Something Beautiful

I wanted to destroy something beautiful...

I watched him taunting me, his beautiful pale face twisted in rage. I felt cold, so cold, as though I would never be warm again, and instinctively I waited for the Death Eaters, waited for their rattling breaths, as he continued to spew his hatred, as he continued to throw his rage my way. When none came, it was almost a shock, but then I realized it wasn't them who made me feel this way anymore; it was he.

He shouted words, words I could not hear. Oh yes, some I could, of course; some of them I still recognized. The cold was there, though, and most were indiscernible through it. "Mudblood" and "Weasel" were a few common words, but "coward" was another. That word was what brought my head up through my haze of cold.

"--So you can hear me, can you, Potter?" he spat, gray eyes glittering. "You coward! If it were not for you, how many less people would've died, hmm? And now look at you! You can't even keep your head aboveground, coward. To think people thought Slytherins were low, when they worship people like y--"

Something in me snapped. I wanted to rend, tear, kill, and destroy him right where he stood, and I nearly did just that, launching myself at him both magically and physically. To his credit, he did not duck until the very last moment, and then my fist met the wall with a sickening crack and my spell hit the spot where he had stood not seconds before. Not feeling the pain, I leapt backwards, barely missing his outstretched leg, and swung wildly, connecting my elbow to his cheek.

He gasped, and the cold came back, quick as before, paralyzing me where I stood, arms up and ready to protect myself at any moment, except I could not move. The cold was an odd thing, more mental than physical, and was in all reality very similar to a Death Eater attack, only -- not. I simply could not feel anything.

At least, that was what I thought, until his fist bloodied my lip and then all surrounding facial areas. Then the blood began to fall and I realized I did have some feeling left to my body after all.

~*~

Potter was -- Potter was --

Potter was a fool, that is what he was. And if he did not know that, well, I could always let him in on the secret without him realizing that there was a secret being told. No one ever said Potter was bright. So easy to manipulate, so easy to control.

Besides the fact that it was fun to torture the noble snot, I owed him for father and the Dark Lord. So when it came time to taunt him into a fight, it was oh-so easy to oblige.

At least, that was what I thought, until I realized that he was not responding to my usual jabs about his mother or his friends. The Golden Boy was not so easy to fight with as he used to be and his bright emerald eyes, which everyone always said were so full of life (and made me gag with the descriptions), were glazed and dead looking. I hated him for that. He alone was not allowed to give up, no matter what. He, and perhaps Dumbledore, was the only person that I had spent all my life despising, and the look in his eyes made me sympathize with him for a moment. The first rule of a Death Eater is to never sympathize with an enemy. I hated him for making me break that rule, which I had never broken since I had taken my Mark.

So I went a little further -- maybe too far, since he screamed a spell that would have taken my head from my shoulders had I not ducked -- and I blamed everything on him. I said nothing more than what he was probably saying to himself, and he went mad -- for a few moments. Then, when he hit me and I gasped (stupid of me, really, to make a sound, when I have been under the Cruciatus Curse many times without flinching), he froze and the dead look came back.

I could not hate him when he was attacking me; he was Harry then. I hated him when he stopped, because he looked dead, and even when he was dead, he was beautiful.

That thought made me freeze, made me stop to think. But then I realized that if I stopped to think, I might find out things that I did not ever want to know. Better to move, to destroy, to hate, to -- to do something- other than stop because -- because if I did that, there was no going back.

Drawing back my arm, I slammed my clenched fist towards his mouth and felt a release as a knuckle popped from the pressure when it hit. For what seemed like hours, I drew back and threw forward my hands and arms, punching and hitting his exposed face. His glasses crunched underneath my open palm once and I flung them away from us as I continued to pound him, blood running from his nose.

He didn't talk; he didn't cry out; he didn't make a single sound. After a long time, I stopped, chest heaving, and collapsed on top of him, hoping he was still alive.

"Harry?" I asked awkwardly, not lifting my head from his chest. Part of me, a darker part, hoped he was not alive, but it was not a major part, so I ignored it.

He did not move or make a single sound.

Rolling off him to kneel at his side, I gazed into his face. Blood covered most of his face and where it didn't, bruises soon would. His nose was slightly crushed from the force of a punch and his lips were swollen. The blood kept his emerald eyes from immediately being noticed, but they were staring with their glazed expression again. That small black part of me rejoiced but as he blinked, I knew he was still living.

When I saw that, the black part turned into a yawning black hole, swallowing me up. So he didn't feel that, did he? Didn't even notice it? The black was beginning to grow red lightning. The Golden Boy thinks himself above common pain? Feels himself to be too noble for it? The lightning storm in my brain was growing to immense proportions. If he thinks that's all I can do, he's sorely mistaken. He knows nothing about pain. He knows nothing about anything.

Memories of things flew through my mind at a rapid pace, things that I threw at Harry's feet and hated the other teen for. Memories of times when the trio was laughing happily at some joke and I was left sitting alone, Crabbe and Goyle notwithstanding. Memories of Harry beating me at Quidditch year after year. Memories of House hatred and people continuously judging me because I was a Slytherin, while Harry was Mr. Perfect because he was in Gryffindor. Memories of Harry having the Weasleys, as poor as they were, as a family while I was left with my father and mother who could not be considered a family by any stretch of the imagination. Memories of each and every little thing Harry had gotten that I had not, all because Harry was the Golden Boy and thus was considered better and above everyone else.

And because the bloody fool no longer cared about anything, including me, even as a rival, and was going to let every one of those people who had placed their loyalty in him. Even I had done it by believing that he would always hate me back.

I hated him without a doubt, and as he stared up at me, I realized he no longer cared. He was dead, and killing him would serve no purpose. There was really no point to it, because it would be like saving him. Something merciful.

So I raised my wand.

(I wanted to destroy something beautiful...)

And I realized it was already gone.