THE COLD NIGHT
By MYRTLE THE TYRTLE
It was a cold night, but that hadn't stopped him from turning up.
"Hi… my name is Harry, and I'm addicted to heroism." The newcomer's greeting cut through the silence like a diffindo through a sheet of paper.
"Um, you do know this is a heroin addict centre, right?" asked the woman-in-charge. She was tall and thin, and wore a white blouse and a nametag that said MARY in bold capitals.
"Yes, but this was the closest thing I could find in the Yellow Pages," said the boy had had spoken first, Harry. He was tall and gangly, though not as gangly as one of his friends, a male redhead known as Ronald, or Ron. "I'd have looked through the White Pages too, but my time is running out. I'll need it again, and soon! You have to help me! I don't care if you only treat woman heroes, I need help!"
He broke down sobbing, and Mary put an arm around him.
"It's okay, Harry. Everything is going to be fine. Now why don't you tell me a little bit about your, er, heroism addiction."
Harry swallowed back the tears. "It all began when I was eleven, a first year student at my school, Hogwarts."
A strict looking woman in a green cloak started. "Mr Potter, you do realise you shouldn't be telling Muggles about our society! Let alone these… issues!"
"Minerva, that's enough," said Mary. "Harry chose to come here for his help, as did you, and you will both be getting it."
Harry ignored them both, and continued. "There was this crazy old man who'd killed my parents and tried to kill me, and then he almost came back but I stopped him with my friends and ever since then," he took a huge breath, "I've always needed to play the hero."
"I see," said Mary, although she clearly didn't. It was like if a professor of nuclear-astro physics tried to teach a group of five-year olds about his chosen career subject. "Have there been any other occurrences?"
"Yeah," Harry snivelled. "In my second year, there was this dirty great snake and my best mate's sister got trapped in a secret chamber under the school called the Chamber of Secrets, and I went to go and rescue her!"
Mary patted him gently on the back.
"But, I almost forgot, at the start of that year, I flew a car into a tree just… just so people would pay more attention to me, and think I was really cool!" he howled, and blew his nose on Mary's sleeve.
She looked at it with some disgust. "You know, Harry, I'm not sure there's much more we can do about this together. You need more serious…"
Harry interrupted, "and in my third year there was this crazy creepy old murderer who turned out to be the George to my dad's Fred and he was after me and he wanted to kill me and I went after him and I attacked a teacher to save us from him and then the Dementors came after everybody and I did magic and I risked my life to be the hero and save everyone else!"
"Look, Harry…"
"And when I was fourteen I got put in this scary tournament and I didn't want to because I was underage, but I said 'yes, I want to do it' so that everybody would think I was so cool and love me and admire me but it didn't work and they all hated me and thought I was some kind of attention-loving freak!"
He took another huge breath, wiped his eyes and continued, "and I did all sorts of horrible stuff and I hated it all and then at the end was the man who killed my parents and then he came back and he killed Cedric and it was all because of me but I fought him and I won and I came back and it felt great until I remembered Cedric was dead and it was all my fault and it was then when I did this…"
He showed Mary and the three heroin addicts (including Minerva) a terrible scar going all the way down his forearm.
"When I was fifteen my godfather died because I was trying to save him but he wasn't there and then I learnt I had to do all this stuff and the teacher who was the best ever tried to help and he died and it was all because of me!"
He looked up with tearful eyes. "He was murdered by one of his followers… and he's sitting back there in the corner of the room!"
All eyes turned towards the greasy-haired man leaning back on his chair in the corner of the room.
"Severus?" asked Mary, shocked.
"Yes," said Harry defiantly, no longer crying he stared straight at Severus.
"Is it… true?" asked Mary.
Severus scowled. "Of course it is! But it wasn't my fault! He was going to give me more dope! I needed it, Mary! I needed it!"
Mary frowned. "Severus, you're supposed to be recovering! Not killing people for drugs!"
"It wasn't just drugs, Mary… it was heaven. He was the first one to share it with me, that nice young Tom. All those many years ago, when I was sixteen."
Mary pulled a large notebook out of her pocket labelled 'SEVERUS' REASONS FOR USING', and flicked through a lot of pages covered in an almost unreadable scribble before finding a blank page.
"I was alone, and had no friends. James Potter and his cronies would always be mean to me. Snivellus, they would call me. They called me a git and a grease-ball. It was enough to make anyone turn to drugs…"
"Ah, yes," said Minerva. "I remember my first…"
"Shut up, I'm telling the story!" snapped Severus. "He told me that I would be able to do a lot of great stuff if I injected it into my veins! So, the fool I was, I listened. And now, here I am, over seventeen years later, and I'd do anything to get my hands on some of that amazing junk."
"…Amazing… junk," Mary finished up writing in the book, and stuffed it back into her pocket. "OK, Severus, this session is over, I'll see you in ten minutes for the next one."
Severus shuffled out the door, muttering sweet nothings to himself that sounded particularly like "Kill the boy! Eat his flesh!"
"OK, you two should leave as well."
The previously unnamed addict, who looked suspiciously like Robert Downey Jr, left the room via the window.
"Come on, Minerva, you too."
"But I want to tell my story too!"
"Look, Min, you just tell your story so often its stopped being funny… I mean, entertaining, er… anyway, it's just got boring!"
Her eyes flashed a manic glint, and she held up a needle. "I'll do it, Mary, I swear I'll do it this time!"
Mary sighed, and took the needle off Minerva. "Very well, go ahead."
Minerva cleared her throat importantly. "Hello, my name is Minerva and I am a heroin addict." She paused. "Well, clap already!"
Mary clapped half-heartedly, while Harry reverted back to sobbing into Mary's shoulder.
"It all began in the spring of 1939, where my true love (may he rest in piece forever) decided to go off and fight a baddy. I grew terribly depressed, and thought drugs sounded fun. I've been using ever since," she concluded gravely, before walking out the door, fists in balls.
"It's okay, Harry, they've gone," said Mary. "We can go now."
Harry wiped his eyes and nodded.
Mary led him out through a large car park, and helped him climb into the back of a white van. She slammed the doors shut, and it drove away, leaving her behind in the cold night.