*~* *~* *~* *~* *~*
No, I don't own any of JK Rowling's fabulous characters. I only wish I did. All respect to her for creating them, and finally giving us a date for book 5. *~*21st June*~*
*~* *~* *~* *~* *~*
As long as I could remember, I had always been alone. It comes with the territory. Get too close to anybody, and they're soon going to wonder where I disappeared to every full moon.
So I just had to push people away before they got too close to me.
It was books that kept me sane. In books were all the interpersonal relationships, all the social subtleties that I could ever need.
All the adventures and intrigues were fine for other people - but not for me.
As noble as the misanthrope's life may be, it is a mediocre one.
To have adventures, it seemed to me, one could not be alone - always, the hero or heroine had comrades they just could not have succeeded without.
Because of prejudice about my species, I was destined to live a lonely, unfulfilled life. I couldn't tell anyone at school - if it had got out, whose parents would have wanted their children educated alongside such a monster as me?
Friendless, I lived in the library. The sweet joy of studying, of accumulating knowledge and growing as a person. But whom was I growing for? What job prospects, what relationship prospects were there for a werewolf?
Still, I loved to learn.
More than anything, though, I liked to read stories. Within these stories, I could go on adventures, experience friendship, roam the world, walk clad in silver with the one I loved, gazing at the full moon . . .
*~* *~* *~* *~* *~*
And then you came into my life.
Of course, I pushed you away to begin with, but you just kept coming.
And I guess I must just have read one too many books - I found myself wondering what harm it would do to let you get a little closer.
I let you understand me, just a little bit.
Very tentatively at first, it was like nothing I had ever done before.
All the times some character had bared their soul to me, and yet I had never realised how nerve-racking it was. To wonder how each new revelation affected your view of me.
And we grew closer, and I began to understand you. It was wonderful to experience this in reality, with no starchy paper and uniform print to obscure the living vitality of human interaction.
And inevitably, with our closeness, came James and Peter too.
And somehow, without me really being aware of it, I had friends.
I began to understand why Frodo needed his fellowship, why the French Revolution was based on fraternité.
Of course, James and Peter were lovely, but with you I found my liberté.
I would have told you all, even if you had not found out for yourselves. Eventually I would have told you. I think I knew that none of you would judge me. But still, it was a relief that I did not have to find the words to let you know.
It was remarkable enough that you all accepted me for who I was, without judging me.
But to choose to become Animagi for me, when you knew what it could have cost you – it was amazing.
No book could have trapped that between sterile, starchy pages.
Thank you, Padfoot.
Because, with you, I am everything I ever wanted.
I go on adventures.
I experience friendship.
I roam the world.
I walk bathed in silver light with the one I love, gazing at the full moon.