Harry looked left and right but it seemed like no one had been following him.
He found a corner in the corridor and sat behind it, giving some deserved rest to his lungs that, after what he experienced in the Chamber of Secrets, didn't need that small run too.
“This will not reach anyone, I imagine, but I felt I wanted to write again in here anyway.
Probably for the last time.
Hello Tom,
I’m sensing your eyes meticulously scanning my every word while I write them even though you’re not here anymore, but that’s okay. In the end, being delusional is what brought me at this (who exactly knows where) corner in one of the castle’s corridors right now, so in a hurry to steal some time for myself and do this I still reek of blood and the hand holding the quill trembles a bit because it didn’t recover from the strain of holding a heavy sword yet.
(I must look pretty ridiculous, or perhaps more creepy, covered in dirt, curled up behind a pillar with a diary that has seen better days, avoiding the huge hole in its centre to write on it while dipping the quill in said hole to use the ink mixed with blood spilling from it… fascinating I’d say.)
If I’m being completely honest, I still feel vulnerable writing my thoughts on these pages… not because I’m opening my heart to some stranger I can neither see nor hear this time, but exactly because now I know who I’m talking to (or, more precisely, who I would like to talk to) and maybe the fact I’m doing this anyway is ten times worse.
But maybe I’m using the diary all the same without being afraid because I idealized how the old you would be at this time in my view, had he remained the same as then, had he received more love during his past years, if we had met at the time he was a student… it is to him I’m writing I suppose.
Being totally honest (and in spite of myself trying to condone what I’m doing right now) my judgement on this matter is heavily influenced by outsiders more than by me: the few things I know about the present you were told to me by others, while the rest you told me yourself. And this is what makes it harder to not empathise, to pretend I don’t feel certain, deep down, that I’m the only one who knows the real you.
Because let’s be honest, being able to truly talk to someone, to read while they open themselves completely and get vulnerable for you only to see, may weight heavily on what you think about them.
That being said, I feel lighter admitting at least on paper it really hurt when I realised who you really were…
No, are.
When we used to talk daily I felt such a strong connection between the two of us, and the truth stung me bad, knowing I kind of related to some of your ways of thinking, how our first approach with the wizarding world and certain experiences at Hogwarts were so similar… I can’t help thinking I might be a monster too. Or that in the end you’re not so unhuman as the others try to portrait you…
Is this too a sign why the Sorting Hat suggested Slytherin as the first option when I wore it? Are we really so alike?
I don’t know, you can’t answer me, and I also have no desire to ask someone else…
By the way… why am I here writing all of this? It is as simple as it looks actually.
I just wanted to vent in a private place far from other people’s opinions. You’re not here anymore Tom, so I can take out all the frustration you caused me right on you, and at the same time I’ll have the serenity of knowing you can’t actually read what you did to me anymore, how vulnerable you made me during a mere year.
My only consolation in this mess of emotions I’m feeling is that what I shared with you will remain in these pages with (in a certain sense) my you. None of the words exchanged here will ever be known by him, so at least what we had can be ours only, uninfluenced and safe from the latest external events.
Guess, in a way, you got what you wanted.
You didn’t kill me, you didn’t come back as a real living person either, but you managed to grasp enough of my attention to attract me again (even after you attempted to murder me during our encounter) to just a filmy memory of you, dangerous and fascinating, like a snake with beautiful scales I want to admire at the risk of it being venomous.
So I believe it will take you nothing to lure me again next time you come back, where and when you’ll want me to be.
It is wrong for me to feel this kind of attraction at the present time.
I hope it’ll get better with time eventually, it’s realistic if less than an hour after discovering who you really are I still struggle to really realise it, right?
I’m making an effort to, though. Being unaware, I lulled myself long enough in these pages, so I’ll come out of this sort of dream we shared as abruptly as it’s necessary to wake me up.
I’ll take my leave now.
I was egoistical enough to snatch the diary in my cloak and sneak away from the Chamber as soon as I saw an opening for me to do so, but now it’s time to put all of this aside and do the right thing.
I must go hand over the diary to Dumbledore, this moment I selfishly took for myself is overdue and I have to bid my farewell to you, wishing to never feel this pull to write to you again, although with a heavy heart.
Goodbye Tom,
to never see this part of you so dear to me again.”
“Hello, Harry.”