Until the Wolves Are Away

The fragile keep secrets gathered in pockets

and they will sell them for nothing, a cheap watch or locket

that kind of gold washes off

Ginny Weasley sat on her bed with the curtains drawn. Her ruined, tear-streaked face turned downward as if in supplication. Shaking hands rested upon the cover of the diary. She took in a ragged breath that sounded more like a sob. Slowly, the hands began a delicate ballet of movement so oddly juxtaposed to the girl's haggard condition. They lifted the cover of that book, to reveal the comforting pages within.

The sad act like lepers they stick to the shadows,

and long to ring bells of warning to tell of their coming

so that the pure can shut their doors

The dark man reclined before the blazing fire that never seemed to warm his freezing room. Legs strewn out before him and one hand grasping a bottle of liquor, he let out a choked sob before drowning it into silence with another gulp of that beastial liquid. Lowering the bottle, he glanced down at it, it's contents were gone. It was as empty as he. He threw it into the fire, wishing he could do the same to himself.

Severus rose from his seat and walked to the chamber door, with somewhat less of the intimidating stalk that usually came so natural to him. He stepped over the threshold and began walking through the dungeon corridors, not wishing to be alone with himself in that room. As he came upon the Slytherin portrait, he saw two young students approaching. Quickly he stepped back and allowed his form to be obliterated by the shadows.

The angry are animals senseless and savage

they act without order in logical lapses

they stain their mouths with blood

In the room he occupied by himself for the achievement of becoming Head Boy, Draco Malfoy stood, perfectly erect and contemplative. His stormcloud eyes were lowered to the parchment he grasped too tightly in his hands. A letter from his father, reminding him of his loyalties to the Dark Lord. Reminding him that it would not be long before he would be baptized into the darkness. With a ferocious grunt Draco tore the parchment to shreds and didn't stop there. He began to tear through his room, breaking anything in his path, only becoming more angry when he felt the tears pouring from his eyes. Finally, he collapsed onto the rug before his empty fireplace and sobbed while he pounded the ground with his fists.

So take my hand, this barren land is alive tonight. The corn has grown stalks that form a wall that hides. The wind carries sounds that I can't see from beyond that line. Then the stalks begin to sway oh stay with me Arienette until the wolves are away.

The six years that had passed since the days Ginny was possessed by a friendship with evil had not dulled the pain that she felt each time the memories surfaced in her mind. Lying in her bed, curled up in the blankets that could never hold the comfort she once found in the pages of a diary, Ginny waited for the tears to stop. As she calmed down and the memories retreated, she rose from the bed and left the dormitory. If she remained idle, the memories would only return.

She stepped out of the Gryffindor portrait hole and began to wander the dark halls of Hogwarts.

The wicked are vultures, they bake in the canyons

They circle in sunlight and wait for their victims

to collapse and call to them.

Screams resonated through the chamber. A dark form on the floor writhed in pain as a man stood above, muttering a curse. Unforgivable. The man on the floor had failed the Dark Lord, and now he paid the price. He was lucky really, Voldemort had killed others for much less. After thirty minutes, the form ceased to move and the Lord stopped. Sputtering hysterically, the man knelt and bowed his head to the ground at Voldemort's feet. Forgiveness, forgiveness, he pleaded.

"Never fail me again."

That voice was a knife that seemed to cut your soul away from your body.

The desperate are water

They will run down forever and soak into silence to just end up together

in some dark and distant place.

Nine dark figures stood before the Dark Lord, utterly willing to do anything that he might wish them to do. They listened in silence as Voldemort spoke to them the mission that he desired for them to complete. A muggle school. Make it look like an accident. Wouldn't want Muggle suspision.

"Anything. Anything, my Lord, for you," Lucius Malfoy spoke as he bent his face to kiss the Dark Lord's hand.

The Death Eaters would cut their own wrists for His favor.

So don't leave me here with only mirrors watching me

This house it holds nothing but the memories

Draco laid on his floor, fully exhausted and thinking only of the miserable life he had lived so far thanks to his father. The beatings, never had a day gone by at home since he was ten that Draco had not received a beating from his father. And the expectations, not only academically, Lucius Malfoy expected Draco to be everything that he himself was. A fiend, a cruel and sadistic person who did not deserved the comfort with which he lived. Despite what others might have thought, Draco Malfoy did not want to be his father. No.

She sat on a windowsill in a dark, empty corridor staring out at the night sky. Tom. Why would he not leave her? The tears started again.

Severus had stood in the shadows long after the two first-years had disappeared through the portrait-hole. He couldn't leave the darkness. He feared to be seen. He feared that he would taint the innocence of anyone he might meet on his walk. Pathetic, he thought. This was the only intelligible thought he could release, because his mind was overwhelmed with the memories. The love that he had lost. The light he had given up, for the darkness.

And the moon it leaves silver but never sleep.

Draco made his way through the castle, unable to sleep with the worries that now weighted down his shoulders. Faceless gray stone passed him by as he walked, unaware of where he was going. Now and then the gray would be interrupted by the black of night leaking in through a window. As Draco approached one such leak he noticed a flash of red among the blackness.

Slowly, he approached the small girl sitting, huddled next to the window, not realizing that he was holding in his breath. He reached out a shaking hand and placed it on her shoulder. She snapped her face up from the arms she had been burying herself in and her brown eyes met gray.

And then the silver turns to gray so stay with me Arienette until the wolves are away.

Professor Severus Snape stood alone.