AN- Wrote this listening to 'Beautiful boys' By Cocorosie. It's probably a bit everywhere, you know? Never mind.
Rated T for language, just to be safe.
What do people mean by pretty ugly?
If something is pretty then it can't be ugly and vice versa. Then I thought they just add the pretty there to add contrast to the 'ugly'. You know, to make the ugly more ugly.
Then I realized it was an oxymoron and that was the end of that.
Sorry, I was rambling. I ramble a lot. Well, inside my mind. Outside I'm just plain Harry Potter, or more, the boy who lived. I liked that. The boy who lived. The boy who lived must live a perfect life, and must be brilliant and perfect all the time and everyone loves him. I want to be him.
"Harry?" Remus asked, breaking me from my vegative state at the back of the class room. I sure miss being that useless sludge with the blank stare, back then I could just do nothing and say nothing. I'm probably not making sense. After all, a long succession of words never makes sense.
"Yes?" I was tempted to add a 'Professor Lupin?" But I never did. I didn't trust my newly awoke voice. I wasn't asleep, but my voice was.
"I asked you a question; what is a bogart? Do you remember from earlier this year…?" I never did like questions, and now the whole class was looking at me, and oh yes, I knew the answer. I just had some rubbish floating in my mind and I couldn't concentrate and all my thoughts were never ending continuous strings of unspoken opinions that never made sense and-
"The thing in the cupboard." Oh how I grace everyone's ears with my flawless answer. I realized what an embarrassing answer I gave before I added to it, "It's a shape shifting creature that takes on the appearance of the persons worst fears." Professor Lupin looked at me, his brow creased into something unidentifiable. His gaze lightened a couple of seconds later.
"Good. Now, can anyone tell me…" I let his voice trail off into the back of my mind. Like I needed to hear his voice babble on about defence about the dark arts. How boring? I was Harry- Freaking- Potter. I didn't need this. I could take down Voldermort all by myself. How many times have I come face to face to him trying to kill me?
Sorry about the momentary outburst of confidence, as soon as it came, it was gone. I was back to being totally confident-less. That's a word.
I felt like, and excuse me as I step outside the box of 'profanity filter'; shit. Honestly, I was nothing special, I felt more muggle then wizard most days. What could I do? It wasn't even my doing, surviving I mean. It was my mothers. Not my power.
I suppose I don't know why I was chosen to take down Voldermort. Why couldn't Dumbledore?
I'm, verbally of course, off on a Sunday drive, it seems. After all, I was in the back of the defence against the dark arts class thinking about deep shit.
I will now step back into my little box. Please excuse that.
"Harry?" Maybe I should stop drowning in thoughts, it blocks my ears. I focused my eyes. Professor Lupin stood in front of me. What was it now? I soon realized the lack of the rest of the class.
"Professor?"
"What's going on in there?" He asked, gesturing towards my head. He turned and walked back to the front of the class room, an awkward blanket of silence draped its self over us. I was tempted to rip it off us with a scream. Then I realized you couldn't rip a metaphor. When Lupin received no answer, though I guess that was his intended effect, he started again:
"You know, when I was younger, I knew someone a lot like you." He looked me directly in the eye as if to say 'this is some deep shit.' Though Professor Lupin, much like myself, does not swear. That's not our place. I was just having a bad day. "I sometimes worry," He paused. (For effect, though I think he was pausing much too often,) "That you'll turn out like him." He said sadly.
"Like what?"
"Dead."
Oh.
"If you don't mind me asking, professor?" I paused to see him nod, "How did he die?"
"He lost himself. He didn't mean to- He was so… It doesn't matter. What matters is I don't want you falling down the same slippery slope." Remus looked me deeply in the eyes, it nearly had me cowering in the back of the class room. Though I suppose that was what was happening anyway, I was sat licking my wounds at the back.
I felt my hands grip the table too tightly. When did that happen? I was especially out of it that day. "Talk to me." Lupin spoke. No, begged. Just he kept his voice strong, so it didn't sound like he was begging. I knew better.
"What about?" I was being professionally awkward. I find that to be my speciality. The professor was leaning on his desk, but he soon straightened and walked over to me.
"What's bothering you?" He didn't bat around the bush. Was that it? No. Something similar. Dance around the fire, no, back flip around the snake. I can't remember. My mind was in parts and none of them seemed to fit together. Why was I like that?
"What do you mean?" Oh how I should have just been shot for saying that. Lupin stood up and walked towards me, each step echoed through the empty room, burning in my ears. Burn? Burn why? Burn because.
