Your Weakness

"Who am I, Hedwig?"

It was late at night. The man was standing in front of a mirror, facing his features though not really taking in anything at all.

"After all these years I still haven't found a way to hide that damn scar, have I?"

The white feather lying on the bed did not care to respond, yet the man did not complain once.

"How come I have forgotten where I belong? How come I am alone?"

Silence fell. The man dropped his head and felt the cold of the mirror pressing to his front.

"I want to disappear, Hedwig. You know what they say? They tell me I am supposed to be a hero... last night, that little boy down at the Three Broomstick's told me I saved his life. You know, the small, tiny one - he could hardly form a sentence. I ran away, just like that... why can't they just - fuck it."

The room remained quiet, though careful listener outside would have heard the hand colliding with glass. Desperation slowly filled the surroundings.

"I just... lately I have nightmares; lots of 'em. I keep remembering that night at Hogwarts and I wonder, you know, maybe we have all been wrong. Maybe there would have been another way... but then again, I can hardly think straight anymore, can I now?"

The feather did not dare to move.

"See... in order to fight evil you ought to kill evil. Who gives me the reassurance that all the supposedly bad guys are truly evil at heart? Who am I to judge? It's... unsettling. I keep thinking there must have been another way. Maybe I am selfish... who knows."

Shaking his head slightly, the man soundlessly dropped himself on the chair to his left.

"It might be the people who are getting to my head. I miss her, you know. And Ron... if he'd only listen to me. I could explain, you know this too, don't you? You forgave me... you knew I didn't mean to drop you that night. Why can't he do the same?"

Suddenly, if one cared to watch closely enough, the feather moved a fraction of an inch; to the man, this was all he needed.

"You're right. There are many things that should not have happened. I cannot change the course of time, no matter how much I long for it. Did you know they found Draco Malfoy dead some days ago? It was all over the papers... and again, I am wondering if this really is the way it is meant to be."

The man had begun rocking back and forth, his gaze fixed upon that white feather across the room.

"They reckon he killed himself. The conventional way, you see. I keep thinking of that sneer he used to put on. Why did I not see it then? All of them... Slytherins; I had been so biased at that time. Don't shake your head, Hedwig, you know it's true.

"I wish I could do something. It's not fair, the way we treat them now. Are we any better than the ones who tried to eliminate all Muggleborns? I don't think so... and it kills me."

Somewhere, coming from the outside world, laughter rang in the man's ears. Vaguely, almost inaudible, but it managed to make him shudder nonetheless.

"I don't understand happiness any longer. I have lost everything, haven't I? My wife, my friends, my children... even my former arch enemy whom I haven't talked to since the day of the battle. It's ironic, life is.

"I wish I could just stop thinking, bloody hell."

The feather remained still. It knew what was going to come next. The man was weak, he would give in to his own longings, not caring for the aftermath, just wishing for all the pain to go away.

"I - I need the bottle, Hedwig. You won't get mad, will you? I just... I have to forget, right? I can't end up like Malfoy. I have to - I've got to keep my mind occupied with other things than bloody irrelevant questions and thoughts."

No movement. No sound. The man was alone.

"I'm sorry Hedwig. I'm so sorry. I keep forgetting how to be strong... but you must understand, it's the only way to keep me sane. I need reassurance.

"Alcohol makes me forget. You wouldn't know about it. Dead birds never do. One day, I'll stop and you won't have to look at me that way anymore. One day, I'll be able to sort things out - I'm just not good enough yet... no, not good enough. Christ."

The man rose to his feet and slowly opened the top drawer of the desk under the window. The bottle of firewhiskey was half full; the desperate look on the man's face suddenly disappeared and was replaced by a hungry facial expression. He drowned the bottle's content at once.

And he found another bottle. And another one, his eyes slowly losing their focus.

As he crawled under the bedsheets the feather dropped on the floor.

The man did not care.

Imagination has no place in a careless world.