Face to face with the Hogwarts Headmaster himself. Poised to kill the very man who had taught me all I knew-the man who's unrequited sympathy I had won in my second year. The man who'd spent many a long hour outside the classroom feeding my starved mind until my lush craving for knowledge was momentarily sated. The only man who'd ever harbored paternal feelings for me. (My own father passed away early in my lifetime. He was not missed.) Come to think of it, he was quite possibly the only acquaintance I've known who has never wished me dead at some point or another. Yet here I was, standing amid the ransacked private quarters of my former alma-matter, bathing in the languid sweat of late July, poised to murder him, with a wretched mask to hide the deed.

Poised to kill Albus Dumbledore. The mentor. The muse. Never in my brief career as a student had he lamented me-Not once! Not when I left him, nor when, in the folly of my seventh year, I'd made my public my adamant hatred for him and his institution. Not even when I left him forever and sold my very soul to the brand on my arm. He simply stood there, smiling like a dolt, his glassy eyes catching the light in a way that was nothing short of ethereal. He knew better. He knew that I didn't-couldn't-hate him. Not after all he'd done for me. Hell, simply his personality ensured this inability. Bursting with vivacity and optimism-filled to the brim with a genuine adoration of life and all its splendors! I was far from hating him. If anything, I felt a twinge of jealousy towards this doddering old man- this inexplicable genius!-who could gain such respect and admiration by simply existing! Many of us would give our very lives for such privilege, myself included. No, I found it impossible to hate him. In fact, all throughout my blood-soaked tangent of darkness, he was the one man whom I found myself utterly incapable of hating. As it turns out, he was also the one man that I was incapable of killing.

I brandished my instrument of death with a quivering arm. And then he spoke.

"I wondered when I would see you again, Severus."

The icy killer's blood froze in my veins. Once again, he knew. He knew who I was-what I was. He'd known all along. A thousand questions flooded by racing mind in that instant. Why hadn't he stopped me before? Had he known that I would become the bloodthirsty monster I now embodied? Had he known that when he silently nodded at my departure? Would he have-could he have stopped me?

No. He'd known then that he couldn't. When a soul such as mine commits itself to evil, not even Albus Dumbledore can convince it of the contrary. He'd known that then. And he knew now that I couldn't kill him.

My hand trembled and the tainted wand fell to the floor. I was unarmed and unmanned, feeling nothing short of naked before this man who knew me better than I knew myself. A lump caught in my throat. He took a step forward.

"Go," he whispered. "Tell them what you must."

I found myself unable to respond for fear that my parched sobs would betray me. He placed a wrinkled hand on my left arm, lightly grazing the soft patch of flesh where the mark of sin burned.

"If you ever require my aid, Severus,"-he gave my forearm a light squeeze- "you know where to find me. He gave a small wink and vanished from my sight. With that, the room spun out of focus and my body collapsed on the cold marble floor. When I awoke, Dumbledore was nowhere to be found.

My peers simply assumed that I'd been unable to thwart the Hogwarts Headmaster and, upon administering a powerful hex, he'd escaped. This came as no surprise to anyone, not even the Dark Lord-he himself had failed innumerable times in the aforementioned task. Truth be told, our goal had not really been to dispatch Albus-Oh no, that was near to impossible. We had simply intended to frighten him, to warn him that the revolution was not long in coming and that he was fated to the losing side. I had fulfilled neither of those tasks. Apparently, my Dark Master was all too disappointed with his proverbial A + student, for he took little note of me subsequent to the Dumbledore incident. The role of most prized lackey had been awarded to none other than Lucius Malfoy, and the insidious little snot lorded his newfound authority over me as often as possible. But, it didn't matter to me-I no longer cared. My taste for blood was gone.