Behind the Lines
Part Four: What I wouldn't give
I'm not really as dumb as everyone claims. I actually have a bit of a brain; it's just that I don't really need it. No one ever asks me questions, no one ever assumes that I'll know an answer, no one ever challenges what I know or don't know.
I'm not stupid. I know that the Potter boy is everything I'm not. He's handsome, probably popular at that school he goes to, smart, and, most of all, he has magic.
I would kill for magic.
But I don't have anything of the sort. Magic is for interesting people like Harry, not for the bullying fat kid whose parents fawn all over him. Magic isn't reserved for people like me. I go to the boring school and wear old-fashioned uniforms while he goes to a magical school and wears robes and has a wand and spellbooks and a broomstick. I know because I've seen his trunk with all his school things packed in it. What I wouldn't give to own a trunk like that, to have a wand and an owl that takes my letters to my friends.
Every now and then, I have to remind myself that I don't want to be him so much. I mean, his parents were murdered and he got picked on as a kid. His life can't have been much fun. So I was doing the teasing. I didn't envy him then.
But I do now. He really is perfect compared to me. He doesn't huff around and get stuck in chairs. He doesn't have people too afraid to speak to him but not afraid enough to keep from laughing at him behind his back. He doesn't get forced to wear bow ties or dinner jackets when Aunt Marge or anyone else comes over. He gets to sit in his room with his owl and his magic, while I have to sit there and listen to everyone making boring small talk and daydreaming about what I'd do if I were Harry James Potter.
I'm not as dumb as everyone claims. I know how mum and dad think of Harry, but I also know how everyone else does. I know that mum and dad are a little blinded by their envy. The same way I'm blinded.
I saw something last year that made the whole world go blacker than anything I'd ever seen before. Harry called it a dementor and he said only magical people could see them. I could see it all; I could see my whole miserable life played out before my eyes, every envious, non-magical second.
My envy, my deadly sin, has rotted my life away, so that everything I've done so far has become my worst memories, my worst moments. Because I don't go to a school that teaches magic, because I don't have a wand or a spellbook, because I don't have an owl to carry my post or a godfather who can curse the world away if that's what it takes to help me. Because I'm not Harry Potter, I can't enjoy my life.
What I wouldn't give to just be him.