Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Invisible Part 6
I am the sort of person who is easy to miss. I blend in with the crowd, nobody sees me, the one who walks in the shadows with his hands deep in his pockets and his head bent low. It's been that way yet again for a while now and I'm deserving that it be that way. It makes me glad, truth be told, because I'm ashamed enough without the world knowing what I've done too. I'm morally damned. It's true.
It's still true.
And it's ironic, don't you think, that the one time I feel as though my foolishness ought have me thrown to the lions I suddenly appear to be invisible to them?
I wish I were invisible to you. Sometimes I think you ought pretend I don't even exist.
For somebody who ought not exist I interact with you a great deal. We still sit next to each other at every Order meeting we attend, you put your hand in my lap and such simple gestures shock me to the core, I panic at the thought of what I've done to you and it is all I can do to rest my hand atop of yours. We make each other cups of tea, and when you smile in thanks I feel such despair that you might come to your senses, might never smile at me ever again. We still have our chats. We talk about Harry, the Order, the War, and then you talk of love and I find myself conflicted, unable to know quite what to say. We've stayed up late without Sirius, missed his company as we sit before the fire and drink too much after dinner. Each time the two of us sit upon the sofa, side by side, in complete and utter silence, and I stare into the warm glow of the fire and think if the flames were to consume me I'd feel burning relief, and I wish it would not shock you, I wish you would feel nothing at all.
A few times I've caught myself thinking foolishly that you might not be quite as naïve as you first seem, when I overhear your hushed conversations in the kitchen of your parents' house, serious whisperings about finances and borrowing a galleon or two when the time comes, when you pause midway through arguing with me to fix me with such a resentful look that I panic and apologize for anything and everything on the spot.
But then I remember that when you do these things your uncertainty runs only skin deep. Deep down you're just arrogant. I've never met anybody so convinced of their own argument than you. Those hushed discussions with your mother turn into shouting matches and whatever I say falls on deaf ears. You can't be wrong, such a thing is inconceivable to you. And the worst thing about remembering this is that it only makes me admire you even more.
I don't admire you, not really. I hate you. I hate everything about you. I hate the way you made me fall in love with you, made me ruin you, made me damn myself. I hate the way you act as though nothing is wrong, as if we're going to be some sort of normal, happy family when I know that cannot be. I hate the way you tell me you understand my feelings, and yet then ignore them and prove yourself wrong. I hate the way you tell me I'm going to be a good father when such a thing is impossible by default, I'm already a bad father for becoming one in the first place. I hate your enthusiasm. I hate the way it wears me out, and yet I can only pretend to sleep and listen to your attempts to smother your tears into the pillow beside me.
I hate the way you never say my name. I don't feel worthy of Love or Darling. And I hate the way I think myself silly for feeling such pain about such a thing, because in truth it isn't very silly. In truth it means I'm still in love. Because no matter how much I hate you I love you a hundred times more.
It's silly that I love somebody who shouldn't even notice me.
And yet I would not have it any other way, because I can't stop what I've started. Someday your going to give birth to our child, you're going to be a mother. And when you are, when you rock our baby to sleep, tuck it up into bed and kiss it goodnight, I'm going to have to accept that I can't change what I've done. There will be no child as lucky as ours, having a mother like you. And I'm going to watch you feel lucky too.
And when that happens, when you are naïve enough to think that we'll live happily ever after, I'll take one look at you, at our child, and I'll tell the world that there's no stopping me. I'm going to protect the two of you in all and any way possible, preserve the little fantasy that you so insist upon. And I might feel a shred of redemption, and not fear never being invisible again.