Choice's Curse {d.m.}

Breaking Glass

It should be, I thought miserably. I'm the one whose life is on the line.

"Yes, my lord," Snape nodded reverently to Voldemort, and the wizard stepped out of his follower's way, opening up the path between Snape and I. I felt like I was going to be sick all over the Malfoy's lovely tile flooring as Snape approached me, his black wand rising steadily to point at my kneeling form. This truly couldn't be it, could it? I hadn't ever taken the time to imagine my death in detail, but surely this was not how I was meant to go out.

I refused to go out quietly, though. If this was my last chance to do something (what a strange thought that was), I might as well use my last moments to make sure Snape never forgot me. And this, I realized suddenly, was where my Slytherin traits came in. I felt vengeful, I felt angry and bitter. I wanted to make sure Snape's dreams were plagued with me. He deserved to feel remorseful and vile and unforgivable for the rest of his life, and I wanted to be the one to make him feel that way if he was enough of a fucking bastard to take my life purely because he was a bloody coward.

Not only did I feel like tearing Snape apart, but I suddenly knew exactly how to do so.

"You know, you've done a lot of things that Lily would've never forgiven you for, but this might just take the cake," I said sweetly, locking eyes with my professor.

Snape's face reddened, and the grip on his wand tightened so much I thought I could hear the wood groaning. "How dare you speak her name?" Snape snarled at me.

I let out a humorless laugh. Okay, maybe this really will give me a bit more time. "How dare I? You've spent the past six years tormenting her son for no reason, and you're saying I shouldn't say her name? Like Lily wouldn't tell you off herself if she could."

"You don't know what you're talking about. You're just a child. You know nothing about L- about her," Snape said, struggling to regain his calm. I didn't, not really, but it was getting under his skin. The Malfoys were looking at the pair of us, and I longed for the comfort of Draco's silver eyes, but I kept my gaze on Snape.

"I may not know much about her, but she's Harry's mother, and I know Harry didn't get everything from James. I'm guessing he got his loyalty from her, didn't he? His eyes, too, but you knew that. Does it hurt, to look at him and see Lily? To see the woman who didn't want you, the woman you couldn't save?" I asked Snape, doing my best to make each word sting as sharply as the cut on my forehead did. Snape may be a vile, bitter asshole, but everyone had a tipping point, and it seemed I'd found his.

"You speak so bravely for a brat whose life will not last another hour," Snape hissed. "You think you can distract me? You think you can hurt me by bringing up her name?" Snape walked forward, coming so close that I had to strain my neck to look up at him. "You know nothing of hurt."

"I know that Lily might've given you a chance if you weren't such an asshole. Maybe if you'd ever bothered to do the right thing, to be brave, you would've ended up with Lily instead of James. But there is a reason you ended up in Slytherin, isn't there?"

Snape glared at me, his shabby black shoe lifting to step on my hand that was splayed on the ground to hold myself up and ground into my fingers, the treadmarks biting into my skin. I winced as he said, "It is rather pathetic that you think you can speak about things you weren't even alive to witness. James Potter was a pompous, stuck-up, proud boy who never grew up, and Lily couldn't see that-"

"See what? See that the boy who claimed he was in love with her was a part of a group that hated her very existence? Yes, how romantic of you."

"Severus, I'm growing tired of her, and I am growing tired of your pathetic rambling. Kill her, now, or I shall. And I will let Bellatrix do the honor of taking your life afterwards," Voldemort growled. "Kill her. Now."