HPFC Character Diversity Boot Camp
Character – Harry Potter
Prompt – Regret
Regret. It's a funny word, and one that means something different to everybody. Hermione for instance, her biggest regret is easy. Her Parents. She wishes she could go and find them and undo the obliviate. Ron. There's another easy one. His biggest regret is that he left Hermione in a fit of childish rage. She may have forgiven him but she'll never forget. Dumbledore…I believe Dumbledore would have many regrets, but I think his biggest was what happened to his little sister. The reason behind her death. Ginny, I have no idea what Ginny's biggest regret would be. I wonder if it has anything to do with me, I know, that's very conceited, or maybe Fred. Or any number of other things. I know what Sirius's biggest regret was. That he changed secret keepers with Peter for my mum and dad. Or maybe it was going after Pettigrew when he got himself arrested. Either way, I imagine it was something along those lines. My biggest regret changes from day to day. A smaller regret of mine would be that I didn't notice Ginny sooner. Another would be that I didn't tell Dumbledore what he meant to me. Slightly bigger regrets now. That I didn't tell Sirius I loved him. That I didn't know that Snape was a good guy before he died. That I didn't learn occlumency when I was told too. That I didn't take the triwizard cup on my own. My biggest regrets are harder. That I went to the ministry instead of going to Snape. That I went to the Ministry at all. That I didn't manage to keep hold of Pettigrew when we had him. That I couldn't save everyone in the final battle. My biggest regret of all is that I didn't kill Voldemort sooner. That the war wasn't ended before it began properly. Regrets are a hard thing to think about for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. In a way a regret is a what if. What if I hadn't gone to the ministry, what if I hadn't told Cedric to take the cup with me, what if I hadn't made friends with Ron and Hermione what if I had thought to use a certain spell at a certain time, what if I hadn't said Voldemort when Ron told me not too. They say that hindsight is twenty twenty and there has never been a truer saying. I wish, that's another version of regret. I wish I had done that. I wish I hadn't done that. I wish I had said that. I wish I hadn't said that. Maybe one day I'll be able to look back and think about everything that has happened and not regret. I don't believe that but someone once told me that you have to win the battle before you can fight the war. Maybe if I learn to live with my regrets I can begin to forgive myself for them. Hermione believes that I did what I had too and although I made some mistakes along the way, it was still worth it in the end. But was it? I'm not sure I can believe that because so many people died, in the first war and then the second. I ended the first war, or rather, my mother ended the first war, and I ended the second. Was any of it necessary? I don't believe that either. Maybe if Tom Riddle had different parents, or was brought up a different way, none of what happened would have mattered. Maybe he was inherently evil, but I'm not sure anyone is born evil. There must be a trigger, emotional, mental, even physical trigger that must place someone on the path of good or evil. Nobody is perfect and even the lightest of wizards have some dark in them somewhere. I proved that. Dumbledore proved that. Maybe dark wizards have some good in them. Grindelwald tried to protect Dumbledore minutes before he died. He showed remorse while locked in his cell in the Nurmengard. But then you look at Voldemort and I see no good. There was no good to see. He killed any and all good in him when he made his first Horcrux.
Regret is…That sounds like one of those daft poems you write in Primary School. Regret is a huge part of life. If anybody could say, when they died, they regretted nothing of their life then I salute them. Whenever I think about what I regret I get a cold feeling inside, like a fledgling Dementor or some such monster. Not quite the all-encompassing feeling of a dementor, but a mini feeling. I wonder sometimes what it would be like if I could do it all again with the knowledge I have now. Go back to my eleven year old body and find out if I could have all the people that died fighting Voldemort this time around. Another what if. Would it help or hinder? Would it save the people who died but cause different people to die? After all, death is a constant, it happens all the time. Nothing you can do will stop death, it will get you eventually. Listen to me, sat here preaching about life like I know everything of it. Of course I know the bad stuff. Torture, hunger, death and destruction, but I have no idea about the nicer side of life. Of course I have Ron and Hermione and Ginny and all three of them have been my life line at one time or another. But I have no idea what it is like to have a real family, to sit down at the table to eat a meal with my mum and dad and have them ask me how my day has been. To go to the zoo and theme parks and restaurants and all the other things that family's do. I mean, I went to the zoo once of course, but look how well that turned out. I set a snake on my cousin and got locked in my cupboard for over a month. Not the best of days. Will I ever have a wife and kids and a family of my own? Will I be able to take them to zoo's and theme parks and watch them board the Hogwarts express with a smile on my face? Again, I have no idea. Will I regret that, or will I never do it and regret that. Life has so many choices and I have no idea which ones to take. All of my life someone has made my choices for me, but now, I'm on my own and it terrifies me that I'll choose wrong. That my choices will hurt somebody.
Dumbledore told me that to be happy, I need to live life and understand but not fear death. My parents told me they were proud of me for being able to face death the way I did and not back down. Sirius always said to fight for life until the very end. Remus had a harder life than most, and yet he had a wife and the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. Moody, the consummate survivor, went down in battle, the way I think he would have liked to have gone. I always thought that would be one of the easiest ways to die. Take a curse for someone I love. That would have been the choice I would have made. To die saving someone else's life. And in a way, that's how I did die. And I came back, and saved lives again, and that is the thought that keeps me looking forward instead of back. I am tired of dwelling on past regrets and wishes and what ifs. It's time to look forward, with a light heart and a smile on my face, because that was what killing Voldemort was for. For the freedom to smile and laugh and take joy in things because otherwise what was the point.
It's time to start living again. It's time to be free.