The welcoming feast is over and I retreat to the cool summer air in relief. Albus is always so insistent that the feast should go on for hours until every person is unbearably happy, fattened, and ready for long night's sleep by the end. I personally can't wait for it to be over. The sorting is always the same: the same students sorted into the same houses who then for the next year wreck havoc upon my quiet summer months. Then they, like a cloud of smoke materialising in the cold air in place of whispers, slowly fade away and my silence is once again in place. For a little while at least I am left to nurture my own feelings and hurts. I can sit awake at my desk and sip my tea, not aware of the play of emotions as they dance across my face. For a little while I can rest in the solace that, here, nothing can disturb the heavenly silence that engulfs me.
But like so many years before the silence itself fades, like time and memories that are later cherished when most coveted, and is replaced by another feast and ensuing year of noise and the terrors that disguise themselves as children.
Then, as if it acted of its own accord, my foot hesitated from hitting the first small step. Instead of following through with the act it hung precariously low, the toe of my boot brushing against the stone. Looking around, vaguely aware of being just under the clock tower, my eyes rested on a still form, sitting under the pale moonlight and facing the expanse of earth that stretched for miles upon miles. He was silhouetted against the night sky, perched on the knee high stone wall and watching for something just beyond his vision.
Immediately I recognised the absurdly messy hair and the round rimmed glasses that always threatened to fall off his nose while working feverishly on an essay due at the end of class. His eyes, slightly hidden behind those obscenely ugly spectacles were lost in thought the slight tightening around his mouth betraying his emotions. His posture, while seemingly relaxed, was stiff and obviously uncomfortable. Though, I reflect to myself, the boy was obviously elsewhere in his own dark thoughts to care much, if indeed at all.
Infuriating brat.
With a hint of fury mixed with a good dose of annoyance I recognise that he has taken up my spot at the wall, or rather- on, as the case may be. I consider the childish thought of sneaking up behind him and saying something snide. Perhaps I could even take house points! But then the frustrating boy sighed. It wasn't just a random sigh, expelled because of taking a too deep of breath. It was sigh laden with sorrows and pain. Laced with hopelessness and despair intermingled with something like desolation and grim anguish.
I really have been reading to many potion texts. Albus is always taking note of it and telling me that I sound like a book hidden away in the library. I suppose he's right, as usual, but that does not mean I am about to admit to it, verbally anyway.
Right now, standing in the shadows of the clock tower, foot still held mindlessly above the first step, I bit back the sudden urge to run over and push the boy over the ledge. Resisting the preference to tell him to take his troubles elsewhere and leave me to my own I watch him critically for a few moments longer. Mindlessly the boy raised a hand as if to rub the area where the infamous scar was engraved into his skin, but then, as if coming to his senses he stopped. The hand was replaced on the cold ledge after a moment and I remembered my own foot held mid air, not quite brushing that first step.
He doesn't smile much anymore, since that fateful night. He had been quiet after it was over. A sort of lost expression as if he knew the truth and wasn't sure of what to make of it. His face has always been so easy to read, though I know he thinks it isn't. He had been torn by the loss of the closest thing to a parent he had ever known. Even then I couldn't feel sorry for him, I doubted he would have appreciated it anyway. He's funny like that. He doesn't like pity, though he of all people deserves it, and he defies anyone or anything that allows themselves to react to him in such an emotion.
When he had emerged from the comfortable office he had been subdued though later, as I saw by the work of his own hands, he had been angry. He had been hurt, and confused, as much as anyone could be in his situation. Nothing ever goes right for him. More so than any other individual I have been cursed to come across.
Perhaps I hate him because I envy, in some small strange way. I would never say as much to anyone let alone to he himself. But I think that is one of the things- many as I'm sure they are- that causes me to hold such strong opinions against him. He will leave a mark on his world and won't soon be forgotten. He, a child who will not live past twenty, holds the entire world in his thin, clumsy hands. Youthful hands that should be getting writers' cramp from to many hours doing homework, hands that should not be tainted by the blood of so many. Hands that should worry and fret over childish things and not the insurmountable pain of the world.
With spite I think of the hands that accept the accolades and awards, though even I realise he doesn't need or want them. That is another of his strange quirks. Despite the vigour with which his loud friends encourage him to accept them and be happy, he still hates it. All of the attention and the countless awards (Fifteen, including the two Orders of Merlin second class). He hates being asked for his signature or to have his picture taken on the street by countless unnamed faces. He hates the glory that he gets for his treacherous past that now has come back to haunt him.
Cloaked in my shadow, standing under the archway beneath the great clock I can watch in silent wonder as he dangles his legs over the edge. There is no danger of him falling so why I watch in such fascination, I myself am bereft of answers. The foolish boy forgot his cloak inside and I resist the urge to march out and take points, stealing from him this quiet moment or self-exploration. Or pity, I'm not privy to make a choice between the two. His gaze isn't on the fading horizon, but glazed, looking inward at all his own insecurities and fears. And fears he has, I see them play themselves out across his face and shining like lanterns in his eyes.
Lily's eyes. Studying him now, I can see plainly that James' arrogance does not dominate him as much as I have accused. His high, almost deferential brow and rounded bone structure are highlighted in the moonlight. The thought is explored and petulantly I am forced to admit that, except for a few obvious things (offendingly messy black hair for example), he looks nothing like his father. The idea is a new one for me and I inspect it at every angle, the concept glaringly obvious yet my own pride refusing to accept it.
A stray cloud creeps slowly across the sky, lengthening and contorting with the wind. Veiling the stars as it moves, I watch it with little interest as it makes its way toward the moon. Tearing my eyes from it I returned my observations to the strange green-eyed specimen before me. He too was following the path of the grey blue cloud and seemed to find some sort of parallel within his own mind. I wonder what he is thinking of; daring to put away my own selfishness to think and ponder on the enigma that is Potter. Could he match that cloud to his own shadows? Covering, veiling, and smothering his hope, faith, and Gryffindor optimism? I hardly understand why I would care but an insistent tug in my chest makes me pause and watch with disturbingly sympathetic disgust.
