Some people might tell you that it gets easier to kill with number and time. It's difficult to kill for the first time. It's elementary when you are killing your fiftieth victim. It's not entirely so. It had never been that way for me.
Sometimes, with time, it is more difficult to kill. Even if you happen to enjoy killing, it just gets boring with time. And when you get bored, you start thinking about your victim, making suggestions about his or her life, if you see him or her for the first time, or about your relationship with him or her, if you know each other. It's difficult to kill after that. I don't know why. It's not my case, too. Lucious told me that once after one of numerous massacres. He didn't explain what he meant when I asked. He just changed the topic.
I never liked killing people or seeing them murdered. That's why I came to Albus. I thought that he would help me out of that situation. I was wrong. He made me a spy for, what they all call it, light. But it didn't change anything when it came to killing MudBloods or blood-traitors. To have the Dark Lord's trust you must kill. And do it with joy and happiness on your face and in your mind.
It didn't get easier with time. No. It's still difficult for me to raise my wand and shout "Aveda Kedavra". But it became different.
Almost twenty years ago it was horrible. I was afraid. I was shaking all over when I was saying the killing curse aloud. After some time I got my emotions under control. I was outwardly restrained but I was crying all night for every person I had to murder. No one would have believed that if I told them twenty tears ago. They wouldn't believe me if I told them now.
Three years later I really no longer cried. I felt no pain, no remorse, just a terrible feeling of emptiness when I said those horrible words. I felt nothing, absolutely nothing inside. As if killing meant nothing.
I don't feel nothing now, after I killed Albus. And I thought before that it couldn't get worse than nothing. But it is worse now. I am frozen inside.
He ordered me to kill him if there will be no other way out of all that… He thought that the Unbreakable Vow could be fooled. If Draco decided that he, himself, didn't want to kill Albus, not that he was unable to kill him, just didn't think he needed to do that, in this case I wasn't breaking my Vow by not killing Albus. And everything was fine.
I told Albus that he was taking too much for granted. And I was right. He almost persuaded Draco to change sides (that's true). But he didn't have enough time to persuade him entirely. Just five more minutes and Albus would have been alive. But he isn't. And it was me who had to kill him.
I would have died rather than kill him. I wanted to die, if you want the truth. He told me that I wanted to finish it all in the easiest possible way and the it was cowardly to do that. He persuaded me to agree. He made me swear to do what he asked me to.
And after that Potter calls me a coward?! That stupid arrogant brat who understands nothing about this war, nothing at all, dares to accuse me of anything?! And the most horrible thing in this is that I can't make him pay for his words. He is the only person who is capable of killing the Dark Lord. I'll give him that. But nothing more. And it would be better for him to kill the Lord soon. Otherwise, I will come to him and explain to him all those things that he doesn't know or understand yet.
And, strangely, thinking of Potter replaces this ice inside me with burning anger. Albus died. He made me live. I don't want to. I doubt I will ever want to live again. But I will do only one thing left to me. I will make sure that this little brat succeeds. Not for him. Not for the light. Not for Albus. But for myself. That's the only thing that might justify that I, after all, didn't kill Albus fo nothing.