Just Like Me
Author's Notes: This is a little Voldy-thing angst-shot. I have this vision of Harry and Tom being very much a like, so I ran with it. It's crappy-cakes, so forgive me. Feel free to flame the hell out of it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything even vaguely associated with it. That should cover it
I wasn't always like this.
At least, I just can't believe that I could have been. People like me aren't born; they're made. Everyone starts out with the essentials: lungs, bones, a brain, extremities, and a heart that is pure – or at least as pure as a heart can be.
I sometimes wonder, what if I had been born plain? With no powers, with no abilities. Just a regular person floating in humanity, never the wiser to anything. I wouldn't have been powerful. I wouldn't have hurt so many people. But instead, my mere existence, simply being born with the abilities that I have, has made me into who I am.
Someone "wise" once told me that it wasn't the abilities I have that make me who I am, but it was my choices. Rubbish. I never got to choose anything: not my family, not my destiny, not my life. I was born with natural abilities and those are what got me through.
Things started slowly for me. At the beginning, I was innocent enough. Maybe not completely unfettered by the evils of man, but I still had a clean slate, and that's a lot more than most people can ask for. And I got to keep that clean slate for a little while. I was pure; I was good; I had friends and people I believed actually CARED about me.
But then, life happened, as it usually does, and I was left in a world without choices. I had to fight for the only thing that I knew was worth the effort: survival. I was given a gift that was also a curse, a task that was what some would call noble and others would call abominable. Did I go about it the right way? The just way? Not always, and later on, not at all. But I did what I had to do. In the end, that's what we all do. WHAT WE MUST. That's what I do now, everyday that I'm on this plane of existence, only existing because I haven't truly lived in years.
And I know why I haven't lived. I know what's kept me from having some semblance of a life. It is the boy, who is both the same as I am and my antithesis. I suspect that if you looked at pictures of each of us as children, we would look very much the same. The dark black hair, the slight build, the fiery look of indignation that only those whose innocence has been taken early can recognize. The similarities go deeper of course, considering our shared powers and goals.
The almost funny thing about it is, if we would have started school in the same year, we might have even been friends. We would have come from the same place in life, the same background. We could have understood one another and our perils in ways that no one else could. Maybe we would have been in the same house. Who knows what destiny fate might have built for us, or what kind of fate we could have built for ourselves? But that's the point, isn't it; you can't defeat fate. You can defeat great beasts, you can foil great foes, but you can't escape your destiny. No one around me understands that. Ironically, the only one that DOES understand is the reason I can't escape.
I know, as I have always known, that it will be he and I in the end. I don't need a ball of spun glass to tell me that. I know it because he's just like me, and I'm just like him. We are destiny intertwined, two halves of a whole person that the other has to claim.
I will fight, as I always do, when the time comes. And perhaps I won't go about it the right way. Perhaps I will. Who knows? He's escaped from me a number of times, and it wasn't because I let him go. It was because he was truly my match. The thought appalled me at first, but then I realized how true it was. How right it was. He is me, but with a second chance. Me, but with a destiny that doesn't call for a life dependent only on ability. Me, but with the chance to choose. This is what makes me hate him more than anything else: why did he get the chance that I didn't? It's childish and I realize that, but it's also at the very root of the problem.
So I await our final battle. And I prepare my strongest defense. But when I think about what the result might be, I'm torn. Either one of us winning is a loss for both. If I win, I've killed the only thing that has kept me from fully descending into the darkest recesses of the human mind. I kill the thing that kept me human, however begrudgingly. And if he kills him, there is the chance he may kill himself as well, because then, he will have to make the choice between the torturous road of redemption or the easier to follow road of iniquity. As much as I hate to admit it, I know that part of me wants him to remain pure, to remain in control of his life, because in a way, it tells me that I could have had control, that I wasn't beyond saving.
But that can't happen. We are slaves to our destiny, he and I, and I know that the only way to end this is the hardest way of all – to find a way to defeat myself.
