Disclaimer: I don't any parts of Harry Potter Series.
Genre: Family, Humor (Darkish/Silly), Hurt/Comfort, Future Romance
Warnings: Will contain child abuse, mental illness, parental death, etc; there could be a slow-build romance pairing, so SLASH , well future slash but there direct/indirect mentions of homosexual relationships and pairing filtered in here and there.
Hello, this is my second fic on and it is my first foray in the self-insert world and HP world.
Constructive criticism is welcome!
Enjoy!
Death.
It didn't meet many of the expectations I had. Mainly since I didn't have any, not many ten years old did have a concrete grasp of the final phase of life, the great unknown.
Father never allowed me any pets to care for so I didn't get to experience accidentally killing a pet gold fish or wonder why Mama Hamster decided the best course of action would be to eat her offspring. Sigh. And those were only the minor key experiences Father labeled too much for me to handle.
He thought worthy experiences were those that started with me cushioned in bubble-wrap with the family's personal doctor on call.
I didn't do much, really.
Most hobbies weren't allowed either. Musical instruments retained too much deadly bacteria and disinfecting them warped the wood. Reading was deemed too dangerous because of bleed out from papercuts and suspected ink allergy. Sports weren't even offered or asked for.
Father still wanted to carry me around until he just barred me from leaving my padded room. Literally, the room was customized with padded walls, plastic wrapped furniture, and rounded foam corners.
I'm confident if Dad hadn't raised me through most of my infanthood then Father would have found some way to keep me constantly swaddled to his chest, and walking would have joined the other missed key experiences. There were several times in my short life that I was grateful for Dad's lingering influences.
Dad was Father's soulmate. Or ex-soulmate, I'm not sure what happened to him or why he didn't come visit Father and I. I can't remember when he disappeared from our lives.
Or well just anything about him. Father avoided all topics relating to him. Asking about Dad was like the same as asking if I could go outside, he reacted with reviewing safety procedures and You-Know-Whys.
So I didn't learn a lot about Dad, taboo topic and all, only three things really, but those three things became huge impacts on my life.
One: He had beautiful eyes that I inherited. They used some Science! Procedure and something involving a goat. Not Father's eyes because he had a vasectomy. Father mentioned once we, Dad and I, looked a lot alike, but I learned to stop asking for a mirror after a while. Too dangerous, he would mutter (For who? I never asked). Father never looked me in the eyes after that comment. But I don't think he realized how reflective plastic could be.
Two: He loved me. Us, he loved us. I could hear love and affection whenever he directed rare teasing comments at Father when I listened to the recorded messages he left me. His voice was… Soothing and warm. He only said at the last recording, a quick embarrassed mumble, voice thick with some unknown emotion, but it was there.
Three: Harry Potter Series made him giddy with excitement. Wands, potions, and enchantments. He loved reading the series. I hear this from his voice too. Because that's what his voice did on the recordings. It reread all of the books, changing into the Ronald Weaseley or Draco Malfoy with seamless precision, his own brand of magic.
The only uncensored tape I was allowed to listen to and the only sounds I wanted to hear endlessly. Proving that my world wasn't just limited to Father and rotating family doctors.
Father didn't know what was on the recordings exactly, only knowing that Dad wished for me to listen to them, and he avoided my room when I did, ending his hovering before they started and refusing to come in until they finished. Avoiding them like he avoided my eyes, my face, and, as I grew older, my own wishes. I didn't encourage him to listen, fear that he would take Dad away for himself or limit what parts he deemed safe, limit Dad. Like Father couldn't take any chances with me getting hurt, I couldn't take any chances with him restricting anymore parts of me, my fantasies and my own adventures, they remained beyond Father's control.
One day, I let that fear go.
I didn't rebel often, I couldn't stand to see the fearful tears that appeared in Father's, I could count on the number on my left hand when I did and have fingers to spare, but I remember that last two acts of rebellion clearly, they ended up with me dead.
It began with my frustration reached new heights with the upcoming date of my tenth birthday and it resulted with me lashing out against Father, the only way I could hurt him.
I heard the click of the locks sliding out of place. I stayed in bed, hands under the covers, fingers readying themselves, and when he walked in and started with his searching glances around the room before, closing the door behind him. On the last click, I acted. I ripped out my headphones and let the soothing, safe voice blast through speakers.
Father stopped and remained unmoving as Dad's voice washed over him. Something in his face breaking. Trembles racked through his body, choked noise crawling from his thoughts, hands raised like he wanted to protect, to shield, he wanted to escape.
We stayed like that for what felt like hours, me staring and him drowning. He moved first, keens ripping from his throat. He turned, hands clawing at the door, its slam echoing throughout the room.
It played for hours and hours. Tales of hippogriffs and goblins echoing in the sterile room. I slept with it on, keeping it plugged in so it wouldn't die, and I reveled in the story and the words and the magic. When Father didn't come back, and I felt hunger knawing at my stomach for the first time, I edged towards the doors, plastic rustling under my awkward grip on the door handle. I pushed the door open, and stepped out of my room for the first time in years.
Wide eyes darted around an empty hall way, fear crawling its way up my spine. Hesitating, I only walked a few feet to another door, teeth nibbling at my bottom lip, and walked in.
An office, bright and lined with books, I noticed, and covered with a thick layer of plastic which itself was covered in a thin layer of dust. I headed towards the book case, ripping the viciously plastic away with vengeance, and examined the titles there.
