(HP) Watching
Title: Watching
Fandom: Harry Potter
Author: jackiejlh
Rating: PG-13
Character(s): Harry Potter, Lily Potter, James Potter, Sirius Black, Severus Snape
Pairing(s): Lily/James, Lily/Severus
Warning(s): None
Summary: We sit up here and we watch.
We sit up here and watch. Where ‘up here’ is, I’m not sure. It’s been nearly sixteen years, and I still haven’t figured it out. But it’s not lonely here and it’s definitely not boring, so I don’t dwell on the ‘where’ as much as I did at first. Sirius still thinks on it from time to time, but I think he’s got just as caught up in watching as we have. It’s amazing, really. It reminds me of television-one of the few things I actually missed after entering the wizarding world-in the sense that we can watch everything that’s going on, but are unable to interfere. But unlike when watching television, we can choose which ‘characters’ we observe.
Most often, I watch Harry, my poor son, who’s so very alone in the world. I think we all watch him when we can. There’s no sleeping here, so I’m sure that someone always has their eyes on my child. Someone who loves him, I hope. James used to watch Sirius and Remus a lot, but now Sirius is here to keep an eye on the last living Marauder (the last true Marauder, that is), and James has other things on his mind. With Albus gone, Harry needs more help than ever. All we can offer is watchfulness and prayers, but we give those in such abundance that I’m almost certain he can feel it.
Albus didn’t come here. No one knows where he went when he died, but he didn’t join us in our vigil. Perhaps he knew where ‘here’ is, and decided to go elsewhere. Or maybe this is a place for those who need to watch…. Dumbledore always knew exactly what was going on when he was alive, and something tells me that he wouldn’t need to watch the world from ‘here’ after his death. He probably would have ruined the ending for us, anyway….
Sirius gets bored sometimes. I don’t understand how, but he does. You’d think that all of the time he spent sitting around in Grimmauld Place would have taught him patience, but it seems to have merely made him less content with his inability to interact with his old friends. He once told me that he wished he’d had the chance to become a ghost, because it would have meant that he could still be there for Harry. So far I’ve managed to refrain from admitting that, in a small way, I am almost glad that he isn’t able to give Harry advice anymore. Sirius became reckless in his last years, and there were quite a few times that I cursed him for leading my son down dangerous paths while I was left to watch it happen, unable to control the inevitable problems that arose.
When Harry nods off, I usually force myself to look away. I’ve spent enough hours watching him sleep, and there are other things to see. Very interesting things, at that….
I can watch Voldemort from here. Yes, he’s Voldemort now. When you’ve watched a man day in and day out, watched his failures along with his triumphs, you stop thinking of him as terrifying and see him for what he is: a man. A monstrous man of great power and even greater evil, yes, but still… just a man. I watch as he picks on Peter (and giggle in spite of myself), and as he gives his long, rambling monologues at every single Death Eater gathering, though I usually have to fight to keep my mind from wandering. I have to pay attention in case he actually says something of importance. But usually it’s a bunch of useless blather… he is all powerful, he is the smartest, most skilled wizard to ever walk the earth, he will reign supreme, and so on, generally punctuated by new and wonderful ways with which to cement his position as ruler of the known world. I don’t know how the man gained so many followers in spite of his monotonous meetings.
Occasionally, though, he talks about killing my son, at which point I seethe with anger and pace back and forth, praying for Harry’s safety. The Death Eaters usually roll their eyes behind his back at these moments; they are no more concerned with killing Harry than they are with killing any other little boy. All most of them wish for is power and wealth. A few look forward to a world free of ‘blood impurities’, but I think that they would gladly focus more wholly on ruling the world than with killing off all those that they would rule over, should Voldemort ever give them the chance.
I peek in on Petunia from time to time. That son of hers is truly a mess…. I’ve actually found myself glad that my sister and her husband never loved Harry. He may have been unhappy as a child, but at least he grew up to be a boy who knew how to love, even if he hadn’t experienced that emotion since he was a year old. I shudder to think that he could have turned out like Dudley. James would have had a fit, I’m sure. As it is, he spent the first year or so we were ‘here’ ranting and raving about the way Harry was treated by my family. Finally we learned to console ourselves in the fact that he’d used accidental magic on a few occasions, and he would be heading off to Hogwarts before Petunia and Vernon had a chance to turn him into one of them.
