Blame It On The Weatherman

Blame It On The Weatherman

My name's Harry James Potter, I'm sixteen years old, I'm a wizard, and I live with my Aunt and Uncle (both first-class Muggles of the worst kind) because both my parents are dead. Oh, yeah, and now my Godfather - the closest thing I ever had to a parent - is dead, too. Life, as they say, is absolutely bloody brilliant. I'd only known Sirius Black for two years, because he'd been in the wizard prison, Azkaban, for twelve years prior to that, having been wrongfully accused by one of his former friends of murdering my parents. The friend in question, of course, was a liar. But there's not much point remembering all this now. It's not like it's going to bring him back, is it? I swear to whoever it is wizards swear to - Merlin? - that if I ever find Bellatrix Lestrange, I will kill her. I'm sure Neville Longbottom would help if he had the chance. Bellatrix is the same person that was solely responsible for the incapacitation of Frank and Alice Longbottom - Neville's parents - and the fact that they no longer recognize their own son.

Remus Lupin says I was more than a son to Sirius; he says I was a best friend, too. I'm not sure if I believe him, but it'd be nice to think it was true, and even if Lupin is just trying to make me feel better, it's still a good dream to have. Actually, it's one of only a few good dreams I have left. There's that one; one where my parents never died and nor did Sirius and everything's great; and one where I'm with Draco Malfoy. Usually, I don't admit to the last one, even when one of my best friends, Hermione Granger, accuses me of - and I quote - 'fancying the really expensive leather pants off of him'. My other best friend, Ron Weasley, hasn't noticed a thing as usual. He's been acting strange ever since that day in the Department of Mysteries; hasn't said much to me about anything other than homework, Quidditch, and girls. Every time Hermione seems about to mention Sirius or anything to do with him, Ron interrupts her with an increasingly confusing barrage of random information. Quite frankly, I couldn't care less about either of them at the moment, and I don't know if I'll ever be happy again, or if I even want to be.

It's just one more day.

No one said

There would be rain again.

Won't blame it on myself,

I'll blame it on the weatherman.

I found Ginny Weasley cutting herself the other day. I think I was part of her problem. She didn't actually say as such, but she didn't really have to. It's strange because I thought she was over me, but obviously I was wrong. I keep finding myself thinking about it, although I don't want to, and I even offered to help her. We have a solution where, whenever she feels like doing it, she comes to talk to me, but I don't think she will. There was a kind of loneliness, of absolute and utter despair, in her eyes that was oddly familiar. I didn't even realize where I recognized it from until I looked in the mirror that evening. That was when I understood just how messed up I was, but I don't think it really matters. Why should I care how I feel, when Sirius is dead? Nothing's going to change that.

It doesn't help that I have Draco Malfoy on the brain. The poncy, arrogant, Slytherin prat has no business being in any way related to my mind or any other part of my physical anatomy. And that platinum blond hair - what exactly is he supposed to look like? Captain Peroxide? But that's not the point. The point is that it's driving me crazy and I have enough to think about without him torturing me. McGonagall - as in Minerva, the Head of Gryffindor - asked me to come see her in her office earlier in the week. She wanted to talk about how I was feeling. I just glared at her for a while, and I think she got my point. She kept sending me pitying looks all day, though... maybe she thinks I've gone mad. Maybe she's right.

Get away for a while.

Here I am

Out on my own again.

Won't blame it on myself,

I'll blame it on the weatherman.

I hate Severus Snape. He's the Potions professor and the Head of Slytherin - that's my worst subject combined with my least favourite house. The trouble with my hatred of him is that it doesn't let me ignore things he says that are true. I got a message from Dumbledore, you see, telling me to talk to Snape. Ron read it over my shoulder and exploded with sarcastic rage. It was rather funny, actually, but I couldn't understand much of what he said. Mostly, I think it was just how on earth would talking to Snape help solve anything, and Hermione countered it with something along the lines of 'well, it just might help, you know.' Personally, I agreed with Ron, but I'm not so sure anymore. Anyway, I'm digressing. Snape told me how much he missed Sirius, too, and said he knew how I was feeling (at which point I glared at him pointedly), but then he continued to say that he had actually fallen for Sirius whilst they were at school together, but had never said anything about it and now he never could. I actually found myself feeling sorry for him... and then I remembered that he was probably talking a load of crap because Dumbledore put him up to it. But then I got thinking, and maybe in all that crap there was a point, which was probably something like at least I had him for a while or something. It didn't make me feel any better, though.

