Chapter Twelve: My Seclusion
In many ways that really was the end of it all for me. I had been fighting a losing battle, trying to keep my head above raging waters, and I finally saw that I had never stood a chance. All of my childish fantasies looked like utter foolishness and one by one I began to let go over the dreams that bound me to who I was.
For one of the first times in my life, I realized that I needed somebody. But not like before, when I had sought acceptance from somebody more impressive and powerful than myself. This was quite different. What I needed now was somebody to hold me close and tell me that everything would be all right. But I knew that no matter how hard I looked, this person did not exist. Not for me.
My parents were definitely out of the question. My mother, though it hardly made a difference, was dead and therefore no use. My father would be equally useless. He met his responsibility to me by paying for school and the other seemingly endless expenses of raising a child. For me to expect anything else from him would be out of the question.
It was almost laughable to even consider Bellatrix. Going to her now would accomplish nothing short of getting spit in my face.
Narcissa, who was now at Hogwarts, was not much of an option either. I did of course adore her just as much as everybody else and would have instantly put myself between her and harm's way. This did not, however, turn out to be basis enough for a solid relationship between two sisters. We had never really been very close, and going to her would be very awkward for me and would accomplish nothing.
My heart ached a little as I thought of the one person who really would have been able to help: Adriana. She may not have been able to make everything right in a wink, but having her unyielding support on my side would have meant the world to me. But it hurt too much to even think about her. I knew that it was entirely my fault that we were split apart from each other, and that if I let her she would have labored endlessly to fix the mess I had made. But I hadn't given her the chance, too bound by my own pride even to apologize. I tried to force these thoughts from my mind, but they were always lingering in the peripheral, waiting to attack my conscience at a moment's notice.
It came as quite the revelation to at last realize that I really was alone. Thinking back, I know that I had been alone long before the idea first struck me, but this did not help the hopelessness that came with this realization.
Alone. It felt so dismal and hopeless, even overwhelmingly permanent. They say that you never really appreciate something until you lose it. Well, I learned that you never know how much you need somebody who cares about you until you have driven them all away.
Actually, the feeling of loneliness was not what bothered me the most. It was really the idea of it that got to me. It was gloomy to be miserable and all, but in many ways that feeling was something that I had long since grown used to.
But actually knowing I was alone in the world… now that I couldn't stand.. I had never really thought that I needed somebody else to depend on, but now I was greatly affected by the knowledge that, if I ever decided that I did need somebody, there would be nobody there.
Then came the doubts. I looked around myself and saw everybody who passed me was happy, or at very least had somebody who they could turn to when things went wrong. There was nobody suffering and abandoned like me. I wondered why I was being punished like this, and that led me to the awful certainty that, whatever came to me, I deserved.
And that was exactly it. I deserved to be alone. I was not meant to have anybody to confide in or to care about me.
I began to take steps of my own to make sure that I was getting whatever punishment that I deserved. I stopped hanging around Estrella and her gang. I stopped hanging around anyone at all. When not in classes or at a brief meal during which I sat alone, I would confine myself to my dormitory, sitting in silence on my bed. I completely isolated myself from the world, making myself even more secluded than little Narcissa, who took such elaborate steps to keep herself protected.
Believe it or not, I adapted very easily to this new lifestyle. I found that I was very rarely tempted to join in with the social world around me, and not a single person seemed to really notice or care about my strange new seclusion.
I was almost relieved not to deal with as much every day. I had never really done that well around people, and I had about grown tired of trying to put on a show of being somebody who I was pretty sure that I was not.
The days flowed quietly into weeks and after that into uneventful months. I didn't even regret my austere existence, and was pleased to be free of the less pleasant aspects of day-to-day life.
The rest of my third year passed in peaceful personal harmony. It was soon followed by my fourth year, and not long after that my fifth year joined it. By the time I was sixteen my isolation had become so second nature that I didn't need to give it a second thought. I was fool enough to think that I had become secure enough that nothing would change if I began to slowly let down the guard of the stringent walls that isolated.
But of course, if you remove just one brick, the whole wall is liable to come tumbling down.
