Silent Affections
The forest whispered its secrets as Harry sat alone by the embers of the fire, his back pressed against a jagged tree trunk. The glow of the coals flickered across his face, casting shadows that made him seem almost ghostly, distant from the world around him.
He stared out into the trees, his eyes unfocused. His thoughts were not here in the dark safety of the forest, but back in the stone halls of Hogwarts. Back in a place that had been home in name only.
He knew what they thought of him. He had always known.
The teachers were the easiest to read. Concern shadowed their every glance. Whispers followed him down corridors. "He’s too quiet." "He doesn’t talk to anyone." "Do you think he’s alright?" Always pretending they cared, as if their concern wasn’t rooted in guilt or obligation. Not one of them had truly seen him.
Not McGonagall, who looked at him with disappointment when he broke rules she didn’t understand were necessary for survival. Not Dumbledore, who smiled and twinkled and spoke in riddles, always keeping Harry at arm’s length, as though he were a chess piece instead of a child. Not Snape, who seemed determined to see the worst in him, as if punishing Harry might erase the shadows of another man.
And the others? They called themselves his friends.
He let out a bitter laugh, so soft it barely stirred the air. Friends. That word felt hollow now. They hadn’t seen him either. To them, he was a trophy. The Boy-Who-Lived. The brave, untouchable Slytherin who somehow defied the expectations of his house. They admired him, cheered for him, but none of them truly knew him.
They thought him cold. Distant.
They were wrong.
“Cold?” he murmured into the night, the word bitter on his tongue. His voice was steady, devoid of the emotion he couldn’t quite express. “No. I cared for every single one of you. More than I ever knew how to say.”
He had loved them in silence. In the way he memorized the tilt of Ron’s grin, or the way Hermione’s hand shot into the air before a teacher could even finish their question. In the way he watched Blaise’s sharp wit unfold like a blade, or the way Pansy softened when she thought no one was looking.
He had cherished them all. Even Draco, whose barbs and taunts were a language of their own, a desperate need to be noticed in a way that wasn’t pity or disdain.
But Harry never said anything. Couldn’t say anything.
The Dursleys had taught him too well. Words were dangerous. Words revealed too much, gave too much away. Words made you vulnerable. Vulnerability was weakness, and weakness was punished.
And so, Harry watched and listened and loved in silence. And they never noticed.
The teachers hadn’t noticed either. Not their prodigy. Not their “brilliant Slytherin.” Not the child who had learned to wear masks so well that even he sometimes forgot who he was beneath them.
He had survived on cunning, on instinct, on the walls he had built so high that no one could scale them. Trust was a foreign thing, a concept he observed but never experienced. Adults? They were worse. The Dursleys had made sure of that.
“They never saw me,” Harry whispered, his voice barely audible above the rustling leaves. His green eyes, so often compared to his mother’s, stared into the darkness as though searching for something he knew he would never find.
The embers popped softly, a reminder of the present. But Harry didn’t move.
He thought of them all—the teachers, his housemates, even the ones who had only ever passed him in the hallways. He had loved them all, in his own way. Quietly. Fiercely.
“I didn’t need your pity,” he said softly. “I didn’t need your applause or your expectations or your worry.” His fingers dug into the rough bark of the tree. “I just wanted to be... enough. For someone. Just me.”
But he never would be. He had learned that long ago.
Here, in the forest, he didn’t have to pretend. The mask was still there, of course—it always would be—but it was lighter now. He didn’t have to meet anyone’s expectations. Didn’t have to be the Boy-Who-Lived or the cunning Slytherin or anything at all.
Here, he could just exist.
And yet, as the night stretched on, that hollow ache remained. The one that whispered of a longing he didn’t have the words to name.
Harry tilted his head back against the tree, closing his eyes. The forest was quiet now, save for the soft breaths of Teeth slumbering nearby. For the first time in days, Harry allowed himself to exhale, his shoulders sagging slightly.
He didn’t need anyone. He never had.
But oh, how he wished someone had needed him.