That evening, Gryffindor went on to beat Slytherin in the first Quidditch match of the season. Our team's great now that Umbridge has gone; Ron's the Keeper still, but he's improved a lot; I'm the reinstated Seeker; and Ginny got to be a Chaser, which was what she originally wanted to be. And we won! I will never forget the look on Draco Malfoy's face when I caught the snitch two whole seconds before his hand closed around empty space. It was spectacular. Speaking of which, so was the party the Gryffindors threw afterwards, and Hermione got so drunk I'm not even sure she remembered half of what she did. Ron and I know she remembers the part where she kissed Seamus Finnegan, and that she said something weird about mushrooms to Colin Creevey, but she hasn't said a word about the declaration that she secretly harbours feelings for Snape. Maybe she just doesn't want to talk about it, and maybe it was just the drink talking anyway. But don't you say the things you mean when you're drunk... or is it when you're angry? Sirius would have loved it if he were still here. But he's not, and I can't seem to understand why.

Standing on the shore,

Calling out your name,

I was here before.

I could see your face;

Only clouds will see

Tears are in my eyes,

Empty like my heart.

Why d'you say goodbye?

It's funny, because there's this girl called Luna Lovegood - who is totally insane - and she keeps telling me that he'll come back. She says there was a way to get to the people behind the veil, and we just had to work out how to do it. Ever since she lost her mum, she says, she's been doing all these stupid tasks and inventing potions and spells to get through, but she hasn't managed it yet, so I think she must be wrong. And surely if there was a way to get to them from where we are, they could get to us to... and Sirius would come back. He wouldn't leave me here all alone when I'd only just found him. He wouldn't do that to me... except he did, and it hurts. It hurts every minutes of every day, like there's this massive hole inside me where he used to be and nothing I know of can fill it. Time heals all wounds, they say, but every day the papers report somebody new who recently lost someone and couldn't cope and the entire fiasco resulted in suicide. Maybe that's the only solution there is. It would be so much easier if I was dead, and I'd get to see him again, and maybe my parents, too.

I don't know why his death has hit me so hard. I never really knew my parents, so I couldn't mourn much for them, and I only knew Sirius for a couple of years, so there shouldn't have been much difference. Maybe it was because I'm older now and I knew what was happening and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

The rain goes on (on and on again),

The rain goes on (on and on again).

I went to the top of the Astronomy Tower at midnight last night. I was going to throw myself off the top, but something stopped me, and I hesitated. That hesitation was enough for Draco Malfoy to come out of the shadows and ask me what the bloody hell I thought I was doing. I looked into his eyes and saw real fear there, not for himself, but for me, and I caved in. I told him everything that I had been feeling and all the confusion and everything that had been going through my mind, and what I intended to do. He told me his brother had died when Draco was ten, and that he had had a hard time letting go and dealing with it all. As it turned out, Snape had helped him through it, and Draco told me he was staying with Snape at the moment because his parents were having some problems. That was when I realized that I was human, just like Draco was, just like everyone else was, and I was allowed to have my emotions and feel upset if that was what I needed to do. Draco told me that he had even kissed Snape once, but nothing had come of it; they were just like an uncle and nephew now, which Draco said was better than being lovers or anything. It was quite hard to believe that Draco Malfoy - who could have anyone he wanted - had actually liked Snape, but I grinned and told him how I felt about him. He grinned back and said, "Dream on, Potter," but then had finished with telling me how he felt the same - minus the Captain Peroxide comment.

