Just Harry
You, who can smile even when your heart is breaking, teach me to grin with such honesty: please. You've suffered so much neglect and loneliness in your life, and, yet, still you smile. At little things, things that the rest of us (shamefully) take for granted: a breakfast in the morning, a bed that you can stretch out fully on, just feeling warm, clothes that fit. I've never known anyone be so utterly grateful the smallest of kindnesses - it's really quite sad, and it makes me want to cry for you. I don't, I wouldn't: you wouldn't want me to. It upsets you to see someone hurting: I suppose you can relate too well...
Having been the recipient of so much thoughtless cruelty it is truly a wonder that you're such an utterly kind person. I was reading the other day about the boy that You-Know-Who was... and he didn't have it any rougher than you did, Harry! Sometimes, in the muggle world, if someone has committed a crime heinous enough, their wretched childhood is dragged up as an excuse for the monster they've become. If anyone dared to do that with You-Know-Who, I'd be SO angry, Harry! I'd want to yell, and scold anyone idiot enough to believe it! "Look at my friend Harry!" I would demand. "Look at all the goodness and kindness in him in spite of all he's had to deal with, and NOW tell me that a miserable past ruins a person! Go on, I dare you!" You'd blush, of course, and stammer uncomfortably for me to let it go... but it's a point that ought to be made. You're amazing, and I wish that I had your capacity for forgiveness.
I can imagine you rolling your eyes as you read this next piece (as if you aren't already! Have I made you blush yet? Good!), but you're a true hero, Harry. Not in the stupid fairytale sense that Ginny or Colin Bloody Creevy would pigeonhole you into... but in the real sense of the world. "What's a hero?" I can imagine you muttering... or, perhaps, Ron's teasing alternative: "Hero is a four-letter word!" You know me well enough to know that I am not likely to attempt to sugarcoat my opinions, or glamorise you into something you're not. I'm very well aware of your faults, Harry. You're stubborn, headstrong, impulsive, occasionally arrogant and in possession of something of a messiah complex... but you're still a hero. In the classic flawed-but-striving-nonetheless, 'Impossible Dream' sense of the word. You keep on going, no matter what the setback. No matter how painfully you skin your knees when you fall, you get right back up again and carry on without feeling sorry for yourself. That's how I know that, in the end, you will prevail. Because no matter what the Dark Lord throws at you, you keep going. And you'll keep going until you finally defeat him. You can do anything you put your mind to, Harry! (Except catch a break with Snape, but that's another story entirely!) You've taught me perseverance: thank you.
You cried in my arms last night and told me that you felt like such a fraud... that people, you think, expect Merlin... when really, you're "Just Harry". You have no idea what you're really capable of - none of us do, really, until we're tested. No, don't dismiss that - keep reading. So far so good, my friend: you've made it this far. You've survived this long, and faced You-Know-Who even more than Dumbledore! That's AMAZING, and yes of course you're admired and respected! FOR THE THINGS YOU'VE DONE. For
your actions, for choices made because of who you are - for "Just Harry"! People can't help admiring you!
Teach me to live with the fearlessness you show. Before you were even a year old, you deflected the killing curse, and made an enemy of the worst Dark Wizard of our time... And still you fear nothing. I watch you sometimes, and I'm in absolute awe... when my heart isn't in my mouth with fear for you. See? You don't have to be afraid - I worry for you enough for both of us. Whether you're again facing down V.. You-Know-Who, or performing one of those deep-dives in a Quidditch match... Funny thing about your fearlessness, Harry, is that it pays off. No matter how far down you dive, how fast, how close to hitting the ground you come... you always manage to grab the Snitch. I suppose that could be considered metaphorically as well as literally - a nice, suitably wizarding metaphor for snatching victory out of the jaws of death. That's you, Harry: The Boy Who Lived, And Keeps On Living, Boldly And Gloriously.
I believe in you.
Love, Hermione