by Tavalya Ra

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J. K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Rowling is a goddess; may she have mercy on my soul for writing this.

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I would kill myself, if I thought that were just. However, death would be a coward’s end. I deserve this torment. I deserve his hatred. If I were to die, it should not be at my own hands. I should instead- I should prefer- that Severus Snape tear me limb from limb and rend my heart from my chest because it cannot replace his own, which I have broken.

Aurora… why did you have to adore me so? Why, why must the one time I forget be the one time she follow me? Why?

What I have done is unforgivable. What I have done…

I do not want to live. And because of that, I force myself to live. I deserve this. I deserve this dark torrent of guilt and despair that will haunt me, never leave me, for the rest of my life, perhaps even in the beyond.

It is because of Aurora I no longer wish to live. It is because of her I must live.

Severus, I am a coward. I wish you had chosen to kill me. Did you realize this would be a more horrible sentence? No, I don’t think you did. You thought only for Aurora.

I cannot describe the pain that seized my chest as I watched you grind the aconite and knew that this time it wasn’t just for me. I cannot describe the pain that seized me and yet I know it was nothing to yours, Severus. Any child is precious, and Aurora is no ordinary girl. Not after all you endured, the change to your own body, to bear her.

Sirius, you wouldn’t even look at me. I think with your eyes you would have killed me. I cannot look into your eyes… but I know I should. I deserve the full fury, or worse the sorrow, of whatever lies in there.

Aurora, you were crying. I knew what you felt. You could feel the change quiver under your skin and you knew. You knew- even though you couldn’t guess- the pain.

And then, Severus, you were done. And there were two goblets steaming this time. Sirius, you just looked away. I-

I want no mercy. Not for this.

I have never seen your eyes so cold. Like onyx, like ice. You will never melt them for me, Severus. Never. And I cannot ask you to. I wish my heart were ice. My heart feels like ice and I am cold, I am numb, I am frostbitten, but I feel everything.

"Remus," you said. Remus, you said in a whisper. Remus, not Lupin, because this is personal.

"Remus," you said. "I need you." You did not want to admit that- I don’t want to admit that. But we must. We both love Aurora.

"Remus," you said and your voice was a whisper from the Arctic. "I need you because this is something I can’t help her through. This is something only you can. If you ever leave, if you ever abandon her, I swear on my soul, I will hunt you down and I will do to you worse than anything the Dark Lord had ever done-"

You stopped. Your voice was choked as if you heart was stopped. Without any word of malice, you had been brought to your knees. By me.

Oh God, Severus. Sirius. Aurora. Oh God, I want to ask you to forgive me but I don’t want it. I don’t deserve it.

I don’t know how you continued. "Aurora needs you. And because of that, I need you. But I will never ever forgive you."

I remembered, in that moment, when you said those words before and I knew that this time it was different. This is no schoolboy grudge. This is my fault and there is no absolution and if there were, I would not accept, for I am unworthy. Severus, I am so sorry for teaching you again how to hate.

Tonight is the full moon. Tonight, I will take Aurora into the forest. I will hold her until our limbs change so that such a gesture is no longer physically possible. Though I do not know what comfort I can be. Unlike my first transformation, Aurora’s will not be alone, and that I have that to offer her is bitter, because she is this way now because of me.

Aurora, my goddaughter, why did you have to adore me? Why did you have to follow me into the forest the one time I forgot to drink the potion?

I will come back. Every moon. And only moon. Because I must. And I would even if I had a choice.

But I have no choice. I want a choice, because I want to be able to say I chose this, because I would choose this, because I deserve it. I feel like a coward and I want to die. For the first time, I am inside the same monster that my body is.

Don’t forgive me. I do not deserve it.

What I have done is unforgivable.