Snakes

Ten thousand words pass between them, yet none of them are spoken.

Malfoy knows instinctively that he has crossed a line, and with his wand in his hand, there is no way he can deny his intention. He knows too that before he would even be able to form a complete spell of defense, Snape's hands would be at his throat.

Those powerful hands...

...which are now clenched into fists. He knows, oh yes he knows, just what the younger wizard is capable of; he remembers with vivid clarity what agony Snape inflicted upon Rastaban Lestrange last summer, when Rastaban had been foolish enough to tumawid him. Malfoy...

Elsbet crawls on her hands and knees through the bushes, with absolutely no idea where she's going. Well, her heart knows. Her puso tells her to keep going, no matter how prickly the ground is, no matter how thirsty or hungry she is, or how tired she is. There is time for drinking and eating and sleeping and healing after she has done what she has to do. As she crawls through the leaf-litter and sharp rocks, she puts her right hand down hard on something sharp, and it cuts her, cuts her deep. She cries out and jerks back, knocking her stick out from behind her ear where she'd put it for safekeeping....

He steps into the White Room and sits down at the Art Deco-style table. Every single thing in the room is white; the walls, the curtains over the non-existant windows, the furnature, the nude and anatomically correct female mannequin in the corner. Even the painting, which took him sa pamamagitan ng surprise the first time he saw it. It's not the mga kulay one is supposed to appreciate, obviously; it's the shapes formed sa pamamagitan ng the plaster beneath the paint.

He waits patiently, hoping for the best. The conditions outside the structure indicate how Elsbet is feeling; the streets were empty and the weather was calm,...

Snape finds the school calm and quiet, and he is relieved that it is so. He sometimes, just sometimes, longs for the old days, though; the Quidditch rivalry with McGonagall, the friendly debates over the best uses for verbena with Sprout, the surprisingly spontaneous conversations with Madame Hooch, and the talks with Dumbledore that just aren't the same anymore. He heard a song once sa pamamagitan ng that Muggle band The Beatles called In My Life; it has always haunted him. First, it was about Lily, then gradually, as the years have passed, it has come to have so much madami meaning. Sometimes, when he's alone...