Flawed

I wish you would stop yelling. It's getting quite annoying. I think you must think I'm still listening, that after all this I care what you say to me. You're wrong. You've been wrong about everything.

I don't want to listen to you yell at me, it makes me remember everything you and your friends have put me through. I won't listen, I won't. I don't have to. You have no right to pretend to be the good guy. You have no right to pretend to have a claim on me. You have no right to think you know me.

I loved him, god damn it. I loved him. But you can't see it, can you? You never could. You thought when I cried after That Day, it was because I was scared and had been tainted or some other nonsense. But you were wrong. Wrong, god damn it, wrong! It was because he killed him! He killed him! He was gone. I could never see him again. Never. And it was all Harry's fault.

You thought he tried to steal it from me, tried to steal my life, but you were wrong about that too. I gave it to him. I gave it to him willingly, because I loved him and he loved me. But you couldn't understand something like that, could you? You thought you knew what love was, what with your silly crush on the Mudblood, but that's all it was. Any pain you got from her not really seeing you was nothing compared to my pain. He was dead. How could anything else compare to my agony? He had died. And I hadn't saved him, hadn't stopped you. I didn't want to live. That's when I got those pretty little scars you almost fainted over. But I was too weak to go through with that too.

But eventually I got over Tom. I forgot how much I loved him, how beautiful he was, how much I loved talking to him, how much I longed to hear his voice, to feel his silky hand against my cheek. I remembered those few moments when I was fading and bringing him to the world, and I saw him for the first time. And he kissed me for the first time. It plays over and over again in my memories each night before I fall asleep.

I thought, even if I had lost him, I might at least still have you, and my friends. But I wasn't good enough for you, brother, you never let me in. They never let me in. Conversations stopped when I entered rooms. You wouldn't make room for me in your little circle. I was alone.

The first time I realized how alone I was, how much you locked me out, I wanted him back. I needed him. I was his forever; he had marked me as his. I needed him now, but I couldn't have him. Why? Because he had been murdered. And you had helped.

Oh my, are you really still screaming? I think it's been more than ten minutes now, you must be running out of breathe soon. I can't believe how surprised you were, when you found us. It was really pathetic in a way. As if you thought that after pushing me away and away and away I wouldn't turn to someone, better. You rejected me, and you still expected me to want the poverty, the anguish, the heartbreak, the humiliation, the eventual glorious Gryffindor death of being me, the little Weasel brat? Well, you were wrong. I'm not that weak. I found someone better; I found him.

He doesn't love me like Tom did, no one ever could. And I don't love him like I loved Tom; I can never love anyone like that again. He knows, and he doesn't care. He likes things just the way they are. He doesn't think it's wrong either, like you do. How could it be wrong when both of us have been searching for someone to make the pain go away, for someone to accept us, to let us in, to bring some pleasure when nothing else does.

You hate him even more than you hate Malfoy, I think. I wonder whether it was because he treated you like you deserved to be treated, or because I was with him, and that went against all your little values and morals? I don't think it was immoral, because how could anything immoral have felt that good, and how could "depravity," as you call it, bring me some happiness when all morality and bravery and honor brought me was pain and pain and more pain?

You know what, brother? I would do it again. I don't regret a moment of it. I don't regret loving Tom, and I don't regret Snape. I don't even regret forgetting that you had a detention with him and getting caught on his desk when you walked into the room. Because now you know, and I can stop pretending to be your good little sister, when all I want to do is scream how much I hate you, and your life, and your friends, and your "values." That's right, I hate you. Because you were wrong about so much. Because you never let me in. Mostly though, because of how surprised you were that I wasn't perfect.

I'm not. Not at all. I'm flawed, and I don't care. I love it. I love being flawed, because if loving Tom and Snape is a flaw, then I don't want to be perfect.

Good, you've finally stopped screaming. In fact, you've collapsed on a chair and you're panting for breathe. Hmm.

I walk over to you, lean down and ignore your startled gasp and the surprise once more in your eyes. I brush my lips against yours, and I whisper,

"Goodnight, brother dear."

Then I walk out of the common room and to the dungeons again.

~~~~~~