𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐆𝐨

𝐗𝐕𝐈𝐈𝐈

The worst part about creating a whole new year of students at Hogwarts wasn't necessarily the isolation from the other houses, or the new common room, or sharing dorms with your "enemies", but more so the looks we got from the lower years, especially the seventh years.

I was luckier, people treated me like royalty (much to my dismay) however even those such as Seamus and Dean or even Neville at times were seen as inferior, stupid almost.

I didn't really understand it so much. It's not their fault that the teaching had been impaired last year. From what I'd heard, Snape had turned the place into a prison. The Carrows inflicted the Cruciatus Curse to anyone who even stepped a foot out of line. Neville still got stressed whenever someone even mentioned detention.

McGonagall had lost complete control over her teaching post, being forced to partake in teaching the Dark Arts.

It's no wonder that attendance was so limited this year. I overheard a young Slytherin in the corridor say that there were only about one hundred of them who returned.

I suppose that is part of the reason why eight years were a little mistreated; why should we want to come back? Why do we get to come back? They treated us as if we were taking something from them.

It was a terribly lonely experience, being isolated like that. Even me, not subjected to such treatment, it felt like I was being favourited in a way that I didn't deserve.

And it was lonely. There was loneliness all around me. It was in the ground, in the air, it was laced in my clothes and it seeped into my skin.

Friends are a matter which often bring me back from such solitude. But unfortunately, friends can't solve all the worlds problems.

It was especially annoying when the eighth and seventh years got put in classes together. Ginny was in my Transfiguration class, we ended up getting pared together.

A distant snapping sound was pounding in my head off in the distance, bringing me back to reality.

"Harry!" it was Ginny, "We need to get on this! Class is almost over and you haven't done anything!"

I apologized, and held my wand tight in my hand.

A mouse into a pumpkin. Easy stuff.

I held my concentration up until the very last step. My eyes wandered to Ron on the other side of the room, who deliberately said the wrong incantation to annoy Ernie Macmillan, and now their pumpkin was running around the room with mouse legs.

I looked back at our own attempt, I had gotten most of it, but our pumpkin had whiskers.

"Harry!" scolded Ginny.

I muttered a quick apology and got rid of the whiskers.

"You can't get distracted like that! You think the Auror department would want someone who has the attention span of a Pigmy Puff?"

No. But that was a good thing, I would hate being an Auror.

"I said I was sorry!"

"Well, sorry's not good enough!" she yelled at me.

I was starting to wonder if she was still talking about the pumpkin. I don't think she was.

"Sorry doesn't fix anything, Harry," she continued, "The damage is done! You can't take it back!"

"I'm sorry," I said softly, and I was. I didn't mean to hurt her, she had been nothing but good to me in our time of brief romance.

She was patient and tremendously kind even in my worst moments of nightmares and flashbacks and gloomy episodes. The times when I couldn't get out of my own head and all I could do was lay in bed, no food, no water, no speaking, just me in a puddle of cold sweat.

I felt so guilty the whole time we were together, it must have been so hard for her, to love someone so dearly and put up with them only for them to leave you with no explanation. It wasn't fair.

The bell rang after that, Ginny ran straight out the door, not looking back. I couldn't be mad at her, it was her turn to be angry.

I did my best to retrace my steps back to the Room of Runes, hoping Draco hadn't left without me.

When I finally got there, I was ten minutes late and the only people still in the room were Draco and Hermione. Hermione was fumbling with the pile of books on her desk, trying to cram them all into her book bag, Draco was leaning against the doorframe. He was staring off into space, I wondered where he was.

He saw me coming and snapped back to reality.

"You're late, Potter," he said.

I apologized, and told him that I had trouble finding the place.

He shrugged, and slung his bag over his shoulder. As he did this, he winced and scrunched his face, but tried to cover it up with a cough.

"Are you alright?" I asked apprehensively.

"Yeah, yeah. Just stiff," he tried to play it off, but he still had a look of discomfort in his face.

"No," I argued, "What happened?"

He sighed, giving up.

"I told you. People don't like me, Potter."

"And no one did anything to stop them?"

He sighed again, rolling his eyes. "Let rephrase that: nobody likes me, Potter."

I gave him what I knew was a pitiful look, which he didn't like.

Hermione had finally cleaned up her table when she saw me talking taking to Draco, and came over. She had about five or six books gripped in her arms. One of which, I could see the title Inferno on the spine with a bookmark a little past the front cover.

I turned to Draco, who looked unfazed, but saw the bookmark too and almost smiled—almost.

"You lent her your book?" I asked him.

He shrugged and said, "I wasn't going to read it."

Hermione smiled with evident gratitude. She was the best, really. Never in my life had I ever expected Hermione to smile at Draco Malfoy. It was just another thing on the list of things that were scientifically impossible—another thing that I could cross off.

Maybe it was possible to forgive the unforgivable. After all, Hermione was never too bothered when Draco called her that word, not that that makes it any better, or excuses his behaviour, it only means that Hermione was always strong enough to be the bigger person.

Besides, she said that Draco had good taste in literature. It was like an olive branch, an apology.

"She lent me Macbeth in return, so it's really no big deal," Draco said bashfully.

"It was the gesture that counts," Hermione told him. "I know that you would never have done it a year ago, it means a lot."

With that, the three of us began in the direction of the dungeons for Potions. We didn't talk, but that was okay.

I liked having people around who understood the sound of silence. In my eyes—and I hoped Draco's too—it was like a poem.

A poem that only a certain few can truly understand and appreciate, a poem brought on by a lump in the throat or a distant smile, a single tear or a sigh of relief.

The words always rang the same: World, you will forget me. And that's okay.

And it was okay. Because no one needs vocal chords to be remembered. Often enough, the things I say mostly go over everyone's head.

Plus, killing Voldemort has already got me a few pictures in people's memories.