there is only
January 2013
"The bravest thing I ever did was continuing my life when I wanted to die." - Juliette Lewis
The poem is "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen. A lot of inspiration for this is drawn from James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The title came from Loki's quote in The Avengers: "There is only…the war." And, of course, yes, riboflavinb2; your question about Cormac was the reason I wrote this.
Forget that line in the seventh movie about Cormac reporting something to his father. Really, forget it and forget it good. This is by the books.
This is very dark. Be warned – here, there be dragons.
The world was exploding in a series of blacks and grays. The stench of blood and flesh burnt his nostrils, and Cormac McLaggen automatically threw himself down to the ground, returning to the only thing he knew how to do: hide. Obey. He obeyed the frenzied sound of the explosion and the screams and the human everywhere.
Behind him someone shrieked. Cormac rolled over and jumped back to his feet. He was gripping his wand so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. "What are you doing?" yelled Parvati Patil. She was having trouble fighting off a Death Eater – who seemed to have a couple of friends that wanted to join the fun. "McLaggen, help me!"
Cormac was frozen. He looked around disinterestedly at the wreckage of Hogwarts and took a trembling step backward. He almost tripped over a broken piece of stone. Parvati was still fighting – Cormac could see her, almost as if it was a scene watched through a particularly foggy window. "Why the fuck are you even in Gryffindor?" Parvati screamed.
It was a damn good question. He'd been asking it for years.
Bent double like old beggars under sacks
All went lame all blind
Gas gas quick boys ecstasy of fumbling
I saw him drowning
Guttering choking drowning
Some smothering dreams you too could pace
Froth-corrupted lungs
Obscene as cancer bitter as
My friend you would not tell with such
The old lie
He just wanted to see what it was like. He didn't like what he found. He was in a yellow room with the big dark wardrobe that he didn't like and he was sitting at daddy's desk reading the book. He didn't like the book. He didn't understand it. It was yucky.
I'm sorry you had to see that, Cormac, said daddy when he walked in. That's something you shouldn't have to know about for years.
He was glad he saw it. He knew it was confusing now to do his daddy's job. But he liked his daddy's job. His daddy wore nice dark blue with pretty light things on his shirt. He wanted to wear nice dark blue with pretty light things on his shirt, like stars.
Mr. Barclay was a mean man. The boys liked to make fun of him on the jungle gym. Cormac didn't like to. He didn't want to be caught laughing. He had watched Mr. Barclay hit Bobby Fenwick with a long stick once. Bobby Fenwick had a big bruise on his hands but he didn't tell anyone because all the parents liked Mr. Barclay. His name sounded like bar and clay and Cormac fell off the monkey bars once and broke his arm and mommy didn't like it when he tracked dirt and clay through the house. Mr. Barclay was bad.
In Mr. Wellson's class Mr. Barclay came in. He had the long stick again. Bobby Fenwick wasn't in this class. Cormac wished he was so that Mr. Barclay wouldn't hit him instead. "Are any boys in need of some discipline here, Mr. Wellson?" Mr. Barclay asked. He liked that long stick.
He walked around the room. Cormac wished his sister hadn't broken his pencil. He couldn't use it now. He had been going to ask Mr. Wellson for another one but now he didn't want to because Mr. Barclay probably didn't like pencils or asking questions very much unless he was the one with the pencil or he was the one asking the question.
Mr. Barclay stopped right next to Cormac's desk. "Why aren't you writing, McLaggen?" Mr. Barclay asked. Maybe he did like questions after all.
"My sister broke my pencil," Cormac murmured. Maybe he should have said it like a question. Mr. Barclay didn't like his answer. It hurt when the long stick hit you. There was going to be a bruise for a long time. It would be blue and black and yellow and purple just like Bobby Fenwick's. Mr. Barclay knew about the long stick now too. He didn't know what happened and nobody else did either but the long stick went back and hit Mr. Barclay. Cormac was sent to the principal.
Cormac was sitting on the floor of his room reading when his sister walked in. She was younger than he was and she was different. He didn't know how but she was. She liked to make him mess up in front of his mother. She didn't like him very much but he didn't know what he'd done. "Whatcha doing?" she asked.
Cormac didn't like questions very much. He knew she wouldn't like the answer. "I'm reading," he said. "What are you doing?"
"What are you reading?" she asked. She looked mad.
"A book," said Cormac. It wasn't a very good book. He didn't know what was going on most of the time but it was a big book and he liked how it looked to anyone that walked in other than his sister.
"I know that!" yelled Olivia. "I'm telling Mama!"
She ran out of the room. Cormac tried to read some more. He didn't remember what happened after that but he thought the door had gotten jammed somehow and it had been scary and he hadn't known what had jammed the door and his room had been too small and it was too dark and he didn't like small places very much after that.
They were all standing in a line and they were all wearing black. Even mommy was wearing black today even though she usually wore yellow. That was weird; he remembered that. The yellow usually matched her yellow hair. The black didn't match and it was weird.
