He buries his head in his hands as the children around him become children-playing-at-soldiers;
As they braid their tiny fingers together and whisper broken codes into walls,
As they call the green ones enemy and mix their war-paint blue, yellow, but mostly red;
He asks himself how it is that his quiet chemistry has become this explosive thing.
(he used to sit to watch the vials with her,
his starved eyes silently catalogued each as the silver fumes made love in air,
and his long, stained fingers scuttled over the outdated texts as
their child-faces wore child-smiles, their lonely lips stretched wide
and the small notes he left on his hand-me-down book spoke of better things
not bloody knives and ruined forearms)
On his desk lays a brash too-large thing; the edge of it glimmers with words unforgettable
Words that are carved into each layer of his battered skin-like armour.
He wonders at the sword, his eyes watering even as his heart dries up;
Is this the weapon that will finally kill me?
(in a court of law this is what is called a question asked-and-answered;
the sword is red and the red place killed him when he
was eleven and his naivety choked him as surely as those four boys did later,
was fifteen and taught that different lives held different worth
was sixteen and his anger clouded his vision,
red hair, red ties, red blood, mudblood)
His old friend’s feline eyes glint furiously as she easily condemns him,
And his breath crumbles as he looks at her, all vengeance and brute force and hatred
(Red hatred, she wore a red tie, he forgets sometimes that lions are a type of cat)
She used to sneak him biscuits when he forgot to eat, but she also used to blame him for the rain,
So, honestly, it’s his own fault for believing this time.
(best friends, she’d told him once, bright eyed and beautiful, always, always forgive each other.
she’d broken something, or he’d raised his voice, or one of them had missed a birthday,
but it was okay because their hands were clasped tight in each others'
and friends did not leave friends sleeping outside portrait holes)
The dead man says it will end soon, that the school will become a battlefield in good time,
But he doesn’t see how that is something to be prayed for, not now
When there are children screaming in a hallway;
One that always (always) fails to protect those who need it most.
(the man in the canvas wore bright yellow business suits meant for unease,
made nonsense normal and danger a daily thing,
and sitting here, he thinks that maybe the carnage is that dead man’s fault, really,
you can’t refuse a monster closet space and expect it not to make a new home under your bed
and insert himself into every sweet dreams, my prince until it becomes
if you truly loved her, your way forward is clear)
The boy in front of him looks like the way nails on a chalkboard feel
His voice sounds like nightmares and the way he walks into rooms feels like 1975,
The father is dead, but the son continues his legacy with a pride
That makes his hands shake and sleep a far-off, imaginary thing.
(he has her eyes, he was told that autumn night when his body folded into itself,
when he sat in the dusty corner of his old house, rotting baseboard digging into
the end of his spine as he grit his teeth and pushed,
but green doesn’t mean what it used to mean, it is not tree swings, love, and
cunning people with sharp tongues and sharper minds;
now it only lies and damning silences and please, Severus, please
and he knows that this change in definition is the worst thing he could ever do to her)
It is evening now, and both the monsters (masters) have left him for good,
Though he isn’t sure which one he is most grateful to lose.
He thinks back on the people he wasn’t quick enough, smart enough to save and
Prays that his blood will give those bones fewer reasons to scream.
Her son’s bruised hand is clasping a vial of his own doom, and he thinks that
The boy has never looked so much like her.
(look at me, he tells the still-just-a-boy gasping, grasping for moments that he knows
all too well tend to slip away faster than sighs.
what he doesn’t say: i would have loved you for her had i been free to,
i’m sorry i couldn’t save you either,she had the same mole you do, did you know,
right there, below your ear)
The world is bright red and spinning, but his mission is complete, and he
Takes one last look at Lily’s son and almost smiles.
He closes his eyes. He rests.
The air is silent.
(he was the bravest man i ever knew, Lily’s child will tell his own son later
and that small boy will write his father the next day, a green tie around his neck
no, the boy will counter, as he plays chess with a portrait with tired eyes and a quiet smile
no, he was all the rest)