Despite never holding a physical book, Father still allowed learning, I just didn't do the reading or writing and when he wasn't around I traced words on soft skin with, crafting my own penmanship.
Squinting, I could tell the thick books on the lower shelves were too advanced for me, drabbed in dark blue, I looked up higher, and inhaled at a myriad of colors at the top of the self, several feet above my small, thin frame. A smile stretched to either ends of my thin face and everything faded out but the names glittering across the spines of the rainbow colored books.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Price
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
And more, all of them were there.
My hand stretched out and grabbed at them before I realized that they were several feet too high for me. Without thinking, for the first time, Father's voice silent, I started climbing, feet slotting between boring titles and hands gripping shelves. Muscles burning, unused to such motions, I pulled myself up shelf after shelf, checking with grabbing gestures at each change in height. I've never wanted anything more. Panting, and eyes unmoved from my end goal, I didn't even notice the swaying of the bookshelf or its slow tilt forward.
Hands reached, intent on caressing the green cover with purple font (Dad), a joyous laugh bubbling past my lips before I realized the lightweight feelings wasn't due to touching the series Dad so dearly loved.
I was falling.
The book case tilted over with me tightly clinging to it selves. Air whipped around my head, face buried in the embossed covers, seeking protection, my breath caught in my lungs, choking around a scream and then-
A crack sounded throughout the room.
And, then all I knew was darkness. I couldn't remember much after. Just—
A flicker of pain, wet feeling of something seeping from me, the smell of musky books and paper in my nose. But I clearly remember Father's voice, his usual assurances cooing in my ear.
Too dangerous…Not safe…Maybe something else…
If I'm not with you then something terrible will happen.
He was right.
I died.
And it wasn't too bad of a deal. It wasn't too different from my not-dead life.
I was just surrounded in nothingness, unmoving, and thinking…well, about anything really. I could remember everything that've happened before I died, even from when I was baby.
It was like falling asleep with a basic algebra problem and waking up solving a Differential Equation.
Except, I didn't wake up.
The memories were fuzzier the further back I went, but I wanted to see what happened with Dad. I need to remember him.
I did.
Bushy silver beard contrasted with dark skin, I could recall Dad's crooked grin and Father's real laughter, not the nervous twittering sound he made around me. I could remember learning to walk, learning to talk, and the confusion I felt when Dad started stumbling, and fainted at Father's feet. I could remember white coats and beeping noises and various women in strange structured outfits holding me and not Father.
Not what happened, infant's memories too blurry. But I remember that I didn't see Father for days after; those women (nurses?) took care of me, until he showed up with empty eyes and false smile in a black suit. The rest was a blur of black and crying, so Dead Me deduced that he brought me to a funeral, Dad's funeral.
Then I saw my Father's slow ascent from simple protectiveness to obsession.
I watched him constantly firing nannies for little reason such as sneezing around me or being too loud. He quit his job to take care of me and it seemed we stopped leaving the house entirely when I was about three.
And I watched Father's panic attacks and choked weeping throughout the construction of my room. We must have been pretty wealthy I thought, and a feeling in me seemed to pulse in agreement.
(Life insurance, a broad man muttered to his dirt steaked coworkers, a really good life insurance policy.)
Father's brunched shoulders loosened, his nervous fidgeting eased when the men left.
The room was finished when I was four and I didn't remember seeing any one else but Father then that's where I stayed and Father visited.
I watched all my memories over and over again. Sometimes with anger, other times with hate, and a lot of times with pity, and then finally only times with forgiveness.
He wasn't a bad men, and I still loved him, but he needed help. I didn't think what happened if he found me until way later and I ignored the feeling pulsing at me that my first guess was the right guess.
When I finished, I let the thoughts seep away, my mind remaining blank. I just rested, existing in nothingness, meditating, and letting myself drift.
I accepted Death and didn't fight until a sense of heaviness pressed around me.
I felt…cramped? Confused and cramped? Warm, confused and cramped?
A heartbeat and later on different voices appeared. I paniced out the first time, lashing out, and kicked (with legs?). I freaked out worse when something kicked me the feather-bottom back. Strangely, it didn't hurt at all. But, what could have attacked me in death?
The confusion I felt should not have developed into a migraine. Wasn't I dead?
I still felt like I was surrounded by nothing, but the nothingness seemed to fade away a bit by bit as time passed, into a growing sensations of weakness and squeezing pressure. I adjusted, eventually, to each new sensation figuring maybe this was some different branch of limbo, and cleared my thoughts again.
The drifting wasn't as light as it was before. It felt more heavy and sluggish, a spark of panic flared when everything grew more and more listless and harder to awaken, but I stopped fighting it, succumbing easier every time.
I thought I died.
I didn't expect to wake up, looking into the sleepy gaze of a toddler.
He gurgled at me.
I blinked.
He stuck the end of a frayed blanket in his mouth in reply, drooling and soaking the fabric.
Blankly, I stared back.
Blinking again, I nodded to myself before turning around, more like wiggling and flopping around, and blocked everything out. Him, the heaviness of this notmine-body, and anything to do with not dealing not-being dead.
No.
Because I wasn't ready acknowledge the significance of sharing a small bassinet with a toddler with staring viridian eyes and inflamed lightening scar craved on his forehead.
Nope.
I really need to stop having expectations, I numbly thought, ignoring the damp hand pawing at my ear, it seems they were always going to be unrealistic.
"Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed." –Alexander Pope
Constructive criticism is welcome! Thank you for reading.