What do you see when you look at me? Do you see what everyone else does? "Look, there she is, the cleverest witch of her age! Every parent's wet dream. She's friends with Harry Potter! Rumor has it they're dating. No, I heard she's dating Viktor Krum, the quidditch star! She's so lucky, I wish I could be like her. Clever, pretty when she puts her mind to it, with two of the most famous wizards in the world in love with her."
Yeah, right. Do you really think it's like that? It's not. Sure, I'm friends with Harry. Just friends. Not that I deserve a friend like him. I'm sure the only reason he doesn't treat me like something he scraped off the bottom of his shoe is that he's just too fucking nice. The guy loves everyone. He even loves people he hates, and look what it's gotten him! Dead parents, dead godfather, family that hates him, and me for a friend.
As for Viktor, he wants to date me. He keeps asking me for dates. He says he loves me. He's wrong. The only reason he ever took a second look at me is because I don't look at him and think 'quidditch.' Viktor's never seen the real me. The me that stays hidden. He just sees a clever, perfect façade of a witch. The girl who gets perfect grades and never talks back to teachers and always knows the answers and does everything right. I hate her. She's smothering me to death.
The only people who know the real me are Harry and Ron. And maybe Ginny. The real me breaks out of the chains every once in awhile. Like that time in 3rd year. When I punched Draco Malfoy. Yeah, that was me. Or that time I blew up at Trelawney and told her exactly what I thought of her fucking class. Well, not exactly. I didn't use all the words I had running around in my head. Stupid bint.
Oh, yeah. I'm really fucking perfect. The guy I'm in love with only thinks of me as a friend. Hell, most of the time he doesn't even realize I'm a girl. Stupid bastard. I don't mean that, really. I love him, after all. His freckles, the way he works so hard to make me laugh, his complete and total loyalty to his friends. I even love the fact that he's too bloody dense to see me standing in front of him and realize I've been staring at him over my book, wondering what that fiery hair would feel like in my hands. He's got the most gorgeous little crease between his eyebrows right now as he concentrates on his potions essay. Any minute now he'll come over to me and ask for help. Why? Because I'm clever, and I get perfect grades, and I'm his friend who's always ready to help him.
Dammit, I don't want to be perfect anymore! I want to stop caring what everyone thinks! What my parents think. I don't want to be their perfect child anymore with her perfect grades who never breaks the rules. I can't let my grades slip, because my parents will be disappointed. I don't want to disappoint them, but I'm so fucking tired of living up to their expectations. Everyone expects me to be so perfect and clever and brave. After all, I'm in Gryffindor. I have to be bloody courageous….
That's what they think. I'm not even brave enough to go through with a simple task. I had the knife in my hand, and a silencing spell on my bed. No one would have heard me, and the pillow would have absorbed most of the blood. Nobody would have known I was dead for hours, maybe days. All I had to do was draw the knife along the veins in my wrists. I already had the note written, even. I couldn't do it, though. Two simple cuts and I wouldn't have to worry about living up to their expectations anymore. I couldn't do it. I was too afraid of death. What if there are people there after you're dead who expect things of you? What would the dead expect of me? I have enough trouble with what the living want. I'm such a fucking coward I can't do the one useful task I've ever done in my life because of a what if!
I'm trapped inside my own body. Inside the façade I made myself. Yes, ironic, isn't it? I made this prison, and now I have to live in it, because if anyone ever saw the real me they'd run screaming. Maybe I should just stop caring so much. And stop pretending to care. Maybe then it would be easier. If I didn't care about people. If I didn't care that everyone would leave me. I'm so afraid of not being perfect that it's tearing me to pieces, but maybe what I'm really afraid of is that if I'm not perfect, I'll be alone.
Would my friends really leave me? I don't know. Here he comes to ask for help on the essay. "Sure, Ron. I'll help you. No, it's no trouble at all. I wasn't really even reading my book, just sitting here thinking. I finished all my homework hours ago. I hope I did alright on that History test this morning. I think I might have put June 22 instead of June 23…"