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Guilt by mlmonty [Reviews - 5]


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Disclaimer: I own the Verian Universe not the Harry Potter one. I just play here when my own characters refuse to cooperate.


Guilt

She was happy - mostly. She had the perfect marriage, to her childhood sweetheart, no less. She had two perfect kids, the perfect job, the perfect family and the perfect friends. Everything was perfect.

Everything except the guilt; the mind-numbing, soul-crushing, nearly overwhelming guilt.

It tickled in the back of her mind. It crept into her waking hours and dominated her nights. Everything became tainted with it.

It was easy enough to forget about him in the early hours during and then after the Final Battle. It was easy enough to leave him to die and not try to save him. They had more important things to do! She was sure that he was dead when they had left the dingy, musty smelling room to crawl down that dark, dirty tunnel. Why shouldn't they have left him dead on the floor? He was a traitor; everyone had said so! At least, then they did. Just hours later, days later, he was a hero. He still was.

He had gone from someone reviled and used in stories to scare kids into doing their homework and behaving, to someone who was talked about dreamily as a romantic, yet tragic hero. He was used as an example of someone who loved unconditionally, eternally.

And the guilt ate at her.

It had started as just a slight twinge of conscience when she found out that he wasn't the traitor everyone cursed him for being, but a damn good spy; thus a damn good actor. It grew into a horrified realization when she learned that he wasn't dead when they had left him in a puddle of cooling blood, staring at a collapsing ceiling. It consumed her when she discovered that he had died because he hadn't received medical treatment. It devoured her, finally, when she was told that he spent hours in agony, forgotten, as anti-venom fought the toxins from Nagini. That he had bled to death, slowly, painfully.

She flinched, almost unnoticeably, whenever she heard the name Severus; incredibly popular among her children's generation. Harry and Severus were the most common names for young wizards.

She wanted to run screaming whenever Harry spoke about his latest project concerning the dead hero: scholarships in his name, intervention for abused children, and a ward in St. Mungo’s. She wanted to cry uncontrollably when people spoke of how great he was.

Nothing she tried would assuage the guilt. She tried thinking of it rationally; they honestly thought him evil at the time and they had a war to finish. She tried throwing herself into the preparations for several of Harry's 'Severus Snape' projects. She had once even visited his grave, having attended the funeral as well, and begged for his forgiveness.

She threw herself into 'living'.

But nothing helped.

Every day she thought of him. Every day she realized she was, on a good day, only partially responsible for his death. Every night she saw his face sometimes accusing her of killing him, other times replaying his death in varying degrees of truth.

Some days she worried for her sanity. A portion of her mind continuously shrieked accusations at her. Some days she only wanted to curl up and allow the guilt to wash her away. She wanted to scream that it was all her fault that he was dead. That if she had just taken a moment to check, to get help, he'd be alive.

The voice steadily grew as the years flowed by and every day she pasted on a perfect smile and went about her perfect life, stained in a perfect guilt that ate her alive.

A/N: If you recognize the penname and title… well yes it IS the same as an Inuyasha oneshot. I loved the irony of it. Both deal with Guilt, are oneshots and the 1st I posted in each universe. A big thanks to RowdyJaner for editing this as well as my novels! Great job, girly!



Guilt by mlmonty [Reviews - 5]


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