Unforgivable
There's a bruise.
He doesn't know how he got it.
He doesn't ask.
Don't ask questions. This is ingrained into him after night upon night of pain.
He doesn't know why he associates questions with pain, but he does.
One day, there's blood in his cupboard.
He doesn't know how he knows it's blood, but he does.
He dreams of shouts and noise and his uncle dragging him from his cupboard into a world of pain.
But the dream is just that, a dream.
A teacher asks him to stay behind after school.
"Harry," she says "how did you get that bruise?"
"I don't know," he says.
And it's true. He doesn't.
After a while he stops questioning the blanks.
It's normal to forget things now.
One night, he dreams of an old, old man who comes and takes the pain away.
"So this is Dumbledore!" he said.
The other boy-Ron-says something, but he doesn't hear.
He tilts the card, studying it carefully.
Albus Dumbledore looks familiar.
He soon forgets this.
It's normal to forget things, now.
He forgets to clean his dorm…
…and is allowed to eat the next day.
"More like a good sense of when to duck," he snorts.
He doesn't know why he thinks this, but he does.
He soon forgets.
It's normal to forget things, now.
The man raises Ron's wand.
"Obliviate."
He frowns.
He knows that spell.
He soon forgets this.
It's normal to forget things, now.
"I knew I was condemning you to ten dark, terrible years," said Dumbledore.
Inside Dumbledore's heart, his soul shatters.
It was for the best, he tells himself, the boy is better off without those memories, anyway.
But as the boy cries and throws the tables at him, he realizes, perhaps for the first time, that the boy is only human.
He feels human emotions, has his own thoughts, his own feelings, his own life, and that he is robbing the boy of his identity, and that what he is doing is Unforgivable.
Inside, his heart is breaking.
Obliviate.
Sometimes he thinks that it should be named the fourth Unforgivable.
That's what he's doing to the boy is.
Unforgivable.
