Disclaimer/Author's Note: Okay... I broke down. No reviews, but I posted Chapter Two, anyway. It was just sitting there all lonely on my hard drive. Besides, I think this one is better than the first. It's angstier, but less self-depreciating that Chapter One. There's a little hint of Snape/Sinistra... if you get the Astronomy references. No specific incidents in mind. So... enjoy this one more than the first chapter.


From his window, he looked out, just as he had always done. He stared blankly, seeing nothing beyond the broken green glass. Tracing the cracks with his fingers, he studied the neat hole that remained, where smooth, solid window had once been. Feeling the jagged edges, his brow furrowed in expression of the cool, emotionless melancholy upon which he had built his life.

A tear dripped down his sunken cheek, and landed neatly next to minuscule pools of stagnant red, glaring up at him from the sill. They did not meet the hot saline, but only neighbored them contemptuously. Their angry crimson made him cringe. He did not want to think about where they came from.

He began to turn away, but the shimmering little shards caught his eye. They looked like stars, through his blurred vision, in the pattern of the Serpent Bearer. Only, one star was missing. And in the place of Sinistra, was another violently stationary drop of vermillion. His lip curled in disgust, for himself, and for anything else he could think to hate. But particularly for those mocking stars and their accomplices. They existed to taunt him. They made him sick.

His stomach lurched, as if her were about to vomit. But he remained rooted to the spot. He was still too shocked to move. But nothing had happened.

With trembling lips and arms, he raised his left hand to eye level. Skin was torn, bone shone through, and blood covered what would have been ghostly white knuckles. Skeletal fingers were clenched now, frozen in such a position. His hand ached.

He had let his anger get the best of him.