Letter to No One
By RowanRhys
September 1995
Maybe someday, someone will find these parchments and understand the truth. Maybe someone will read these letters.
To look at us, you wouldn't guess that I wasn't in control. Scion of an ancient Wizarding line, wealthy, privileged. Talented, too, although my mother thinks my marks aren't good enough. Oh, yes. I give the orders--as long as they are the right orders.
You've seen my shadows, I'm sure. Looming over me, and glowering at everyone else around me. Potter, Weasley and the Mudblood think of them as my bodyguards, my servants, my tools. I'm not surprised, since that's the image they're supposed to project. But no one realizes--how could they realize?
Crabbe and Goyle didn't come to Hogwarts to get an education, really. They're here to keep me in line. To make sure that I don't slip away from the path my father has set for me. When it suits their purposes, they act as if I'm the boss; intimidating the lesser folk around here and protecting me from physical assault by other disgruntled Housemates.
But who protects me from them? I wish I were Sixth year. Then I'd get a room to myself at the very least, able to find privacy from these spies my father has inflicted on me. To be able to be my true self for a change instead of being the monster everyone thinks I am.
That youngest Weasley--Ginny--realizes I'm not what I seem, I think, despite those awful things I said on the Hogwart's Express at the end of Fourth year. I'm not really sure why, but I do. That conversation we had in the library last night when Crabbe and Goyle were down in the Hospital Wing with that virus that's hitting the Houses--I must have let on more than I should have, but it felt so good to be able to just talk to someone about something normal like Arithmancy homework. I even helped her get over the part she was stuck on. When my keepers--their ears still steaming--returned to find me, I know she saw the change in my face when I shifted to my trademark drawl and cutting language as I made a snide comment about brainless Gryffindors before sweeping out of the place with Crabbe and Goyle right behind me. I didn't dare look back. But if I'd had the courage, I wonder what I would have seen? I find I don't want her to hate me.
I think my bodyguards suspect something though. Goyle put me up against the wall tonight as soon as we got back to the Fifth year dorm. The bruises don't show. He's smart enough about that, even if he can't pass Potions without my help. Gods, I hurt. And I know that I'm going to get an Owl from my Father because I know Goyle and Crabbe must have reported that I'm not following orders. At least it won't be a Howler. Father is very insistent that the dirty laundry not be aired in public. Although, maybe, if it were, someone else might realize how afraid I am. How lonely I am.
I don't want to be a Deatheater. I threw up when Father made me watch him putting Cruciatus on that Muggle he'd caught cutting across the Manor property this summer--
Oh, no. They're coming back from the showers. I have to hide this. I can't take another beating tonight. I wish--I just wish I could just tell somebody the truth.