Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns all. No copyright infringement intended.
Feedback?: Please - constructive, though. alohomoron@hotmail.com
--
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And, in short, I was afraid.
--The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock, T S Eliot
--
You are the betrayer.
Explicit and marked and ever so failed. You have no dark mark entwined around your arm yet feel as though you might as well, as if everyone (as many do) knows that you did it. You did it all. You are reduced to a great stinking skull hidden inside the soft hair and the perfect skin that you (and your brothers) own, a statistic, a footnote in a history book. A could-have-been-but-wasn't. Failure, fail-ure, noun. Inside yourself, in what used to be your everything, is a stark blank nothingness. A canvas, not empty, simply whitewashed over, removed of all traces of what used to be you. Your sense of (self)righteousness, your feel of confidence in success. Decay, or defect from decay; deterioration; as, the failure of memory or of sight. That is all you are.
You ate breakfast quickly in those mornings (before the fall) and were at work at least an hour early and did yourself no favours (those you saved for your betters and elders). You often nearly fell asleep on your desk at the Ministry and you were deteriorating deep inside as you squinted through foolish glasses so seriously and told your youngest brother that yours was the right path to take. Your life was one of fullness - never embraced but always there for you to bend down and pluck at, an allowance to experience that adult knowingness that you were oblivious to then and might be now given half the chance.
Not purposefully, yet, unknowingly and foolishly you gambled it all away. Penelope was yours in immaturity and contentment - you forget the softness of the downy hairs on her arms and restless nights where you did not dare (not yet, not ever) to make her entirely yours. To make the world spin out of control and stop. For a moment. To be a memory, never deteriorated by your failure.
You digress, to a formulated, fixed moment in which you never thought you wished to be held in, yet knew almost exactly then that life had been one consistent sliding until that perfect second. [You will not share this, Weasley? It is best that they do not know, it would only upset them/ Yes, you are right of course, it will go no further.] You knew you were right.
Or thought you were.
Pushing all of your blame onto feelings that change now, yet held so steady once, when you were so certain, so preset, so determined with that clarity of mind -
You knew best. You did, but now? Oh, now you know nothing. You know not what it feels like to relax, to be loved, to laugh, to be held, to cry. Your long fingers do not know how it feels to be encased in someone else's body, in someone else's trusting/open palm, to trail over veins filled with love, not recriminations of a wasted life.
You are certain that you will die alone now. Obtuse and ridiculous as every achievement you once saw as perfect and rightfully yours. Head-boy, ministry worker, turncoat, pureblood. You betrayed your family with your silence, your reluctance to speak the truth, your pedantic way of following every last rule to the letter and ignoring every high ideal you once saw crystallized in your father and mother's love for you.
--
Your mother ruffles your hair and leads you into dinner. You are not, yet, but these are all that you will be. Meticulous and cautious not yet, your mother's hand in yours without guile.
Two years until you cause their death.
Funny how things turn out.
--end
Feedback?: Please - constructive, though. alohomoron@hotmail.com
--
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And, in short, I was afraid.
--The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock, T S Eliot
--
You are the betrayer.
Explicit and marked and ever so failed. You have no dark mark entwined around your arm yet feel as though you might as well, as if everyone (as many do) knows that you did it. You did it all. You are reduced to a great stinking skull hidden inside the soft hair and the perfect skin that you (and your brothers) own, a statistic, a footnote in a history book. A could-have-been-but-wasn't. Failure, fail-ure, noun. Inside yourself, in what used to be your everything, is a stark blank nothingness. A canvas, not empty, simply whitewashed over, removed of all traces of what used to be you. Your sense of (self)righteousness, your feel of confidence in success. Decay, or defect from decay; deterioration; as, the failure of memory or of sight. That is all you are.
You ate breakfast quickly in those mornings (before the fall) and were at work at least an hour early and did yourself no favours (those you saved for your betters and elders). You often nearly fell asleep on your desk at the Ministry and you were deteriorating deep inside as you squinted through foolish glasses so seriously and told your youngest brother that yours was the right path to take. Your life was one of fullness - never embraced but always there for you to bend down and pluck at, an allowance to experience that adult knowingness that you were oblivious to then and might be now given half the chance.
Not purposefully, yet, unknowingly and foolishly you gambled it all away. Penelope was yours in immaturity and contentment - you forget the softness of the downy hairs on her arms and restless nights where you did not dare (not yet, not ever) to make her entirely yours. To make the world spin out of control and stop. For a moment. To be a memory, never deteriorated by your failure.
You digress, to a formulated, fixed moment in which you never thought you wished to be held in, yet knew almost exactly then that life had been one consistent sliding until that perfect second. [You will not share this, Weasley? It is best that they do not know, it would only upset them/ Yes, you are right of course, it will go no further.] You knew you were right.
Or thought you were.
Pushing all of your blame onto feelings that change now, yet held so steady once, when you were so certain, so preset, so determined with that clarity of mind -
You knew best. You did, but now? Oh, now you know nothing. You know not what it feels like to relax, to be loved, to laugh, to be held, to cry. Your long fingers do not know how it feels to be encased in someone else's body, in someone else's trusting/open palm, to trail over veins filled with love, not recriminations of a wasted life.
You are certain that you will die alone now. Obtuse and ridiculous as every achievement you once saw as perfect and rightfully yours. Head-boy, ministry worker, turncoat, pureblood. You betrayed your family with your silence, your reluctance to speak the truth, your pedantic way of following every last rule to the letter and ignoring every high ideal you once saw crystallized in your father and mother's love for you.
--
Your mother ruffles your hair and leads you into dinner. You are not, yet, but these are all that you will be. Meticulous and cautious not yet, your mother's hand in yours without guile.
Two years until you cause their death.
Funny how things turn out.
--end