Failure

I didn't tell Gran anything about June except that my father's old wand was stepped on and it snapped. She wasn't too happy about that. I don't think she would have minded if she had known the whole story, though. Gran's always looking for hints in me that I might in fact have inherited something from my dad. She would have taken it as hope for my future. Gran's never even stopped to consider that I might not want to be a carbon copy of my father. I mean, look what happened to him.

Gran doesn't even know that I withstood the Cruciatus curse this past June. I've lived in terror of it for as long as I can remember, yet I didn't tell my own grandmother when it was done to me. Am I purposely trying to alienate her from me?

Or am I trying to alienate myself from her?

I wonder sometimes what kept me from saying anything. I'd never kept anything from her before. Why should I start now?

Gran has pictures all over the place of my parents before they ended up in the hospital. Our mantelpiece is so cluttered with pictures that there is no room even for a small pot of Floo powder. Her bedside table has so many pictures that she has to keep her reading glasses in a drawer when she is not wearing them because there is no room for them on the table. Gran has never wondered that seeing my parents smiling at me from almost anywhere in the house might make it harder for me when we got to the hospital. She doesn't have many representations around the house of what they are today.

Then again, all I've got is a collection of rubbish. If I really wanted to, I could take my ancient, but usable camera with me the next time Gran and I go to the hospital. I don't know why I don't. Perhaps I'm afraid.

I've always been afraid of things. Gran says that I'm just not like my father. If he was so brave, why did he go insane from the Cruciatus curse? I once heard somewhere that people are what they are because of how they're raised. Did Gran raise me to be timid? Sometimes I wonder.

I don't think she meant to and I do love her and I always feel horrible when I don't tell her about the important things in my life. But I can't say she isn't intimidating.

I love Gran. I love her a lot. But I can't say my life with her is perfect. It isn't. She expects too much of me. Everyone expects too much of me. I've been told that my major problem is a lack of confidence--many people have said this--but I'm just a failure. How I wish it was a lack of confidence! People have been said to overcome lack of confidence, but who on earth has ever overcome being a failure?

No one I know, that's certain.