A Terrible Monster
There is this terrible monster that lives in his chest, eating away at the pieces of himself that he used to be, and he doesn’t know who he’ll be when the monster has had its fill. He doesn’t say this aloud, of course, for that would be meaningless. These are inside thoughts, the ones he can’t share because people get that look on their faces like he’s got some terminal illness.
Perhaps it was a mistake to think the hardest part of it all was going to be the final battle. In the end, he thought they’d win, and then, so suddenly, so quickly, as though he’d been walking on ice he didn’t know was thin and fell into a bottomless, frigid lake, he’d learned that no one ever wins in war.
The hardest part was never going to be the final battle. That was never even an option, but he didn’t know. He was young, and he didn’t know. Has he ever known anything at all?
He didn’t know that the one person he thought was on his side wasn’t. Not really. He was a prop in a game bigger than him, and everyone seemed to see it but him. How foolish, right? How incredibly foolish to believe the people in your life that are meant to care for you might actually do so.
And then, just when he had something of his own, one person who saw him, wanted to see him, to take care of him— they died.
He wasn’t going to believe that everyone in his life was going to die on him, or leave him, or make him into something he isn’t. There’s a bad history there, but it couldn’t possibly be his fate. He didn’t believe in fate anymore. Sometimes bad things just happen, they’re just unfair, and there’s nothing to be done.
Sometimes there’s just nothing anyone can do.
He doesn’t say this aloud, because for some strange reason, people seem to think, even though he still feels like this little boy locked in a cupboard, that he’s got it all figured out. They cling onto his every word and ask for a photo, an autograph, or a conversation, and he poses, and signs, and says things he doesn’t mean.
If he said the things he felt, the things he knew— no one would think he’d ever had anything figured out at all. That all he thought about in those days following the end of the war, was that he wouldn’t ever shake any of this, any of it, that it would cling to him forever and he was pretty sure it was going to kill him. But he hates that look. The terminal illness one. So he keeps his mouth shut.
He keeps his mouth shut and the monster feeds, and things are worse than before the war. This is the worst part, isn’t it? The beginning of forever feeling like this. Like nothing has ever been in his control and never will be, and wondering if anyone can see that, if anyone can breathe this air in when it’s so thick and how they do, because they do, and they smile and wave and it’s like the war never happened at all, and maybe for them, it didn’t. But it happened to him. He was the war, wasn’t he? How does he shake that off?
And maybe pretending is the worst part, too, maybe everything that comes after is the worst part. He doesn’t think he can do it anymore, join his friends at the pub and laugh over drinks, and talk about work and life— god, his life is falling apart, isn’t it? He can’t keep up with the letters and the nights out, and pretending he likes going out in the field and saving lives as if he hasn’t saved the entire world and that should be enough, and maybe it never will be enough because the monster just eats and eats and eats him up, the parts of him that believe that maybe it is enough.
Maybe that’s it, then. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe he’s given too much of himself and when the monster has its fill, it will be full of him and his, and he’ll be nothing but bone. Sometimes he feels like nothing but bone.
“You’re not even listening, are you, mate?”
Harry blinks, lifting his gaze from his glass of whiskey and the alluring waves he made by hand, and Ron is cocking a brow at him, a smirk on his lips. And no, he wasn’t listening, and on top of everything else, he’s a bad friend too. He shares a sheepish look with those at the table and mumbles out an apology.
They wave him off and continue with their conversation about quidditch. For some reason, when people talk about quidditch, there’s this pressure in his chest like someone's trying to break him open and he has to suck in these short breaths before he can’t breathe at all.
He does, sucking in these short, paced breaths, takes a sip of whiskey like the burn is a solvent, and perhaps it is, because it makes breathing through conversation that feels trivial a little less harrowing. Does everything feel trivial now? Is he absolutely fucking ruined?
He laughs when his friends do, leaning when Seamus leans into him with his laughter, and smiles when the others smile, and he hates it all. It feels useless. The lot of it. And it’s the way he feels, and maybe he should go home, because he feels like he should go home, and the mind healer with the Aurors says they should listen to their feelings.
And so he does, mumbling something about getting a good night’s rest as he stands from their table at the Three Broomsticks, and pats his friends on their backs, and mumbles more things about being safe and seeing them later, and he doesn’t believe a goddamn word that comes out of his mouth, but they all seem to, and maybe they’re the bad friends.
He stumbles out of the pub and into the low light of the moon, and his eyes squint because the light isn’t low at all, the moon high in the sky and wide and possessive of the darkness, and when was the last time he saw a full moon?
He stands there, on the corner, staring up at the moon. Is it lonely up there? Is it lonely to orbit when no one is orbiting you? He’d never been one for astronomy, but looking at the clear sky, he sort of wishes he knew any of the constellations. It’s a good night for stargazing, or something, so he sits down on the ground right there under the stars, and he wonders if they think all of this is hard too.
They’re laughing back in the pub, surely Seamus is now leaning into Neville, and they’re all inside warm and drunk. And goddamnit, how can they do any of that like nothing has gone on?
He picks up a pebble, two, three, and throws them across the way in succession as hard as he can. And that feels good, so he does it again, and again, and again, and then moves from his spot on the ground to find more pebbles in another spot.
The ground is sort of wet and cold, he sits down anyway, and pries up rocks, this time, to share in his anger, if that’s what this is, and then he’s sending rocks across the way into the darkness and he can hear Hermione in his head scolding him, but she’s not here, so he does it again.
But someone is there. There’s this groan from within the darkness and he stills, eyes widening, tightening his grasp around the rock in his hand. He doesn’t know what to expect to come out of the darkness of Hogsmeade, but it isn’t him.
“Merlin and Morgana, Potter, what the fuck? Why are you punting rocks into the fucking woods?”
The monster gnaws in his chest, and his eyes narrow at the sight of Malfoy, who he hasn’t seen in years. He brings his arm back, rock in hand, and chucks it.