A/N: This was written for marrissa gnokawitz's Hardest challenge ever.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything you recognise.
Everyone knows you. Everyone knows your name. And you're not sure how you feel about this – after all, you're just growing up, just making your way out into the world, starting school, being placed into the House everyone expected of you, and that's a bit scary, really, everyone having expectations of you already, everyone thinking they know you, thinking they know – what job you're going to have, what subjects you'll excel at and what you'll fail at, how good you'll be at Quidditch, even your sexuality! Oh, that one's not so widely talked about, but you've heard it mentioned, which worries you slightly. You know it's "Okay to be gay" but what does that mean anyway?
Come on, you're 11, and all this is a bit weird. Everyone staring at you in the corridors, whispering your name to each other, commenting on every aspect of you – "Yes, that's him! I know!" "Isn't he cute? Looks so much like..." "Bless! He tripped over!"
If there was a school newspaper, you'd be in it. Front page news, you'd be, for forgetting to bring a quill to lesson, or tripping over, or saying something stupid...
Fame. It's a silly concept, especially when you're famous for... Well, nothing, really, if you think about it. Hello, you're 11, what could you have done that deserves this much attention from this many people? People have explained it to you – or tried, anyway – and you simply stared at them like they were speaking an alien language. What did who do? And – this makes you famous how? Oh... So –
Never mind, now they're asking for a picture and you've got to push the whys and the whats and the hows to the back of your mind, smile and then stare in wonder at the moving pictures which you'll never really get used to, somehow, and then run off to get to lesson, hurrying because Hogwarts is so huge and so easy to get lost in!
Although the professors are always kind about it, most of them anyway, because a couple of them are pretty cruel about it, docking points from your House, and oh dear everyone's glaring at you! But they'll forgive you, just because of your name, and what a name.
Sometimes you imagine what it'd be like, if you ran away and changed your name, went to a place where no-one knew your face. Would it be easier? Would there be less pressure, less expectations? Would you prefer that life?
You're not even sure anymore. But it's all new and surprising and you still don't understand your fame and probably never will.. But you've got your best friends beside you, and enemies to fight, and people to befriend, and mistakes to make and expectations to live up to and girls (or boys?) to date and crush on and so many things, you don't have time for all this imagining of what your life could have been like.
So it's back to your life, to the future, the past which you still have to learn about, and most of all the present – concentrate on the now, or at least try to. You heard that once, and it's a good piece of advice.
And good advice is better than people telling you "I'm sure you'll be good at this" or "I'm sure that".
Is fame worth it? From what you've seen, no. Not at all.
"Fame" is just a way of saying: Your life, is not your life.
It's everyone else's.