Hope
Summary: What are Harry's dreams for he future? Does he even have them anymore, or has he given up hope?
Author's Note: It has been pointed out that this Harry doesn't really fit with the books, look at it this way, this version of Harry is an AU version of who he might have become if he stayed all angsty and tortured the way he was during OOTP. I hate that he was so...happy and forgiving in HBP, W.T.F happened to all that rage and grief? You don't just get over things like that, especially with a prophecy like that hanging over your head!So basically this is pre HBP.
I never had hope for the future growing up.
Why would I have?
According to the Dursleys I was nothing, a freak. Worthless. They stamped out all of my hope as soon as they could.
The best I could hope for was that 'someday' when I could finally escape.
I wasn't like all the other children, dreaming of their wide bright futures of endless possibilities. I never got that. I never believed that I could do anything, be anything if I wanted, if I tried.
When they talked of travel, of visiting the pyramids or the coliseum I never even let myself dream that I'd see those things. How could I? I had no money and no hope that I would ever be able to earn enough to do anything other than leave the Dursleys. When the other kids were talking of Egypt and adventure I was thinking of bedsits in Surrey. That was the best I could ever dream of.
But I wanted, I so wanted, something…something indefinable, hope maybe? I wanted so badly, to be normal, to have a future. Love, 2.4 kids, white picket fence and a dog. I wanted to travel, to see the world…
I wasn't stupid, I knew that it wasn't in my stars to ever have any of that. I was just that worthless freak Harry Potter, that 'weird' Potter kid. I never had hope, not until they gave it to me…
But once it turned eleven I found out that I was part of this amazing new world. Magic was real! So maybe all my dreams could come true… I should have known better. I was used to disappointment, I should have seen it coming, but I didn't… I can never forgive them for that, for giving me hope, when Dumbledore knew perfectly well that there was none…
I was famous in their world, but that wasn't what gave me hope (frankly it was a huge pain, but it was no big deal! People would get tired of it eventually, right?). Sure I was 'the boy who lived', but I had friends for the first time ever, I was doing alright in school, and I was great at Quidditch.
I started to believe that I could do all these amazing things with my life. Like maybe I could play professional Quidditch! I still wasn't like the others. I held back on more outlandish fantasies, and didn't voice my dreams. But I had a chance, for the first time I had hope. I had money to go to school with, maybe someday to travel with, and people who cared, so maybe happily ever after was finally a prospect for me.
It was inevitable that the house of cards would come crashing down though. The mini disasters of my first three school years building up my, already 'legendary' status among my peers. Meaning that I was never normal, reviled maybe, but never normal.
But I thought that there could still be a chance for a happy future, the light at the end of the tunnel had not been quite snuffed out yet. Despite loosing out on being with Sirius the light in my eyes still burned. I believed in Dumbledore, I believed that everything would be alright. God how naive, how bloody foolhardy I was! Had living with the Dursleys taught me nothing about building my hopes up? I had learnt at an early age that if you didn't build your hopes up, than you couldn't be disappointed. So what the hell was I thinking?
Then it happened, the whole world went to hell around me, and there was nothing that I could do. First Cedric, then Sirius, was it too much to ask that I could be normal, happy? Apparently it was. It was hard enough living through the scorn and hatred of the aftermath of Cedric's death, and the press certainly didn't help. But then when Sirius died I found out that God awful prophecy and discovered that it had all been a lie…
There was never any hope, not for me. If win it'll be a miracle. But, chances are, whatever happens I'll probably be dead before I'm twenty anyway, if I even get the chance to finish school. And in that moment all my cherished dreams suddenly turned to dust. I hated Dumbledore for that, for letting me hope when he knew, he knew there was none.
I wish I could say that I'll never forgive him for what he did, but he did it out of love. He was still only human and I forgave him for it along time ago. It's true what they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Its life I hate, how bitter does that sound? But its true, it jerks me along, giving me hope then wrenching it away as though I don't deserve to have a future, maybe I don't.
Its ironic really who did the most damage, not the Dursleys with their cruelty. Say what you will of them but they never allowed me hope for dreams of the future that would never come true. At least they were that kind. It's the wizarding world with its 'good intentions' that took everything from me. Building me up only to tear me back down, allowing me to hope, to dream of a future that Dumbledore knew that I could never have.
But anyway, I feel it now. The lack of hope, it's not something new. Perhaps I have always felt it, but only now have I begun to recognise it for what it truly is. A black cloud on the horizon, looming ever closer. It has always been there, at first so far in the distance that I could barely see it, could ignore it and pretend that the sun would keep shining on my life forever, but it won't…
I know what it means now; the final confrontation with Voldemort is coming. I won't survive it; I can feel it in my bones. I can only pray that I take him with me. I can't tell Ron and Hermione, they'd never understand. When they talk about the future you can see their dreams reflected in their eyes, and you just know that their futures will be amazing. Ask them what they'll be doing in ten years and I bet they can tell you. I can't, I never could dream like that, maybe this is why, somehow I always knew that I'd die young…
It doesn't matter though, its better if I distance myself for them. In the end a hero is always alone anyway, its not as though they can face Voldemort with me anyway, I won't let them.
It looks like my dreams of professional Quidditch or of being an auror are well and truly over. I don't know what I was thinking of ever starting to believe that I could have any of it, life doesn't work like that, not for me. And as for the girl, I had to give her up for some silly noble, self sacrificing reason, as if I had a choice. I couldn't bear to watch her die, I've already seen too much of death in my life. So it looks like I'll never get the white picket fence or the kids, I'd never really expected that one to happen anyway, but I hoped and dreamed that someway, somehow maybe….
It's not fair! Sometimes I feel like raging at the world, for all the good it would do. I just want to be a teenager for God's sake! Go backpacking, out clubbing with my mates, normal stuff! I don't want the fate of the world resting on my shoulders. I don't want to lead the people I went to school with into battle knowing that many of them will die. I can't live with all this blood on my hands knowing that for as long as I live I will never be free of the death, the despair and everyone looking at me like I should have all the answers now that Dumbledore's gone. I'm just a kid! I don't know what I'm doing, and some days I don't think that I can stand the pain. I feel like screaming, 'I never asked to be your hero, I don't want to die!', but I can't. I see the young, innocent eyes of the first years looking at me, and I can't, I just can't destroy their hope the way mine was destroyed.
Maybe it was fate, maybe I never had a choice. Someone has got to be the hero and it might as well be me, much as I wish it wasn't. But I don't want to die! I'm too young to die! There was so much that I wanted to do, to see that I'll never get the chance to. They let me believe that I could, but I never will. I guess some of us were never meant to have hope.
This was an idea that has been bouncing around my head since last summer, I loved the idea but could never think of a way to properly express it, well I've finally written it down and I have to admit…. I don't think that it worked at all! Arggh! My best ideas never work! I just couldn't convey the vision I had in my head into writing well, originally this was going to be a conversation with someone, problem is who would Harry ever say this to? The point is after all that he wouldn't!
Anyway constructive criticism would be appreciated, please drop me a line and tell me what you think! I wasn't even going to publish this damn thing but its been hanging around my desktop glaring at me, so even if it sucks I figured I should at least let people read it (so they can then tell me how much it sucks!).
Please review!
Thanks for your time!
XXX
(PS Those of you waiting for updates on myother fics I'm up to my neck in UCAS at the moment (Remind me again why I'm even thinking about applying for Oxbridge, am I insane?) so updates are going to be even further delayed, though not forgotten!)