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I come here because here they all leave me alone. If I’m in the Common Room, or the Great Hall or even the Quidditch pitch then there is always someone on me, giving me notes, asking me things, looking at me.
If I walk down this way, as if I am heading to Dumbledore’s tomb, then they all drop away.
In reality I rarely gives the old wizard’s resting place a second glance. Instead I continue past and set myself down in one of the secluded coves at the edge of the Great Lake. And breathe.
I’ve seen him here as well. Curious if he comes here for similar reasons. While he hadn’t had Riddle in his head, Riddle had been in his house. There, waiting for him to step out of line, while sat at the same table as his Mother. In the place where they should have felt safest.
I wonder if he has the same sense of space, of potential, that I do? I didn’t really feel it until Riddle was dead. So much space in my mind, to take out my thoughts, examine them, roll them around, and consider what they truly meant. Truly felt like. Before then they were instinctive, pared back. Now they are flowing free. It was love/hate, friend/foe, safety/danger, survival/death. Now there is nuance I never knew existed before. I understand more than ever now Sirius’ words on life’s shades of grey. I’m giving myself permission to step into my own shadows.
I’m learning more about who I am, and what I need, in these stolen moments than I think I ever have before.
I’ve seen he is different. I suppose we all are now. But they seem to me to be different around the edges. I feel different in my core, and when I watch him it feels like he might be too.
I listen to the lap of the wind brushed waves. I breathe.
I like it here, where no one expects me to be me. Instead I can just be myself.
I’ve died. I’ve not yet learnt what that means, but I want to take the time to find out. When I’m with others, those who knew me, I find myself thinking the way I did before. I find myself falling back into the worn grooves of my life. It is so easy to.
What I want, though, is to be able to twist my life at an angle and view it all a different way. I know things now I never knew before. And they could change everything. Or maybe nothing. It kind of doesn’t matter. What I’m interested in is the finding out.
It was bound to happen eventually. I think I’d been waiting for it really.
When he sees me he stumbles to a halt, makes to turn around and leave, then hesitates.
“Don’t leave on my account. It’s a big enough shore for both of us.”
He sets himself down cautiously on a rock a few metres away. He looks relaxed in a way I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him anywhere but here. I wonder what has given him the space to breathe. Is it Riddle too, or the absence of Lucius perhaps? Or the falling away of the expectations of the world at large?
I can feel he doesn’t expect anything of me, the lightness of it. He knows I’m not me anymore. I wonder if he can tell that I know he isn’t who he was?
We don’t say anything. I don’t think we’re ready for that yet. But we will be.
I know we will progress from breathing the same quiet air, to sharing words. They might not be many, or even meaningful, but they’ll be the start of something, just as this quiet moment is.
It’ll be the start of something I know will be important. For both of us.
We breathe.