Disclaimers same as before. I've got the unpleasantness of the warnings over, and now I don't have to be so grumpy about them. Cheers, y'all.
I really don't have a clue where I'm going with all this. I didn't even mean to continue it when I started. But it kept yelling at me in the back of my head. I've always wanted to make the Hogwarts teachers human. Does that make sense? I don't think this'll end up Snape/McGonagall. Here we enter the mind of Snape, making Minerva's potion. R+R, please; criticisms welcomed, and flames too if you must.

**

Severus Snape sighed, and ran a hand through his hair, wincing as his fingers caught on knots. He thought for a minute, and then reached for a tall, slender book perched high upon a dusty shelf. He had been proud of that dust. With a quick brush of his hand, all the fine gray powder scattered into the air, drifting down to collect somewhere under the furniture, no doubt . . . .

He turned the page reluctantly, feeling like he held something heavy in his hands. It was a simple enough potion as the recipe told it. He read it over, looking at the ingredients. Simple enough in its given form, but he could change it just a little to help bring down the pain. There were no ingredients to worry about negating. This recipe was one of the older ones; it had been used by women across the centuries.

Snape hated it.

He hated it as his fingers mixed the ingredients. He hated it as he watched the potion bubble. He hated it as he checked the temperature and waited the minutes it took to be complete. He hated it as he filled a vial with it. This potion was meant to kill, and to kill the helpless. But . . . . he was bitter, resigned

He had been Minerva McGonagall's rival for years upon years. She was the Head of Gryffindor; he the Head of Slytherin. They were each the leaders of rival armies. Sometimes she was so infuriatingly Gryffindor. Sometimes she made him angry.

But she was his colleague. She worked side by side with him, in the same building, in the same war. Snape had to acknowledge that she wasn't all bad. He didn't mind Minerva McGonagall as much as he made out that he did.

And he couldn't help but feel that this was all his fault.

Snape had once thought that he was immune to that feeling of guilt. It no longer manifested itself as guilt, certainly; but as a heavy, black cloak of a despair that settled in until it pulled his head down, blinding him, isolating him. He would look at his own arm and want to scream with revulsion. There, in black, was his own betrayal. Now, it made his arm feel like a leech, like it was not part of him, not part of his body.

It was part of his body. It was attached to his mind. Even thinking of it now brought shame, and he looked down at his hands to see that they were shaking. There was no guilt anymore, just a long, tortured, inward scream.

He supposed, as best he could, that that was what Minerva felt. That scream.

And she was right. It had been the Death Eaters . . . his supposed comrades . . . (Lord, NO!) . . . . who had done this to her. Raped her. He bit his lip, and forced himself to say it out loud.
"Rape."

It echoed in the dungeons like a curse, one of the Unforgivables. Snape winced as his own voice came back to him. Damn, damn, damn, damn.

He looked again at the potion. A potion for his rival, to kill, a potion to hate . . . . he shook his head. Minerva deserved better than that.

A potion for his colleague. A potion so that she wouldn't have to die. A potion he didn't have to like, but could at least give the good courtesy of making without too much resent. For Minerva. And against Voldemort. He supposed, a bitter sigh escaping him, that he didn't have to hate that. Oh, but he didn't have to like it.

He put away his cauldron, and put the book on the shelf. Its spine now gleaned with the absence of the dust. It was mocking him. Snape felt the first flash of anger he had had in the whole potion-brewing exercise. He had felt bitterness, yes, and revulsion, but not anger. He wasn't sure who he was angry at, but there he was, hands clenched tight, shaking hard, fighting the impulse to kick something and break it. Not Minerva, really. She couldn't help any of it. Perhaps himself, for being a heartless bastard. He was. He drew his imaginary dark cloak around his shoulders. He wasn't angry at Dumbledore.

Voldemort? There was a good candidate for wrath. It was Voldemort's fault, Voldemort's war. Damn Tom Riddle, damn him! He wanted to find some way to subject the Dark Lord to the pain he had caused. He wanted to kill him slowly. He wanted to be the one holding the wand when it was done. With a sudden, animalistic growl of rage, Severus Snape swept some dust up off the floor and brushed it haphazardly down the book, making it look unused.

Somehow, the sight of that lie only switched his anger to himself.