Ice Cream Truck

I really do hate Harry Potter. Many people think it´s just a façade I put up; that I´m jealous of him and that I want so badly to be like him; to be his friend. It´s not true. I absolutely despise Harry Potter. Ever since the moment he refused me on the train. It wasn´t so much the embarrassment. It was that he refused me. Nobody refuses me. I had thought that perhaps if I befriended him, Father would be so proud of me as would be The Dark Lord when he got back. Not only that, but Harry wouldn´t die that way. He´d be on our side and The Dark Lord would win and nobody would stand up to him and the whole world could be ours without bloodshed and my whole fantasy came crashing down when he refused my hand. I remember it as if it were yesterday, though it´s been several years. Father had told me about him; that he had seen Harry Potter in the crowds getting on the train and that it would be his time to go to Hogwarts anyway. It was planned - that I should go to Hogwarts the same time as Harry Potter. Me and Crabbe and Goyle. This was, of course, before The Dark Lord had his plan to kill Potter the first time. About two years before. When they found out that his mother was pregnant, I was conceived, as was my small posse in order to be able to keep an eye on him during our years at Hogwarts. It seemed quite a wonderful idea until The Dark Lord found out where the Potters were hiding. Then it seemed wholly unnecessary, but now it´s back to being useful. Useful to kill him. God, I can´t stand it.

The night of the Quidditch World Cup. I remember it crystal clearly. Chaos, everything was distorted, though I knew what to do and where to go to stay away from the rampaging crowds. I had seen scenes like this before. There were blurred faces running past and dark shapes flitting through the forest in the dark night. One could hardly see, but in the middle of it, as always, was Harry Potter. Potter and his despicable friends. But I knew what would happen to her if she was out in the forest. Much as I hate the three of them, I´m not quite a Death Eater. It´s not fair for anyone to die, no matter who it is. Not Potter or Granger or Weasley. Despicable folks, yes, all of them. I am a supporter of The Dark Lord, after all, but not of death. So I told her to get out. It hurt me to be almost kind, but I didn´t want her to die. Nobody deserves to die.

To be truly honest, I don´t want to be a Death Eater. To be a Death Eater means what its name implies: death. As fascinating as I find the Dark Arts, I don´t want to kill anyone. I´m not going soft. Ever since I saw death for the first time...

Not many people know this, but Harry´s mother had a miscarriage before she had him. She was only about three months pregnant; I´m not even sure if she knew yet, but of course The Dark Lord did. When he found out that she was to have a child, my parents were commanded to have one as well. I had a sister once. When she was two, The Dark Lord decided that she wasn´t really worth keeping alive. He didn´t want her to possibly ruin everything by exposing us during her time at Hogwarts. Any extra people around that weren´t helping could only be a hindrance. So my first memory is of when I was a year old. I was playing in my room with her and a tall, pale man in dark robes came to the door. He whipped out his wand, pointed it at her, and muttered something. There was light and then she was dead. I never found out if it was Father or The Dark Lord. I never wanted to know.

I asked about her once, after a vain search to find her grave. I wanted to see her, apart from the pale face, wide eyes, and slightly parted lips that I saw against the green plush carpeting of my room. We had never even had a funeral, to the best of my knowledge. My mother went blank and she just sort of stared off into space. My father glared at me and his lips became pursed. "We do not speak of her," he said sternly. I never brought her up again.

The Dark Lord has another plan to kill Harry Potter. It seems almost repetitive, as if it were some fantasy world with some hero and an evil villain. But this is real. And this involves me. I´m supposed to kill Harry Potter. But I can´t do it.

I can´t do it. But either way, someone will die. The question is, who? If I bring Harry Potter to The Dark Lord, he will be killed. He can´t keep pulling out his miraculous escapes forever. If I don´t, I will die. I could say it was an accident and that Potter somehow managed to escape once again, but it wouldn´t matter. He´d still kill me. So the question is: do I want Potter to die, or should I sacrifice myself? If I sacrifice myself, The Dark Lord would merely find someone or some other way to kill him off. If I turn Harry Potter in, he might be able to escape, but I wouldn´t be able to live with myself for turning him into die. And then, of course, The Dark Lord would just go after him another way. But nobody deserves to die. Nobody.

Why can no one else understand this? Everyone at some point wants someone else dead but it doesn`t mean that they ought to be murdered. I bet Potter wants me dead, if not The Dark Lord, even if I don´t really want him six feet under. But I don´t know that for sure. Maybe, just maybe, he thinks the way I do. Maybe, just maybe, we´re not so different after all. And maybe, just maybe he´s in Gryffindor because of one moment of his life where he wanted to be a Gryffindor. Maybe, just maybe he´s only there because of what he was told about Gryffindors. He would have made a good Slytherin if had grown up in our house and around other Slytherins. But he didn´t. And now he´s put me in this position. Me or him? Him or me? Both of us have to die. It´s up to me to decide which of us should go first. I can´t ask anyone about this. Not Harry or my Father or the other Slytherins. Not The Dark Lord and most definitely not Dumbledore. So what do I do?

If I take my own life, I won´t have to be caught up in any of this and everything will be over. But is that really what I want to do? You only get one chance at life and I haven´t been alive long enough to enjoy it. On the other hand, if this is any indication of how my life is going to go, I might as well kill myself now. I don´t want to be alive through this.

Death. It´s a funny thing, really. No one really knows what happens when you die. All beliefs are based upon faith rather than solid evidence. Ghosts know what happens, but not all people are ghosts. What happens to the others? Paradise seems an unlikely solution. People aren´t that good and we´re not that much adapted over animals to life that we ought to be treated special. Paradise came from the human mind which is why animals do not reside there. And besides, who would set it up? There certainly isn´t enough room to store the seventy billion people who have already died on this planet. It all seems so unlikely...yet I do want some reassurance of my happiness if I take my own life. Or maybe it´s like a fire. Extinguished. Once it´s gone, it´s not somewhere else. There may be others like it, but that fire is no longer there. And eventually the light from it will dissipate and it will be forgotten. Is that what I want? That´s what will happen. But nobody deserves to die. Nobody.

So then, back to the final question. Harry or me? Is this one long suicide note or one long apology to Harry? Are there no other options? If I join Harry, I´ll be killed for betrayal, if not by The Dark Lord, then by my own parents. Even Snape will get his comeuppance one day from someone. Besides, I don´t want to be sided with the likes of Potter and Dumbledore and their cronies. Though they are powerful. And that´s what it´s all about, isn´t it? Power? All The Dark Lord really wants is power over others. It gives him pleasure to have people grovel at his feet; to have people kiss his robes and to watch them plead not to be tortured. If I was a psychologist, I might say he had some family problems as a child, but I´m not. To me, the guy is just a sick-minded, power-hungry man who controls my life. Or my death. Whichever way you want to put it. But I still have to side with him. He´s definitely taken the Dark Arts to a new level where they haven´t been since the days of Salazar Slytherin, or perhaps farther. Even Slytherin died. He knew that everyone has to. And it is a little intimidating. Potter stood up to him. And won. Four times. No one´s ever done that. Perhaps I should join them...if it´s for power...they have most of the world on their side.... Or perhaps I should just get it all over with. It´s relatively easy. A simple curse. That´s all it takes. It´s worth it...isn´t it? But nobody deserves to die. Nobody.