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Jet colored hair ruffled and mused as though in a breeze despite the lack of wind, obscuring emerald eyes which gleamed purposefully behind round, brass framed glasses. The tall, sturdy figure to whom these melancholy features belonged to strode evenly down Privet Drive. His steady, unspoken command for respect left mothers aghast, small children to stop a-midst their games, and fathers to lock their doors as they watched safely from their windows the fascinating creature who disturbed their monotony. His dark, though rather faded cloak, whispered in the blood of the setting sun as the young man swiftly picked up his pace…and broke into a run, heading for number 4.
You told me how proud you were, but I walked away
If only I knew, what I know today…
Fleeing madly down the street, his valiant stature disturbed by his mad sprint, as though he were trying to outrun his very skin. Yet, even the famous Harry Potter can not accomplish such a feat. His mad bolt could not free him of that menacing voice whispering in his ear, or those memories, or the scar. In a desperate need for physical pain to release him from his inner hell, Harry slammed directly into the plain, perfectly ordinary door of Number 4, Privet Drive. Resting his head against the despicable, though comfortably familiar russet structure, the truth finally caught up with Harry, on that very spot. It was then, that Harry Potter, decided that it was time to say goodbye to the lost ones:
A smiling, wizened face with gleaming, aqua eyes gazed, brimming with pride and love, over Harry through the years…that face that would never smile again.
I would take the pain away,
Thank you for all you’ve done
Forgive all your mistakes
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do
To have just one more chance
To hear your voice again
Sometimes I want to call you
But I know you won’t be there
If only Harry had fought harder. If only he had insisted that it be himself instead. If only he had…if only he could’ve…if only…if…If only he had been there to hold him up as that man had held Harry his whole life. Harry had never even gotten the chance to thank him for…everything. (for keeping his father’s cloak, for saving his life, for holding his secrets, for teaching him magic, for always being there, and gazing into Harry’s eyes with love only a father could have for a son) None of that crazy old man’s mistakes mattered anymore. In fact, Harry couldn’t even remember when those few errors mattered in the first place. Each and every on of them had been done out of benevolence. Yet, the worst aspect wasn’t the ‘if only-s’ or the regret, or even the lost love. No, the worst part…the worst bit was knowing that there would never be anymore lemon drops, or wisdom, or half-moon spectacles, or snowy beards…or redemption.
For everything I just couldn’t do
And I’ve hurt myself
By hurting you
The next life to drift so excruciatingly and unwillingly across Harry’s mind, was reflected in mischievous grey eyes. Harry remembered those stormy eyes to well for comfort; framed by a matted black mane, in a boyish face that had known the coldest, rawest cruelty and warmest, purest amity. All of the time lost to loathing a man Harry had for so long thought to be a traitor, brought tears previously held back by sheer focus, forth to his eyes from their years long retreat. So much time that he could have spent laughing, spent talking…spent saying ‘I love you.’ Harry regretted more than anything the time he spent indifferently hating those eyes, when he could have been understanding and loving that man behind them who had suffered so much and yet still yearned to give more. Even now Harry doubted he would ever know the true depth of that man’s love for him.
But I won’t admit
Sometimes I just want to hide
Cause it’s you I miss
It’s so hard to say goodbye
When it comes to this
How could he lose that father, that brother, that friend? To his own stupidity none the less. Harry never even had had the chance to say he loved him…’childish’ didn’t matter anymore. How could any of them be gone? They had been so strong, and Harry had never expected to lose them all…not like this.
Would you help me understand?
Are you looking down upon me?
Are you proud of who I am?
His very first loss; his parents were the ones who had influenced him the most, and yet he had never even truly known them. Where were they now? How could life just end like that? Where they watching over him? Did they even care?
To have just one more chance
To look into your eyes
And see you looking back
Harry would give anything to just see them once…to gaze into those green eyes he had always seen in the mirror, and that black hair that rested upon his own head. Those two people who had given him so much and wished to give him more, but never got the chance.
How could he have blamed them for his cursed and tortured life? Born to take a life, it was not their wish for him, and now…
For everything, I just couldn’t do
And I’ve hurt myself
Ohhhh!
I would tell you how much I missed you since you been away
And ohhh, it’s dangerous,
It’s so out of line
To try to turn back time…
As if mesmerized, Harry dazedly lifted a delicate hour glass figure that had been left to him by Dumbledore…how could he risk everything and everyone to just see the very people he knew that he would be with so soon? Before he even finished the thought, his fingers had spun the time piece innumerable times-flying through his life, being dragged through it in reverse, to view everything so clearly even though only in a moment as he witnessed everything he knew-and then he was on the black palette roof of a small white cottage with a garden and picket fence. His glasses reflected the light from a small nursery with pale yellow walls as he gazed in on a young couple rocking their newborn. The mother’s vivid eyes brimmed with tears as she tickled her small child in the arms of her well built, messy-haired husband. Her red hair cascaded gently down her shoulders into the tight fists of her baby. The man turned slowly as he hopped carefully in a little jig, gold tinted eyes gleaming as he danced to his child’s coos. Harry pressed himself dangerously against the glass in a desperate attempt to push through the gap of time, and fall into the arms of his parents. Turning on the spot before he completely lost himself, Harry was just in time to witness a hunched, little figure point a black cloaked being with a mask of white and the bloody eyes of a snake in perfect range…he raised his wand, yet he let them go. Spinning through time once more with the echoing screams in his ears he felt rough, knurly ground meet his knees as he watched an emancipated man with windy, matted black hair grab hold with firm hands onto the shoulders of a boy, and lift the veil of pain and regret shielding his passionate grey eyes as the thirteen year old Harry gazed upon the freedom loving, laughing face of his Godfather, knowing even then how that man would come to mean to him. He started as a rat ran across his feet squeaking, and heard the screams of a friend and ally as Remus Lupin’s whole body rebelled against the moon into a monster, and Severus Snape came close enough to Harry that he could have taken them both. And yet, he let them go, as he spun madly to end pressed against the hard stone wall of Hogwarts, his beloved haven. He stood aghast and watched, passively, as his mentor came crashing to the ground, and Harry let him fall as he spun madly through time once more with the screams of battle ringing insanely through his torn mind. He watched shakily as his sixteen year-old self made the biggest mistake of his life, leaving Ginny and abandoning his friends for a fate equally to that of his enemy. After all, friends and choices were the only thing separating him from the insanity of his foe. Yet Harry watched them go…Knowing all to well that changing the bad, would only alter the good as well, and what would his life be without those good moments?
For everything, I just couldn’t do
And I’ve hurt myself,
By hurting you
“What are you doing here, boy?” a large, pig like face consumed by a tawny mustache growled, Vernon Dursley’s small watery eyes bulged in surprise as Harry smiled sadly at the man who had torn him firmly back into the present. A tiny squeak turned Harry’s meaningful gaze onto his aunt Petunia, his mother’s sister, concealing her obscenely gluttonous son Dudley, who had taught him to fight through victimizing him. Pushing past his aghast and burly uncle, Harry hugged his aunt, for taking him in, and for being his last family, and whispered a single word: “goodbye.” Turning on his heel he raised his wand in the maniacal cackling of madness, to face the fate he knew would come: win or lose, he would finally greet all the lost ones, all those he had only just now finally found the courage to let go…the mangled, war torn members of what remained of the Order of the Phoenix watched as Harry Potter fell, his eyes filled with triumph at his crumpling opponent, and a single word on his lips...
For everything, I just couldn’t do
And I’ve found myself,
By loving you…
“...Hello.”