Disclaimer: not mine. Also…I haven't read HBP yet. is ashamed I just can't quite get around to it.
I look out the window; stare at the stars. Stars are neutral, open to interpretation. They can make you feel tiny and insignificant, or they can make you feel like a part of something bigger. They can reassure you with their constancy or they can lie to you, giving the illusion of substance, when in reality the star died years ago, and all you're seeing is its fading echoes, its last gasp; its death cry. Stars. You take them for granted, and it's only when their light is extinguished that you realize that you never saw beyond that light into the cold dark emptiness of space.
I was a star once, but it's too late for me now. I'm lying to everyone. The illusion of substance. Forced to play roles, my contradictions have strangled me. I was everything everyone needed me to be. The tiny soldier. The lost little boy. The foolish Gryffindor. A beacon of hope. A pawn in a greater game.
I've always known that if I dropped the masks people would no longer know what to do; how to act, and that would scare them, like the star that suddenly falls to earth. Their expectations, illusions; hopes would all shatter and they would be left with the reality. A cold rock in the midst of their ruined paradise.
That's what I am you know. Cold. I hide it well, but behind the sunny smile, the carefree attitude, behind the front of rash impulsivity, is pure calculation. I'll be your golden boy, your saviour, your good little Gryffindor. For now. But soon. Oh so soon, you'll owe me. Owe me for putting the weight of the world on a small boy's shoulders. Owe me for toying with my life. Owe me for my lost childhood, for your cowardice, for expecting me to do what no one else could. And you'll pay. You'll all pay. Soon.
A great light brightens the sky, eclipsing the stars. The signal. Tonight's the night. I'll do this one last act for you. And then the light disappears. And cold empty space takes its place.
