Why I Hate You

I hate you. You know that, don't you? You know how you intrude on my every day so that I can't even teach a class in peace? How your presence follows me everywhere, in the form of your incarnation.

He grew up in your image, you would be proud to know. Black hair, glasses, exactly like you, except for the scar. Just like you. He's just like you, and it's not fair. It's not fair to him. It's not fair to me. Passing me in the halls with his little group, the Marauders have returned to Hogwarts, and they still torment me.

"Was that Snape? Merlin, he still hates you, doesn't he Harry? How can he still hate you? You haven't done anything to him, slimy git."

Of course he hasn't done anything to me. But he's just like you, and you have done more against me than the Snake Lord ever could. I had been happy when I came to Hogwarts. I hadn't been afraid of the Sorting, and it had gone perfectly. I had found where I belonged. And I was respected, until you came along. I was a shadow, it's true, but a shadow to a person of the likes of Lucius Malfoy knows respect nonetheless. I had begun to make my own mark on the school as well, but you wouldn't know that. You wouldn't have known how there were some who knew me for myself. You took that from me. Like you took everything else, like you took everyone else.

She was in Ravenclaw, as you well know. Lilly Evans, the angel I somehow managed to become paired with in Herbology. We were friends. It was nothing like what you used to have, and it was a friendship, and I valued it. She possessed that amazing Ravenclaw trait lost to so many in that house nowadays. She didn't stop to look at the stereotypes and masks placed on me, she just saw me as the person I was. It was a friendship founded on truth and honesty. It was one of the only true friendships I have ever had.

And then you saw her and wanted her. Gryffindor's do-no-wrong golden boy. Except, of course, that you could do wrong. And did do wrong. But no one cared if the Marauders decided to pull a prank on the Slytherins. To them you were still Godric Gryffindor's incarnation, the ideal Head Boy. And you fell for Lilly Evans, Ravenclaw's beauty, and, rather predictably, she fell back. She never hated me, not even after that. Not like you did. But we never really spoke again. She saw the stereotype after that.

And she wasn't the only one you stole. You and your Marauders even stole the Slytherins from me with your little prank. They never respected me again.

I'm being too hard on your little group, I know. I shall not allow myself to classify all under one category; it would be unfair to the one who saw beyond the public opinion, who saw into me. Lupin, with his golden eyes, could see through all of the myths, much as Lilly had. He never liked me, but I had given him no reason to. But he was not one for giving blame, for conceding to bias, and he always gave me courtesy. The only Gryffindor to see me as a person, instead of a snake.

Of course, you took that away too, your little crew. With one little joke you took away almost everything I still had. You didn't think it was funny at the end, but I know how you laughed when it started out. Lilly told me. It was the only time she came back to me after you'd taken her, to tell me how you laughed. And you deserved to laugh.

Black led me, and like the idiot I was, I followed. I nearly paid for that stupidity with my life. I nearly paid for your stupidity with my life. If I had been killed, or worse, bitten, I couldn't have gone on. And then I would have paid for your mistake. But I didn't, not like that, anyway.

Because, of course, of all the people it could have been, it had to be you. You, rushing in with your Gryffindor courage and typical lack of care for self-preservation, and you dragged me from the clutches of the beast, as it were. You saved my life, but you also ruined it.

Worst of all, from that day on Lupin saw me through a veil. I would see those golden eyes cloud over with remorse as he realised how close he had come, how close he had come to letting the beast devour me. He was always courteous. Well, not always, but I deserved that, I suppose. I deserved to lose his courtesy. But I did nothing to lose his acceptance when you stole it from me. Because of you, I had not only lost one of the few people who saw me, I had lost the only connection to an entire house. Gryffindor was lost to me that day.

As was my house. I followed a Gryffindor? I actually went where a Gryffindor led me? I was the lowest of low, after that. Lucius still allowed me the position of his shadow, but from then on I really was the dirt beneath his feet, rather than the dramatic figure behind him on the wall, magnifying and amplifying his authority.

And now there's another one you've stolen from me. Harry. He was your son, but he was also her son, and it's not fair that he has become such a symbol of you. It seems now that he is everything you ever were. And because of that, I cannot see her in him, and I can't see beyond what you have left as your legacy to torment me.

I hate him because I hate you. Do you see what you have left for your son? How can you live with that? Well, of course, you can't. You don't have to deal with the consequences of your actions. Seven years at school, who cares who you affected. One wild ride with the girl of your dreams, there's a child, but you don't have to worry about him. That task is left to those around him now, and as much as I hate that, it is a task left to me. And so I don't hate him, as much as I would like to be able to. Because I must teach him, something that you should have done. I cannot teach him to project one person onto another, to take out vengeance on one for what someone else has done. Through me he will learn that life is not easy. Why weren't you around to teach him?

You have taken so much. Not just from me, but from everyone around you. Dumbledore is weakening from the load, unintentional as it may be, that Harry provides without a father. Harry, your son, no longer cries, even when he feels about to break, because of the torment he received in fourth year, due to you. Your son cannot cry, thanks to you.

And me. I live my life trying to make up for what you've taken from me. It was just my teenage years, but they say those leave the biggest mark on you. You've taken so much, and I never got to pay you back. You know, I spent my entire sixth and seventh year trying to pay you back for everything and anything?

You ruined my life, and you never even knew who it was whose life you were destroying. All you saw was the evil of a Slytherin. You didn't even consider me an adversary. And then I no longer wanted to pay you back, as I still don't. I have no time for childish vengeances. I just wanted to prove everyone wrong. I wanted to prove you wrong. And then you went and died. You had the nerve to die on me.

A hero's death, they say. You died in defiance of the Dark Lord, protecting your wife and child. The only thing you ever did for them. You will live on in their glory, the father of Harry Potter. The one who sired the boy destined to kill the Lord of Dark. The one who sacrificed his own life just so that this boy would have a chance to live.

I don't believe a word of it. I don't believe that after skirting responsibility to the extent that you did, you would suddenly turn around and sacrifice yourself. You loved life too much, you wouldn't give it up for anything.

Unless I've read you wrong. But I don't think you have. And so you will remain Gryffindor's golden boy, a hero, even in death. But maybe, when your son dies, you'll understand what it feels like to be a shadow. Who knows? You deserve what you got, for ruining the lives of those around you. If you had swallowed that Gryffindor pride, you might be here today, looking after your wife and child and allowing me to live in peace. But you had to prove that you were a hero.

You ruined my life, and then you had the nerve to play the hero, the nerve to die. You left me without a chance to prove myself to the world. And I'll never forgive you for that.

Without you, I have to prove it to myself. I have to prove that my life means something, that it isn't as fragile as china. And it's so much harder to prove it to yourself. And so I hate you, James. Because you hated the image. And now you can never hate me for who I really am.