Locked-Away Apologies to No One

I´m sorry. I´m so sorry. I´m sorry for only being human and for not being everything everyone wanted me to be. But I´m only human. I´m only fifteen. I´m still a child. I´m only one person. I´m only human, but I´ve let the whole world down. I´ve failed just when everyone needed me the most and I´ve given up at the one point in my whole life that I couldn´t give up. I lost.

I knew he was coming for me, I just didn´t know when, but that´s no excuse. I should have prepared better. I didn´t try hard enough, didn´t give it my whole life. That´s why I´m still alive. I thought just winning a wizard´s duel was enough, but I didn´t know I had to murder him, too. Cruelly, brutally slaughter him. And so when he lay there on the floor in a pitiful heap, I turned my back on He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. How foolish! No, he didn´t curse me to pieces. He´s said it before and he stuck to it: he will beat me, but he´ll do it honestly, even if nothing else in his whole existence has been done honestly. And so when I turned my back on him, I left him with a little bit of strength, and he got up again. He got up and he called to me and I turned around and he banished me away. He didn´t try to kill me, because he knew that those foolish people who have sympathy and love and compassion for others, for them just being alive while every one dies at their hand is worse than anything he could imagine or carry out. Death isn´t that bad. Life is worse, or at least mine is, now, and he knew it, and he punished me with it. So now I´m left to stew here in my own misery while I think how I failed the world.

I thought I was at the end of my rope, and I thought he was, but it turns out we both could have been stretched farther. I knew I couldn´t go on any farther, so I turned to leave, thinking he couldn´t either, but as it turns out, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named still had that last bit of magic in him that banished me, and I still had that last bit of life in me that keeps me alive now when all I want is to die.

That´s right! I want to die! I, Harold James Potter, want to die. I want nothing more or less than to end my life now no matter how painful it may be because I can´t stand being alive; I can´t stand the thought of having to face the world after what I´ve done to all those innocent people. Because of me, their friends and family are dead: because I didn´t was too proud to prepare for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and too selfish to give up my life to get rid of his and so, instead, hundreds upon thousand of people are dead and are dying right this minute. And I, a coward Gryffindor, could not stand up to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and give my life to save his. Give my life to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

It´s almost funny. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. People won´t speak his name because they´re afraid of him, but I refuse to speak it because I hate him too much. First, he took away everything I ever knew and loved. Then he gave me part of himself so I´m not able to die and so for the rest of eternity I have to smile quietly and stand by watching everyone die and my whole life shatter.

I miss my mother. I miss her so much, and I didn´t know her, and I miss Hermione and Ron and Neville and some shepherd in Austria and a baby in China and an old man in Zimbabwe and all the other people who died because of me, but most of all I miss my mother. She, too, died because of me; she died for me to become something I´ll never be. And I miss all of that, but all I want now is someone to come and hold me and comfort me and tell me it will all be okay. That´s all I ever wanted from a human being and don´t get me wrong, Hermione and Ron were the best friends I could have ever had, but they weren´t my mother. All I want is for someone to love me for no reason beyond comprehension no matter what I do, and the only person who could do that are my parents, and they´re dead. But it doesn´t change anything. I, a fifteen year old teenage boy, the brave, bold, wonderful, Harry Potter, want to be rocked to sleep and tucked in at night and sung lullaby´s and be told that I´m loved. I want to be loved! That´s all I ask! Is it too much for the world to provide? I´ll save the world and be the hero in return for just a little love. And even that´s too much.

So maybe I gave up on the world. Maybe that´s why I turned away, because I didn´t think the world was worth my saving if they couldn´t just provide me with the one thing I ever wanted. Thinking about it now, I might have given up on them. I don´t remember now, and I might have just been pushed beyond my magical limits, but I also might have just given up on the world. I don´t know. I don´t know! I just want everyone to leave me be about it, but they won´t. They´ll keep prodding into my thoughts and asking me why I turned my back on them and why I didn´t save them and why I let so many people be murdered, and then I´ll know I´ve gone crazy. But I´m sorry, too.

I´m sorry to all of the millions of people I´ve let down; to all the babies and the children and the adults and the old people for not being stronger. I wasn´t strong enough to save them when everyone was counting on me. I didn´t choose this destiny, but I have to uphold it anyway, and I couldn´t do that. So now I´ve let the whole world down and gone and stayed alive, but killed off everyone else. And now that everyone´s gone or dead, there´s no one left to scold me or love me, but there will always be one person left to hate me. What an existence I must live out! I won´t think about that now. I can´t think about that now, because then I´ll give up entirely on having a chance to die.

