When I was Alone: chapter 3
Hiya! I'm so sorry! I have been the worst! I haven't updated for over a month! I've had pretty crazy few weeks, plus my harry potter fanpage is getting bigger *proud father at children's play moment*which I won't shove in your faces because I know it is wrong to take advantage of you, if you do want to find out about my page, pleases do PM me though :) hope this chapter was okay, I wasn't that pleased with it, but it's a little longer. I also had some awesome moments writing this where I got to feel like a real author because I say by myself in coffee shops writing a story! I do believe that is everything! Thank you so much to everyone for your support and the lovely people who reviewed :) also can I say a massive thank you to teddylupin7 who I have got to know better and is lovely and so supportive! I'd really really apreecciate it you you reviewed, it helps me so much! Sorry I wrote so much!
When I was alone chapter 3
I find myself...somewhere. It takes me a while to work out. I don't really care anyway. All I want to do is lie down and not has to think any longer. I just want to be covered in the darkness stopping my mind from thinking anymore... Does that mean I want to die? Am I lying to myself, saying I'm not feeling suicidal but I actually am? I fucking hate myself. I want to scream and cry and yell and... Stop existing I guess. People always say they are crumbling. I am not crumbling, I am melting, I am slowly dripping into a puddle. If you crumble, it's gradual, but you can tell when a piece falls. Melting is different. It's happening constantly, it's always surrounding me. The puddle simply grows and I cannot prevent it. Everything starts to go black. It starts from the outside and grows inward getting faster and faster, like a disease, I feel my legs fold and my body hit the ground. I can see, feel, smell, taste, hear emptiness. And then it's all gone.
I wake up, covered in sweat and mud and leaves and blood. But mostly I feel enveloped in devastation. Agh. I hate it I hate it all, but I need to sort myself out. I need to find that tiny almost invisible piece of hope left and I need to cling into it, to stop myself falling into the dark, empty void of hopelessness. That piece of hope that Harry and Hermione had always been able to see... I guess I lost sight of it. I lost sight of it and let myself plummet. I am weak and cowardly: a brave person does not lose sight of hope. A brave person does not lie to them self. A brave person does not leave the people they love. I detest myself. I don't want to be me any more. I repel myself. I will sort stuff out. I don't know how but I will.
I look around and remember where I chose to apparate to. The tall, elegant looking trees and the broad crisp leaves show me that I am in a forest in Wales that Charlie and Bill once took me to. It is rather beautiful here, the empty coldness and the still, calm trees innocent and unsuspecting of the horror facing out world. I wish for the bliss of innocence, for the beauty of being unknowledgeable. That's the thing about knowing, once it's there, in your brain it will never quite leave. I walk out a few metres and cast a few, simple protective charms. Nothing as good as... Hermione's though. I walk into a ditch filled with leaves and crumple to the floor, like the muggle game jenga; if one thing goes wrong, everything collapses.
I lie on my back. I don't know what the time is. It was in the night when... Well, and it was about dawn when the people chased me, when I got here it was broad daylight and then I collapsed. The sun is in the sky right now but it's low in the sky. I don't know wether it is the same day. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. I don't really know anything much. But I guess I'd been living in guesses and estimation for a few months now. That was how we spent our time in the tent. Guessing. Estimating. Improvising. Anything to make us feel less desperate. I think the words guessing, estimating and improvising over and over again whilst I look at the thin bumby rows of clouds, just like the white sheets on top of a ploughed field. After a while, I don't know how long, the clouds are stained with orange and pink and yellow and every colour in between. At some point the clouds fade from there flower like colours to the dark navy's of the night. I stare at the clouds for hours mumbling guessing, estimating and improvising. At some point I must have fallen asleep.
This pattern continued for about a week,( I have started to lose track of time, the darkness merges into an orange dawn which then merges into blue sky or clouds, which then blends into a pastel coloured sunset, fading into darkness yet again) sleeping and mumbling to myself. Every few days I stood up and walked to the nearby river, about three hundred metres away, but it was hidden with trees. I would charm fish out of the water and collect mushrooms from the forest floor. I would then return to my pile of leaves in a ditch and resume my normal state of mumbling and thinking.
