Yeah, this isn't new. I don't own Harry Potter, and loadsa credit to Molly Morrison for letting me 'borrow' her fic.
It's like a needle in my spine
It stings inside
Poisons me with time
-ADEMA: drowning
My footsteps echo solidly on each stair as I ascend to the third level of the house. My thoughts are preoccupied, but not distanced enough to let slip the cool, curved glass vial held loosely in my fingers.
This is a mansion of Black memories; every wall, every surface echoes with absorbed reminiscences, of sights and sounds of the family itself. I feel my skin crawl as I ascend each level. I do not like this place; it ripples with futility of thought and stagnation of style. For me, it also calls memories of hatred and pain, of sufferance and waiting. I am not a patient man at the best of times; waiting does not serve my purpose. I do not like wasting time... even when waiting is necessary.
The task I am undertaking I fought against having to complete; this is one of my lowest, dirtiest chores. Even looking at the boy causes a spasm of revulsion to pass up my spine, a conditioned response from years ago. I never once thought the tables would be turned: he would die, and I would live; he would suffer and I would be strong. But here I am, and I have the upper hand this time. Now I am older and stronger than he, not the other way around... and this time I can exact revenge with no fear of retribution. The boy in question is wasting away as I watch. Every time I tread these stairs he appears frailer and weaker. It is a cause of some concern to some in the house, namely his friends and that Godforsaken werewolf, who fares little better than the boy. I do not and will not care. The boy is of no concern to me, even if he is for others. Every time I see this hated boy the anger is like a needle in my spine... it stings inside, poisons me with time. The child reeks with bad memories, of emotions best long forgotten. His face shows me nothing but hatred and this suits me fine, because that is all I am used to from the likes of him.
My long, thin fingers rest lightly upon the darkened wood of the door. I always hesitate slightly; I will not happily enter this room of anger, and so going through its wooden portal is always an act of sheer willpower.
My treacherous hand turns to door handle, and I step inside the shadowy room.
The curtains are drawn. The air is still. In some abstract way it reminds me of a mausoleum - all death and sickness. And on the bed in the corner the boy himself lies.
His skin now has a yellowish tint, and I note with some amusement that he really does not have much time left. As a teenager, he is built more upon the long and lanky lines than muscular in any way. The effect would make him look malnourished even if he wasn't the equivalent of hospitalised.
I start to move toward the bed, but the message from my brain to my legs rebounds suddenly, and I am caught in the backwash of adrenaline. I stop still - thankfully, it does not look like I am scared, or even that I began moving.
His eyes are open - not fully, perhaps only a quarter of the way. But I see that they have darted to me, as soon as the door had opened.
They are dull with fatigue but I can see that vivacious bright spark of horrible, horrible intelligence shining in the buried green. He is conscious and he is responsive. He is fully aware that it's me, and out of sheer habit I burrow into his mind a little.
I search for the familiar hatred and loathing that is his trademark, but to my surprise I find none at all. Merely shadows of what he supposes he has to feel.
In the hollow left by the bitterness I find an expanse of desperation and disparity that has covered his mind like a stifling blanket.
I feel resignation; he knows fully what's coming, and that there is nothing he can do to fight it. A flicker of a smile crosses his face; I don't think he even felt that happening - it was entirely subconscious. There is a prolonged breath, as he prepares for the fight to come. I approach the bedside without any emotion showing on my face.
Shut up, Potter.
It can't kill you, Potter. It would have done so already.
Of course you can rest. That's what it's f-
Don't interrupt. You don't need to sleep with this potion - or has your intelligence melted so that you can't remember it from my classes?
Somehow, I get the feeling he isn't listening to me properly. He has held my gaze for a long time, enough for me to see that he means every word he says, and he will not stop babbling this truth from a mere order from me. But now his gaze encompasses the bottle of potion I hold. I begin to move toward him, uncorking the bottle as I go.
Shut up, Potter.
