Author's Note: The current time is the summer after Sixth Year, but we look back at past events as well. Please enjoy, and please review.
Disclaimer: If I owned the Harry Potter universe, my name would be J.K. Rowling, and I'd be a better writer.
I'm not quite sure what made me doubt Harry so much. I've lived with him in a dormitory for six---seven, if Hogwarts reopens in September---years now. I should've known him better than that.
So what made me believe a bunch of old tosh in a rubbish rag like the Daily Prophet has become?
I suppose part of the answer is my mum. She usually reads up on all the latest gossip about wizarding celebrities and such; her inquisitions about the life and times of Harry Potter make me sometimes dread coming home every summer. In any case, Mum was talking to me as she was making dinner one night about some of the latest trash being printed.
"I heard that that Potter boy was Confuddled by Black when he was at Hogwarts. One of those experts says that the effects of a good Confuddling can last for years, and Merlin only knows what Black learned from You-Know-Who," she had prattled.
I'm not quite sure what it was that jogged my memory, but I remembered Harry talking about his run-in with Black in hushed whispers with Ron and Hermione. Naturally, I made the (foolhardy) assumption that perhaps that was the beginning of Harry's going spare. The thought lodged in my mind like a fish hook and refused to let go until I ripped it out, and since ripping it out would hurt, and take a little part of me along with it, I wasn't quite ready to let go.
Once I was hooked, I fell for every fanciful story and wild tale with astonishing ease. Each one seemed more believeable than the last, and I was able to correlate most of them with memories from my times at Hogwarts. Seemingly innocent actions were called onto the carpet in my mind, and I immediately corrupted them into this new, intriguing viewpoint of mine. Askance glances in the dorm became checks to see if anybody was watching Harry practice his Cruciatus. Angry outbursts transmuted into psychotic episodes. Screams in the middle of nightmares started to sound like joyful nostalgia of the nights when he had gone out and killed Muggles. All false, all fanciful, but all so reasonable at the time.
Like an eager recruit into a new religion, I spread my tale to anyone who would listen that summer. Dean, of course, was one of the first to hear my drivel when we chatted in the dorms. I can only thank the heavens that Dean was just being a good, loyal friend and listening to another friend rant on about something absolutely pointless.
Harry's entrance that first night spelled the doom and eventual unraveling of my little theories. At first, I tried to be as controlled as I could towards him. After all, he was...unstable. I didn't want to set him off and end up in the Hospital Wing, or worse.
Of course, my Irish blood wouldn't stand for him taking a crack at my mum. I don't think any blood can stand that, actually, but if you can...well, more power to you. You've got more control than I ever have had, or will ever have.
Looking back, I can understand why Harry got angry. He was annoyed with people blindly believing what others told them; not questioning a thing, just accepting the printed word as truth and moving on with their lives. I honestly don't blame him for losing it with me. After all, I'm not the easiest of chaps to tolerate.
During the next few days---weeks---well, actually, right up until that Quibbler interview Harry gave---I acted like a right and childish buffoon. I thought I was done with primary school, but that petty jealousy---yes, I guess it was jealousy; bad press is still press, and I, one of the numerous virtual nobodies in the world, craved it badly---turned me into a stark raving moron. I avoided Harry at all costs, afraid that I might be infected with his unnaturalness. (Yes, that's a word. It's a Seamus original, okay? Deal with it.)
That fateful first day with Umbridge, however, made me doubt myself just a wee bit. I, at first, blatantly dismissed Harry's ardent defiance to Umbridge's lies (although I didn't know that, then), seeing them as his Confuddled mind's way of trying to ensure one of his many claims to fame remained unsullied by others' attempts to disprove it. When he got to the part about Diggory, though...my bones were chilled.
He saw him die.
Harry saw someone die.
It shook me for a few moments. I remember pitying Harry, but just for a bit. Then, my mind kicked into gear and began spouting garbage at me, rationalizing that Harry was just acting. Harry was just giving another stellar performance as any desperate, mentally unstable celebrity would do were they in Harry's situation. Hence Harry's stunning admission that he saw Cedric Diggory die was pushed aside.