We had a bit of a moment after that, but then he went back to the Slytherin common room and I returned to the Gryffindor one. I pulled out a Muggle Walkman that I had bought a few years ago and listened to the tape that was in there. Sirius had enchanted the Walkman to work within the Hogwarts grounds, and I was listening to the song that Sirius and I had declared our song, mainly because we both had it stuck in our heads for about three months, and partly because it was simply a good song. Listening to it, though, brought back memories of Sirius and the tears came, as, inevitably, they must. I lay on my bed and cried, the song playing over and over on the tape, and I finally understood that Death wasn't some evil thing with a scythe that came to take our loved ones away because It enjoyed doing so and seeing the destruction and devastation It caused. Death was, in fact, something that had to happen to everyone eventually; something that made us stronger; something that we just had to learn to live with because there was nothing we could do to stop it. Death, I eventually decided, was another part of life - the grand finale.

Alone, I can hear,

Hear our song

Playing for me again.

Won't blame it on myself,

I'll blame it on the weatherman.

The next few days were better, and Draco was on my side. We actually spent a lot of time together, talking in between classes, and occasionally even sitting together in lessons. We found out that we even had stuff in common, and he asked me to tell him about Sirius. I did, but it was on the condition that he spoke about Eric - that's his brother's name - as well. I said we should have seen something coming beforehand; I had so many clues that Voldemort didn't really have Sirius, and I ignored them all. Apparently, I was blinded by my love or some such thing, and Draco keeps telling me that we should always expect the unexpected. I pointed out to him that such a thing was logically impossible, because if you expect something - be it 'unexpected' or not - it was always classified as expected. But he just said that nothing was impossible and that we had to believe in ourselves. Then Hermione helpfully pointed out that the word 'ourselves' also has the word 'elves' in it, and this prompted her to go off on some vendetta about S.P.E.W and demanded to know why we weren't being helpful. To shut her up, Ron offered to pin badges on teachers whilst they slept, but Hermione scowled at him. I really don't know why.

The nights got better, too. I had been having trouble sleeping before Sirius died, and after it the whole concept became absolutely pointless, since all I did was think about him whilst lying on one side, then think about why I couldn't save him whilst lying on the other, and finally get up and go to sit by the fire in the common room and think about whether it was ok on the other side or not. That always bugged me; the fact that I didn't know if he was all right, or what had happened after he fell through the veil. He couldn't really expect me to know unless he told me because I'm not psychic and he ought to have known that perfectly well.

Standing on the shore,

Calling out your name,

I was here before.

I could see your face;

Only clouds will see

Tears are in my eyes,

Empty like my heart.

Why d'you say goodbye?

I had to speak to Dumbledore, on top of those incredibly great conversations with McGonagall and Snape, but he didn't make me say anything unless I wanted to, so most of the time I sat there in silence until he said I could go. Other times I yelled at him, but then when I had to go yesterday to see him we had a proper conversation and Lupin turned up and he spoke to me about Sirius and there were all these memories and it was great, but I ended up crying again. On the bright side, Lupin was crying as well and Dumbledore left us to it. I realized just how much of a great guy Dumbledore is, and I think Lupin thought that too, once, though I'm not so sure about that anymore.

The war with Voldemort has come and gone. We won, in case anyone was wondering. Of course we won... like I was going to let Voldemort get away with what he did to Sirius. I knew one of us had to die in the end, obviously, because Dumbledore told me last year; I just always thought Voldemort would kill me, rather than the other way around. It's strange, though, because I always thought if it came down to it, I'd feel guilty, because killing someone is murder whatever way you look at it, but I don't feel guilty at all. If anything, it's the opposite. I'd've done anything for Sirius, and I knew my dad would have been proud of me... Lupin told me so. Maybe that's why I don't feel ashamed of what I've done: I have my dad's permission. That means more to me than I could ever explain, so I'll just leave it at that. My father, James Potter, would accept that I did what I had to, and he would have done the same thing in my position, so I can relax. But why do I still feel like something's missing?

The rain goes on (on and on again),

The rain goes on (on and on again).

