29
"Try for a little remorse, Tom."
"What?"
For just a fraction of a moment, he considered it. Remorse.
It wasn't a feeling. Remorse was long gone, with trust, with faith, with the possibility of caring.
It was the echo of a feeling that could once have been there. It was the memory, detached and hazy, of her, storming away because he had stood by and allowed her to be hurt. Of the way she had glanced at him sometimes, knowing that he agreed with what was being said, even when he kept quiet. I was certain of everything, except when you were there.
It had, so briefly, reached out the hand of peace to one who had cast it away as a weakness, when he slew the red haired woman who refused to step away from the cot, when he thought of looking at Snape – Snape who had been a traitor – and informing him that she had made a choice. I remember how that felt.
It was there, almost a feeling, in the figure only a few meters away, with red hair and arms around a child with the same hair, and in the knowledge that he could have given her that. He could have saved her. I didn't have to kill you.
But I wanted to.
Remorse was something that could only be seen from afar, distant, the echo of a child's dream.
Remorse could no longer touch him.