There was a long line of people and there were a bunch of strong people carrying a big black box. Daddy was inside the box. It was weird. Cormac didn't know how that worked. When they buried the box how was daddy supposed to get back out of it? Maybe there was a long tunnel underground. He would see his daddy tomorrow, probably.
He mentioned this to his mother and she hit his arm and told him to be quiet. There was water on her face. He didn't know where it came from because it wasn't raining. She was crying that was it, and daddy was dead. That was what was wrong. That was why everything was weird.
After all the weird things were done and the people in black that were in a line had walked over and hugged mommy everyone left. Mommy hugged Olivia and then she hugged him too. She smelled like flowers and grass and winter. He already forgot what daddy smelled like.
He had water on his face too but it wasn't raining.
He got a letter. It was on nice white paper with green ink. It was strange, but Cormac opened it and read it anyway. It was very strange. He thought it was a lie or a scam or maybe someone was trying to get money like Mum always said people were trying to do, but Cormac brought it to Mum to double-check anyway.
"Oh God," she said when she read the letter. She was sitting at the kitchen table and Cormac wondered why she sounded so mad.
"What's wrong?" he asked cautiously.
"You're one of them," she said, and told him to go to his room.
When he went home for the Christmas holiday he found out that his mother had gotten remarried. Cormac wasn't sure what to think of this yet, but he was already suspicious of the man. Olivia didn't like the man either, but Cormac couldn't really trust Olivia. He didn't know her. She stayed home while he went to Hogwarts. She went to a private boarding school in the country.
Cormac met Jason – his stepfather – when he got home. Jason's breath smelled bad and he looked like he needed to shave. He'd been loud and Cormac hadn't liked it. He'd had a daughter who was Cormac's age. Cormac hadn't liked her either because she was meaner than Olivia. She tripped him in the hallways and pushed him down the stairs once but nobody believed him when he said it wasn't his fault.
He had come to the conclusion that his mother was insane. "You are going to learn how to drive, Cormac," she said in a very final tone as she shuffled through the bills at the kitchen table. "You may very well be attending that deplorable institution but I can make sure you are prepared for your life afterward."
"Have you planned out my life afterward?" Cormac asked too bitterly. He saw his mistake when his mother looked up and frowned. She was tired already, he could see that. He hated doing the wrong thing especially around his mother. He wanted to do the right thing but he never knew what that was.
"You will learn how to drive," his mother snapped, and then looked back down at the bills. Jason was passed out on the couch again. He snorted in the other room. Cormac could hear Olivia and Jennifer giggling and talking in the other room. He wished he had a stepbrother that liked him and hit Olivia. Then he felt bad about wishing that.
His mother never taught him how to drive and Jason never did either. Their neighbor Paul did. Paul was cool. He went to school at the local university and he had two tattoos. Cormac wanted to be cool too – though he'd never admit it aloud – and Paul seemed cool because he knew he was cool. He seemed like he just knew it. Cormac decided he would do that too.
It was dark and rainy and wet. Orange streetlamps were whizzing by in the night. He remembered every aspect of this night. His ribs hurt so much because they were probably broken, and his arm felt like it was going to explode. Tears were welling up in his eyes but he wouldn't let them fall. He had to drive himself to the hospital because nobody but Jennifer was around to help him and this was her fault.
He rolled down the window of the car. It was Jason's car. He'd taken it because his mother's car was gone and Jason and his mother and Olivia were in it somewhere. He hadn't learned how to drive very well and he wasn't really sure what he was doing but he seemed to be getting somewhere. It was too bad he didn't really know where he was going.
The air smelled like nighttime and cold. It was Christmas Eve and there were lights on houses and he could see into peoples' windows. He could hear people singing to other people in the warm world that he had never been a part of. He wanted to be in that world. He'd never wanted it so badly in his life. But it didn't matter because he didn't matter. What he wanted never had.
He thought he was going to throw up for a minute but then he didn't and he kept driving. Suddenly he was past the neighborhoods and he was driving through a big dark forest. There were pine trees everywhere and everything was so dark, just like that room with the big book that he could barely remember. He hated thinking about it.
Another car passed by with bright white lights shining at him. Then they were gone and he was alone again. He went faster and faster but then he decided to slow down. His ribs hurt too much to move too much and it hurt his arm to steer so he didn't really want to anymore. He had the sense to slow down before using only one hand to drive.
The trees were everywhere.
The darkness was so…inviting.
Everything was hissing and something was hot in his ear and he could barely see and someone was yelling something too loudly and someone was grabbing him and pulling him away and his ribs hurt so badly now that he thought he would die and his arm was getting tugged on and he hated it so much so so much and he tried to struggle but he couldnt and oh god what did he do to jasons car it was all wrapped around a tree but the dark
the dark
Kristen in his Charms class was very pretty. Her nose was straight and her eyes were like the sky. Her hair was long and brown and reminded him of chocolate. He wanted to say something to her but he didn't know what. He tried asking her for the homework once – even though he knew what it was – and she told him, but then she just walked away with her friend. It was harder than he thought.
