See first part for notes about this collection of stories.

Disclaimer: I am but a poor college student. Please don't sue me.

"True friends stab you in the front."

The world has gone silent.

Everyone has always told him what a quick mind he has. His family has demanded it, his professors have tried to discipline it, and his friends have used it to their advantage. The Muggle-borns and half-bloods look on him with awe. They all say he's brilliant. They say he's too clever for his own good. Probably they're right. After all, he's only ever met one person who understands a damn thing he says.

His brilliant clever pureblood mind stutters in the silence as he tries and fails fails fails to comprehend.

It's cold, and it's silent, and he just

(strong calloused hands, warm skin, whispered words against his collarbone)

cannot

(gleaming red hair, delicate fingers, soft pretty curves he will never never have)

think.

James is watching him. Waiting. James's hands are trembling, a little, which might be important. Supremely important, maybe. It could be that this is the most important detail of his entire life, if only he could think about it.

And what he wants, more than anything, is to find a word for this—to name it, so that he knows how to feel.

But he only knows what it's not. It's not anguish. It's not pain, and it's not misery. It's not despair, or agony, or even desperation. It's not anything, really, but the world is very silent and very cold, and he can't think—can't speak—can't breathe.

There is no air and no sound and no warmth, and there is a bitter taste in his mouth that might be madness.

Betrayal.

The thought comes from nowhere. His mind zeroes in it, scrutinizing it, magnifying it until there is room for nothing else. He clings to the word—grabs it up and holds it close

(long limbs, soft cotton sheets, the reassurance of a pulsing heartbeat under his hand)

and thinks it over and over, betrayal betrayal betrayal.

They come in a tumble then, hate love fuck bitch broken alone Mercutio bastard hopeless, a torrent of words with no meaning. They flood his mind with thoughts he can't process, emotions he can't feel. Maybe this is what is wrong with his mother—but he can't think about that, either.

And he is so tired of feeling helpless, so tired of can't, and so finally he does the last thing he could never do.

He walks away.

And James's voice not calling him back is the loudest thing he's ever heard.

But but but—his mind falters. But James is dead. They're both dead. Together. He killed them. Maybe it was revenge.

James is dead, cold and dead and gone, and somewhere there is a little boy with messy black hair and green eyes.

It is very, very cold. Someone is weeping.

He rests his head against the icy stones and swallows hard against the taste of surrender.