A Pair of Tennis
When he was ten, Harry Potter got a new pair of tennis shoes. They were size ten, three sizes to big for him, but as his uncle reasoned when picking them out, that just meant he would not need new shoes for many years. Harry’s feet had always been bigger than his cousin's, meaning he actually got new shoes. Well, as new as shoes from a second hand thrift shop in town could be. His uncle had put off getting Harry new shoes, till the soles had completely fallen off from to much use during his physical education class. The teacher had complained.
So that night he brought home his nephew’s new shoes. For a moment Vernon Dursleys felt a bit guilty at how happy the boy was for a pair of old smelly tennis that were three sizes too big, but only for a moment.
Harry loved his new shoes, they were the first piece of clothing he ever owned that never belonged to Dudley. Sure they were slightly faded, and had grass stains on the bottom. Sure the back was so worn that he could slip his foot into it without even needing to tie the laces. But he still loved them. They were faded yes, but in a comfortable sort of way, that made him think of them as the type of shoes you really live in, not just wear one or twice. He loved the way they felt when he ran in the rain. He loved how he could jump in the mud and it wouldn’t show, for the shoes were already muddy beyond belief.
Every day, rain or shine, he slipped on his tennis and walked to school. Every day they carried him away from Dudley’s gang. Every day they heard the sounds of his aunt and uncle yelling at him and sat with him in the darkness of his cupboard afterwards. They worked with him in the garden, squatting on the dirt, weeding, till they groaned with pain. They saw his good days and bad, his sadness and happiness. They saw his last day of primary school and his first trip to the zoo. They were puzzled along with him when their owner was suddenly taken out of his cupboard and given his own room. They were there when Vernon Dursley went crazy and moved his family to an island in the middle of the ocean during a storm, because of a few letters. Then when Harry Potter found out who he really was and left his relatives behind.
They walked with him as he saw a new world and learned that things aren’t always what they seem. They were the only ones who really saw the Boy-Who-Lived, in this new world. They were the only ones who never saw him as famous, only as the little nameless boy he had been. They saw him cry at night for the parents he never knew. They saw how the weight of the world settled on his shoulders, how he slowly left his childhood behind. They saw and knew that people treated him like a hero, instead of the child he really was. How people looked upon him when things when bad to save the day, to be the good golden boy and get them out of the mess.
They also felt him shaking when at the tender age of eleven, when he was sent of to face one of the most powerful wizards in the world by himself. They felt him wishing he could go back to the cupboard, back to his naive dreams of what it would be like to be needed. They felt the stink of the sewers when again they were sent to save the day, to slay a Basilisk all on their own. Secretly they wondered why they had been chosen from all the shoes in the world to be the ones always having to wade thought sewers and muck to help save the day again and again. Couldn’t anyone see that they were wearing out, that soon the whiteness would be gone and they would be muddy and faded, forever?
But no one did, Harry still was called on to save the days, always wearing his white tennis, which were no longer anywhere never white. Like him, they had lost their beauty and become hardened and broken. Sometimes Harry would look at them, wishing he could go back to before, when he still had shoes too big for his feet, instead of these, which were still to big for him, even after all these years. Yet, he still loved them, he could never image replacing them with different ones. For they had been on his feet when he had first pushed of the ground on a broomstick and found the love of his life flying. They had been there when he had made his first friend, when he had found his Godfather. When he went to his first date and got his first kiss.
So through the years, Harry still woke up every morning and pulled on his white tennis. They stayed with him as he grew, as he entered his third, fourth, fifth year of school. They were there when he battled a dragon, feeling his feet tremble as he realized with relief that somehow he had done it again. They got left behind when he went to swim in a lake later that year. Waiting, anxious on the bank while he played the hero without them for once. Secretly they hoped he would forget about them when he got back, that some other boy would slip them on and they could live happily ever after, like they knew their owner never would. But he came back, the hero once again, blushing from the attention, slipping them back on, as they resigned themselves to their fate.
Oh, yes, they were there in the graveyard as they saw an innocent boy fall in front of them and another one change forever. They saw their enemy rise from the dead; saw how his followers came back to him, like nothing had changed. They felt their owner shaking, as he realized that he was completely alone. They saw the ghost of the past come to life, felt the rays of power around them. Then they dodged the curses and carried Harry away from his enemy, back to a world, which had lost some of its beauty that night.
They were the only ones Harry Potter felt comfortable enough letting his wall down in front of. They went with him as he tried to run away from his pain, to get away from everything and everyone who would never understand him. They seethed with anger as they were sent back to the Dursleys after all they had gone through. They wanted to let the world feel what they felt, wanting to do something, to kick someone.
They watched as the world begin to turn against them. The world which they had give up so much to protect, slowly thinking they were frauds and showoffs. It was plain now that they were falling apart; their uppers were peeling away from the lowers. Yet, no one seemed to care, every day Harry still put them on and continued to go about his life as if they were perfectly fine. They tried to tell him, they became too tight, pulling against his toes every time he walked. What could Harry do though? He had had these same tennis shoes for so long, he couldn’t imagine letting them go, getting another pair of shoes. They had done so much for their owner, and now, when they needed him to be there and let them go, he wouldn’t. Harry grew angry at his shoes, thinking it was their fault for being so tight and worn out, that they were badly made, when it was he who had run them ragged.
No matter how much Harry wanted to deny it. When he was fifteen, almost sixteen, Harry Potter needed new shoes. So he pocketed the little Muggle money he had and went down to the town thrift shop. No matter how much he looked, he just couldn’t find another pair that were like his old ones. They all looked so strange and forbidding. Then in the very back corner he found a pair of faded white tennis that were good enough. So he bought them, left the shop, letting his old pair carry him home. One last walk for old time's sake. Up in his room he pulled of his old battered pair and stuffed them under the loose floorboard. They sat there, looking up at their owner, sadly. Yet, knowing it was for the best, he had so much left to do with his life and they were too worn out to help him. They watched, as Harry pulled on his new pair, privately happy when he had to tie them, as the backs were new enough to not slip on.
Years went by, and they sat there, under the floorboard. The dust grew, till they were no longer a faddy, brown color, but instead white again, covered by layers of dust. They remember fondly the days when someone wore them. They remember the way the mud felt under their soles, how they could splash through the rain without soaking their insides. They remember the lonely boy who was always saving the day. They wonder where he is now, if he ever got his wish, if he ever did live happily ever after.
But mostly they wait.