Shades of Gray

Shades of Gray

It seems I've always been watching you.

I have been there every day. I have seen you grow, from a lost-looking little boy to the hero you are now. I have seen you in your happiest moments. And I have seen you in your saddest.

I was there when you caught the Snitch for the first time. I saw the childish glee in your face. I could feel your joy, and although I scoffed you, I hope you know I did not mean anything by it.

I was there the day of the third task, when you appeared carrying Cedric's body. I saw your confusion, and the way your eyes cried out for someone, anyone, to help you. I saw the way you were crying inside, even though you tried to look like the man you were too young to be.

I was there when you held your dying best friend in your arms as she gasped for a last breath that would not come. I saw your tears as she choked out that it wasn't your fault, that she still loved you. I saw the haunted look that lingered in your eyes as you kissed her for the last time and felt her life draining away through your very hands. I was watching when you swore over her body that you would kill the ones who did this.

I was there in the darkest hours of the night, when it seemed as though the dawn would never come, when you cursed your life and the scar that had brought so much tragedy upon you.

Now I sit here alone and I wonder if you know this. Soon they will be coming to take me to him, and from then on I will not be allowed to think of you like this. And you will come for me in the end, but not to reach out a hand and tell me that you don't really hate me after all. No, you will come for me, and I will die, slowly and painfully, wondering if you could have ever guessed at what you would become. I will stare into your hate-deadened eyes; hate for me and all that I stand for, willingly or not. You will never realize, even as I lie dying, how I have seen your innermost soul. I wish you could know that.

But you can't. It's too late now to say that I regret the things that I have done. It's too late now to wish that I had stepped from the shadows and taken your hand. It's too late now to dry your tears and change who I am. It's too late for anything, really; we're all trapped in the meaningless puzzles of life, unable to forgive and to forget. It's too late now for all of it, but I can't help but to think of it. I know you. And I want you to know me, and to know this.

I was raised to hate you. But sometimes I think that maybe it didn't have to turn out the way it did. If I had been brave enough to turn my back on what the world expected of me, then maybe we wouldn't be caught in these tangles of hate. I was too scared to defy what I was supposed to be; but now I think of all that could have been. Now it all seems foolish, the way I thought everything was black and white. We both know that the world is never black and white. Always there are these disturbing and troubling shades of gray.

It is time, now. I shall walk through that door and leave you behind; you and all the memories. When I walk through that door there will be no more shades of gray. I will become your sworn enemy, Harry Potter. And I will forget that I ever wanted to be your sworn friend.

There will be no more shades of gray.