They say you can tell a man by what he has to say. He has nothing to say. Nothing of consequence, everything of importance is trapped by his hate of the world, and of himself. He will never forgive himself, and so will never heal. The cuts and bruises on his body will mend in time, yes, but the dementors living in his head will forever keep the hurt of his memory bleeding. His life is slowly being saturated by bitter blood and there is nothing he can do to stop it. Not unless he tries, but he enjoys living in his past, thinks he is learning from his mistakes. The sand in his hourglass is running out. Insanity; a slow death.

Other people have tried of course. Trying desperately to burrow deep into his pain and despair to plant a seed of hope and see it grow and flourish. They are too late. Any flower that they plant now will be doomed to be suffocated by the blood. Only he can sow his seeds, but the darkness of his mind and the dryness of his misery killed off anything that once lived there. The young child that once laughed has been buried deep inside. Go deep inside yourself, he had learnt, and if you go deep enough no one can find you. No one can hurt you.

So he sits vigilantly in front of the hearth re-living it all in his brain like he does every night. Since he was old enough to think about it, he had noticed he was nothing short of uninviting. He knew he was no Adonis, no James Potter… He knew he was not the type of man women fell in love with. Women like Lily… women in general. Thank Merlin he wasn't someone like Lockhart who was so vain he needed to see himself in the mirror to confirm his existence. No, he didn't need to look. He already knew every ugly line on his face and he hated it. Nothing short of a beauty charm more powerful than veritaserum would ever change his mangled appearance. He did not need daily scrutiny of his image to realize that.

It wasn't as if he had to try anymore. No one would care anyway, so he could neglect his appearance as much as he wanted to, repulse the people around him as much as he needed. It wasn't as if he needed anyone. He was perfectly fine living on his own, in fact he was better. Physically, he could enjoy no one's company. Any soft touch would turn into a knife piercing his skin. Any sympathetic look would morph into hate; disgust. Something inside him would not allow anyone to care for him, and refused to see anyone trying.

He didn't tolerate care or sympathy. It was himself that made him like this, and it was him that would deal with the consequences of it. He needed no help. Was that why he joined the death eaters? To get away from it all? To live a different life and pretend that nothing around him had ever happened? Because he was scarred from that experience, and maybe if he ignored it, it would go away? Lily had made that experience one of the worst of his life, and he loathed her for it.

As much as he hated Lily it had hurt when she died. He should have told someone about Peter. He knew that he was a death eater, but at what price? It would seem too suspicious if he had told anyone. And anyway, at that point, he hated her for what she did. But it was meant to happen wasn't it? Destiny. What was this rubbish? He had never believed in divination crap. He made his own destiny. So why didn't he save her? This is your fault, Severus, why did you let it happen, he asks himself. Because you are weak and pathetic, comes the unwelcome answer. But why Lily you fool? Why the one person who understood you? Why her? Dead…gone…

It hurt now. Hurt like someone had just ripped his heart out and thrown it at him in spite. Gone…everything he had ever hoped for…gone…dead, buried.

"Severus?" Dumbledore is at the door. "Can I speak to you please?"

*

The moment Hermione woke she reached over the side of her bed and picked up the book on werewolves. She didn't want to think about last night, and books were the only things that allowed her to delve deep into another world and forget the one she was living in. She flicked through the pages until she came to the paragraph she had read, and after looking at it again, she carried on.

Although the Wolfsbane potion (a recent discovery that allows werewolves to keep their mind when they transform) is now being distributed through wizarding hospitals worldwide, there is no such remedy for catar's. A formula is being worked on; however the irregularity of blue moons makes it almost impossible for any one person to test their theory more than once in a lifetime. Many wizards and witches are resorting to centaurs for reliable information on exactly which years blue moons are going to occur.

With the absence of any remedy for catar's, there has been a rising increase in deaths throughout the population. Whereas a werewolf bite will turn the recipient into a werewolf, a catar bite is fatal. The mutantising of the werewolf gene has caused it to become much stronger, and a witch or wizard unused to transformations will be unable to cope with it. This also means that many catar's die in the process of their first transformation.

And that was all they had. Hermione stared at the information, stunned. She snapped the book shut and pulled herself out of bed to go downstairs. She needed to confront her mother on this.

*

Disclaimer: What if I really did own Harry Potter? What if I was lying? What if I had a beard made out of green spinach? It wouldn't make much difference now would it?

I know, I know. Short chapter. I have a bag of marshmallows ready and waiting for all the flames I'm going to get. If you don't give me a flame, I'll have an extra marshmallow that I can give you. Tempted? Anyway, this is the last day before I go to school (boo, hiss) so I'm not going to be updating so often. At the most twice a week. Just to warn you.

I'm sorry about the last chapter. It was mainly lyrics, but I couldn't think of anything else to put.

Will Hermione's mother know about catar's? Does she have some more confessions for Hermione? Is Severus ever going to snap out of his illness? Am I ever going to stop asking pointless questions and giving the whole game away? Is anyone still listening to me?

Thanks to everyone whose reviewed. I owe all of my big writer's ego that permits me to write extremely bad, short chapters to you. Don't take offence from that or anything. I should shut up now.

Redstrawberry900.