And I don’t mean Muggles when I say them-after all, I was a Muggle for the first eleven years of my life, as far as anyone knew. What I’m referring to is the distinct possibility that Harry could have become a spoilt, conceited, selfish, whiney little brat like his cousin. I am thankful every day that he does not take after Petunia’s family… or James’, for that matter, though I’ll never admit that to my husband. If the Dursleys are the picture of mundane Muggle normality, James’ parents were the perfect example of self-important, pure-blood supremacists. But the elder Potters both passed on before Harry was born, and my son was never exposed to such ideals as theirs. Though I doubt they would have accepted him even if they’d had the chance. After all, he is a half-blood, the son of a Muggle-born. He was filth in their eyes, just as I was. Then again, his fame would have brought them popularity, and I don’t know that they would have been able to pass that up.
When I’ve had my fill of watching my nephew terrorise the neighbourhood children and my sister craning her neck up over the garden walls to spy on the family next door, I usually move on to other sights.
Sometimes I watch the Muggles-especially when the actions of the wizarding community threaten to cause disruption in their world. Other times I’ll just look into Hogwarts castle, observing the students and feeling nostalgic at the sight of the ancient halls where my friends and I used to walk every day. But when James is preoccupied with something else and Sirius is to busy sulking to notice, I allow myself to watch someone that I probably shouldn’t; I watch Severus.
He really is a nasty man, but I can’t help but wish for the ability to talk to him… to comfort him. Not that he shows his distress to the living; no, he conceals any weak part of him with disconcerting accuracy. But there are some advantages to being dead, and I’ve kept a close eye on him over the years. Part of me wonders if the hell that he’s forced to endure is my fault… after all, he hardly would have taken up with the Death Eaters without a good reason, and I worry that his ‘reason’ was loneliness. Severus was always trying to fit in when we were children, and for a time, I almost thought that he could.
I initially befriended him for that reason: he was lonely, and so was I. He scared me a bit, but everything scared me in the new world I’d been thrust into, and I wasn’t overly concerned with his ‘Dark’ side. When he defended me to those that singled me out because I was Muggle-born, I learned to trust him. And when he scribbled the simple phrase ‘Sectumsempra-for enemies’ on the corner of his textbook and slid it over to me, and later demonstrated it by literally slicing a rabbit in half with the hex, I was horrified, but oddly comforted by his willingness to protect me, though I refused to so much as watch him use the hex again.
I was a bit concerned when I realised that those same people that had taunted me in our early years of school were the ones that Severus began hanging around with as we grew up, and was hurt beyond measure when he began hiding our friendship from them, as if I was not good enough to speak with him in their presence. The final straw was when I tried to defend him to James and Sirius, insisting that they leave him alone for once. I was sure that he wasn’t nearly as bad as they said he was… I was sure that he would never hurt anyone without being provoked. I had to be certain, because he was my friend.
But in that moment, something between us changed. I was no longer ‘Lily, trusted friend and keeper of secrets’, but ‘Mudblood’. I never spoke with him in a civil tone after that moment - something I would later come to regret. The next summer I heard rumours that he’d joined the Death Eaters, though I never confronted him on that fact. He later obtained a teaching position at Hogwarts and settled into a routine there, and most thoughts about him quickly slipped from my mind as the war raged on. But I occasionally found myself wondering where his true loyalties lay, and I prayed fervently that I would never cross him in battle, afraid that I would not be able to raise my wand against my childhood friend.
I never did meet him at wand-point, though I know now that he had an unintentional hand in my death. And the moment that we were deposited ‘here’ by whatever power saw it fit to make us ‘watch’ for the rest of our afterlives and I had assured myself that Harry was in safe hands, I searched for Severus; I searched for answers to the questions I’d had about him for years. It wasn’t long before I pinpointed his whereabouts, sitting in his family’s tiny home, a glass of some green liquid in his hands. I recognised it as a well-known, easily brewed poison, and watched in horror as he swirled the liquid around in his glass. He stared at his drink, raising it to his lips countless times and then lowering it slowly, never actually tasting the substance, before smashing the cup against the wall and storming out of the house.
