Disclaimer: Refer to chapter two.

It hasn't been revised and I'll need to edit it later, but since you've all been so, so, incredibly patient, I decided to post this up first, and then I might replace it with a better… more correct chapter three.

This chapter was a bit hard to write. Kind of weird.

At least it's longer than the other two chapters, right?


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sweet suicide

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"the opening of the letter"

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Tonks and Remus reached the stone gargoyle in the Great Hall in a matter of minutes. Tonks looked at Remus expectantly. She didn't know the password.

"Chocolate Frogs," and the gargoyle sprang aside.

They stepped into the small passageway, and were suddenly found staring at a large, wooden door. Remus raised his hand to knock, but before he could do so, the door swung open to reveal a girl who quickly pushed her way past them. Tonks and Remus stared after her with their mouths slightly open, surprised.

"Please, Remus, Tonk, come in… come in," the Headmaster told them from his desk.

Remus and Tonks gave each other a glance before stepping inside.

"I assume you found something of importance?" he questioned.

Remus looked at Tonks. After all, she was the one who had found it.

"Yes, professor. I was looking through his trunk, and I couldn't find anything. Then I noticed that there was a small rug under the trunk. I carefully… no, I didn't break anything… I carefully slid the trunk to the side, and lifted the rug. Underneath, there was solid wood. I knocked gently against the floor, and I could hear that it was hollow. I used a spell to take out the block of wood, and inside, I found this." She presented the letter to the aging professor.

The Headmaster cautiously took the envelope, and examined it. "Exanimus Serpens," he whispered. He turned to the two people before him.

"Do you know what Exanimus Serpens stands for?" he asked in a soft voice.

"No, we don't. We were hoping that you would know…" Tonks's voice trailed off.

"Lifeless Serpent. Apparently, this is a letter that Draco meant for someone to find after his death," he said quietly.

None of them spoke.

Nervously, Tonks spoke. "Professor… I…," she turned to Remus, "We… we thought that it was best if we let a member of Malf… I mean Draco's house read this letter before us. They will probably appreciate that we didn't go barging into their business, and they'll probably want to be the first to read what Draco has left for them. After all, they might be more willing to give us information after reading this letter."

"True, true…"

An awkward silence fell.

"So, have you decided on anything, Professor?" Remus asked.

"What? Oh, yes, yes… hand it to Professor Snape. He'll know what to do with it."

Remus and Tonks quietly left the office. As they walked down to the dungeons, Tonks was staring at the letter in her hands. When they reached the door to the Potions master's office, she stopped Remus.

"What do you think he wrote, Remus?" she said in a hushed tone.

He sighed. "Who knows? The letter was written by a teenaged Death Eater, who was clearly troubled. Actually, I'm quite surprised that we haven't been cursed or burned for touching that letter."

"Well, maybe my cousin was a less paranoid than you thought?"

Remus looked thoughtful, "Perhaps. Shall we go in now?"

The door opened. "Enter."

Remus and Tonks looked at each other, and walked into the office of the Severus Snape.

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"Pansy, please stop crying. Will you let me in?" Daphne called out to Pansy, who was currently in the bathroom bawling. She had locked the door, and she not about to let anyone in just yet.

Sobs were muffled by the door, but Daphne could still hear them. She was sure that Pansy would be in there for quite a while.

"Blaise was a jerk. Don't listen to him!" she cried again.

"So she locked herself in there, huh?"

Daphne looked towards the door. She sighed. "Yeah. Do you think you can try and talk to her so that she'll come out?"

Millicent snorted. Daphne looked flabbergasted. "Milli!" she gasped, "that's very unlady-like!"

Millicent looked at Daphne with slight contempt. "Does that really matter at the moment, Daph? I mean, shouldn't you be focusing on Pansy, and not by 'outlandish behavior,' as you often put it."

Daphne, affronted, turned away, mumbling, "Just talk to her. She hasn't come out in a few hours."

"I'll see what I can do."

Knocking on the door, Millicent yelled. "Pansy, quick! They've found out why Draco killed himself!"

Millicent looked at Daphne, and raised three of her fingers. Three… two… one…

The bathroom door banged open, and a frazzled Pansy flew out. Millicent quickly shut the bathroom door, and sealed it, while Daphne ran to the dormitory door, and slammed it shut, quickly locking it from the inside and out with her wand.

With one look at Pansy's state, Pansy gasped while Millicent stared, shocked. Pansy's once kempt, straight brown hair was now in disarray and was sticking up at odd angles. Her makeup was smudged, and dark dried streaks could be seen on her cheeks were her mascara had ran when she cried. With puffy, red eyes, she glared at her friends. "You… you…" she stuttered.

"We what?" said Millicent calmly, unfazed that Pansy was on the edge of breaking.

Daphne, the peacemaker between the two, blurted out, "Pansy, we were worried about you. You need to eat or rest!"

"Well, I don't know about Daphne, but I needed to go to the bathroom. Curfew has been moved to an earlier time because of Draco's… you know…" she quickly unsealed the bathroom, and rushed inside. Leaving Daphne and Pansy in their dormitory, alone, staring at each other.

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"Ah… Tonks… Lupin. What do you need?" the potions professor drawled.

