 'three minutes'. Snape glared and bolted the door the second they left.

He still had no idea why he was saving the entire Weasley clan. Killing off their youngest son was the only way to save them, not that they knew. Snape actually wondered why he was saving the crowd when their children had been nothing but constant headaches for as long as he could remember. He also had to contemplate why he was digging his own grave. Potter and Granger were undoubtedly right outside the door; they would know in seconds that their precious best friend had been 'Avada'ed. It would take them all about four seconds to come past the bolted door. On second thought, he wondered why he had chased them out anyways – there would not be enough time for him to prove his innocence to them before they fired their curses at him for killing their best friend. He wanted many things in life but Snape did not want dead at that instant. He wanted to die knowing Voldemort too was dead. It would bring him an unimaginable amount of joy.

Back to matters at hand, he realised Avada was not an option. He would have to think up some other way to pass Weasley on without the two dunderheads outside knowing. Grimacing at his own stupidity he turned to stare at the two-story high shelves, laden with innumerable poisons. He accio'ed one he knew to cause no pain upon ingestion. Snape was a bitter man inside but he would not want his ex-student to suffer more pain than he was in before dying. He managed to get Weasley to drink the potion with minimal difficulty. It would take all about ten minutes now. He unbolted the door and announced that his plan had failed, that he had no idea what to do to cure Weasley. He was glad both Granger and Potter rushed back to Weasley's side conveniently forgetting the fact that there had been no screaming as Snape said there would be. What he didn't think of while walking away was the fact that Granger was smarter than most adults currently on the battlefield. He forgot that Granger would easily know what the substance staining Weasley's shirt was by its smell. Finally, Snape forget that where Granger was involved... there were many things worse than death.

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