Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Nothing Has Changed.
Nothing has changed. As you look around the old house, still elegantly furnished, still grand and decadent as those miserable years, you admit it bitterly to yourself. You touch the peeling wallpaper, and a sick stench is stirred in the air. It fills your nostrils but does not stop there. Your whole body is filled with disgust. You fall over limply and your mother's vanity is suddenly drenched with vomit. You finger the frowning portraits, their eyes bearing into you, and you are filled with hideous shame and disgust.
All is the same. You pass through a hallway and shrieks of anger ensue, wild, rampant, chaotic. You cannot flee from the voices. From Her voice. She's haunted you forever, ever since the first day you left. Her song of hate rings through your ears, your mind, your heart, and you cannot make it go away. It grates into the deepest part of you and refuses to be silent. Her words pound dully into your skull, and you hear them clearly, chanting: Filth, shame, abomination of my flesh! Worthless traitor, fiend! You are no son of mine! You are no man! The same song she sung twenty years ago won't go away.
You are trapped. Trapped here alone, inside your own mind, but, more importantly, inside this house. This place that should be torn down and forever condemned to burn in Hell. But it's not. You've got to stay here and let yourself be ripped into little, tiny pieces. Injustice has defined your circumstances always, and all of you is now flaming up violently against this perpetual iniquity.
That man (you refuse to think his name) said you were safest here. Liar. You're losing your mind, little by little, one memory by the next. Sanity is something rarely grasped, a precious gem in the slew of confused and mangled mess of your tormented mind. You breathe in this contaminated air and you know you would be better off cradled in the arms of a dementor.
The only glimpse of sanity, the only time you revert to the way you were once, is when he is here. When his voice breaks into a roaring laugh you are reminded that joy still lives, still thrives, though it is so commonly unattainable. When he plays a "joke" on you, and you feel, of all things, laughter spilling from your lips. When you finally have the strength to make a mockery of your mother's screeching portrait, and you are alive.
But Remus never stays long, and all the life you have enjoyed is snatched away from you the moment he waves goodbye. In your boredom, you've got to think about something, and you find that all the memories you've ever possessed have been all poisoned. You cannot think of James without thinking of Peter. You cannot breathe without tasting the musty air and remembering all the times you'd sneak out at night only to return to the shrieks of your "mother." So you think of your Godson. One day, you hope, thetwo of youcan move, and he can be your son. And you won't have to remember any of this shit they called your family.
So when Tonks shows up in your fireplace, her violet hair scraggly and her cheeks and nose bright pink, to tell you that Harry's in trouble, you don't hesitate to offer help. And when she tells you that Voldemort's there, it only makes you more eager. After all, what do you have to lose? Nothing, you tell yourself. Who do youhave to lose? Everyone. Your family.Everything has changed.
Author's note- Reviews are the food of the soul! Please don't leave me to starve!