You break first.
Of the six of you who have had your lives so inexplicably and inextricably entangled, you break first.
You also break the least.
The rest of them, they would break periodically and you would curl your lip and sneer at them (except for her) and deny that you ever broke.
You break first, though.
Maybe that's why you call her mudblood when you are fifteen and humiliated. Because you don't want to feel broken again. But when that single word is the final straw in your already tenuous friendship, you break again, for the second time, pleading and begging and groveling and you are on your knees and she is looking at you like he does, with such bloody disdain that you know they're going to be together long before either of them do.
But that's the second time you break.
The first time you break is when you are only seven years old and you haven't met her yet.
Maybe if you had, it would be different. Maybe if you had you would have just thought about her green eyes and everything would have been okay in your pathetically small world. The divide between the Muggle and Wizarding worlds wouldn't have seemed so unbridgeable with her eyes.
Maybe your father is why you become a Death Eater in the first place.
The first time you performed accidental magic he was furious. He didn't hit you. He never hit you because he was too afraid. But he yelled. He yelled cruel and hurtful things about the grease on your nose and the state of your hair and you hated every word but never did anything because your mother would plead with you not to because she loved him and even though they fought and he said mean things he loved them too and you know that don't you?
No, you wished you could tell your mother.
You didn't know that.
Every word that was flung with spittle from your brutish father's lips and then James Potter was him with a wand and he is dragging you out of a pit and his friend is a werewolf and you would be smirking victoriously if you weren't so close to becoming one yourself and then Dumbledore defends them and everyone is in awe of the Quidditch star who would stoop to saving the lowly slimeball Slytherin when he was just protecting his own skin.
The very first time you break you're seven years old and you haven't met her yet.
Your father is standing over your mother not because she is on the ground but because he is so much taller than her. So much taller than you. So much taller than everything and he is like a giant in his Muggle stories that he once upon a time told you when he was employed and you didn't live in with pots catching the rain and the oven door open for warmth because he couldn't abide your mother helping him.
Your father, he grew up in a time when men went to work and made the money and came home to his wife slaving over a hot stove to pull out a freshly cooked dinner and a bottle of beer and you didn't have any respect if that wasn't your life and then he married a woman he thought would put hot food on his table but she was a witch and she would flick a comical looking piece of wood and she went to work and she made the money and the factory shut down and your father just sat, drinking, and wondering where his life went wrong and then he would yell yell yell yell.
The first time you break he is standing over your mother because she is short and you haven't met her yet. He is yelling (yell yell yell yelling) words like accident and mistake and bastard and she doesn't know what some of the terms he uses mean because she is a witch and that just makes him madder and he hits the wall next to her head and you cry out and you run at him and you put your shoulder in to his leg and it pops out of socket and your eyes well up and you won't won't won't won't cry.
His face is big and leering and it smells bad as he leans down to look at you and he sneers something you don't understand because blood is pounding through your ears because your shoulder is separated and all you can hear is the dull sound of the pain.
At least with the Dark Lord the pain was always sharp. At least you always knew why it was being inflicted. You always knew why.
With his father, with James Potter, you never knew why. It was always for something. You insulted his father, or you jinxed Black in the hallways, but the Dark Lord told you in no uncertain terms why you were being hurt and James Potter just hurt you and while each blow he inflicted on you, you returned in kind he would just smirk as if the gash running down his face was no bother at all and you would be the one humiliated as he turned you upside-down when he could just stand there, broken and battered and not seem the least bit affected and maybe you hate him because you can never seem the least bit affected.
The first time you break you run into his leg and separate your shoulder and he leers down at you and before you can think you ask your mother if she can fix it and he explodes. He yells words like doctors and hospital and emergency room and your mother says they can't afford it and your father says well it's his own damn fault and your mother flicks her wand (it was an Ollivander, nine inches, yew and dragon heartstring but your father never asked about that but you did because you couldn't wait to get your own) and he is furious again and he slams his hand so hard next to her head again that his hand goes through the wall.
