Adoration

I adore Maybell Shorter … a lot. I mean, a lot a lot. She's everything a girl should be. She's smart, really nice, smart, and …I can't think of the word, so I'll just use a nice, regular description everyone can understand: she's incredibly sexy. If it were Maybell talking instead of me, she would use some hoity-toity big word that no one but she, and her friends Copper and Johnathan, understands. But that's ok; I still enjoy talking to her, or exchanging very loud words with her. Every once in a while I get this … vague feeling though, a feeling that she doesn't really like me that much, but I must be wrong. I have to be completely and totally wrong. Who would not, could not love Sirius Black, who could possibly not adore him as much as he adores them? What female could resist the charms of Sirius Black? Who could not like Black back?

I can think of a few people actually, but none of them happen to be girls my age. So they don't count for anything. The members of my family are the only people I know who actually totally hate me. They hate me because I'm different. They hate me because I care. The difference between me and them is just that, the fact that I care about more than just myself, and I care about more than having a family name that indicates I have pure, or in my mind stained, blood. In my small world, and in my family, caring is a sin, an unforgivable sin.

This is part of the reason Maybell Shorter fascinates me and makes me really want to get to know her better. Her family does not seem like it is a part of her life at all, though I'm sure they are to an extent, and they really don't seem to bother her all that much, nor she them. She's different from everyone I know. Every person I am friends with has a family that is a huge part of their life, good or bad. James' family and the people I consider to be my real family and home, are his and mine's lives, as well as Peter and Remus. I have no idea what we would do without them. Peter's family is power hungry, much like my biological ones I suppose, and Remus' family loves him but doesn't know what to do with him and his werewolf-ness. They actually make Remus a little bitter because all he wants is for his family to like him for him, is that really asking for too much? At least his family loves him though, and he knows that they do, even though they hate the fact that he's a werewolf. See, all of my best friend's family's play huge roles in their lives, and mine does as well. Three out of the four Marauders' families are a bad or detrimental influence on us and make me and my mates bitter and untrusting. Only James' family is wonderful and really, in my opinion, worth being around. We all turn to James' family as a surrogate one for us. Aha! A big word, Maybell would be very proud.

But Maybell, she and her family don't seem to know each other at all, and they don't have any drive to either. They don't seem to care, it's really quite weird. From what I hear, they are just like her, detached. Detached from each other and from the world. I really wonder what that feels like, to just not care about things. It's got to be a wonderful feeling.

Maybell doesn't seem to realize what great things she has going for her. She's so wrapped up in being detached that she doesn't care about anything anymore. Wow, I'm twisting things up like she does. Damn, I even confuse myself when I think of her. Maybell though, I almost think she's blinded by not caring. She's so quick to point out something other people are doing that's odd, but she never looks at herself. Then again, I guess I don't either. Maybe she does care though, and she doesn't like to show it. Maybe deep down, she really knows who she is and just acts detached so … so … I don't know, for something. She's so bloody … CONFUSING!

It's hard to talk to her, or about her, because of this confusing-ness she has going for her. She has this thing where she makes the entire world look like it's in a knot that can't be undone. She takes everything and picks it apart and sees things that no one else would see and criticizes it and comments on every inch of it. I love that about her and I hate it at the same time. I'm pretty smart. I'm not a big talker like her, but I do know some things. I get by in school without doing much homework, I'm still a boy and I don't care much about talking big, but I'm smart. But when I get around her, I become a dumb eight year old again, unsure of myself and unsure of what all the big people are talking about. I love that feeling though, the feeling that I am friends with someone so much higher than me.

I still don't understand her though. She is i so confusing. /i She constantly uses big words like "bigoted brute," and "ignorant ignoramus," when she's talking to me. I have no idea what these things mean. I used to pretend I did, but that didn't seem to work, she could always see though me. After I figured out pretending didn't work, I started to ask her what she meant, but she started bringing dictionary's with her to throw at my head whenever I asked. After a few bruises and slight concussions and trips to Madame Pomfrey, I decided to quit asking and just stop listening when she starts talking large.

Teachers also use big words I don't understand, but I try to use them in real life. Words like "procrastinator." Every teacher I have ever come across has called me a "procrastinator." I'm not sure what it means, but I'm assuming it has something to do with girls. They seem to tell me this in such an endearing way, another word I picked up from Maybell, (endearing) that I'm sure it has to do with something I'm good at. And I'm good at girls. Just ask Maybell. She's totally jealous of me. When she calls me a "bigoted brute," now, I reply, "Well, at lease I'm a procrastinator too! It's more than you can say!" I haven't yet been able to figure out the look on her face after I say that, I assume it's love, devotion, adoring-ness, anything good I guess.