Slowly, even though I still managed to act like a right prat, doubts began to crop up as Harry resolutely maintained his story. I remember having to tell myself that he was just pretending, and that he was still suffering from the effects of Black's Confuddling. What those effects were, of course, I failed to recall. The only thing that mattered was that they affected Harry negatively. Case closed.
I remember meeting Harry on the dormitory stairs a few times. We both passed each other without incident; I hadn't been one to throw insults at Harry. That was the Slytherins' job, and it certainly wouldn't help things if they saw the juicy rifts emerging in Gryffindor. No, I kept the insults to myself, but I continued to carry my diseased thoughts from person to person, hoping to release an epidemic upon the school. I found a few dedicated believers along the way, and converted a many few with their help.
Of course, that all came crashing down when Harry told his story to The Quibbler. Although its validity was questionable and its content ludicrous, it was (and still remains) one of the few publications out there that is not afraid to believe. In fact, The Quibbler was probably one of the only rags that was actually a worthwhile read in those days, and even now it's not that bad. Its content never changed with the latest gossip; it kept on trucking, regardless of what others said about it. It very much resembles Loony Luna of Ravenclaw---she doesn't give a flying Jarvey what people think about her. Guess she gets it from her father.
Anyway, Harry's interview really hit me over the head like a hippogriff trying to do a pirouette in the mud. The sheer simplicity of Harry's statements, when prompted by the reporter (Critter? Skitter? Skittles? I've forgotten her name.), showed that Harry wasn't just licking up the prosperity granted to him from birth. He was never particularly eloquent, and it showed. Whenever he was quoted, it was short and to the point. Just like Harry. And, although Harry was short about things, they were jam-packed with emotion. I could tell that Harry meant the things he said in that interview.
Of course, there was still that niggling thought that Harry did all this as another publicity stunt---one last hurrah for that whole Confudding theory. That was promptly eradicated when I heard that Hermione was responsible for the interview, not Harry. In fact, Harry had known close to nothing about the whole thing.
Naturally, the fish hook came out with a particularly violent tear there, and with it I felt the voice in the back of my head drown, gurgling threats that it would be back. For the first time in a long time, probably since we were let out for summer hols, I felt myself smiling. Really smiling, you know, with the crinkled eyes and dimples and all that jazz. The smile faded when I realized what event was on the horizon, but I was a Gryffindor. I had to do what was right.
Even so, my apology to Harry wasn't my best moment. Apologies really aren't supposed to be anybody's shining moments, I guess. I just wish that I could have expressed to Harry just how sorry I was for not believing him.
What truly amazes me, even to this day, is what Harry said to me in response:
"It's alright, mate. You're forgiven."
It was short, succinct, and entirely Harry. Not to go all fangirl here, but it's what makes Harry truly wonderful. He forgave me without a single thought to how rotten I had been to him.
The talk lately is what Harry's going to do to stop...
Voldemort.
There. I've written it. It still takes some nerve, but I'm determined to do it---for Harry's sake, at least, and in honor of Dumbledore, too.
As I was saying, everybody's talking about what Harry---seeing as he's the next icon for the Light side now that Dumbledore's murder---is going to do. I'm not sure if he's got a plan, or even if Harry's got to be the one to do it. He's just a kid, after all. Why would he have to go off gallivanting after...Voldemort? It's not as if the medi-wizards at St. Mungo's said to his parents:
"Congratulations, it's a boy! Oh, and by the way, he's got to kill the darkest wizard of the age! Isn't that just peachy?"
Whatever.
I know that whatever Harry's part is in this war, he'll give it his all. I may have lost a little of my faith in him, before, but I'm even more determined to show that I'm behind him all the way now. I'll die for him, and for his cause, if it helps. Harry's my dormmate, my peer, my Housemate, and my friend. I will follow him to ends of God's green earth, if that's what it takes.
If I've managed to learn anything in my lifetime, it's that everyone has to learn how to think for themselves. They have to come to their own decisions, based solely on their own beliefs and their burgeoning experience in life. Once they can manage that, they bridge that gap between adolescence and adulthood. It is only then that they are ready for the Quidditch game that life is.
Author's Note: Please review!