Happy birthday Harry Potter! I decided to post this little drabble today because I felt it was a good way to pay homage to the great Harry Potter's day of birth. How old is he now? He's got to be in his twentys at least. Got the idea for the title from Smashmouth. Hope you enjoy!
What Glitters Is Not Gold
Most of the world believed Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, lived the charmed life of the famous. But as he and two others could tell you, a good portion of the wizarding world was sorely mistaken.
Harry, with his scar and his fame, walked every step in the bright shine of the limelight. It wasn't a nice walk though, with a gentle, low wattage light bulb through a little-used corridor. No. It was more like running the gauntlet with the sun twenty feet directly overhead. Every time he went out into the wide world, he could feel people's eyes on him. Watching. People tended to envy him for his fame, to tell him he had it lucky, being a celebrity and for defeating the Dark Lord (because even after that rotter was well and truly dead no one would still use his name) not once, but twice. Those idiots. It was more like several times, really. Harry wanted to find every last one of these ignorant people and scream at them about how wrong they really were. They just saw him when he was walking down the halls of Hogwarts, or shopping in Diagon Alley, or smiling at them from the front page of the Daily Prophet. They only saw him under the spotlight.
They weren't there behind closed doors, where reality was harsh and cruel. They weren't there for the first eleven years of Harry's life, where he was starved, beaten and neglected. He didn't know he was the Savior of the Bloody Wizarding World back then. He was just a skinny, small, slightly malnourished boy with broken glasses who knew for a fact that he wasn't loved.
They didn't understand him. Not like Hermione and Ron did.
They weren't there to help him find his way around a new place in a new school, in a whole new bloody world. They weren't there to hear about his day, or help him with his schoolwork. They didn't listen to all of the ridiculous ideas Harry would have, and instead of calling him crazy or stupid, say 'you might be right'. They didn't sit with him through the long nights where he was too scared to go to sleep, side by side on the couch, watching the fire slowly die until they would all finally give in and collapse into slumber together. They didn't hold him while he cried, whether it was because someone had pushed him hard enough in the hallway to leave bruises, because he couldn't take the stress of having the whole Wizarding world placed directly on his young shoulders, or because at the end of the day, when the battle had finally been won, he had looked up and saw himself surrounded by the many bodies of the dead.
The three had all cried together, that day.
They had not battled with him and for him. They had not spent hours in the library, researching everything from how to find a Chamber of Secrets that really had no right to exist in the first place, to 'who was that Half-Blood Prince anyway?', to unconventional ways to breathe underwater. They had not puzzled for long hours, together, about how to solve their latest riddle or mystery. They had not battled dementors, spiders, Death Eaters, snakes, Snatchers, and dragons with him. They had stared death down, with his red eyes and snake-like face, and bravely stood their ground beside him.
They had not found him, a small boy broken. They had not put him back together. They had not helped him unswervingly, whether he was strong or weak. They had not carried him on their shoulders on his way to do great and terrible things. They had not, ultimately, saved him. They had not made him great.
So, Harry thought, they could all go to hell for all he cared, as it didn't matter what they thought of him. He had everything he every needed by his side, with a flip of her bushy hair and a witty remark or a wide smile and a strong arm as he helped him to his feet.
Fame and fortune could go sod off. He had everything in the world already.
Most people would tell you that the famous Harry Potter had it all. And as he looked at Ron and Hermione's smiling faces, walking next to him, with a castle silhouetted in the light of a glorious setting sun at their backs, Harry couldn't help but agree.
Hope you enjoyed! Review if you're as obsessed with Harry Potter as I am.