Everyone´s gone or dead. That seems so odd to hear. Those that aren´t dead are in hiding, but they won´t be able to stay that way, and those that are dead died hating me for not saving them. Hating me! Imagine! Hating me, the only person who has kept them alive for the past fifteen years, and the one time I slipped, the whole world hates me for it! They´re all ungrateful. I hate them all. And I want to cry for them.

I want to cry for them. That, too, seems odd. I, Harry Potter, cannot remember crying in my entire life for anything. I never cried when I was hurt as a child, because it seemed pointless with no around to care. I never cried at Hogwarts because I couldn´t let my guard down once from being the hero everyone needed me to be, but now, when there´s no one around to hear and no one alive left to care and no hero left to be, I can cry. I am crying. I´ll fall on the floor and ball up my fists and just cry for everyone who´s dead because of me. I´ll cry for all I´m worth until I can´t cry anymore, and then I´ll cry some more for myself who couldn´t cry for anything until now when the whole world is lost and I have nothing to do but stew in my own thoughts and cry. And now that I can´t stew in my own thoughts anymore, I´m going to cry.

If only they could see me now! The famous, wonderful, brave Harry Potter! Mr. Too-Good-To-Be-True really was too good to be true. And now that I can´t take what the world has given me, I´m giving up on the world. All I ever wanted was to be a normal kid and watch that poor Boy-Who-Lived and pity him for all he has to endure, but instead I had to be that poor Boy-Who-Lived and everyone pities me if they can raise themselves from their hatred of me long enough to see that I am only human and to understand that I never wanted any of this thrust upon me. But they don´t understand. The fame is wonderful in their eyes. And, though so many years ago I would bite my tongue for ever saying anything of the sort, I´d like to admire Gilderoy Lockhart for being able to so completely carry on his fame. Of course, he´s long dead now and, though no one really deserves to die, the world isn´t that much worse off. But what about those that the world cannot live without? Those that my world can´t live without? Hermione? Ron? My parents? Professor Dumbledore? Even Draco Malfoy with his childish hatred will be missed from my life because even he, in some respects, exemplifies the old life with my perfect world. Draco Malfoy was naught but a thorn on the rose of my life, but he was part of that flower which was my life. And now my rose has all but died. It cannot die because I am part of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and he is part of me and he is immortal so I am, too. So the rose of my life can never die and I´ll be forced to live out my life in this cell with the only companion I know in this world to be He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. At least this cell cannot show me a picture of the world as it slowly withers away to nothing and all life stops in it. And all life will stop, eventually, for I am not a real life any longer and neither is He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

Ah, this cell. How long have I spent staring at its hallowed walls that open no farther than the width of my arms. The black, charred walls that greet me each time I awaken, the same as they have been since I was thrown in here, weak and dying, yet never as close to death as any mortal could be. I´ve estimated that I´m somewhere off the coast of China, however, with all the people gone from the world, it matters not where I am.

There is one hope for me, but it requires so much more than I´ve ever been able to do, and it requires doing what I so selfishly coveted for my own: life. If I were to stop eating, my body would eventually be rendered useless and my mind would leave it. I would be weak and powerless, but eventually I should be able to make my way through the charred walls of my prison and ride the tide back to my home. Perhaps, if I could find one person who is willing to sacrifice themselves in a way which I was previously unable to, I might be able to share his or her body until I could be strong enough to fight He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named on my own. The only reason there is a way of getting around my cell, however, is because He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named went through a horribly excruciating process in order to become what he is, and he would never think that anyone would willingly put him or herself through this, but that´s what I must do. And, if I can do it in time, perhaps I can save the world from the fate which I was unable to prevent from happening before. Now I know what I have to do, and, to save those who my scar swore to protect, I must murder myself, in a manner of speaking. At the very least, perhaps I can hope that my scar will follow me to whichever body I choose and use my mothers love to protect me from any further harm. If not, I´ll just have to try my best and hope that the world might somehow be able to survive on its own. So I´m sorry, World, that I´m not as perfect and wonderful as I was supposed to be, and I´m sorry for letting you down. I´m sorry for not dying when I had the chance and saving you all instead. I´m not the hero I was destined to be. And I´m sorry. Truly I am.