32. Mightier than the Truth
If I learned anything from the way the Potter murder was treated by the mainstream media, it's that people often find it easier to believe fiction than the hard, cold truth. And so, I'm turning the truth into fiction. I need to tell the world what a wonderful and real person Harry Potter was, and portray in some small way the love he and Draco shared. I must make them see the young man and not the martyr. The dead live in the memory of the living. But the living remember him all wrong. Sainthood gives birth to an Idea while destroying the person behind it.
I cannot allow that. If they want fiction, if they want a fairytale, I'll give them what they want. I'll give them fussy, I'll give them fun, and I'll force the medicine of truth down their throats with just a spoonful of fiction.
(Make that a big spoon. A ladle.)
Gobble delights in telling me of the good old days, always making sure to contrast them to the hell that is now. But perhaps one has to descend into the underworld to find the fiction behind the truth. Perhaps you have to die to truly appreciate the marvel of life.
They say the pen is mightier than the sword.
I say fiction is mightier than the truth.
And I suffer a narrative compulsion.
A pedantic form of madness.