Confessions of an Espionne
It started when I found out at the age of eleven -- quite accidently. I assure you, dad was not in the least bit happy....I suppose he wanted to keep it from me, in the hopes that my ignorance would bring me bliss...
But now that I knew I had to become involved -- I had a role to play which even at the tender age of eleven was important to the success of the ultimate goal.
I suppose if I was accustomed to a more social and expressive lifestyle, it would have been harder to maintain my facade. But it seems as if my...insecurities (which even at the age of eight had started to manifest as a cool, aloof demenor and will to control) were well-timed -- I took on my role just as I entered Hogwarts.
I always see a regret in my father's teaching me the family game, so cleverly hidden amongst his mask, unreadable, itself a metaphor in deception.
When I first inferred the job (for he never directly told me -- I would have found it out of his character for him to do so) I assumed I would take on the role of Ultimate Snitch -- but Dad, in his way, assured me I would not. Earlier, within the first years of my research, I regarded this decision with dismay, wondering what then the purpose of my role was. But as I got older in years, and was sent my first death threats, I realized the danger of the situation that he -- that I -- that our entire family was in.
It is only in my room, where the rest are in secret slumber, where I let my sparse emotions free. I dare not do otherwise -- for it is a deadly game I play, and any incongruinces could cause me -- or else, the effort -- to fail. Even when they have their chance though, my emotions remained blocked; sometimes all I can get is a harsh 'ha' which echos roughly on the stone walls, or a single tear which manages to wet my eye, and nothing more. Sometimes I find myself wishing I was like the others -- able to laugh, cry, celebrate, mourn freely -- but my tasks are many now: maintaining the facade of a student and of conforming with my family (and House's) behavior is very taxing, and truely gives me little time to regret the decision I made 6 years ago.
I have chosen my personality; or rather, it has chosen me -- merely because I have a duty to uphold family honor -- and its safety.
Visits to Hogsmeade are always interesting -- I had the time to remark upon the total lack of supervision the adults of Hogwarts bestow them with...the granting of complete freedom, for an entire day.
I remark to myself (as I walk down the street, alone) that I had never known what freedom meant, and I had the idea that I would never know.
I observe my fellow 7th years cohort in the Three Broomsticks, the only place warm enough (and big enough) to hold all the students of Hogwarts on such a blistery winter's day.
I look into the windows and can almost feel their warmth from outside...the warmth of community, humanity. It's attractive, this warmth....
But I walk on, merely glancing into the windows, denying myself the pleasure, the happiness as I walk on -- past the joke shop, past the post office, past the last vestiges of what little childhood I had, to an almost deserted and seedy-looking tavern. I walk in, see my correspondant -- in a presentable black outfit -- and we talk.
The man is a Death Eater -- he speaks low, cryptically, Slytherin. I nod in all the right places. I get up after only 10 minutes with a piece of parchment in my hand, and leave the tavern without a glance back.
No one wants me to join -- no one more so than my father, a member since its first establishment. He not happy with the arrangement, I can tell. Neither am I. But it is duty which modivates me.
"It sounds as if I have convinced them that I can be of use -- that I am to be trusted (to an extent) -- that I am not my father's daughter," I tell Dad once I get back, and he's as unhappy as I am, both of us secretly wishing that our letter campaigns, planted with false information, over the past months had been futile. There is an unspoken word among us, though, -- it passes between our eyes whenever we so much look at each other.
Duty.
In our family it's that one word which rules -- not the archtyphical father figure, not the ill-defined concept of "love"- it is duty.....to the cause.
He is scared for me -- more scared than even he will admit - I only see the surface of the fear in his eyes, and only for a moment.
I too am scared -- scared when I break out of school using one of the many passages to Hogsmeade, then Apperating to the location -- scared when the Dark Lord makes me swear upon blood that I will be loyal - only to him -- scared when he grabs my arm and brands the infernal sign of evil upon my body....I'm scared that when I look into his eyes, he will know what and who I really am - an espionne.
But no -- I must act. I have been preparing for this role for 6 years, researching character modivations, certainly acting the part...Even now when I look into the mirror, an hour before I leave the school, I see the cold hard face carved by starvation of emotion, defined by exersices in power...
For a fleeting instant I wonder if I was ever beautiful.
For another instant I wonder if I was ever human.
I suppose once, before I knew the secret.
They must not see who I really am; I must bury what emotions I have left, create adoration and servitude for the Dark Lord...knowing those feelings are not my own.
I only hope, with all the rehearsal and preperation time, that I haven't become the character I play.
Notes: I hope the ambiguitioness of the piece didn't serve as a detriment- I find it wonderfully enhances the double role that the daughter (and ultimately Snape) play.
BTW- "Espionne" is French for spy.