Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I make no profit from this work of fiction.
Author's note: This is a flashfic (definition is 1,000 words or less) for each chapter.
I hope everyone enjoys the story. Even if you don't, if you have anything constructive to say, I'll be very happy to take your comments under consideration.
If you just want to stalk and harass me through anonymous reviews, though, I suggest you find something more constructive to do with your time.
Hate is audible.
Even when it's just written, it drips of such malice that it's completely clear it's pure vitriol, intended only to malign and cause agony. When I realized that, I wondered why no one else seemed to.
Perhaps I could hear it because it came and stood outside my door. Once a week, like clockwork. The door would be open, as they often were during the day when we were expected to be working on our "mental exercises". That was some strange Muggle thing that the healers hoped would aid in restoration where magic had been unable.
What a strange concept. Truly. That something mundane should be able to accomplish what magic could not. Such an odd thought.
Still, it was part of the ritual, so there I sat, doing my Muggle "mental exercises" with the door open. The healer stood in the corner, watching and recording, trying to be unobtrusive – which wasn't at all possible. It was in one of those moments where the healer's wand hummed as it recorded me that I heard hate coming.
My concentration failed completely simply with the echoed footfall. Such a common thing that the healer even stopped to ask me if I would be able to continue. I just looked at him and plastered a goofy grin on my face. The words of greeting floating down the hallway in the wake of those steps made me want to cringe, but I managed to turn back to the task at hand.
At least I could pretend I had, until he was standing outside the door.
The healer looked up when I stopped again. He followed my line of vision and turned to the open door. Greeting the man with a grin, he excused himself to allow me time with my "visitor". I heard myself gulp, but apparently I was the only one who did.
And then, we were alone. Hate and I.
He stood there, verbally silent and giving no indication of stepping into the room. I still had the idiotic grin plastered on my face as I stared up at him. When his eyes narrowed, I looked away. I tried to ignore him, focusing on little things in the room. I picked up the feathered quill they had handed me long ago and heard him scoff.
"Still self-obsessed."
The words were muttered. They weren't very loud at all. But the hate dripped from them in streams. I dropped the quill, but I was certain it went unnoticed. The healer had returned to ask him to leave so I could continue my exercises.
"We'll be sure to keep you posted, Mister Potter. If he ever regains his memory and his full faculties, we will let you know."
A brief nod that I saw from the corner of my eye followed, and then hate was gone. It left much more rapidly than it came, and I was glad for one more week's reprieve from whatever hate had in store.
It was then I realized why I hadn't been as successful as the others who had tried these treatments. I didn't want to remember. I refused, on some level, because I didn't want to know what hate had in store for me if I did. I wondered if that wasn't also some kind of magic- to be able to keep myself from remembering despite everyone's best efforts.
As the healer finally packed up his Muggle tools and left, firmly closing the door behind him, I considered letting myself remember at least that brief moment I had been able to latch on to before. Shutting my eyes, I took deep breaths – employing those Muggle meditation techniques that they had given up with me as a "lost cause".
It hovered in front of me, almost tangible. That same face, the face that came to visit me, carried by footsteps echoing with hate. That same face attached to the hand which wrote words dripping of malice that the head mediwitch read to me in her office periodically. They were never read aloud with an ounce of any emotion, but that terrible hatred echoed from each syllable regardless.
Sitting there in the floor, with my eyes closed, breathing as calmly as I could manage, I could understand why he hated me so much. He always had, it seemed, but that wasn't the whole reason. As I looked at the memory – really looked at it – I could see the hate etched into both of us.
And instantly, somehow, it was clear to me. Harry Potter didn't hate me for what I'd done. If anything, he hated me because of what I had tried to do.
The worst part was that I could understand. And when the image flitted away and I was left with only the feeling of a memory beyond my reach, I wept. And I could hear my own hatred for myself.
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