𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐆𝐨

𝐕𝐈𝐈𝐈

I think the reason some people despise talking about their feelings is because they were taught not to. Maybe not directly, or in so many words, but having the idea planted in their head form a young age that feelings were bad. Talking made you weak.

Even now, as I recall these moments, I am only just beginning to come to the conclusion that maybe I was under the same sort of manipulation.

Anyone who knew about my upbringing will say that I got it from the Dursley's. Anyone who knew me at Hogwarts will say that I got it from Dumbledore. What do I say? Well, I wonder if maybe I taught it to myself.

Not because I'm trying to defend them in any way—I know they did in fact play a part in manipulating me—but it's not like I was never encouraged to take a quick break or have a good cry; Mrs Weasley was really good at that.

I don't like crying, even now. Perhaps the Gryffindor braveness stereotype and the hero complex are another reason, but I always made myself believe that I had some sort of grand expectation to live up to. Crying would soil it.

The great and powerful Harry Potter: defies Lord Voldemort at age one. The amazing boy who lived: touches Voldemort at age eleven.
The praiseworthy love child of Lily and James Potter: stabs a diary at age twelve.

What a life I have made for myself.

I hoped that when I returned to Hogwarts this year I could live all that down, get on with my life. But while I couldn't stop thinking about the future, everyone was still looking at my past. Of course I did too, how could I not? But I wanted nothing more than to grow up.

Would anyone ever let me? My childhood ended a long, long time ago—if I ever had one. Now, for some reason, people seemed to think I that should live it now. It's a little too late for that, is it not?

Mrs Weasley still treated me like a child, "It's okay to cry, dear. Every kid your age should." My friends acted as if I would break at the slightest mistreatment, "Oh, Harry, be careful with that. Here, let me help."

Hermione still put the food on my plate and did my transfiguration essays, Ron lifted heavy things of mine and always walked a step ahead of me, like some sort of body guard.

What was I, royalty? A saint?

Saint Potter.

"We're only looking out for you, Harry," Hermione said when I asked her about it at dinner one night. 

"Yeah, mate. You look like a twig that's been bent both ways."

"If it really bothers you, we won't help as much anymore, okay?" she said as she continued to fill my bowl to the rim with tomato soup.

That night, I slept in the common room. I didn't mean to, but I was tired of making everyone's life that much more difficult. I saw Draco go up to our dorm, and he didn't come out until morning.

So, it really was because of me.

I can honestly say that never in my eight years of knowing the bloke would I have imagined him to be afraid of me.

I thought about that night in the bathroom during sixth year, was he afraid then? When he almost hit me with the Cruciatus Curse? He didn't seem very afraid, not of me anyways.

What changed? Nothing much really happened between us since then. Other than me saving him from the Fiendfyre or him denying my identity, but those weren't bad things, nothing to make him afraid.

I started sleeping in the common room a little more often since then. I didn't want Draco to feel like he had isolate himself because of me.

It was a Thursday now, sometime late September. I was finishing my Defence Against the Dark Arts homework and brooding over a cold tea when I finally gave up on trying to stay awake.

I found myself back in the forest, the same one I was frequently in when I saw my parents. Alas, there they were in the distance. Waiting for me to come up to them only to watch them disappear before my eyes.

But when I got closer to them, it wasn't the Lily and James that I was used to seeing. Their faces were distorted and their body's were hunched over and covered in blood. If I didn't know who they were supposed to be, I think I would've thought them to be Zombies.

I screamed. It didn't change anything. Slowly, their distorted faces became fuzzy like television static, then, they weren't their faces at all. Lily and James morphed together into one being, and a terrifying one at that.

One body, one face, one soul. And it was that of Voldemort. He was much taller than I remember and he towered over me. His eyes were even redder and his skin was pastier and peeling off his body. I screamed even louder.

He was dead, he was dead, he's dead, he is dead.

He pointed his wand at me with his boney fingers gripping it tightly. He was yelling my name and had a determined and confident look on his face, this time, to make sure that I would be dead.

For a moment, I thought I was.

I saw the dim candlelight and brown leather of the common room begin to come into focus. There was red too, and the familiar smell of cinnamon and grass clippings along with a soft cloth against my face.

It took me a moment to figure out that I was being held to someone's chest, and someone was crying. It must have been me, because I could hear Voldemort's voice becoming Ron's as he rubbed my back and told me that I was okay. The embrace was tight and restricting, and I wasn't sure if I liked it.

I heard another voice somewhere else in the room followed by Ron yelling at them to go away.

"But I heard screaming," it said, sleep laced in their voice.

"And since when do you give a fuck about people screaming?" Ron replied.

"I just thought I'd come and see," they said, quieter this time.

"Well, there's no need, he's fine. He's with me."

"Is there anything I can–"

"You can mind your own fucking business, that's what you can do!"

There was silence for long while, and I began to wonder between cries if the person had left.

"You shouldn't hold him so tight..." there it was again.

"Shut your face M–"

"If he just woke up from a nightmare, he's probably still confused and disoriented. He might not know that it's you."

Nothing happened immediately, but I felt Ron's grip on me slacken a fraction. He continued to rub my back and pulled back a little more to look at me.

I looked at him too, and he must not have liked what he saw because he immediately pulled me back to his chest.

I felt a little better about it this time and found it a little more comfortable. I wanted to know who the mystery voice was, and how they knew what I was feeling.

I pulled back from Ron for a moment and looked around the common room.

There, by the hallway leading to the boy's dormitory's, I saw a billowing black cloak and a flash of blond hair receding back to where it came from.