I Don't Lose

I DON'T LOSE

"...Just a man and his will to survive..."

Survivor, "The Eye of the Tiger"

I should be crazy. I should be lying in a bed next to Lockhart, locked up in St. Mungo's after everything I've gone through, but I'm not. Maybe I am crazy though; crazy to think that I can withstand the pressure that Trelawney's words have put me under, crazy to think that I can beat him. I know I can do it though, because I know that he can't beat me. Nobody ever has.

Sometimes I don't know what to feel, I don't know what to think. Sirius is dead. Another father figure gone, killed protecting me. I know I have to get past my grief, and slowly I am doing it. It's difficult, but I'm beginning to accept that he's gone, that he couldn't protect me even if he were still alive. Neither can you.

That's what you've been trying so hard to do my entire life isn't it? Protect me. It would be easy to say you've failed miserably, but I'm still here. I'm still alive, even if a large part of me doesn't want to be at the moment. In that at least, you have succeeded, but as you told me that night: at what cost?

Six lives: an old man I saw in a dream, Bertha Jorkins, Cedric, Sirius, Mum, Dad. Sometimes I feel that Quirrell and the Crouches should be added to the list too, but it doesn't really matter whether I put them on it or not; it doesn't alter the fact that they're dead, does it? Such a simple thing, a list of the dead, but it says so much. It's funny that I placed my parents last - as if their loss hurts me the most even though I never knew them, never knew what kind of people they were. I know that no matter how much Sirius' death hurts, it pales in comparison to thoughts of my parents and how they were taken from me. I miss them so much, and it's your fault they're gone.

Don't get me wrong, I don't blame you for their deaths, not entirely. I'm not an imbecile. The fault lies mostly with Tom and his followers but some of the blame does lie with you, as you have admitted it does with Sirius. Your desire to protect me has led to the death of everyone on that list; remotely and indirectly yes, but led to that end of ends it has all the same. Would they have died without your actions? Had Fate decreed that their time was up regardless of your choices? I suppose it doesn't matter.

Two on those list lie at my door too. You have told me I'm not to blame, and I'm sure you and others will tell me again, but I will not be convinced. I know the truth: I'm stubborn, and that stubbornness contributed to their murders. If I had been selfish Cedric would be alive. If I had swallowed my pride and been conciliatory (long word!) with Snape, Voldemort would not have tricked me - if not by closing my mind, then by at least remembering that Snape too is on our side. My pride won't let me forgive him though - even if I know of his loyalty to you, I will never trust Snape with my life. Trust has to be earned as you well know, and he has shown me nothing to suggest he is trustworthy.

My pride won't let me lose either. That's something I've discovered about myself. I don't lose. I never have. My Aunt and Uncle didn't drive the magic out of me as they so desperately wanted to. Dudley never made me cry. I protected the Philosopher's Stone. I saved Ginny. I tried and tried again to produce the Patronus, not ever considering that the Dementors were too strong, and in the end I beat them back. I won the TriWizard Tournament. I refused to back down to that bitch who thought she could break me. She never stood a chance. Neither does Tom.

That's what you've been trying to protect me from for so long, and while you've tried everything to shield me from him, from my fate, how many times have I come face to face with him? Five times! And he hasn't killed me yet. I do not lose.

Perhaps I'm lucky. Scratch that, I know I'm bloody lucky. I haven't survived through skill or expertise, but through a mixture of luck, help, and sheer bloody-mindedness. A good combination if you ask me. Twice my mother saved me: when she took the killing curse meant for me; and when her protection flared once more to stop Quirrell from harming me. Twice I've saved myself - with a fair modicum of luck of course: killing the Basilisk and destroying the memory of Tom in the Chamber; and refusing to go down without a fight when faced with no escape, no hope for survival in the graveyard. And last month, you saved me. You saved my life.

I don't hate you as you probably think I do right now. There are reasons justifying it, but they don't outweigh the debt I owe you. You left me to rot with the Dursleys - whether you realised or not how exactly how harsh and cruel those ten years would turn out to be doesn't matter - you abandoned me for a decade when you placed me on the doorstep of Number 4, Privet Drive. You kept the truth from me for a further five years; I asked you why Voldemort wanted me dead and you didn't tell me. Part of me feels deeply betrayed by you, but it is tempered by the realisation that you are only human, and we all make mistakes.

