Justice
The feeling of water against his feet shook his attention from the mirror. He had forgotten to turn off the tap, and the basin had overflowed. With a quiet laugh, he turned the faucet off and fell back against the wall, closing his eyes to his father's image - his own image.
He had been washing his hands - how trite. The blood cannot be washed off. He knew that. The old man knew that.
The old man was also no longer around to control him. He remembered everything. His memories disgusted and attracted him in equal measures. Without the old man to control him, he would return to all that. He still breathed and walked and talked. But he did not doubt his ending. He should have walked away from it all when he could.
Because he did not want the boy to go down that path! Because he did not want the boy and boy's father to die! Because he did not want the old man (not even him) to suffer in torture and humiliation!
Let it all be on his head then. Let him fall into the abyss. A soul as tattered with evil as his would scarcely feel the rip from another murder. He grew calm.
When he opened his eyes, what he saw paralyzed him. The haunted gaze and resigned expression in the mirror were familiar to him. He had seen them many times in the face of his mother. Towards the end, it had been her only expression.
He had always thought himself unloved by her, for ever did she look thus when she gazed upon him. She had disapproved of his friends. He had detested her for her weakness. He had shouted at her that day he left for school. When he returned the next summer, she was gone.
He should have said something instead of slamming the door in her face. He should have said that he understood and was sorry. He should have assured her that he would change his ways.
As he gazed fascinated into his own eyes reflected in the mirror, his vision blurred and when it cleared he saw the glittering tears spilling down her - his cheeks. She had often cried like this, he remembered. As had Narcissa, when she begged him to save her son. What mother does not love her child?
He sighed and turned from the mirror. His path was straight before him and his purpose clear. It was a pity that he had not realized that he was loved by both mother and friend. In his ignorance he had cast the rough but true diamonds away, for the false glitter of dross. His true wages was death.
It was too late for him. But while he still drew breath, at least let him be of some use.
At the very least, let him be useful for something.
Anything.