Bloody, bruised and broken he lies in the hospital wing. His hair dark against his skin and the starched white that surrounds him, eyes darker in a face that even pale is more ashen than white. He hasn't been conscious long, only when you entered did he bother to stir, sensing your presence.
He looks to you, automatically, disoriented and confused from pain and the trauma of the events that lead him here. They lead you here as well. Teenage recklessness and disregard for safety, mortality, for anything bigger than his teenage ego.
There's nothing else you can do. You know it, you've worked too hard, risked too much to allow it to be thrown away at the hands of a careless child. Your plan is simple. Was simple. Slip to the infirmary where he is, and slip him what you've made with your own hands.
Sophisticated, slow, painless death. The brewing made slower, more painstaking because of your own pain. The testament of the Dark Lord's fury. Victory in spite of it all, inspire of this careless, stupid teenager who is now looking at you with glazed eyes beneath the fall of too long hair.
Your... pet as the word carved into his flesh by his own hands at the will of another, your lap dog, your protégée as decreed by others.
You didn't expect him to be awake.
But he is, and he's looking at you will confusion and mild curiosity.
It doesn't matter. This changes nothing. Maybe it even makes it easier. Easier than slow careful measures dripped into an unresponsive mouth, encouraged to swallow.
You tell him to take it and he does.
He's never questioned you before, never not trusted you. You've saved him from this fate once, after all.
Lucius will be blamed for this. The injuries he inflicted too severe to be healed. Perhaps he'll even be killed.
Another victory for Light.
You should go. No one can know you were here. Not even Pomfrey.
You should go.
But you don't.
You stay, and you watch. Silently as the specter of death you brought with you.
Watch eyes drift shut again, watch the rise and fall of his chest slow, gradually. Watch the last breath.
Then, and only then do you go.
Only then do you allow yourself to go.
After all, you've always done your duty.