You have never lied to me at least (except perhaps when you told me you see socks when you look in the Mirror of Erised!). You have never been anything but kind to me when I am in your presence. You gave me my father's cloak. You haven't punished me severely enough when perhaps I deserved it - flying the Weasley's car to school with Ron was one of the stupidest things I have ever done! You stopped Fudge from getting me expelled. You saved my life, and as you once told me, when one wizard saves the life of another it creates a bond between the two. Bizarrely though, the thing I want to thank you for the most...is leaving me with the Dursleys!!

I learned a long time ago - when I was locked in that cupboard - that I have this inner strength that refuses to buckle. I would sit patiently, cross-legged, on that scruffy, uncomfortable mattress and stare at the door until my uncle decided, in his infinite wisdom, that I had suffered in solitude for long enough. I categorically refused to be beaten down by my relatives. They called me worthless. They called me a freak. They insulted me time and time again, and punished me for the tiniest of things, for things I did not do. My Aunt and Uncle did everything they possibly could to demean me...except hit me that is - Aunt Petunia didn't have the stomach for it, and Uncle Vernon learnt early on that if he so much as tried to physically harm me my mother's protection wouldn't allow it! Dudley could hit me though, and he bullied me mercilessly, but he never got what he wanted; I always got back up.

Those ten years helped me in a way I couldn't have foreseen at the time. My relatives prepared me for what was to come - the surprises, the fame, the life threatening situations - it is in part thanks to the Dursleys that I have coped with it all. And I will continue to cope with everything that is to be thrown my way. I will not quit. I do not lose.

You'll help me won't you? I know you will. You feel it is your duty to because of the mistakes you have made. I'm sure you feel in some way responsible for what Tom has become, for what the former school prefect and Head Boy turned into. Don't. You told me it is our choices that make us who we are. Tom chose to become Lord Voldemort. As its most powerful member you have chosen to carry the weight of the wizarding world on your shoulders for well over fifty years. I choose to take the burden from you. I choose to confront Tom and destroy him. This probably means I will have to shoulder the burden of our world for far longer than you have. So be it. And yet, for a time, you will help me carry it as you pass it over to me. I know you will. You have your faults - if there's anything I've learnt these last few years it is that nobody's perfect - but there comes a time to put everything right, to make up for all the mistakes that have been made, and for you and I that time has come.

The prophecy was sealed a year ago, when Wormtail pierced my skin and took my blood. There is nothing you can do to protect me from my fate. You can no longer carry my burden and I won't let you. It is too heavy for you, but not for me. All you have to do is give me a leg up, keep my back straight as it were.

I know I am powerful. I ignored the obviousness of it when I held Godric Gryffindor's sword and drove it through the Basilisk's skull; I shied away from the truth when I repelled over fifty Dementors with a single corporeal Patronus, when I threw off the Imperious Curse with ease, when I looked Tom in the eye and refused to flinch, when I made his wand regurgitate the spells he had cast through sheer force of will, when I put Lestrange on her knees after she had just easily out-duelled four fully-grown, powerful wizards (admittedly via an Unforgivable, but it didn't work did it!?). I hate her for taking Sirius from me.

But then I froze in front of Tom, and if it were not for your arrival I would be dead.

I won't freeze again. With your help I will harness my power. I know it's there; I can feel it when I close my eyes at night, when I am forced once again to wait unwillingly on relatives who hate my guts, when I lie on my bed staring at the ceiling, thinking of this mighty task ahead of me. My power flows through me like liquid, like blood. And it has always been there; I've just decided to not ignore it any longer.

When I face Tom for the final time I will be ready. Through your help, and the support of my friends, and my refusal to quit, I will not fail. I will walk on. He will fall.

The burden is mine Dumbledore. You can't carry it any longer. In my hands the torch of peace and safety will shine brighter than it ever has before. You must not doubt that; you must have faith in me, as I'm sure you already do.

Muggles say that, 'where there's a will, there's a way' and I suppose my life is the embodiment of that sentiment. My will is larger, stronger, than anyone else's; that's why I'm still here, why luck has shone brightly down upon me in the darkest of situations. But now, rather than that light finding me, I must stand high above the crowd and find it myself. With the strength of will I possess - tougher than iron - I will find a way to destroy him.

You and I know that if I fail there is no other hope. Well, you're in luck, because with anyone else there might have been at the very least a tiny grain of doubt, but not with me. I have always succeeded when I have set my mind to the task at hand, and I'm not about to change my ways now. Someway, somehow, I will prevail. I do not lose.