"Ms. Granger."  The noise broke my illusion and I stared sadly at the floor, searching for the pieces.  I needed them, even with cracks in them and glued back together.  If they were to be crushed beneath someone's careless tread…

            That's what they were:  careless.  Careless and carefree, they had never sat alone and wondered how they could be loved or, if that was too much to ask, be allowed to love.

            "Gillyweed," I responded, hating my eyes as they left the spot in the air where my illusion had disappeared.  I stretched myself over two realities and was sorry to lose one so pleasant, even for the unequaled rapture of his voice and his attention.

            My eye's traveled to his and for one burning moment, he looked into my eyes.  I didn't know what he saw and, later, I stared at their reflection, trying to decode their secrets.  They didn't seem like mine anymore, I had been thinking, when I realized they weren't.  They would be his. 

            His eyes were black and cold.  How had they become that way?  Who had taken their warmth and left his beautiful eyes glassy and pained?  I wanted to love Snape and to hate the person who had done it to him.  I wanted to steal life and animation back for him and I expected nothing in return.

            "Excellent," he sneered.  But he had changed.  The sneers he gave me were different that they had once been.  Did he hate me?  Did he sense my love and hate it?

            He could hate me, but not my love for him.  Not my love, that breathed its own air and lived it's own life.   Please hate me, I thought.  I prayed each night that he didn't hate my love, endless devotions and candles flickering on the walls of basilicas.  I'd never even hoped he didn't hate me.

            In fact, his hate would be welcome.  Hate was passion, as love was.  Passion—I craved it.  Disinterest would be the cruelest temperature.

            An hour later, I was gone with the illusion clutched in my heart and the question still in my memory. 

            The day was long and classes stretched ahead of me.  A quarter hour in the common room, then Charms held no reprieve.  I took the long way back to the tower, as I always had, to look at the pictures.

            The people must have left the settings of their portraits for a cheerier place.  I silently wished the same thing.  I wanted to be someplace, any place, else.  For once, I didn't want to study.

            I wanted to curl up in bed and awake rested and happy.  I wanted to live again.

            And yet, that was unthinkable.  Life without the one I loved would be awful.  I could not erase the existence of my feelings like an unneeded line.

            The future was to be written and each day was shrouded with smoky mist.  I could not see ahead and the past didn't matter.  I was alone, for I could see no one.

            I found myself losing consciousness.  Something pulled my thoughts from my mind to throw me into a deep sleep.  Inviting in its depth, yet frightening in its source,  I surrendered, feeling my knees buckle and my hands vainly reach for assistance.