"A letter of Draco's has been found, and it might be his… well, what we would call, 'his suicide note.'"

Snape glared at them both. "As head of Slytherin House, why wasn't I informed of this earlier?"

Tonks shifted uneasily in her seat. "We were afraid that you would… blow up, and take the letter away from us, when we really needed to find out more about it."

"It belonged to one of my students. I think I had the right to know what was going on," Snape hissed.

An uncomfortable silence descended upon the room. Tonks and Remus weren't meeting Snape's eyes, a bit embarrassed and feeling a little awkward.

"Well? Don't just sit there. What did the letter say?" Snape asked calmly, masking all his emotions.

"We… don't know. We were just informing the headmaster that we did find something. We thought it was best if we let one of the Mal… I mean, Draco's friends read it first," Remus replied evenly.

Snape surveyed the two. "For once, you two did something right."

Tonks was about to reply with a nasty comment when Remus held up a hand.

"This is not the time to fight. We should find one of these boys immediately, and let him read the letter. That will save time, and it allows us to find out if that letter has any information we need." He pointed to the manila envelope on Snape's cherry wood desk.

Tonks nodded vigorously, approving of the plan. They turned to Snape, who was staring thoughtfully at the envelope.

He opened his mouth and closed it. Then, stroking his chin, he said, "Very well."

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"I talked to the headmaster," Pansy blurted out.

Daphne looked incredulous. "You what?"

"I went to go talk to him. I needed someone to help me through this…"

Angry, Daphne all but yelled, "You have me! You have Milli! Why couldn't you have talked to either of us? We were both trying to help you!" and in a softer, broken voice, "but we just weren't good enough, huh?"

Eyes wide, Pansy said, "No! I never meant that. I needed someone more understanding. Someone wiser. More experienced with… handling the death of someone close."

"My mother died when I was five. I think that counts as 'handling the death of someone close,'" Daphne muttered in a cold voice.

A toilet flushed, and Millicent stepped out of the bathroom to find Pansy and Daphne staring daggers at each other. "For Merlin's sake! I leave the both of you for a few minutes, and you're already trying to rip each other's heads off!"

"Milli? Shut up."

Millicent blinked. Daphne had never spoken to anyone like that before. "What…"

Pansy turned. "You heard her, shut up."

"Now you listen to me…" Millicent began again.

"Shut the fuck up, Bulstrode!"

Huffing, and feeling a little bit hurt, Millicent quickly unlocked the dormitory door, and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

Pansy closed her eyes, and sank down onto her bed. "We took it a little far, didn't we?"

"Yes... I do believe this is all your fault."

Eyes snapping open, Pansy glowered fiercely at Daphne, and hissed venomously, "This is not my fault. Don't you dare blame this all on me!"

Daphne winced at the tone of voice Pansy was using: icy and distant. She was losing her best friends. The ones who had always been there to comfort her when she needed it. The ones that actually cared about what happened to her… and she was losing it all. And the worst part of it was… she wasn't sure she would be able to make it out of everything that was coming alive without them.

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"I'm afraid I don't understand, professor…"

Snape looked at Blaise solemnly. "It's a letter from Draco… he wrote it before he died. We think that he intended for one of you to find it and read it."

"Why didn't you tell me before? We are his friends. We are the ones who found him. We are the ones who stuck by him from the beginning to the end."

Snape regarded Blaise with solemn eyes. "If you were really with him from the beginning to the end, you would be dead, too, Mr. Zabini."

Blaise stared wordlessly at his professor. Then he looked back down at the slightly wrinkled envelope. "Should I read it now?"

The headmaster intervened before Snape could say anything. "Please, Mr. Zabini… we are all quite interested in the letter's contents… but please… understand that you must be careful. We have no idea what Draco might have done to the letter."

"Couldn't you have check for curses? Jinxes?"

"Yes… but checking for them might have triggered something else. Sort of like a defense mechanism." He paused. "Draco was fooling around with dark magic… a smart boy like him would have been able to figure out some of the dark spells. His father probably taught him some when he was younger, too."

Looking around, Blaise took a deep breath, and began to open the letter. "Wait. Shouldn't the others know about the letter, too? I mean, we were all affected and some of us were devastated when we found out that Draco died."

Snape looked at Dumbledore. The headmaster nodded, and Snape led the way to the Slytherin common room. When the reached the entrance, the Headmaster stepped inside first, explaining to all the Slytherin students the situation. Most of them stayed… allowing the professors to come into their domain. Their sanctuary. Pansy, Daphne, and Millicent were present… as well as Vincent, Gregory and Theodore. They waited patiently and surrounded Blaise, almost protectively.

Blaise gave them a quick, nervous smile before gently putting the tip of his finger under the flap. He carefully tugged at the paper, and the envelope tore in a semi straight line. He pulled out the letter cautiously, and when it didn't start spewing fireworks or cursing everyone in the proximity, he unfolded the piece of parchment. Draco's unmistakable scrawl peered up at Blaise. The green ink looked dull in the dim light. Dull like Draco's eyes. Shaking off a feeling, Blaise began to read out loud.


Author's Note: Almost done with this… one to two more chapters left. Hang in there with me :-)

Thanks for all the kind reviews. Totally appreciate it.