Author's Notes: This is a little Voldy-thing angst-shot. I have this vision of Harry and Tom being very much a like, so I ran with it. It's crappy-cakes, so forgive me. Feel free to flame the hell out of it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything even vaguely associated with it. That should cover it
I wasn't always like this.
At least, I just can't believe that I could have been. People like me aren't born; they're made. Everyone starts out with the essentials: lungs, bones, a brain, extremities, and a heart that is pure – or at least as pure as a heart can be.
I sometimes wonder, what if I had been born plain? With no powers, with no abilities. Just a regular person floating in humanity, never the wiser to anything. I wouldn't have been powerful. I wouldn't have hurt so many people. But instead, my mere existence, simply being born with the abilities that I have, has made me into who I am.
Someone "wise" once told me that it wasn't the abilities I have that make me who I am, but it was my choices. Rubbish. I never got to choose anything: not my family, not my destiny, not my life. I was born with natural abilities and those are what got me through.
Things started slowly for me. At the beginning, I was innocent enough. Maybe not completely unfettered by the evils of man, but I still had a clean slate, and that's a lot more than most people can ask for. And I got to keep that clean slate for a little while. I was pure; I was good; I had friends and people I believed actually CARED about me.
But then, life happened, as it usually does, and I was left in a world without choices. I had to fight for the only thing that I knew was worth the effort: survival. I was given a gift that was also a curse, a task that was what some would call noble and others would call abominable. Did I go about it the right way? The just way? Not always, and later on, not at all. But I did what I had to do. In the end, that's what we all do. WHAT WE MUST. That's what I do now, everyday that I'm on this plane of existence, only existing because I haven't truly lived in years.
And I know why I haven't lived. I know what's kept me from having some semblance of a life. It is the boy, who is both the same as I am and my antithesis. I suspect that if you looked at pictures of each of us as children, we would look very much the same. The dark black hair, the slight build, the fiery look of indignation that only those whose innocence has been taken early can recognize. The similarities go deeper of course, considering our shared powers and goals.
The almost funny thing about it is, if we would have started school in the same year, we might have even been friends. We would have come from the same place in life, the same background. We could have understood one another and our perils in ways that no one else could. Maybe we would have been in the same house. Who knows what destiny fate might have built for us, or what kind of fate we could have built for ourselves? But that's the point, isn't it; you can't defeat fate. You can defeat great beasts, you can foil great foes, but you can't escape your destiny. No one around me understands that. Ironically, the only one that DOES understand is the reason I can't escape.
I know, as I have always known, that it will be he and I in the end. I don't need a ball of spun glass to tell me that. I know it because he's just like me, and I'm just like him. We are destiny intertwined, two halves of a whole person that the other has to claim.
I will fight, as I always do, when the time comes. And perhaps I won't go about it the right way. Perhaps I will. Who knows? He's escaped from me a number of times, and it wasn't because I let him go. It was because he was truly my match. The thought appalled me at first, but then I realized how true it was. How right it was. He is me, but with a second chance. Me, but with a destiny that doesn't call for a life dependent only on ability. Me, but with the chance to choose. This is what makes me hate him more than anything else: why did he get the chance that I didn't? It's childish and I realize that, but it's also at the very root of the problem.
So I await our final battle. And I prepare my strongest defense. But when I think about what the result might be, I'm torn. Either one of us winning is a loss for both. If I win, I've killed the only thing that has kept me from fully descending into the darkest recesses of the human mind. I kill the thing that kept me human, however begrudgingly. And if he kills him, there is the chance he may kill himself as well, because then, he will have to make the choice between the torturous road of redemption or the easier to follow road of iniquity. As much as I hate to admit it, I know that part of me wants him to remain pure, to remain in control of his life, because in a way, it tells me that I could have had control, that I wasn't beyond saving.
But that can't happen. We are slaves to our destiny, he and I, and I know that the only way to end this is the hardest way of all – to find a way to defeat myself.