The Grey In-between
Disclaimer: All of this is based upon the lovely J.K. Rowling's work.
(…): Random thoughts or ideas
Italics: Thoughts and emphasis
Warnings: None
Whispers in the wind
A Dark blight and evil
in the East are forming,
Betrayers and murders teamed
with Light in the West are meeting,
Old foes thought dead
or conquered are returning,
With only the Shadows
in the middle to save us all.
Another prophecy. There is another prophecy… and that is all that I can really think about.
Another prophecy… and I am filled with dread. I almost lost Harry (my lifemate, my soulmate) to the last prophecy. I fear what I will lose because of this one.
Another prophecy… just those words send shivers down my spine (just as the name Voldemort still does to most Wizards). I turn to glance at Harry then, making sure my involuntary response did not wake him, and I watch for a moment as he sleeps peacefully, curled up next to me.
The only time he can ever sleep peacefully is when I am near, though I am not still sure why. I have asked Harry about it before and all he would ever tell me was, "You soothe me."
And apparently I truly do, for the few times that I have not been there, he always had nightmares. Horrible nightmares… well, remembrances really because the things he dreams are not in fact dreams. They are memories of events Harry witnessed, either through his scar or in person. They are the very worst of his memories: memories of his time at the Dursleys, of the things Voldemort sent him through their link, of his friends' betrayal… simply horrible memories. It is only when he sleeps, that Harry ever thinks of these things because it is only at this time that his mental shields lower enough for them surface in his mind. All other times, they are suppressed… and I cannot blame Harry for doing that. I wouldn't want to remember such things either.
Next to me, Harry stirs and I am shaken from my reverie. I once more look at him and realize that he looks so very peaceful. He looks content… something he never was at Hogwarts. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't the castle's fault. In fact, both Harry and I absolutely adore her and she us. But it was the people in the castle that made our time there miserable.
For me, it was my roommates. Every single one of them either hated or feared me. They despised me simply because I was different, because I saw the world differently. They would laugh at me, and steal my things (even my most precious of possessions, like my mother's engagement ring), and bewitch my bed, and do a hundred other horrible things. Simply because I was different.
And now these are the very same people that hold me in awe. They are awed of me because I was instrumental in Voldemort's downfall, because I bested Death Eaters (the same ones trained Aurors couldn't defeat), because I was the first person in over two hundred years to graduate a year early from Hogwarts because my grades and test scores were so high. They are awed of me because I took my N.E.W.T.S. a full year early and made an Outstanding on all of them (not even Granger or Dumbledore can say that). But, of course, the fact that I have the wonderful ability to remember almost everything without any effort did help me. Plus, the fact that I spent my entire last two years at the school being tutored (along with Harry) by Fawkes, the Sorting Hat, and the castle herself (that's why Harry had such high N.E.W.T.S. as well, I can still hardly believe that he had the highest grades of all the seventh years in the country and Europe for that matter).
Anyway, as horrible as my roommates (and a number of my Housemates) were to me at Hogwarts, my time there was like a pleasant dream compared to Harry's.
For him, it was the entire student body, the faculty and staff… hell, even the entire Wizarding World that made his school years like a stay in the ninth level of purgatory. To put it simply… well, actually there isn't really a way to put it simply. His life was hell there; it was filled with torment, mocking, backstabbers, betrayers, false friends, lies, pain, corruption, and even murder.
Harry will always look back on those times as not some of the best, but the very worst… not even his time at the Dursleys, where he was emotionally (and sometimes physically) abused, was that bad. Comparing Harry's Dursley experience to his at Hogwarts is like comparing a sprinkle to a monsoon.
The Dursleys were merely the opening act. The school was the real show.
And now it's happening again. Another prophecy is looming over our heads. Another prophecy is going to driven a wedge into the Wizarding World and separate it into factions. Only this time it isn't Harry vs. Voldemort vs. everyone else…
Oh, no. This time it is the Order vs. the Death Eaters vs. Us…
Us: Harry, me, Sirius, Remus, Hogwarts, Fawkes, and the rest… Us… an organization that doesn't even really have a name. An organization that isn't even really an organization, we are just a group of friends trying to do the right thing.
But do we truly even know the right thing anymore. To us, the right thing is uniting the magical world into one solid piece. It is ending the Wizard's prejudice against others, both Muggles and magical creatures. It is fostering peace and understanding between those considered to be Light and those despised as Dark. It is showing that Dark or different doesn't mean evil.
But now we have this prophecy and what we had hoped would be a nonviolent (albeit probably not very smooth) transition to understanding will soon degenerate into war, with us at the center trying to hold everything together.
And this time, we must battle both the Light and the Dark… with us being both (and yet neither) stuck in between. We will have few allies this time. We can't even depend on the treacherous Order or even the Ministry to help us in the slightest. All we have are each other and our contacts in the magical world (like the Were-wolf packs, the Vampire Clans, and the Circle of Circe).
But what can we do? How can we possibly win? Yes, I know that last time it was us… us not the Order or the Ministry that defeated Voldemort, it was us… but we still had help.
We are only the Grey and, yet, somehow we are supposed to be "the shadows in the middle" that will "save us all."
But how exactly are we supposed to do that? That is what I want to know… how can we do this?
We are few and they are many. How can we possibly fight both the Light and the Dark at the same time?
How?
I ask myself this question and somewhere deep inside I actually feel that it is the wrong one. Maybe what I should really be asking is not how…
but why.
Ever Hopeful,
Azar