It is only now, a week after I arrived here, that I think I am going mad. Mad. MAD.MAD. I don't know what is happening to me. But... I mean, I don't think I'm properly, you know... Of the wall, I'm just...I don't fucking know. But I do know that I need to stop. I need to get my act together and this time I won't cave, not like last week. I will get up and I will do something. I will apparate somewhere, spend my time wisely, until things are sorted out and then I will find them. I could go to a wizarding pub, or an inn. Yeah, that will do me some good. Stay there for a bit. Work stuff out. I should go soon, before I fall into that same pattern of thinking. Thinking can get you in some bad places, I suppose. I should... I dunno, keep myself busy, gather some mushrooms and go fishing for the last time. I run down to the river, with the trees swaying and the leaves blowing up around me. The wind hits my face cooling me down, I can see the bright colours of the blue sky and the oranges and browns and greens of fallen leaves, the beautiful ridges of the tree's bark in squiggly rows. I can smell the freshness of the forest and the purity of the river I approach. The birds sing their most beautiful song and then fall silent, in waves of song. The leaves hit the ground and rustle. I stretch my arms out wide and keep running. Faster and faster and faster. For the first time in many weeks, I feel alive.
I reach the lake and begin to search for fish to charm into my hands. What a strange advantage over life humans have. We have the power to kill and slaughter and torture and shatter. These poor fish can do nothing about it... But, I still need food and... This is the best option. I still think it is unfair, our power to kill something with the wave of a wand. I shall fish. Fish how the muggles do it. With a stick and some string, I will still get to eat though, but I will at least have to do a little work for it. I can use a branch for my stick and rope I can... Well I'll guess I'll have to scavenge. There will be some string near here somewhere.
I search and scour, looking for some string for about an hour, before I come across a bright coloured, fairly thin piece of rope, a colour which I think muggles call neon and attached to the end of it is a metal peg, sticking out of the ground. I stare at it for a while and then suddenly, without realising, "oh" escapes my mouth, as I realise I recognise this peculiar piece of material: I think I saw it in the muggle man who ran the campsite's house! It must be for muggle tents! I take it anyway( the rest of the tent had disappeared) and, using my wand form a simple mechanism connecting the branch, string and peg. I walk back to my part of the river and put the "rod" in the water. I wait. The sun begins to set and my hand has long gone numb, but I feel a slight stammer, a twitch, then a wobble, then it starts to sway, and suddenly it is thrashing about crashing and squirming on the rod. Excitedly I heave the all the onto the shore and there before me lies a fish. The fish was about twenty centimetres long an had grey and silver scales. The roof of its mouth was cut open in a wide gash, the blood soaking in to the muddy, sandy floor, reminding me of how Harry explained the effect of sectumsempra. The fish twisted and turned and leaped on the shore, writhing in agony. I had to put it out of its misery. I raised my wand Avada Kedavra. A flash of green light and it stopped. Stopped moving and writhing and thrashing. It's heartbeat stopped too. Shaking, I return to my protected area, eat my fish(with sadness) and then fall asleep.
It's dawn. Now midday. Now late afternoon. It is time for me to go. To a wizard pub. To get to live again. To feel like a proper human being and to get to talk to other people. Oh fuck. Oh fucking, fucking hell. I am so stupid I cannot live with myself. There was a reason we never went into muggle places. There was a reason we would use the invisibility cloak. There was a reason we would go in disguise: people know me, they recognise me. And the government wants me. I guess I can perform a few charms to disfigure my appearance. It shouldn't be to difficult, I did it last year. I cast a few charms to change my hair colour and length. I give myself a moustache and beard. They're all supposed to be blonde, but I can't really see them, as I have no mirror. If I go cross eyed I can see my hair, I know for sure the tips are blonde at least. This will have to do.
I apparate to a wizard pub near hom... Oterry st catchpole. It is snowing here, but I can still recognise all the little buildings with thatched roves and white walls and old wooden doors and small round windows. It looks so idyllic and beautiful, but I feel so sad and I can't quite put my finger on why...oh... It looks... Familiar. That's why. It reminds me of the time when I was not constantly in fear of my life, a time when I did not always feel empty, alone and hopeless. I turn away from the buildings and focus on the sparkling snow, reflecting the sunlight off the snow and into my eyes. For the first time in a while I realise how cold it is; my hands and toes were numb and my head was bowed agains the wind.