I said, SHUT UP!
But he's not listening to me. He'd be screaming now if he had the energy, but the most he can manage is an anguished croak. It's a simple matter of me placing my hand on the base of his throat, feeling the protruding collarbones and rippling tendons beneath my sensitive palm, and pressing slightly. It depresses his breathing just enough to stop him fighting so much (if you can call what he was doing fighting) and for me to tip most of the potion down his throat.
I prod a little into his mind as I do this. The clouds of fatigue and exhaustion surprise me slightly; the point of the calming draught is to make the body rest and recuperate. To hold it still. To stop any progression. To halt the encroaching mental processes. Isn't it?
I haven't felt doubt in a long time, and I do not savour its sallow tang.
I have gotten enough down his throat to drain his energy and I tip the rest down without any trouble. But his eyes, oh, his eyes are laughing and he probably isn't even aware of it. His pupils glitter with tiredness and black humour: he knew it was coming and he did his best and it didn't help and somehow, way back in his brain, he found this hilariously funny. But it subsides (although does not disappear) now my job is done.
I content myself with knowing I've done what I came for and that I need to spend no more time in this Godforsaken room. I turn to leave, and I am in the doorway when -
What?
The boy wouldn't have heard me say that, which is probably just as well. But I stand there in the doorway, my eyes staring fiercely at a rip in the plaster of the wall, confused beyond belief, though I find it hard to admit it to myself.
Why was - why - the boy - asking for death?
There. Again. He said it again. But the breathiness in his voice tells me that he will not speak again in a while; he simply has not the energy.
He is asking me for death. I tell myself that it is because I am the person who happened to be nearest when he said this, but that paranoia that everybody has is sneering at me. 'He's asking you,' it says, 'because he knows you're the most likely to do it for him. Except it would not be revenge; it would be a mercy killing.
Admit it; it's something you know well. Everyone needs time to get over sorrow.
With this potion you are holding this boy captive in his own head, stewing in his own remorse. It's an equivalent of Azkaban.'
I step through the door, and leave the boy to his own devices.
I am outside that room now, but I feel like the door is invisible. Somehow I think he can see me and that he knows; but I know this is just paranoia. The boy is in too much turmoil to even listen for my footsteps. His senses are too tangled at the moment; too fevered.
I lean against the door for the solidity it offers. As much as I hate, no, loathe the boy, I cannot bring myself to think of making another batch of the potion. I won't be able to.
I think I hear a breath of words, just faint enough for me to think that it is
my imagination at work again.
I go downstairs.
llllllllll
I find myself in the boy's room barely six hours later, and I don't know why.
Perhaps it is some morbid fascination, watching a living corpse. The clock downstairs is close to striking the first hour of the new day, and the boy is utterly motionless. I watch him, and I think. I think. Think.
The wizarding world was supposed to make your dreams come true.
Remember some of your dreams?
I have drawn the curtains back; somehow, the absence of total darkness clears the air a little - removes some of the oppression.
Suddenly, I am shocked from my thoughts by a raspy voice: I cannot help but think death rattle.
He has called me by my title, and wondered in a single word why I am here. There is only one response I can give that can answer truthfully.
Nothing, Potter. Nothing at all.
I turn and sweep from the room, but not once does my brain stop in its cogitative process.
I won't let him die, and he hates me for it.
There is light in the room, slices of luminescence cast by the travelling moon, blades as sharp as a mirror edge. And what is a mirror-image but a parody of the real thing? Colours deeper, edges sharper, more real, but not even as substantial as a shadow. Mirrors show both what's there and what isn't, and this light proves to me that there is a boy there and a man, all at the same time: someone who had to grow up too quickly. And I hate him, I really do. I hate him.
I hate him hate him hate him so why is it that I sympathise?
But this mirror of life, this caricature of living won't let him live properly.
Won't let me live properly.
Mirrors of dark. Mirrors of life.
Mirrors of silver.
Mirrors.