He liked her a lot. She was beautiful. He didn't like how the others talked about girls, and he didn't tell them that he liked Kristen, but he did. When they started to talk about stuff like that he left the room. They liked Kristen too, but they didn't like her the right way. It was disgusting. They were like vile creatures that disguised themselves as humans.
Cormac was better than them and he knew it. He decided he didn't want to hang out with them anymore and instead started to hang out with older boys. The older boys talked about girls too, but they weren't as nasty about it. Cormac liked that. None of them liked Kristen, so Cormac could like her and not worry about it.
Kristen was really nice too. Cormac was walking down the hallway and saw her stop to help a first year pick up some papers he'd dropped. Cormac probably wouldn't have helped. The first year would probably have grown into something like the rest of this sick world. Except for Kristen.
But Kristen liked someone else. Once Cormac waited for her after class and he knew she saw him looking at her and waiting for her to look back so he could say something, but she refused to look at him. She liked Cedric Diggory instead. Cormac didn't know why. Cedric was a Hufflepuff; he was a Gryffindor, and Gryffindors were better than Hufflepuffs. Besides, Cedric Diggory was going out with Cho Chang.
Halfway through the year Kristen started to look back at him but he was determined not to let her through. She'd already hurt him and there was no going back. Maybe she was a part of this sick world after all. He told those other boys his age that he and Kristen had done it and that was why they avoided each other now. They thought he was cool but he felt rather guilty about it. The boys started to assume any girl he talked to was one of his "conquests".
But really, he'd never been kissed. Not even on the cheek.
His favorite escape was to Uncle Tiberius's house. It was several neighborhoods away and took a time to get to, but he didn't dare drive again. Jason had never forgiven him for wrecking that car, even though he told Jason that it wasn't his fault and it had been because he'd been braking for a deer. There weren't any deer in these parts.
Uncle Tiberius was a wizard, too, which meant Cormac was normal in Uncle Tiberius's house. Cormac began to spend more time at Tiberius's than his own house. He liked to hear his uncle's stories about the Ministry of Magic and all the strange things that had happened there very recently – this school year, in fact. Cormac had heard Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, had had something to do with it, but that wasn't surprising. Harry Potter had something to do with everything. Cormac didn't like him. Everybody loved him and he didn't even have to try.
"How soon will you be seventeen, my boy?" Uncle Tiberius asked one day when they were sitting together in his living room. "You must be nearly there. When you are, you can move in with me and be legal about it."
"Not soon enough," said Cormac, and sighed. He stared contemplatively into his cup of coffee. It was swirling, like there were clouds in there.
"Well, you listen to me," said Uncle Tiberius. "There's a storm brewing out there, and both of us need to look out for it. You Know Who is back, and he's sure to be worse than ever."
There was no point in trying to avoid the storm. There never was. Bad things weren't supposed to happen to good people. Bad things didn't happen to good people. Bad things didn't happen to Kristen or Uncle Tiberius. Cormac must have been a bad person.
He had never thought anyone could replace Kristen, but as it turned out someone could. Hermione Granger was the smartest witch in her year, and she was gorgeous, too. She had curly brown hair and beautiful dark eyes that reminded Cormac of a protagonist from a Muggle book he'd read one summer. She was shy and always bit her lip and looked down when she caught his eye.
Cormac wondered if she liked him. He couldn't tell. He had no experience with girls. All he knew was what he heard from the other boys in his year and they bragged all the time. He wasn't sure what to do, and he couldn't exactly sit down and write a letter to Uncle Tiberius about it, so Cormac decided that he would be what everyone thought was cool.
It worked. Hermione asked him to go with her to Professor Slughorn's Slug Club party. Cormac sent a letter home saying that he would be staying at Hogwarts over the holidays. He secretly had no idea what he was doing or what he would wear or what he would say or what he would even do if she tried to kiss him – or what he would even do if the boys were there and expected him to kiss her – but he pretended like he did. The boys thought he was cool that way.
Hermione kept leaving him at the party. Cormac couldn't find her for the life of him and he was embarrassed all night. The highlight was throwing up on Professor Snape's shoes. That was a pretty pathetic highlight.
Hermione was a part of that sick world, too.
Why the fuck are you in Gryffindor?
Cormac didn't have an answer. Nobody did. He looked around at the crushed remains of what Hogwarts had once been and wondered absently why, indeed, he was in Gryffindor. Gryffindor was for the brave, the courageous, the reckless, the impulsive, the strong. But he was terrified and weak.
He didn't know why he was in Gryffindor. He didn't know a lot of things. He didn't know why his father had to die in some obscure war in another country, or why his mother never liked him, or why his sister was such a bitch, or why his stepfather was an alcoholic, or why his stepsister liked to hit him. He wasn't even entirely sure why he'd hit that goddamn tree that night.
But there was one thing he did know.
The war was not yet won.