I've had a lot to deal with in my life. That's what it is. And now here I am wallowing in self-pity. I'm as bad a Peter Pettigrew... well, nearly. All the revelations that have come out recently have kind of put everything into perspective. I've always thought the world revolved around me, although I didn't want it to. I've seen everything from my own perspective my whole life, and never bothered to find out how everyone else was coping with life, because nobody seemed that concerned about anyone except me. I was the Boy Who Lived, whilst Ron and Hermione were just my friends, and everyone else just people around me. Nothing else mattered, except how I was feeling, or what I was going through. Now I see that everyone has stuff to deal with, and that my problems are no different, really, than everyone else's - everyone else just has them on a smaller scale, although to the person it seems as though nothing else matters or is important in any way, shape or form.

When I step back and look at the big picture, I guess it makes more sense... Ginny's been self-harming, Lupin's lost his best - and last - friend, Draco's been verging on the suicidal, his parents are probably splitting up, Snape's lost the man he loved and never got the chance to tell him, Luna lost her mum and went insane, Ron's family have overlooked him his entire life, and Hermione is forced to keep up her good grades because she's an only child and has so many high expectations to live up to. Everyone's life sucks, in conclusion, not just mine.

Maybe it's too late.

Maybe it's too late to try again.

Maybe I can pray,

Maybe I can wait,

Maybe I can blame the weatherman.

I had a dream last night that Sirius came back. Maybe he will, some day. And maybe if I keep telling myself that, I'll eventually believe it. Whatever, though, he'll always be alive as long as there are people to remember him. At least, that's what Dumbledore told me. I always used to think that when you officially became a grown up they had some kind of initiation ceremony and you would be told the answers to all those questions you had as a kid. I now know that that's not true in the slightest. If it were, surely I'd know a little more by now. But I suppose we just all have to learn those answers for ourselves, whether we like it or not.

I've taken to praying recently. Not to God, because I gave up on Him a long time ago, but to Merlin, who I know actually exists because there are historical records of him and things he's done and all that. If anyone could bring Sirius back, he could. Although I see no reason why he should answer any of my pleas to him... I'm nobody to him anyway... just one more face in the endless swirl of people in this world. Whether I want to be just another brick in someone's wall or not, it looks like that choice was made for me a long time ago. We can't change the world, so what's the use in trying?

The rain goes on (on and on again),

The rain goes on (on and on again).

When I woke up this morning, there was a note on my pillow. It said that to the world I may be one person, but to one person I may be the world. That was rather sweet and refreshing, but I guess anonymous notes aren't exactly the best way to restore confidence in oneself. Maybe I should just give up, like Draco tried to that day in the Astronomy Tower. He was going to jump, and maybe I should have let him - and then followed him myself. As Hermione says, though, I have a saving people thing, and I just can't help myself. I can't stand to see other people suffering, so I try to stop it, and for a time I can forget whatever I'm going through. It helps a bit more than alcohol, I can tell you. I just wish Sirius would come back.

People in my life have a tendency to go away, and more often than not, they don't come back. Maybe it's something to do with me, and maybe it's not... that's one of those questions I was talking about earlier, when I mentioned the idea that we found the answers as adults, which we don't. I think Lupin feels as guilty as I do over Sirius' death, because he keeps coming over to me and saying how sorry he is. I told him there was no point saying it, because sorry never helped anything, but he still says it, just the same. There is no reason that I can see for all this pain and suffering, unless we're all being tested and Sirius has passed the test and moved on to somewhere better, the same place my parents went to... maybe ghosts are still around because they failed the test and now they're doomed to repeat it forever. Or maybe I'm the one that died, and this is hell. Maybe that night in October when Voldemort attacked us in Godric's Hollow didn't happen the way I thought it did, and I died instead of my parents... that sounds like a better explanation than the one everyone keeps giving me. But whatever the truth, I have to admit that I'm neither ready nor willing to accept the fact that Sirius Black is dead and gone for good.

Oh, blame it on the weatherman.