The Used

The evening finds you staring at yourself in the mirror.

Your reflection is pale and cold, you have grown weary, old - your face is that of a man's twice your age. Your sharp features appear even more sharpened due to the dramatic weight-loss and the worries, the everlasting nights, the lack of sleep, the pain. Your body is wounded and scarred. There are dark circles under your deep, black eyes with their mournfully distant gaze.

Your sallow skin cling to your bones - your ribs are clearly visible now.

No, Lord Voldemort has not been kind to you.

And neither has she.

As you painfully limp back into your quarters, you wonder what she ever saw in you. You pour yourself a glass of the finest whiskey you could find, and you knock it back, feeling slightly faint and dizzy.

Was it perhaps your power she wanted? A most useful ally, yes, the Head of Slytherin, Potter's worst enemy at school - wouldn't it be wonderful to see the boy's look of disgust when he found out? Ah, yes, the sweetness of revenge. He had noticed how they had parted ways, the famous trio.

Or did she think it would earn her better grades, more house points? Was she sleeping with him out of desperation, a last way out in order to ensure that she left his class as the top student?

Pity?

Poor old ugly Potions Master Snape, twenty years her senior. The dark and scary Death Eater, not to be trusted by anyone? He could need a little boost, couldn't he? A little sexual comfort? Gryffindor compassion...

You snort. Stupid girl.

Maybe it was a bet. Who dares coming on to Snape? I'll give you fifty galleons for it.

Of course you had to end it before she did. Before she really turned the joke on you.

Treating her for what she was - a stupid, reckless girl - you put her down, cut it off, threathened her, almost forced her into silence. You were not proud, or happy about it. But of course you had to do it!

Maybe not for her sake. You don't care about her anyway. But for yourself. To save your last piece of dignity...

To hell with it, Severus. You never cared for yourself. You never mattered. She did. To hell with it all!

No longer bothering with the glass, you clutch the bottle in your hand and empty it. Ragged, smelling of alcohol and bitterness, you stagger into your bedroom and throw yourself down on the bed.

Maybe tonight it won't be neccesary to take you Dreamless Sleep potion, the one you brew to keep your incurable insomnia at an arm's length. You won't need it now. You're drunk, so damn drunk you can hardly see.

Surely no dreams will haunt you tonight.

You're wrong, you realize as you wake with a start, bathed in cold sweat. You're wrong.

Of course she was there, the girl, Hermione, of course she was in your dreams - smiling sweetly - pure innocence, all brown curls and white teeth and full lips and pure intelligence and wit.

You swear, a little louder than you intended to.

It doesn't matter. There are so many doors between you and the rest of the castle. This is your domain, where you are free to act as you wish - to say what you want - to remember...

No. You grind your teeth.

How could you be such a fool?

An eighteen-year old. A student. How could you?

This is somehow worse than killing and torturing all those Muggles, years ago - because you didn't know them, didn't look at their faces, didn't miss them, didn't dream about them.

You dream about her. You miss her.

You hate yourself for it, you feel the surge of white-hot pain and fear and longing, and not for the first time in your miserable life, you long for death.