I reach the pub, which I assume can only be seen by magical folks, like most of the other bars around. The pub is old and mouldy looking with grimy windows and a door attached by only one hinge. The pub sign has a dusting of snow on top and creaks as it swing in the wind, it reads "The Hag's Wart". To be honest, it was a bit of a dodgy place, mum and dad tended not to take us here, but we( Fred, George, and I; Per...my other brother, said it was an inappropriate place for us to go and Ginny was too young )would go out with Charlie and Bill sometimes and they would occasionally take us. I open the door, which scraped the ground with a groan, and peer inside. Things hadn't changed much since the days I would go with my siblings. The interior of this pub was dark: there were few windows and many were smashed, the dirt also blocked out a lot of light, curtains were hanging lopsided and slightly mouldy of a few of the remaining panes of glass. There are tables and chairs with missing legs, the wood rotten and mouldy. There were four people at the table: one with his head on the table, lying alarmingly still with a rather large tankard of beer dripping slowly into his hair. There were four men at the bar as well, two of whom looked suspiciously not human, the other two were laughing loudly as the barman told them a joke. I took a deep breath as a realised the last word i spoke to someone, which was over a week ago,was full of hatred. I then walked up to the bar and say down in a chair next to the laughing blokes, "Hi mate,"I Said, addressing the barman,"a pint of butterbeer please?".
"Yup," the barman replied as he filled a glass of beer up for me, "On here on yer own, son?"
"Ah yeah, hard times ain't it? No'un want's to have a night out anymores. Just thought I'd pop round here for a whiles. I ain't from these parts" I added, not sounding like myself. It was quite a relief to go to a place where I could be whatever person I wanted.
"Ah, righto, thought I recognised yuz..Just got one of those familiar faces then, eh?" For a second I was terrified, but then realised, I'd got away with it.
"'Ere you goes'" the barman said, handing over my pint.
"Cheers, mate", I thanked.
"So yuz here on yers own?" The bald man who was laughing before asked," ain't no harm in sitting with us for a bit. Me 'n Tom are 'ere by usselves too."
"Yeah, 'llright mate!" I replied.
So, the bald bloke, Tom, the barman and I sat at the bar, talking away. I downed my beer in seconds.
"You, er, want another, mate? How about some real ale this time?" The barman said. He was already fixing me a second anyway. It wasn't going to do me any harm.
"Yeah, go on".
I didn't down it, but I drank it in about three minutes. Our conversation continued.
"'nother?" The barman, who I discovered was called Davies-I don't know his first name- asked.
"Wouldn't mind one," I replied. He handed me the drink, "Ta."
Somehow we got onto the topic of girls. I was asked if I had a girl. I decided to lie, to tell them all about this girl Who didn't exist. I thought I would enjoy making up this magical girl,"Yeah, gorgeous girl, she is. Beautiful. Brown, thick hair and round, innocent eyes. Lovely skin too. She is clever, and funny, and kind, and compassionate, and selfless, and caring. I love her, I really do." That's when I broke down. I pushed the heels of my hand onto my eyes, hoping it would stop me from crying. My whole body crumpled, but I was on a chair so I didn't hit the ground. I yelled, as quietly as I could manage. Davies must have put some fire whiskey in a glass because I saw the glass when I moved my hands from my eyes and drunk it, in one. My throat tingled and burned but I ignored it. I wanted more. The more I had the more I would forget. Davies, having sensed this, gave me another, larger glass of stronger alcohol. After about twenty minutes I must have calmed down slightly because he started asking me, rather than simply serving me drinks.
"want 'nother?"
"Yup" I would reply.
"How about another one mate?"
"Cheers," would always be my reply as I took more.
"Some'ore?"
"More" I would reply, my words becoming more and more slurred as the night went on.
This continued for many hours, I don't know how long. I lost track of time. Everything was going black round the edges; the more I drunk the more the edges closed in. At some point everything started to spin around and around and around. It was all going so... Blurry.
"K mate, I'll be closin' now. You gotta go home. An', I'll be needing me money," Davies said. I slowly looked around. No money, I thought. No money. No money. Instinctively I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out some gold coins. Hey! I realised. That was money. Badly was still here, but Tom must have gone. Tables were empty apart from the chairs stacked atop them. There as almost no one here. I gave him the coins.
"I s'pose ill be a headin'" I said my words slurred. I ungracefully succeeded in getting of the high chair and I staggered towards the door. I walked into the doorframe head first"Ow. That hurt, lots of things hurt don't they?" I turned and clumsily made my way out of the door. Stumbling, I made my way out of the village and collapsed into the snow. I attempted to cast a spell to keep me warm... It worked... to some extent.
The black edges conquered the small light of the village and, in the snow, alone, I fell asleep, not stopping to wonder why I found money in my pocket.