Sins of the Righteous

Filch is about. I can hear him. Even if I were as mind-blind as they claim, I could hear his hard breathing, smell that detestable cockroach of a cat he cannot be parted from. He skulks about my tower like an animal. If he cannot see me, of course, like any common dog he believes I cannot see him.

He is wrong. I see him. I see through him to the crack in the wall behind him. His terror and shame scream in the night, through towers and corridors and the pills I take to allow me some semblance of sleep. His anger shines like a beacon through the ether, pulling me towards the rocks no matter how hard I fight it.

It gives me a headache. I've had too many headaches this week. That blasted Granger girl storming from my class, egged on in silence and secrecy by that shriveled up alley cat.

My mind starts to burn. Too much, too much. I fumble for my pills. No tea, never tea, water. Cold water. Two, no three pills.

I reach out for Dumbledore. His are the only thoughts I can bear when it gets this bad. He has the Sight as well. No one who has never seen, truly seen, could understand as well.

Dumbledore has seen his own death. He knows it is inevitable, and he has accepted that inevitability with grace and courage.

The very old are comforting. They don't rush about in constant fear of death. The very young, too, those who have had sheltered or easy lives. They don't believe in death, and therefore rarely obsess on it.

But the ones in between. For the lack of silence, I would go mad if I were forced to stay in their presence. Perhaps I have already gone mad.

Minerva calls me mad. She says it quietly, in the back of her mind, because it eases her fears.

The righteous are always the most fearful. They have the most to lose. Those who have fully embraced the lie they see in the mirror, they are the ones who fight the hardest when you blow away the smoke and reveal the truth.

We both know why she poisons their minds against me. We both remember that moment when I let my guard slip, when I spoke aloud a vision I should have kept to myself.

I blew my cover. In that one startled moment, I let slip that I had seen something true. We both knew I had seen it, and we both knew the other knew. It was the most perfect moment of dreadful honesty, one she denies to this day, even in her deepest thoughts.

But she has had it out for me since. She takes every opportunity to discredit me, spurred by the hidden fear that I will one day reveal her secrets.

As if I care about her secrets. As if I care about the lusts, and fears, and greeds, and ambitions. They never understand. They think I care about who is with whose husband, or who has been skimming money from the till. They think it shocks me, hearing their deep furtive desires broadcast at full volume.

It tires me. I don't care. I would sell the rest of my life for an hour of silence. I would sell my every gift, become the weakest of Squibs, for the opportunity to feel my own feelings for a change. To share my bed with someone who didn't worry about what I would see. To share a meal with someone who didn't tie my stomach up in knots with their worries and pains and resentments.

McGonagall will be trouble for me. I have Seen it, as has Dumbledore. He tries to soften her, to keep her secure about me. She will replace him when he is gone, if only for a short while.

He has assured me I will not lose my position here when he is gone.

And I trust him, for I have Seen that future. I will continue to live in the safety of my tower. I will continue to play Kassandra. Dumbledore knows what would become of me, were my true nature revealed. He has seen, as I have, what happens to true Seers captured by the Dark One. I know I will be safe here. I know he will find a way to make the Gryffindor witch tolerate, if never trust me.

I shall remain in my prison until I die. We are all prisoners here, those of us who stay. Dumbledore. Filch. McGonagall, too. Prisoners of fear and hate and prejudice. Prisoners of our own reflections in the mirror, struggling to get the younger ones to freedom.

The pills are starting to work. I can no longer sense Filch. Perhaps he has gone. Perhaps he has taken his anger and fear and self-loathing to some other part of the castle. I'm numbing. I will be asleep soon.

I shall dream as I always do of open spaces, of silent cities and stars. I shall dream of hot, steaming tea, with nothing in the leaves but flavor. I shall dream of playing with cards, not reading them. I shall dream of making love. And in that brief time before the pills wear off, before the other dreams come, the ones that scream prophecy into my shattered ears, I shill rest.

The End