Irony

    It is ironic, his life, all of it. Sometimes at night he lays there, half-asleep and yet wide awake, and smiles scornfully to himself. He thinks it is ironic that, for all people say that he is like his father, he is more like Sirius. He is more like his father’s best friend.

    For, admittedly, there is something deeper than looks, or familiar messy black hair and smooth, ivory skin. He laughs silently, sometimes, because no one knows.

    But he does, and Sirius did.

    He knows what it is like to be so painfully in love that he cannot see. He knows what it is like to spend time imprisoned, and most of all, he knows what it is like to have lost everything.

    He remembers the sweet relief and sour disbelief when Lupin told him. He remembers smiling oddly at the fact that they had been together, his godfather and his old professor, and he remembers telling Remus that he feels the same way about someone.

    Beyond that, he remembers, with a half-hearted grin, the pained expression in Lupin’s eyes and the sense that he would be better to not feel that way.

    He remembers kissing Dean later that night, when everyone else is asleep. He remembers waking up the next morning, the sun shining on their naked flesh, creamy white and chocolate. He remembers realizing that Lupin was right as he scrambles out of Dean’s bed so their dorm mates will not see.

    There is something cold about him now, something that he has had since that night, a sense of imperfection, a sense that there is something yet to be realized. He knows it will never happen for the same reasons Sirius and Remus did not happen, and, for a while, he hates the world for this.

    He knows what it is like to spend time imprisoned. The ten years he spent with his aunt and uncle before learning of his powers do not hold a candle to what Sirius went through, he knows, but somehow, he imagines, his years must have been worse. And now he has been locked up again, been institutionalized in his own skin, the walls of his mind holding him in.

    He pities himself, and it sickens him to the stomach. It is the feeling you get after drinking too many sodas, until their fizziness resides in the pit of your stomach and the saccharine sweetness makes you drowsy in your nausea.

    He feels as though there is a bond there connecting him to Sirius, and Sirius alone, and perhaps that is why he incarcerates himself. Lose the iron bars that contain him - lose the last tie to Sirius.

    For, in his mind, it is truly the last tie. No, save love, he reminds himself, a bitter half-smile creeping upon his lips. He still has that complete and utter penultimate bond, though he hardly knows the meaning of ‘love’ anymore, he tells himself.

    He lies, then. For even in a lack of family, he loves Hermione, loves Ron, loves the very existence of them and him, the very existence between them, but he does not see this as love. In his isolation from himself, he has decided that love means a house in a nice neighborhood, with a good marriage and happy children. Perhaps, he imagines, love could mean Dean for him, but he knows that will never be.

    He does not understand that love has many facets, too many even to count, and friendship is conceivably the greatest, strongest, shiniest facet on that gem.

    He knows also what it is like to have lost everything, everything worth owning, but in that he is wrong also. He may have no parents, no godfather, now, and no pleasant place to call home. He is the last to know, taken for granted, second best, but to whom?

    He does not see that there is much yet to be lost before he can be left with nothing. there are friendships, power, laughter, and love, the impenetrable kind that he does not know he feels. There is also pain, hatred, burdens and curses, misconceptions, but when he says ‘nothing’ he does not take the time to realize that evil falls away then, too.

    He is naïve, in a word.

    To him, it is ironic that he should be more like Sirius on the inside, despite the fact that people tend to relate him to James. He feels the overwhelmingly gruesome need to freeze himself off from the world, but the warmth he unknowingly shares with his friends helps him to fail. Instead, he contents himself with yet another acrid smile, another biting, polar kiss. Each kiss upon Dean’s lips burns on his own, for each kiss could be the last they share. One day, he knows, one day soon, they will share one last kiss, and all will be forsaken. Then, he will remember his ties to Sirius and think to himself that, at last, he has succeeded in following in his footsteps.

    The reasoning behind this is inanity, but perhaps it is merely the fresh, jarring wounds of his godfather’s death that have left him this way, and in time they will heal, and he will remember. Yes, eventually he will be proud once more that he is like his father in every way but his eyes and browbeating ways.

    To him, it is ironic that he should be more like Sirius on the inside, despite the fact that people tend to relate him to James.

    To the world, it is ironic that he thinks this now.