"I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burdens again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well…The struggle toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
~Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
It is the most disheartening feeling in the world, knowing that in your entire existence, you have not experienced true happiness. Knowing that in your miserable years spent "shuffling on this mortal coil," you have never felt the emotion that is said to make life worth the struggle, or even bearable.
I will die tomorrow, I am certain of that. And here, at the end of my life, I sit in my office and reflect, for lack of anything better to do. No amount of preparation now can save me, no fancy wandwork or complicated spells can keep me from that end.
Perhaps it is better that way.
Potter will triumph. Good always does in the end. If I didn't believe that, I may never have turned on the Dark Lord and trusted my reputation and life with Professor Dumbledore. Still, tomorrow, darkness will reign and death will rear its terrible and beautiful head. There will be suffering, and pain, and I will be in the thick of it all.
I know that there are those who doubt my allegiances. Potter, for one, and his friends, the insufferable Granger and bumbling Weasley. Only Professor Dumbledore truly believes that I am on the side of good in this fight, until the end. Until my end.
I don't even know why I am where I am. I could very easily return to the side of the Dark Lord, follow him and his minions to death and destruction and all of the things I supposedly used to worship. I didn't betray Lord Voldemort out of some twisted sense of right and wrong, or out of a desire to save my own skin. I'm not a good person, and I don't have any delusions that what I did will make me better in anyone's mind. I don't believe, for instance, that anyone will remember me fondly when I'm gone, nor do I believe that my reputation will be saved. I never wanted to be a martyr, anyway.
In the beginning of my servitude with darkness, the power offered to me was a drug. After my dismal childhood and adolescence, the freedom to do whatever I wanted, damn the consequences, was liberating and addicting. The Dark Mark I bore released the toxin of power into my heart, my brain, and I was obsessed like so many before me. After all, what fool gives up power, prestige and security for worthless ideals?
Eventually, with maturity, I realized that the power came with limitations and consequences, and wasn't really freedom at all. The Dark Lord was clever at disguising it as such, and kept his Death Eaters in line through fear and their addictions to what he could give them. I saw through it too late. I still feared him, and so didn't turn back to the side of good until the Potters' death brought about his supposed end. Then I turned in my colleagues in evil and converted to Dumbledore's cause.
At first, it wasn't out of a desire to suddenly be good or make restitution for what I'd done. I simply wanted to be free, not to have anyone as my master. Circumstances forced me to a crossroads where I had to choose a side, and I did. It just so happened that eventually, I came to the realization that what Dumbledore represented, what he championed so strongly, was worth the fight. I chose this side out of selfishness, but I fight now for good. For Dumbledore and the Order. For Harry.
My great-grandfather's name was Sisyphus, named after the Greek man who refused to return to the underworld and so was doomed for eternity to push a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down again. Futile labor, hopelessness and boredom became his never-ending fate. Sometimes I think I am very much like that ancient tale. Unlike that Sisyphus, I have chosen my own fate, but I am no less doomed. And yet, when I think of that story, I think most about Sisyphus standing at the bottom of the hill, about to begin his ascent, and I think that is when he is able to be human and not machine. He has purpose and his fate belongs to him.
Perhaps I have never tasted true happiness, but I also have purpose and my fate is one I have chosen, one that will always belong to me and no master. I will die tomorrow, but I will do so as a free man, supporting the greatest wizard of our times. The rock is still rolling.
One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Author's note: This tuned out rather dark, which actually is not my usual fare, believe it or not. But Snape fascinates me, and this quote by Camus has been rolling around in my head, and somehow they met!
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