I made it. A small bottle… gold. So innocent. Warm to the touch… no, burning. Liquid gold, melted and deadly. So innocent. So unsuspecting. So efficient.

Gold like fire. Burning on the way down, making me gag and choke. It seemed so right but now it's cruel…

I didn't want it to be like this. I didn't want to be alone, I didn't want to be so cold.

Cold and burning at the same time. Like frozen fire. I didn't want to feel it so sharply. I wanted him to be with me. I didn't want to be alone.

It wasn't supposed to be so hard. It was supposed to be easy, an escape, simple as opening a door… but now the door seemed locked and I didn't have time to open it… I'd be thrown through to land hard on the stone floor beyond.

No. No. No. This is not how it goes. Something's wrong, I must have done something wrong. I want to go back, how can I get back? It's so hot, it's so blisteringly freezing. I don't want it, take it away! Someone take it away, it's not supposed to go this way.

I don't want to be forgotten. Where is he? I want him to be with me. I can't call him; my voice is dead. He found me… now I'm lost again. He saved me; now I'm drowning.

Where have all the colours gone? Now there's only black.

Where has all the feeling gone? Now I'm only numb.

Pain is better, anything is better than this. Empty, nothing left to give, nothing there to take. I can't reach it, it's slipping away. I can't hold on…

Where are my hands? My feet? I can't feel them anymore. There goes the light, now there's only dark. It was a mistake, a mistake, a stupid mistake. I didn't know, I want it back…

But once it's gone I can't have it back. The world is cruel, so unforgiving. That's why I chose to come here, that's why I can't go back. I used to be so in control. Why can't I breathe? I can't make it work, it used to be so easy, now I can't remember how it goes…

Hard and petrified, why did I choose this way? Like a rock that can't move, like a creature frozen in amber. I don't want to be alone, God, don't let me be alone. Been alone so long I can't remember the feeling of a touch, the sound of a voice… I didn't want it, I made it like this, it's my fault, it's all my fault.

What's peace? I can't remember, I know I won't find it here. So alone, so cold, so empty, I can't think anymore. It's too hard, too much of a struggle. Let it go, just let it go, I can't stop it now.


A bottle fell from cold fingers to the ground. It rolled to a stop some feet away, gently bumping the old man's feet. A tear ran down the wrinkled face, drying in the beard that shone like spun silver.

Aged fingers picked up the bottle. He recognised it. Gold. So innocent. So unsuspecting. So efficient.


If that was kind of hard to understand, that was a stream of consciousness from Snape as he died. The bottle was full of a poison he'd made to kill himself. The old man is Dumbledore, who is also the "he" that Snape's thoughts refer to.

You know, now that I've written it, I don't like it a lot… Well, I suppose there's no harm putting it up here anyway… So depressing. Please review? (Licuma Lome: Gestures hopefully at lavender button.)