Legend

'Act one is the end, the show now begins.'
- Rozz Williams

act ii

One day you wake up famous, and you go to sleep famous, and you do that for years, over and over, except you don't know you're doing it.

You think you're the boy who lives under the stairway, and you're mostly right -- but not completely, because you also live in small children's heads, spinning about in their dreams. You fall from their parent's lips as a bedtime story, and everyone pretty much believes you sleep in the clouds, like an angel. Most of them would never admit to it, though, because a lot of those people are grownups.

You wake up and go to school, and no one is very nice to you because your clothes don't fit right. It's a stupid reason not to like you, but then you look at your family and their shoes that don't need cloth stuffed in the front to keep their heels from slipping out, and remember that people like them. You don't feel too bad sitting alone at lunchtime anymore.

There are trashcans on the side of the school yard, beside the dumpster with the thick metal casing that has dents deep enough for you to fit your feet into and climb, and that's where you always run when the boys whoop in that way that means trouble. The cans clank as they're smacked with bony kneecaps and thud from Dudley's thick, padded ones, and that way you can hear them coming.

Uncle Vernon lets you know when he'll be coming home late, so you can keep a plate warm for him, and when you uncover it and step back sweat is shining on his brow and he's too tired to do anything but eat and push you aside as he heads for bed. "All right Harry, " he says, in a slushy heavy-lipped voice, and you nod very quick. Those are good nights.

Day and night sort of flip-flop in your head, because the nights are your days. Night is when you're really living. You can lean back on your mattress and listen to the house sleep. It makes soft contented sounds beneath your feet and above your head, and you can feel the walls maybe breathing; at least, it seems like it. Sometimes you can jingle the lock and climb out to sit beside the window, watching owls dip down from the trees and squirrels scurry across the lawn.

You peer up the stairs to see your uncle's briefcase bulging beside his bedroom door, and imagine rows and rows of desks with telephones that ring each hour to tell you what you're doing wrong.

You think:

These are the best days of my life.

act iii

This is how you know you're wrong:

A man raises such mighty fists to the door that you first believe he is a giant, and he says your name, first and last, like prayer. He rescues you from a high tower, like a damsel in distress, and tells you that you're the knight in shining armor. You learn that so many people care about what you've never really questioned - that you live.

You never questioned many things, just washed the pots and pans that needed washing and picked up the mail and learned to write very clearly so that you could sign for any packages. And you're stupid, stupid, because it all was a lie.

There were monsters in the closet, maybe, and the sky is blue because a lonely child painted it that way. "It's like magic," you can whisper, and they can't say no. They can't anymore. You watch walls peel back.

The secret world that you go to inside your head is beneath your feet in flat, cold cobblestone. It says hello over and over again, like a song, and when you meet a boy in a store he talks back. It's like you matter and everything.

He doesn't seem to think you know much, and he's right, but he speaks to you like he really is expecting answers, and it's the most marvelous, fantastic thing. You think you're a little bit in love with him for five seconds, and then it passes. He has smaller hands than you, with small white moons on his fingernails, and this is how you picture him in your head until you meet again - those hands gesturing with lazy boredom in the air.

You think you need a sidekick if you're a hero, and then there one is, with freckles stained upon him. He can just sit and watch you, and he's happy. He's one of the first things you've ever really owned, like the owl and the wand, though you will never tell him that. His name is short and to the point. It fits well in your mouth.

act iv

Every hero has his song and dance.

You look like you're losing until you pull through, last minute, and everybody loves you except for the people who aren't allowed to; if they did, you wouldn't notice. There are monsters you can slay and monsters you must evade by closing your ears and eyes to them. You live and it's still the most special thing about you.

That will change.

The song has a looping chorus that sings, 'Pull up a chair and sit down with your shadows beside you. Watch your table and your teacher and send parchment with snow-white wings. Take mark of your enemies. Forget five seconds, just five seconds of the flurry of days that have gone past.'

It whispers, to save you, ''Don't listen to their screams.'

The dance has two steps - step forward, kick, and step back - and it's so close to the Charleston that you must have the Muggles in your blood, and that's why it's so easy to love them.

In your dreams you're waltzing, but they're dreams so you can do that. They are blurred with ash and the boy and his hands and his fingernails, and those seconds spread out into hours, but that's okay because you need to do this sometime and you can't do it awake.

You tell yourself, later, that he was laughing at you. You picture his face.

You have birthdays and wash blood from your forehead and arms, and they say that means you're getting older. You say, "thank you," and tell yourself you mean it, and watch the Sorting Hat sing a new tune every new term and tell yourself you like yours just fine.

Sometimes you can slip on your cloak at half-past midnight and slip out the dormitory door, padding through the hallways until you reach the Great Hall and a window. The hedges glisten from moonlight and the distant meow of Mrs. Norris is the only sound you hear.

Your nights are your days and your days are your days and you don't sleep very much.

act v

You say, one day, "Did you know I've always loved your hands?" and the boy looks at you like you're crazy, and you want to explain about how you're a hero and this is first of your last stanzas of song, where you lay waste to a kingdom for a beautiful woman - except you don't like women too much, so it will have to be a man.

It's too much, would take too long, and your feet are stepping back, and you need him to come with you, so you kiss him. He tastes like the hisses that can slither over your tongue, and probably slither under his skin - because some part of him knows that part of you. You speak into his mouth, and he can't hear you but he can.

They warned you, but as the story goes you never listen. He could ruin you, you know, you always knew, and you want to let him. You let a hand settle on the back of his elbow, brush the robes that drape over it and down, and don't check for a mark because there's no point in knowing, because a hero's lines are written for him, before he draws his first breath.

You'll do this anyway.

You say, "I'll make you famous," and you wonder what he'll make you, and he lays fingers on the back of your neck.

end.