A Single Tear

A Single Tear
Disclaimer: I do not own any Harry Potter characters

I was almost used to it, the fact I would never be wanted. After all, who would want a man like me? I am dark, cynical, mean and yes, I admit it, not good looking. I was ‘Snivellus’, the man everyone loves to hate, the professor students dread and fear. At first it hurt me, the loneliness, a sharp piercing pain in my heart. Then, as the years went by, I formed a mask, a way to get away from the world. It allowed me to slay countless muggles and see and hear horrors that would have made a normal man’s mind and soul shatter into a thousand pieces.

Then again, I am not a normal man.

After a while, the mask hardened and strengthened, and my real self retreated farther into me, until finally even I had a hard time finding who I used to be. Many people, drawn by the enigma that is me, tried and fail to take off my mask, to draw the real me back. Eventually they too left, and then there were none.

Then you came.

You came, with that know-it-all attitude and damnable Gryffindor personality. I tried in vain to draw away from you, to hate and loathe and discourage you, but still you came. You never gave up on me, no matter how hard I tear away from you. And, despite my greatest efforts, my mask started cracking. My real self started growing in me, drawn like a moth to a flame. I started to feel again, to be human.

Then, you were gone.

You were violently ripped from my arms by the very lord I promised by undying loyalty to. It was then my soul finally shattered, finally gave away. And I knew that I could never retrieve it back. All I could do was pick up the pieces and try to get some misshapen semblance of my soul back.

And now I am here, sitting before your grave. It is a clear winter’s day, the snow crisp and white. Someone was here, the area around the grave is clear and tulips adorn it. You hated tulips. It could have been the Potter boy, or maybe Minerva. She always thought of you as her daughter. Reaching into my robes, I take out a single white rose, spelled to last forever. I always thought of you as a white rose, pure and virtuous, with barbs hidden in the beauty. Gently laying it on your grave, the pain threatens to overwhelm me, to destroy me. I push it down, shove it deep inside of me, but something slips past my defenses. I feel something cold and wet running down my cheek. Startled, I look down. There, poised and trembling on the white rose, was a single tear.