Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of its contents, and I'm not making any money off this.
A/N: This isn't properly British. Prize for IzPerplexing.
He closes her eyes. She shouldn't have to see the world like this. He wants her to remember how everything was so many years ago: the way her house used to look before they ruined it, the way the sky used to look before they ruined it, they way he used to look before they ruined him. He used to be handsome, once. He never thought it, but he heard it once or twice from 'friends.'
Severus doesn't have those anymore.
Lucius was the last, and now he lies beside his wife, pale as his hair. His jagged, worn face is the head of a man twenty years his senior. The war wasn't kind to anyone, even the rich.
The Malfoys were rich only in coin. Their ideals were shot, and try as Severus might, he couldn't get them to come around. He tried, damnit, just like he tries with all of them, but if they will not see reason then they will not. Severus is too old to have any hope in the world. Some stones will not bend, no matter how much the wind whips at them.
So Severus does what must be done. His robes billow behind him as he sweeps out the wide, open doors, back out into the night sky. Another clean job, another without a trace of fingerprints, one more the Ministry will not truly look into. Resources are too thin to look into the murders of murderers. Severus disappears through the wrought-iron gates, Disapparating on the other side.
He Apparates into his own basement and slumps immediately into a chair. It's uncomfortable, like all of his things, and it faces the still-roaring fire; everything is just as he left it. He picks up the copy of the Prophet draped over the chair, as though the words aren't all running together. There's a picture of 'the killer' on the front page—a motley sort of artist impression. Severus finds it looks eerily like him, only more attractive.
Mostly for his own sanity, Severus attempts to read. Nothing else. He tells himself he won't think of it; wallowing never solved anything for him. There are no moral implications, and he can't help what he is. So he just reads.
And he wonders what he's become.