Time of Your Life
Remember...remember...
The word echoed through Harry Potter's mind, leaving him with the sensation that he was somewhat hollow. It was an empty feeling, and not quite a pleasant one.
"Are you all right, Harry?" asked Ron Weasley concernedly, looking up from the piles of clothes and miscellaneous objects he'd been cramming into his visibly old trunk. Everything he'd picked up through the years.
"Fine," Harry forced himself to say, with a small smile.
"If you say so," muttered Ron, going back to his packing.
Just fine, Harry repeated to himself. Yes, you're fine, Harry, except you feel as if you're a balloon someone just jabbed with a pin. Getting emptier and closer to nothing every minute.
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go.
"Pass me my wand, would you, Ron?"
"Sure-here you are."
"Thanks."
"Remember in our second year, when we broke my old wand (which was really only Charlie's old one anyway), crashing into the whomping willow in that enchanted car of my dad's?"
Harry grinned. "How could I not?"
"And how it saved us when we were about to be eaten by those horrible friends of Aragog's?"
"Yeah-I guess we have a lot to be thankful for."
"You could say that."
"Have Dean, Seamus, and Neville finished packing yet?"
"Yeah, they went down a few minutes ago. Taking a last lap around the old grounds, I suppose."
"That's all well and good for them. They don't have a speech lurking in the not-too-distant future."
"You'll be wonderful Harry, really. And Hermione'll be right there with you."
"And you will too."
"You're head boy, Harry, you'll be fine without me--"
"It's not about that. You'll be up there with us because you've been there for seven years. When we needed you most, and when you needed us. And today won't be any different. After what we've been through, anyway, I don't suppose they have a right to refuse."
"All right, then, Harry, if it means that much to you--"
"It does. And to Hermione too." He knew this was just a brave face Ron was putting on. He was dying to stand up at the graduation podium, all eyes on him for once, and forgetting who he was the younger brother of. Especially after Percy had been killed for refusing to unlock secret ministry information in their sixth year.
He caught Ron's eyes, and they grinned at each other.
"I think I'm done now, Harry," said Ron finally. "Do you want me to wait for you?"
"Oh, no, you go ahead. See if you can find Lavender. Take a bit of a walk around."
"Okay-oh Harry, are you sure you don't want me to stick around? I don't mind."
"I know you don't. I just want you to go and enjoy yourself as much as possible."
"All right. I'll see you then."
"Yeah."
"And Ron," he called suddenly, as Ron got up and made his way over to the dormitory door, "do me a favor and save some of your walking around for me. It won't mean as much if you don't."
"I promise," said Ron with a grin, before shutting the door behind him.
It's not a question but a lesson learned in time.
Harry leaned against the wall, his heart pounding steadily faster. With Ron gone, there was nothing to distract him from his nervousness about the speech he'd have to give later that day. It wasn't speaking in front of the hundreds of people who'd be present that scared him.
He hadn't written so much as a word of it.
It wasn't that he hadn't tried. It was just that he didn't know where to begin, or end, or even what to include. There was so much he had to say, and so little he actually wanted to. Most of the details were still painful to think about, even the ones that had taken place years ago.
And Harry somehow knew that when he uttered the first words of his speech, the full reality that he was leaving Hogwarts would sink in. He didn't know if he could take that.
Hogwarts had been the only home he could remember, not counting the Weasleys' Burrow, which still wasn't the same. He'd had the best times of his life here, and he wasn't ready to leave those memories behind.
I hope you had the time of your life.
Absently, he Harry tucked the frayed end of one of his black hats out of reach of the edge of the trunk clasps. He'd be done packing soon, and then he'd have to go downstairs and meet Hermione, and ready himself for the graduation ceremony.
Sorting through the remaining pile of bits of this and that that mean so much in a person's youth, Harry's fingers ran across the cold smoothness of silver. Clearing away the broomstick-polisher and dungbomb packets, he uncovered a sparkling picture frame without a picture inside.
That didn't matter. In his mind, Harry saw pictures of himself flash across the empty space. With Ron and Hermione. With Sirius. With Hagrid. With Lupin. With Dumbledore. With Cedric. With Snape. With the Dursleys. With Pettigrew. With-Voldemort. The faces of the people who had shaped his life, and contributed to who he was now, whether it was for better or for worse. Some gone, some alive, though scarred by the events of the past years. And him, right in the center of it all, as a result of some cruel trick of destiny.
Remember...remember.
The words echoed once more through Harry's mind, more clearly than before.
I don't want to.
Remember...
No, it hurts too much.
Face it. Remember...
I can't.
That's not true. Remember...
I know...
Remember...
And suddenly, Harry knew what his speech would be. Calmer than he'd felt in a long time, he stood up, shoved the last of his things into the trunk, closed it with a big thud, and walked out of his dormitory door for the last time.
Hang it on a shelf of good health and good time.
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial.
For what it's worth, it was worth it all the while.
"Ready?" asked Hermione whisperedly, eyeing the masses of expectant people seated on the grass outside the lake.
"Ready," answered Harry.
They clasped hands and walked to the podium in the center of the rows of the people they'd grown up with. Tall and short, fat and slim, clever and confused, nervous and excited. They were all different. They were all special.
I hope you had the time of your life.
"Up until a few minutes ago, I had no idea what I could possibly say at a time like this that would interest you all. I lay miserably in my four-poster the last night of my residence at Hogwarts, too caught up in my memories to realize I was wasting my precious last hours here. Because more than the past, graduation is about the future.
"Memories are important things, which can be both good and evil. We must be careful not to forget too much, for we are always tied to our old selves, and losing part of who you were causes you to lose a bit of yourself as well. But we cannot live solely on our memories. A great man once told me, 'It does not do to well on dreams and forget to live'. He could not have put it any better.
"I, like everyone else, have my reasons to wish to live in the past for even a few days, if not forever. But there are other pasts I still shudder to think about, and friends lost I still cry about at night. Life, like all its minor aspects, is both sweet and sour, and would not taste half as good as it does if it were either completely sweet or completely sour. The sooner we learn to accept that, the happier we'll be as we flow through eternity's never-ending river.
"Hogwarts is a home to all of us, and one that we'll sorely miss, and are already regretting having to depart this one last time. We grew up here, and in leaving the castle, we leave our old selves behind as well. The graduation ceremony could be called a sort of right of passage. Suddenly, from a sheltered youth, we find ourselves faced with the harsh reality of having to do for ourselves, and find a way to live our life in such a way that people having their turn at life remember our names, and that we were special. It's an intimidating prospect, but also satisfying, in an odd way. I was told, by the aforementioned man, that it's our choices that determine who we truly are, far more than our abilities. We hold our futures in our hands, and the responsibility of keeping them from breaking is completely on us.
"We are charged with two last assignments today. To make much of our lives, and to remember Hogwarts along the way. I leave you with two final words: good luck."