Chaotic Forbiddance

FATE’S P.O.V.

Time seemed to go fast. The carbon dioxide fell flat out of my lungs, as I greedily sucked up oxygen to battle the sensation in the pit of my stomach. Harry Potter: fourteen, weedy, can’t pick up a hair brush for his life… a Triwizard Champion? That couldn’t be.

Surely it was a fluke? A jovial prank to keep the masses interested in the controversial name? I assumed someone would start laughing any minute, holding up his hand in guilt of placing his name in the goblet. No hand arose, no laugh rippled through the crowd as an inside joke.

We were all outside the box, looking in to find a guilty boy.

“I should go in there,” Gerard mumbled, patting me on the hand as Harry’s ruffled black hair disappeared behind an iron door. My breathing eventually became less staggered, and it took far longer for me to run out of air. Soon reality descended on me and I approached my group of friends, curious to see who was fuming. Fred and George were, of course, chuckling with Frank and Lee to mask their utter repugnance. Ron and Mikey glared holes through the door, as if they had x-ray vision and could see the nefarious affairs that occurred there. Hermione was peering through a rule book Ray had bestowed on her earlier when she was fuming against the attempts at fooling the line with aging potions. I sat down and nibbled on an after-mint left on the table, letting the cool bliss cascade through my mouth rather than look at the door or anyone else.

People began to file out, with only a few small hesitating glances at the door and a great many fastidious gossipers spinning webs of spun sugar and lies. I only found myself willing to tremble at what deep trouble Harry must be in at the moment. I made a small move to comfort Mikey, and myself, by brushing his hand, but all he did was fiercely avoid the human contact. His features were cast aglow in the torchlight, painful fury shading his low brow and set jaw with dark shadows. Ron wore a similar expression, though there was more confusion in his carnival mask.

Neville fell on the false stair and I had to help him, usually Harry was the one who did that. His absence invaded our walk from dinner with even more thoughts of him and his destiny. Once we got to the dormitory, even preparing for bed was a harsh procedure with the thoughts of him pervading my routine. It was subtle, how much he mattered to the people around him, but once the equilibrium was disturbed even the tiniest bit, all homeostasis was gone in a frenzy of whispers.

Even though I was determined to sleep, I pulled on jeans and a camisole and decided subconsciously to wander the halls instead. I was quite good at avoiding Filch and his pesky cat, I found. I hurried towards Gerard’s room, curiosity getting the better of me. Just as I was about to make my entrance, I heard desperate arguing. The choking voice sounded like the deep growl of Mad-Eye Moody, Gerard’s replies made it seem as if he were ready to throttle the ugly man.

“You don’t have the right.” Storm clouds were gathering. I hid behind a few objects, knowing the darkness held me easily concealed.

“You don’t have the right to tell the girl. Dumbledore didn’t have the right to tell her about her parents in the first place.” Moody was being moody, but I knew it was about me as soon as the mention of ‘girl’ and ‘parents’ arose.

“She should know what her parents did. Why she’s not returning to them this summer.” Gerard was fighting for my right to know. What, though, was the knowledge I had none of?

“They just got caught in some old evidence, about time, damn Death Eaters.” A soft puh-too fell out at Mad Eye spitting, but his tone didn’t match his saliva. I ignored it to continue listening.

“They’re her parents. They killed a family of muggles in cold blood. She needs to know what she shouldn’t be.” The shock teemed through my body. I only listened on because I could hear, because I was frozen with utter confusion, not because I meant to hear the rest.

“Have you seen what she’s done to herself? She easily has the capacity to emulate her parents should the Dark Lord rise again.” I was reacting purely on instinct now. I ran into view, wand out in an offensive positioning.

“What did you just say? What are you calling me?” Anger coursed through me, despite my fatigue.

“I didn’t…” I silenced him with my words, talking faster than his gaping mouth and rhetoric could confer.

“Look at me. Look at my wrists. Untouched by some slimy dark mark, or some reeking alcohol, or the hatred and racism that fuels my parents. I’m not even pure blood!” Tears flew out of my eyes now, my teenage emotions reeling at the possibility that the capacity for such sin was in my blood. They stopped themselves quite quickly. It seemed Moody rages slightly for a moment, before collecting his wits.

“I didn’t mean to say that you shouldn’t know, just not now!” He was hardly the most charming man, but like most tyrants, he had a charismatic way with words. His gruff ‘honesty’ would make anyone believe his version of the truth. Were I not on the opposite side of the argument, were it not about me, I would agree with him wholeheartedly.

“I have every right and you have nothing to say in defense because you know it.” My wand turned reciprocators, “You know it too, Gera… Professor Way, you wouldn’t spend time debating if you thought I actually needed to hear it. You were stalling, maybe to protect me, but it was still wrong.” I lowered my wand, realizing that I was threatening my professors, though I had intimate relations with one and I didn’t give a damn what the other thought. He taught more Dark Arts than defense against them, in all honesty.

“How did they die, the muggles? What spell?” I asked them, calmness settling over me as Gerard muttered something about making tea. Clearly he had been in England too long, or he thought we needed some calming jasmine and hibiscus. He wandered off, leaving me with Moody.

“No spell. Twenty years ago your parents tortured a child, a mother, and father. They used knives, not wands.” Moody refused to elaborate any further, despite my pleadings, my morbid curiosity. He stalked out of the room, his wooden stump making terrible hollow noises against the stone as he jetted out. Gerard placed tea in front of me rubbing my shoulders, finding many knots from the tension that built up over just one night.

“I thought everything was finally okay. Then Harry and this…” My voice sounded flat and dull, worn out from the screaming and the silent choking that now emerged as I tried not to vomit. “My parents…” I could not even bring myself to grasp how utterly horrible they were. How they killed a child and then found themselves somehow fit to raise one? What sort of twisted logic was that?

“Are not you,” A couple kisses came my way, but I barely felt them, as I mulled over what he said, “You couldn’t do that even if you tried. Not to anyone else. Never.” His voice wavered at the second phrase, and purely cracked at the last, as if he felt my pain with me, as if he felt sorry for being born because his legacy was as terrible as mine. He didn’t know what I felt.

“But my own body is free real estate, now isn’t it.” I jerked from his talented hands, freeing myself from their judgment, and knocking over the hot tea. I barely noticed as it stained the rosy undershirt I wore, as I received quite a burn from the boiling water.

“I didn’t say that.” Gerard leapt to keep me from harm, but I couldn’t even feel anything but the raging antagonisms in my own heart. He rolled up the soaking hot hem of my shirt, exposing my raw red belly.

“Then don’t say something irrefutable and then go and refute it! It’s not fair to me.” I ripped off the obnoxious bit of clothing, repudiating its brown tinted stain. I walked straight into Gerard’s adjoining bedroom, grabbing one of his tee-shirts. He owed me that much. I continued walking straight, down the stairs, passing his desk, a guitar, and many student desks. I was finally stopped before I made to exit the history classroom.

“You are not your parents. You have done things to yourself, yes, but you’re a victim of your childhood, just as much, if not more, than you’ve victimized yourself.” He planted a few supple kisses on my lips, but I didn’t want those lies relocating into my soul through some symbiotic genetic transfer.

“That’s just an excuse. I’m tired of my life being an excuse.” Walking seemed to be easy from there. Running to the dormitory was even easier. All I did was run because thinking would make it real. Thinking would make me like them.

I expected blood of someone else to be soaking my hands any minute. I expected a knife to crawl its way into the clenched bed of my hand.

I was not disappointed, as I fell into a dark, wet pool of fresh blood.