Once a Wish
by
Somes Somnius

I looked at him, and I wanted to be him. It was my wish that, by some force of magic, my life could be traded with his. He was worshipped, doted over – he was loved. I've never known that feeling. When I was young and my parents were still alive, I'm sure that they loved me in the same way, but those times don't count to me, I cannot remember them.

I remember him piling food upon his plate with no worry of reprisal, always permitted more than the mere morsel I myself was given. I could never help myself, I was given what they deemed appropriate, nothing more and nothing less. It became my motto, ingrained into me more and more each time it was uttered.

'You'll get what you're given and nothing more.'

Him? Well, he asked and he was given. What a fantastic life he must live, I remember thinking at the time.

School was his yard, his empire. He was the Genghis Khan, the Tamerlane, the Alexander the Great of my class and others beside. He conquered them upon his arrival at the educational institute, and he maintained his superior status by use of force.

I wanted that, much as it shames me to say nowadays.

He was blessed with brawn, whereas I was but the runt to be beaten and bullied. I knew my place, and I embraced it. It was ingrained in me via my upbringing. It was my lot in life, I got what I was given and nothing more.

Then there were the presents, and the happy feeling he must have felt upon awaking on Christmas Day. The children on my street would look forward to receiving their present for weeks and weeks before they were finally given, and when they had them they would be grateful. Him? He was never grateful. It was quantity that counted, and if he didn't get enough he would click his fingers, his father would run out of the door, and reappear hours later with arms overburdened with presents.

I wanted that.

I myself received little. The greatest of my presents? A pan handed to my by my aunt and a stern order that if breakfast wasn't soon cooked, I'd be sharing my Christmas with the orphans and waifs whom we passed on our visits to the city. I knew she was serious, and I cooked a little faster because of it.

He was encouraged while I was held back. I never did my homework, I did his instead. He was free to roam the streets, never had a care in the world that his homework would not be completed in time. He revelled in violence, and instead of being admonished, he was encouraged by his parents. They enrolled him in boxing classes, hopeful that they would attract the adoration of the neighbourhood through the prowess of the son's sporting skills.

I wanted that.

I never got it, though. I was his punching bag, his training implement. Battered and beaten and used as a tool.

I got what I was given and nothing more.

I don't want to be him any longer however. The gluttony, the forced servitude, the quantity held above quantity, and the prowess of being the biggest and the most brutal of them all – none of them mean a single thing to me.

Dudley Dursley had everything I ever wanted, and he turned out to be a fat, selfish, violent slob of a human being.

I was much better to get what I was given and nothing more.