It wonât give up, it wants me dead;Â
Goddamn this noise inside my head.Â
11.03.78 || Room of Requirement || 9:31pm
His wand moved like it was controlled by a severed hand. Twitchy, slow, off-target; like rigor mortis curled his fingers in so tightly that his dirty nails dug into the delicate skin on his palm. By his fifth missed spell, the feeling of failure overcame him, and he stepped off of his end of the dueling mat to toss his wand on the concrete floor and let his head fall into his hands as he walked to the corner of the room.
âI need a fucking break. Water, or something, I donât know - everythingâs⊠Blurry.â It didnât help that sleep had evaded him on the nights that Mulciber had allowed him to stay in bed, where the nightmares played on repeat every time he even blinked. His soul was shattered, smashed into pieces and ground into dust, and it was showing. Was he thinner than usual? Paler? Eyes more sunken in? Quieter? Jumpier? He didnât feel human, and he wasnât sure that he was even alive anymore. If this was Hell, the Devil had done a fine job.
He went and sat against the wall, letting his head lean back and his hair fall away from his eyes as he stared up at the ceiling and tried to breathe slowly to let his body relax. âMaybe today wasnât the best day for this. Iâm sorry for wasting your time.â
Let no one ever say that Walden only ever played hard and didnât work at all. The chaos in school has ebbed. Things were more or less calm on Waldenâs end which made him restless. Mulciber did ask him once or twice to join his excursions but Walden always refused. Thoughtless and baseless killing was never Waldenâs cup of tea. To ease his restlessness, Walden called Severus to the mat for a couple of bouts. But instead of getting stimulated, Walden ended up only getting frustrated at how easy it was to disarm the Slytherin with his slower reaction time and missed spells.
âFucking hell, Snape!â Walden snapped as the other boy walked off. The boy in front of him wasnât the same one whom he met in the very same room to practice a spell just over a year ago. Gone, or so it seemed, was the boy who was so eager to join them in the ranks. All whatâs left was a pathetic shell.
Walden handled Snapeâs breakdown in the only way Walden knows how to handle Snape. Full stop. âGet up,â he ordered as he marched towards the Slytherin. âYou think your enemies are gonna let you have a break? A water? Something? Whatâs wrong with you.â It was no question. It was a command.