Where It Stops…
Summary: /Oneshot/ /Possibly AU/ Round and round the merry-go-round goes… /Shorter alternate version in Ch.2/
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: T for some odd components.
Pairings: None… though you could see subtext in the relationships if you really wanted to.
Word Count: 366
Author's Note: Yes, as you noticed, this is the shorter version, and reads rather differently.
Round and round the merry-go-round goes…
Two boys meeting in the sunlight in Godric's Hollow; one grinned as he shook the other's hand, and the other, though he gazed back with uneasy, wary eyes (Never trust anyone, whispered his mother's voice in the back of his mind), smiled, too.
A change…
Now it was a boy and a girl in the shade beneath a tree near Spinner's End; one grinned as she shook the other's hand, and the other, though he gazed back with uneasy, wary eyes (Never trust a Mudblood, whispered his mother's voice in the back of his mind), smiled, too.
A change…
Two boys, again, on board the Hogwarts Express; one grinned as he shook the other's hand, and the other, though he gazed back with uneasy, wary eyes (Never trust a Black, whispered his mother's voice in the back of his mind), smiled, too.
A change…
Two boys, once more, on board the Hogwarts Express; one smirked as he held out his hand, and the other gazed at him with uneasy, wary eyes (He looks like Dudley, and I must never trust Dudley, whispered his own voice from the back of his mind; he had had no mother to teach him), and did not know whether to smile.
Where it stops…
"You stupid little boy, standing in the way of things your ignorant, grubby little mind can't even begin to comprehend – Crucio! CRUCIO!"
(I can never trust him again-)
"-a Mudblood like Evans-"
(I can never trust him again-)
"Prongs, Prongs, why'd you rescue him? This is Snivellus we're talking about – he'd finally have gotten what he deserves for poking his greasy nose places where it doesn't belong-"
(I can never trust him again-)
"There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin – You-Know-Who was one-"
"-but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been-"
An echo of a dream, a dim, unreal memory that didn't even feel like his own: a man with long blond hair and a pale, pointed face kneeling before him, saying, "-the Malfoys will always serve you, my Lord-"
(Can I trust him?)
(Can patterns be changed?)
…Nobody knows.