**I don't own these characters or the stories they belong to**

July 1, 1996

If the world were good and fair and all that, lots of things would be different, I guess. There wouldn't be hatred and bigotry; society and government wouldn't be rotten with it, and justice could never be twisted or bought. Everyone would get enough to eat, kids would never sit wracked with pain in the darkness, and bullies wouldn't be allowed...at home, in school, or anywhere. Maybe there would even be a fix for stupid.

"Maybe it's escaped your notice, Potter, but life..isn't..fair," Professor Snape told me not so long ago.

Why no, P. Snape, it hasn't escaped my notice at all. Not even a little.

All those unfair things exist and then some—hence Malfoy, Snape himself, the Dursleys, ruddy Voldemort, and a childhood I don't really want to talk about. (Thankfully and somehow most of that remained locked in my brain despite P. Snape's weekly sessions of occlumency torture—though I'm sure his instructions were more along the lines of tutor or teach. Par for the course, really.)

The thing is, I'm pretty sure that for those things not to have a chance to exist would mean taking away our free will and changing our nature to something other than human. It also seems that for all our intellect, humanity is stupid, fickle, and leaks memory like a sieve. Despite all the horrors of the past that should have taught us better, we get lazy and mean, and before we know it, we're riding along again in a cart called destruction. It's like without a frequent dose of bad stuff, we forget to stand up and be good. Evil never sleeps and so neither can we—and it is so exhausting.

Didn't we just do this!? It hasn't been that long, surely…and here we are again! Some of us are forced to remember better than others.

The only thing worth anything is the hope that everything will come right in the end—that if we do fight the good fight, good will somehow triumph. And it's dangerous to loose that hope, because if you do…what are you fighting for, what are you living for, exactly? It's been a close call, that, over the last year. I wish a few hundred less people would sleep, hide, and close their eyes through it all.

And the most unfair, not-of-the-good, biggest cosmic joke of all…I am somehow supposed to be, what, a hero in this tale? The one who can vanquish the dark lord…the Chosen One. Heaven help us all.

See, if the world were that fair place we talked about, justice would be dealt swiftly, bullies cowed quickly, and the heroic figure would be all…well, heroic—sweeping in all fit and smart and stuff, acting with determination, holding the pieces of the puzzle so much better than everyone else, shouting out, (but not like Gilderoy Lockhart or Sir Codogan), 'Take that, you evil piece of slime!' And, well, I'm sorry, but with me it's more like the scrawny, clueless kid, alternately coddled by well-meaning keep-me-in-the-dark-till-I-break-my-neck types and tormented by bullies of all sorts, falling into every mess along the way, standing up—sure (perhaps even stupidly so), but also with the, 'Oh, God help me, what have I got myself into now?'

In short, I'm very much afraid you've drawn the short end of the stick. You should, all of you, be horridly concerned and very glad for Hermione. If I do somehow manage to pull this off, it'll be because of her, a phoenix, a few other good friends, and as P. McGonagall would say, 'sheer dumb luck.'

But enough about fair, and justice, and heroes and all that jazz. (Do wizards even know what jazz is?)

Ah, well. It's my journal, after all.

Yes, journal.

One of those fancy, ever-filling ones that Hermione got me one Christmas or Birthday or other to write stuff in (feelings, maybe? Blech) and I never intended to use. Only this time, if I don't, I dunno, get or write a bit of it out I might explode or implode or go completely barmy…or all three. And what else have I got to do this summer? Locked in Durzkaban and sequestered from everything that's left that's important to me…again, after…..I can't even write it. After the Department of Mysteries—and that's all I'm gonna say about that for a good long while probably.

And I'm not gonna do the should have's and if only's, either. That would be another cool superhero story: charge back in time to do it all over, conquer the bad guys and sweep everyone off their feet. But realistically, when you can't actually do anything about it, that's a deadly train of thought—and I don't think I'd come back from it. It's all I can do to keep from sinking in that hole anyway. Probably a good thing I'm all alone here. It's a train wreck.

P. Snape snarked a threat about having me do an essay on all the irresponsible and foolhardy things I've done—something about stopping to use an ounce of intellect, which it was doubtful I had (according to him—git), and appropriate alternatives (as if anything could please him). He figured I'd be forced to write a book and he could keep me in detention every Saturday of the year with that assignment, should he give it.

I did not, though I really wanted to, ask him if he'd applied that to his whole becoming a Death Eater thing. Didn't figure I'd live to see the sunrise, Dumbledore or no—but it was really tempting.

Anyhow, I don't think I'll do that exactly, but I think there was something about things I've learned in there somewhere, and I figure that might not be too bad.