He screams again, something about how they hell are they supposed to fix that and she gives him a withering look as she moves her wand arm again but he grabs her wrist and takes her wand and throws it away, yell yell yelling about a man's job and food on the table and provider and a woman's place but you just stop and stare at the casually tossed wand. It has become such a reverent thing for you, an object worthy of its own adulation and he tosses it aside so carelessly as if it is merely another branch found outside amongst the fall leaves and in only three years you'll be leaving for Hogwart's and you will never never never come back, except maybe you amend later when you meet her for summer holidays because it will be nice to have no one around to call you Snivellus when you talk to her and you will have your own wand but that one is important that one is special and you do not just toss it aside like a toy.
You run at him again, using your other shoulder but this time you don't hit bone and you surprise him and you knock him over and you're screaming incomprehensibly about the wand and about Hogwart's and about pain and the blood rushes to your ears but it is adrenaline and you hit him maybe because you wish he would stop dancing around the subject of wanting to hit you and your mother and just hit you and maybe now he will and you will be able to run run run away though when you meet her your'e glad that he never hit you and you can stay though maybe staying with her wouldn't have been so bad her eyes are so green (like Slytherin you think but latter when she's a Gryffindor and James Potter is so enthralled with her red hair if it wasn't that trait that defined her more even if it wasn't the one that drew you in).
Your tiny fists don't do anything except stun him and your mother pulls you off of him and you are crying because it is hard to throw punches with a separated shoulder but it wouldn't be the first time you did something while injured but you wouldn't cry again when doing it you promised yourself that and maybe that's why you called her mudblood just so you wouldn't cry but all the crying in the world couldn't take it back.
The entire ordeal lasts no more than five minutes but those five minutes feel like they define your entire life because when you look back just before the Dark Lord kills you, when you look back with one final glance at green green green eyes you see in those five minutes James Potter leering over you and you punching him like you always wanted to but never could you see Lily standing next to you to pull you off of him into her loving embrace you see the Dark Lord there too and somehow he and Lily are the same, calmly rescuing you from your own emotions and the weaker aspects of your character even though he killed her they are the same they are the same they are the same they save you.
The last time you break is in that moment, the moment when you know you are going to die and you realize you are no better than the silver-handed rat who blubbered and stuttered and gave away her location just so he could live. You want to live you want her eyes you want him gone because he killed her he saved you she saved you he killed her and you are only barely and subconsciously keeping up your Occlumency because it can't come apart now at the end because he deserves to die because he killed her and her eyes only are living because you allowed them to and they are more important than the yelling and if you had her eyes then maybe you wouldn't have broke in the first place.
The last time you break you even manage to hold it together even though you are on your knees pleading, begging, groveling with him with her with him. His murder of you is almost lazy and you even respect that because he did not lean down and leer at you and he did not pull you up by your ankle. He has no need for humiliation and even though he has caused you so much more pain than your father or James Potter you respect the pain he has inflicted on you because he told you why and she never would have accepted that reasoning you know but you can't help it he didn't humiliate you and for awhile that was enough until he killed her even though he was her she saved you he saved you they saved you.
When he saw you break when she saw you break you were begging, pleading, groveling please please please and they both eyed you with such lazy disdain that you loved them for it because the indifference was better than the arrogant leer and the power and the remarks about your hair and your nose and your clothes and they left you behind and they broke your heart and you loved them. You loved her and her eyes were green and your life is bookended by the times that you broke and neither time you had her and maybe if you did you could have survived, maybe if you did you wouldn't have had to break, maybe maybe maybe and her eyes were green.
Of the six of you who have had your lives so inexplicably and inextricably entangled you break last because you outlived them all.
You also break first.
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A/N: New chapter of A Reason is coming shortly after Thanksgiving weekend, but I've had the idea for this series of six one-shots for awhile now. The concept of a person completely breaking down and the manner in which it happened for the Marauders, Snape and Lily was intriguing to me and I originally planned for the "Scribbles" chapter to be James' breakdown. That changed, but this idea stayed with me. I'll be adding the other breakdowns for the other five characters on a much less consistent basis than I will be updating A Reason but, for now, check this out. It really took on a complete life of its own, getting very very stream of consciousness when I did not intend for it to be, but there you have it. Enjoy!