Maybell and I met on the train to Hogwarts. It was a wonderful first meeting, one that can only be topped by the way I met James, well, it can almost be topped by the way I met James. Maybell is a lot hotter than James, and even though he's my mate, Maybell's still incredibly sexy.

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Back to First year, Two Weeks before the first Term.

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Finally. There are only two more weeks until I begin my first term at Hogwarts. Everyone is asking me whether or not I'm nervous to be leaving my family for the first time, ever, except of course grammar school. Honestly, I'm just relived to get away from them. I hate my family. No. I loathe my family, vocabulary word of the week there. They are completely horrible. My younger brother, Regulus, is a complete git. He wouldn't know how to fly a broomstick if a broomstick hit him over the head with an instruction booklet. Ok, that was a bad analogy. But you get the idea, he's i really /i stupid.

My mother, god help us, is a pureblood fanatic. So is my father. She thinks we are better than the world because we have inbred blood. That's what it basically is at this point. A bunch of our family members are having children with other family members and for some reason that makes us special. I'm surprised that none of my cousins have three heads. Other places where this kind of sick behavior happens people who don't inbreed look down on the people who do. Look at that place in America … Georgia or something. People there are called hicks and hillbillies and made fun of constantly for doing the same thing we're doing.

But not us, no, we look upon ourselves as royalty. Better than everyone else because our blood is tainted by inter-family-breeding. It's stupid. I bet regular, modern, smart wizards and witches make fun of us the way modern Americans make fun of hicks.

Because I think this, and many other not-so-nice things about my family, my family hates me as much as I hate them. They are more than happy to send me to Hogwarts. They assume I'll end up in Slytherin like everyone else and "learn my place." They're going to be disappointed. So very disappointed. I have plans at Hogwarts, and those plans have nothing to do with my family. I will not end up like them. That is not who I am, I refuse to be like that. I may have there blood in me, but I am not them. I am not.

I will not end up in Slytherin. I will do everything in my power to avoid that. Everything. I do not care what it takes. Maybe when I get to Hogwarts I'll pretend I'm not a Black, then no one will assume that I have to be in Slytherin. Then no one will look at me like I'm royalty, and no one will look at me like I'm a jerk just because I'm a pureblood. That way, I can prove myself, I can show my family that I am my own person, I can show the world that I am more than my family name. I will not be told who I am. I will not.

That would never work sadly, pretending not to be a Black, but it is a nice thought. Even with the name Black though, I will not be put into Slytherin. I can't be. That would make me just like all of them. I think I'll try to get into Gryffindor. That's the worst house, in my family's eyes, and if I were to be put into that house they might see me for who I am and stop hating me so much. Or maybe it will just make them hate me more.

I don't care what they think of me any more though. It's not my problem. I'm old enough to take care of myself. I'm 11 years old already. I'm smart too, and magically talented, talented enough to get into Hogwarts. But even that isn't enough to make them like me. They probably never will. So I won't like them either, I'll get into Gryffindor and show them exactly what I'm made of! They'll be sorry they hated me! All of the adults in my life who aren't members of my family, and there aren't many of them, tell me that I see too much for my age. I know too much about my family, too much about ways of bad people. Sometimes I think they are right, and they tell me it's because I see all this that I'm so rebellious. Rebellious is such a fun word. I don't know why, maybe it's just fun to say. I really don't know why I'm so rebellious. Maybe it does have to do with my family, maybe it doesn't. At this point, it doesn't really matter because that's who I am. Though I guess it could change. I am only 11.

I'm really don't like my family. I know that when I talk about them I sound stupid. I really do care about them, and I want them to care about me. That's a lot of my problem right there, caring too much. Sometimes I think it would be better just to not care at all. To go through life detached, but then I realize how boring that would be. It would be stupid to go through life without any worries, stupid stupid stupid. I've learned that if you don't care about stuff, it won't bother you. But you can't just not care about things. It doesn't work like that.

I talked with a teacher of mine about this a while ago this year. She told me that it was too deep for a kid my age; I don't know what she meant. I'm guessing she thinks the same way my family does and assumes that I'm stupid and brainless because I don't follow their orders and I don't think like they do. Well, I don't not think like they do. That's the problem with my family. They don't think about anything, they follow everything the people before them did. They always do what their parents did, who did what their parents did and on and on it goes in a weird circle of obedience. None of us even know who or what we are obeying anymore. We just obey.

Maybe I do see too much, maybe I do know too much. I'm still stupid. My family like to tell me I am, and I know they are right. But I'm going to Hogwarts know, there I'll be smart and better than any of them. I won't be like them when I grow up, I'll stay myself and I'm stubborn enough to do it. I know, many people have told me so.

I just wish they liked me.