You remember something someone told you in school about meth, or heroin, or maybe cocaine. You don't remember which anymore. In hindsight, it seems odd that they told you it when you were only ten years old, but they did, and now, five years later, you cannot get that fact out of your mind: the first high is always the strongest. You'll spend your entire life addicted, snorting or shooting or however it is you take it, just trying to experience that same, unimaginable high. No matter what, you'll never reach it.

You know it's silly, the way you've memorized the passwords to every professor's office. You tracked their locations on the Marauder's Map and followed them in your invisibility cloak. You never breathed when they reached their doors, because you knew if you did, you'd miss hearing the passwords. All the professors know to whisper them, but in the end, you learned every single one. More importantly, you learned where they keep their pensieves.

You wake up in the early hours of the morning, night after night, even without an alarm. You enter those offices, wearing your cloak again, knowing that you should be sleeping but instead chasing that high. The first memory you stumbled into gutted you, split cracks through everything you knew, left you unable to breathe. You want to feel that way again, to remember what it was like to be left unable to even think, only watch.

Now, even though you'd never tell anyone, you've seen it all. Memories can't shock you anymore. You know that once, watching Dumbledore's sister die and not knowing if he was the killer would have left you unable to move, to speak, to breathe. But now, it doesn't. When you hover by the bedside while McGonagall's husband passes away, or watch from the corner of the room as Umbridge's mother beats her, or stand next to a crying, six-year old Trelawney who is terrified of the way her father's eyes roll into his head as he recites a prophecy—you always feel the familiar ache deep in your soul, but they never break you. You've learned that everyone has a hurt, that everyone has a fear, that they all have a reason to do good or evil or nothing at all. How can any memory shock you when you know it has to be coming?

But that first memory, you hadn't expected. Not your father, not your mother, not Sirius, not Snape. You know what bullies look like—you grew up with Dudley—but in that moment, you saw that your father was one. And you could tell, though it was never said, you could read right off Snape's face that this was not the first time, or the second, but instead that it had happened so often it wasn't worth keeping track. Everything about it seems wrong, to the point that even as you watch for the twentieth time, your limbs shake and you can feel your blood pounding through your veins. But still, you can breathe. You can think. You can see. Not like that first time, when the shock and pity had almost killed you.

You've nearly died, more than once. You saw Cedric get killed in an instant. You are the only reason Ron still has a living father. You can't even remember your parents. Surely, if you wanted to tear yourself apart with grief and pity, that would be enough. But it's not. Something inside of you craves a crushing sadness and believes that it's the only way to feel alive. You tell yourself not to listen to it, but you can't shut it out for long.

So you steal into professors' offices every night, living and reliving their private memories, knowing it's wrong and yet feeling you have no choice. It's all you can think about during class. The things you've seen haunt you, and yet they also leave you wanting more. They give you a sickly sort of satisfaction, the sensation that some forbidden desire has been fed, though it can never be satiated. You can barely concentrate, sleep, or find the desire to eat. In the end, you can't help but wonder: is it easier to be addicted to meth?