REALITY
Summery: A follow on from Fantasy by Alliecallienip but it could be read on it's own. It's dark – fair warning. MM centered.
Disclaimer: Just in case anyone was in any doubt Minerva McGonagall and any other characers mentioned in this work do not belong to me.
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She wasn't sure when the fantasy had stopped being just that. No, that was a lie; she could remember the exact instant she had slipped on the wet floor of her private bathroom. It had just been one of those things. She was getting ready for bed but had decided to get a glass of water from the bathroom before settling for the night but the floor had still been damp from where she had exited the bath earlier and she had slipped, the glass falling, tumbling as if in slow motion, to the floor. She, of course, had followed. It could have been worse. She could have hit her head or broken something, instead her only injury came from landing on the already shattered glass. It had taken her a few seconds before she had even realised that she was bleeding. Turning over her arm she had found herself faced with a river of crimson syrup that was so familiar and yet so alien. The feelings that it elicited were so – incomprehensible. It was as if the purging of her veins was releasing the pressure of years of responsibility and self-imposed isolation. The cut was quite deep, she had noted absently as the flow continued.
Sitting with her back up against the wall she had just watched as something that was supposed to be so precious left her. It hadn't been long though, before she had 'snapped out of it' and stood, moving through to her bedroom where she found her wand and quickly healed the damage. But no matter how hard she tried she could not forget the feeling of escape that had, for a moment, overwhelmed her. She had tried throwing herself into the latest Transfiguration textbook, her marking, she had even taken a late night stroll through the grounds which was usually more than enough to settle her troubled soul, but nothing came close to the feeling of release that she had experienced after the accident. Over the next week she had become more and more wound up. She knew she had been snapping at both students and the other professors, she couldn't seem to eat or sleep properly and even small noises would grate against her like one of the muggle's jack-hammers.
It was just an experiment. That was what she had told herself. Just to see if it would feel the same if she opened her veins again. After all, it could merely have been a fluke and in that case she was worrying over nothing. She had transfigured a pair of scissors into a razor blade days ago, before burying it at the back of drawer. Collecting it she had carried it with her into the bathroom. She had been hesitant at first; an odd mixture fear and apprehension clouding her resolve but these were soon drowned by nervous excitement. Eventually she worked up the courage to draw the blade across her wrist, not too close to her hand so that any mark left would be observable from underneath her robes. There been an instant of pain as the skin separated but… oh, the feeling of having the liquid draining out of her and into the small bowl she had carefully placed onto her knees. Watching as the red drips landed on the startlingly white porcelain, the contrast seeming as if it ought to symbolise something but yet not understanding what. This time she had been prepared though and hadn't left it so long before carefully sealing the wound as best she could.
Four days. She had forced herself to wait that long before she took out the blade again. She had intended on destroying it but had never quite got around to doing so. It had been a horrific day, to give her her due, where just nothing had gone right. It had culminated in a rather tense meeting in Albus's office between herself and Snape and although she had left with her apparent calm still intact her outward appearance couldn't have been further than the truth. She didn't think twice about it and before she realised what she had done she was sitting on the bathroom floor again. Over the next ten weeks she came back to her own private sin again and again. But each time the release she gained became shorter and shorter lived until she had to restrain from disappearing between her classes to fulfil her newfound 'need'. And that was how she had come to be where she was now, sitting on the cold tile floor after having finished her afternoon classes, staring into the concerned face of Albus Dumbledore as he crouched before her.
A/N – I'm thinking of carrying this on over the summer but I want to know what YOU think. You took the time to read it please take the time to review. Thanks, Linz.