I do not lie.
Should I get laser eye surgery? I'd rather fight Voldermort. Oh wait, I had to do that anyway.
"Harry- let me tell you about the boy who died." I don't know if that was a coincidence, a threat, or a play on words. I guessed the second option and gulped, pulling my arms out from beneath the desk. Maybe he blamed me for my parents murder? Maybe they'd still be alive if it weren't for me. I blamed me, to be honest.
"Me and him, we were close. I regret that. If we never met, if I never… Sorry," He cleared his throat, the atmosphere began to weigh on my shoulders. As if I needed that. I already had the weight of the (wizarding) world on me. The atmosphere would crush me. Though I had to wonder, the world can't weigh much from out of space. What with no gravity.
"We trusted him, me, your dad and our other friend. Peter." Silence clouded once again.
"What happened?" My voice croaked.
"When your mother, Lily, got pregnant, they had to use a spell. Have you ever heard of a spell that puts you in hiding?" No. I didn't feel the need to answer though. Remus seemed too lost in his story to even notice anyway. "Well, to do that, they needed a secret keeper. The secret keeper- well, the details don't matter. But the secret keeper was my 'friend'. We trusted him!" The echo rang out through the empty room, bouncing off the grey bricks and ringing for ever.
"What did he do?" I couldn't keep those words from rolling off my tongue. I regretted them instantly, but they seemed to calm down the mad man in front of me.
Why don't you get beef jerky milk shakes on the Hogwarts express?
"He sold out their location to Voldermort!" He spat Voldermort's name; like it was poison. I suppose at least he didn't say 'he who must not me named'. If you say that then Voldermort has already won, to scare you out of even saying his name. "He was our friend and they trusted him and he told Voldermort, then he killed innocent muggles and brutally murdered our other best friend, Peter!" He roared like some sort of boiling kettle about to erupt in a fountain of bread crumbs.
Remus took a deep breath and began again. "All they found was a finger."
After what seemed like forever, though in reality was just a matter of minutes, I dared to speak: "How did he die?"
"He lost himself. All that's left is a shell of his former self left rotting in prison." So he wasn't dead. Lupin was clever, deceiving me like that. I get it now! "I'm sorry." He said after he calmed down. "I just- I don't think you'd ever lose yourself like he did. I just- I worry, that under all the pressure you might do something. I-I'm not suggesting you'd ever kill anyone-!"
I understood. I wasn't some sort of hormonal girl- I wouldn't lose it. "I see." I lied; how did I remind him of some murderer? I understood, yet I contradicted myself just a sentence later. I didn't understand. I understood some things.
"Harry, promise me something?" I nodded; not trusting my voice to communicate properly. "Promise me you'll never lose yourself?"
"What does that mean?" I asked. How can you lose yourself? Last time I checked, I was kind of connected to myself. You know, physically.
"I- Just, promise me?" Well, if it was physically impossible then okay.
"I promise, professor."
It was kind of weird seeing Professor Lupin all flustered and stuttering. "Professor, can I ask my you want me promise you this?" My mind had cleared significantly. Sobered up.
"Just to reassure me." The he looked thoughtful before adding, "And you're acting odd. Why?" Back to the main point. Since he was being honest and truthful, I might as well be.
"I just feel under pressure, to blame for everything… I don't want to be Harry Potter, I want to be the boy who lived." I cracked a sickening, twisty smile before I added, "You probably don't understand what I mean."
"I think I have an idea- I'm wiser then I look." He smiled. Patronizing and unlikely as it was. "We'll talk again another time- you must need to be places. Sorry to keep you behind." What? We'd hardly talked about me!
I stood, the chair behind me making a grating, squeal noise and it scrapped along the ground. We both shivered. Mutual looks of 'this just made things worse' bounced between us as I stood and stared at him perched on a nearby desk. "Bye." I whispered. I hadn't meant to.
"Bye." He too whispered. I reckon he meant to whisper. "Oh, and Harry?"
"Yes?" I had my back faced towards him.
"That friend of mine whose dead, he's looking for you," What?
"What?" What?
"I'm afraid Sirius Black," I recognized that name, but where from? "Died that night, and a murderer was created. He's here, at Hogwarts, looking for you." I tried to keep my poker face on, though my back was facing him.
"Oh. That's okay." What?
And I walked away. Truth be told- from the little comfort we actually found, I fear we just scared the, (and I step out the box,) shit out of each other. And I got back into the box one last time.
End.