The sympathy, I suppose, was bread from long years of slowly noticing that the insufferable boy had more on his shoulders than I had first realised. The disgust for having felt the first emotion in the first place. He was (and is!) a Potter after all, and as such was promised to be an arrogant, nosy, loud, and all in all unbearable brat. But he wasn't. And that was disturbing. The idea that I had been wrong, and that brat (boy!) who now sat by himself in the quiet of the evening was just another innocent child trying to make due with cards that life dealt him. Cards, which treacherously explode, burning fingers that weren't wary enough or quick enough to pull back. Life is often described and compared to as a game, Chess as a matter of fact, and I- and so many others- are and forever will be the pawns. Perfectly expendable. But now, as I think on it more and more I realise that it is more like a horrible game of Exploding Snap.
Whether he finally got tired of watching and waiting for the moon to be once again unveiled, or the coldness had finally soaked into his inner most soul, the boy turned and swung his legs over the wall and took a moment to steady himself. I watched with amusement as he finally became aware of a second presence and looked up slowly to my place in the shadows. My foot had long ago taken its place next to the other, the first step still lying there untouched except for a shadow of movement. With startled fright he straightened himself and came forward cautiously.
"Sir?"
I could hear the tremor in his voice that countered the defiance in his eyes. I knew what he was expecting and what I was obligated to go through with.
"Potter," I spat contemptuously. "What are you doing out here?" The question was more of demand for an answer though a flash of puzzlement crossed his youthful face. He was expecting me to take points from Gryffindor, threaten him with detention and send him scrambling for the cover of his Gryffindor Common Room. But I had not; I had taken a step in anther direction. I had asked (demanded, I remind myself ruthlessly) an answer. He looked uncertain for a moment before shrugging and I held back the venom-laced retort before it passed my lips. Startled, I realise that I am genuinely curious as to what first pulled him out into the cold air. Without a cloak I think to myself snidely.
"I…needed some time to think." He looked caged. Like a lion at the zoo, angry and scared with a hint of rebelliousness sparkling in his eyes. I smirked.
"The summer not long enough? Do you now need to spread your slothful nature here, to the school as well, Potter?" They were cruel words, but I couldn't bite them back. I was angry, the night air had shaken my defences as had the inspection of the…child before me. But even as I looked at the shadows deep within the pools of green that pretended to be eyes, I knew. I knew that he was no child privy to the everyday toils of life. He was a pawn, perhaps as much, if not more so than I am. There was a certain undeniable amount of pain in those eyes, but as I had done before, and will likely do many times again. I ignored it.
Perhaps there was a certain underlying disorder to the picture I had painted around myself. Perhaps the insufferable brat was in pain and had been locked away for the summer months to slip by quietly, at an agonisingly slow pace. But where the meddling old fool was there to offer sage advice, confections, and gallons of peppermint tea, I was there to offer a place to vent anger, frustrations, and hate. Yes, he hated me. I could see it in his eyes; perhaps this was the same hate that burned out at the Dark Lord on those occasions they had been face to face. Whatever thoughts, accusations, or anything else that might be attached to that hateful gaze were carelessly tossed out the proverbial window.
"Five points from Gryffindor, Potter, for being out after curfew." He ground his teeth for moment before relenting. Typical.
"Yes, sir." He started up the stairs and paused just to my right. While standing several feet away from me, the muted moonlight clearly highlighting his form, I could still feel the annoyance and anger radiating off of him in the cool night air.
"Get out of my sight." My tone was enough of a warning to let slide the threat of more points.
The boy moved cautiously as if I might suddenly reveal my wand and hex him to some far, unknown country. The idea was vaguely appealing, though Albus would be undoubtedly put out with me. I glared venomously and he glared back, the intensity of his gaze spurring me on.
"Will that be another ten points?" My voice dropped considerably, taking on its customary deadly tones. The boy gave a curt shake of his head but was halfway through the door behind me when his own silky voice replied lightly.
"Good to see you again, professor. Pleasant dreams."
The impertinent whelp.
As the door closed with a soft click and I watched the moon come out from behind the thin clouds I cursed him and prayed for him at the same time. I'm not a religious man, yet when faced with the reality that he may very well not live to the end of his seventh year, if even his sixth, I'm am forced to feel something for him. Not pity. No, after carefully mulling over the idea. Never pity. But whatever emotion drives me to utter a short prayer for him I know it cannot be unjustifiable. I do not know the secrets that were exchanged in that small office at the end of last year but I know that there is something brewing. Something that will inevitably lead to the destruction of either the Dark Lord or the impertinent whelp that can still speak with confidence to his rivals and hide what he admits are his fears when he thinks no one is watching.
Whatever cards were being played the world still turns and I am still the same evil, snarky, old, git that I always was. The summer air, while previously refreshing, had somehow managed to swallow me in all my musings and turned stale. I retreat to the warm entrance hall, seeking shelter from the merciless stares of the ice-cold stars. Noting that Gryffindor had been deducted points I smile grimly to myself remembering his last words to me.
"Ten points to Gryffindor for pure audacity." Satisfied I recoil into my dungeons to await another year of loud first years, and obnoxious, arrogant sixth years. Thankful that the Slytherins were all safely tucked into bed asleep, or feigning it good enough for me not to be bothered by it, I collapse onto the couch upon entering my quarters. Before fading to the land of Dreams and Shades I am vaguely aware of a persistent throbbing coming from my cursed forearm.
Pleasant dreams indeed.