I’d lost track of him when he Apparated, but later pieced together enough information to know that somewhere along the line he’d come to a decision. He swore aloud, to God and anyone else up ‘here’ who happened to be listening, to do everything in his power to bring down Voldemort, should he ever rise again.
Over the years, I’ve come to believe that his allegiance lay with Voldemort only briefly and ended long before that fateful night in Godric’s Hollow, though I have very little information to base this on. Perhaps the only real basis for my assumption is my own hope that he truly had changed sides, and not just pretended to as so many of the Death Eaters did during the days after Voldemort fell. But Dumbledore trusted Severus, so much, in fact, that he placed Harry’s safety in his hands many times, and I suppose that is reason enough for me to maintain faith in him.
That, and years later when an Order member asked his reason for going to such lengths at such a great personal risk to bring down the monster he once served, he stated simply that he was avenging a death. I am sure that he was speaking of someone that passed on long before I ever knew Severus, or in the days after our friendship dissolved, but a part of me hoped, in a small way, that I was wrong. I wondered if it made me conceited to imagine that it may have been my death he was planning on avenging… and what James would say if he knew that I wondered about such things at all.
These days, though, I don’t focus on the past; instead, I spend much of my time worrying about the present and the future. Harry wasn’t the only one deeply affected by Albus’ death, and while my son allowed strength and determination to grow out of his grief, Severus seems to have simply become more sullen, angry, and dangerous. God, sometimes I wish Albus was ‘here’ with us, if only to provide us with his insight…at this point, I don’t know what to think.
I know what I saw, that’s simple enough. I watched as my once-best-friend killed a man that I loved and respected, a man who was one of the only sources for answers (and protection) for my son. I stared in horror as the green light enveloped Albus, and watched as his body lifted up over the wall and fell to the ground below. And I watched as Severus’ face paled much more than I thought possible, a fleeting look of pain dashing across his face as he turned away from where his mentor and trusted friend had been only seconds earlier.
When he ran from the castle, pushing the Malfoy boy ahead of him and away from the battle, I followed him with my eyes. I was witness to his fight with Harry, and witness to the anguished, tortured expression on Severus’ face when he was labelled a coward. My mind and heart were torn between fear for my son and fear for my friend through most of the battle, and I hated myself for even thinking about Severus when Harry was so obviously in danger.
I want to believe that there was more to that horrific day than I know. After all, while Severus had the opportunity to kill Harry on a few occasions, as well as a few other students and staff members, he did nothing more than Stun those he came in contact with. The obvious exception to this, the death of Albus… well, there was a lot going on that I didn’t see, and not knowing the whole story, I’ve managed to convince myself that there is a good chance Severus had a reason for doing what he did. Although perhaps it is only wishful thinking coupled with a more-than-healthy dose of denial that allows me to believe this.
And even though Severus helped the Malfoy child escape, he now claims that he doesn’t know the boy’s whereabouts-or the location of Narcissa Malfoy, for that matter. I’m hopeful that he’s hidden them away to keep them safe, and that I simply missed that conversation somehow. I need to believe that I’m missing something…. I refuse to accept that there’s no more to Severus than James and Sirius saw back in our school days. I refuse to accept that my first school friend is truly evil. But I can no more read minds than that Trelawney woman can, so I’m just as confused about Severus’ loyalties and goals as everyone else.
It scares me to acknowledge the fact that I think about these things quite a bit more often than I should, and it terrifies me to realise that I would be no less interested in-and fascinated with-Severus’ life if it was proven that only Voldemort held his devotion. And I will always feel guilty, because I’m certain that I should have done something, anything, to prevent what has happened, if only by simply discouraging Severus’ Dark tendencies more often when we were younger instead of laughing them off. They say that life is full of regrets… it seems so very unfair that I had few regrets while I was alive, but have so many now that I am no longer in a position to rectify my mistakes…. But I have an eternity to spend regretting my actions, and there are far better things to do at the moment, such as concentrating on blocking all thoughts of Severus Snape from my mind. Though I suppose this would be easier if I didn’t allow my eyes to seek him out almost daily….
Sometimes I wish that I wasn’t imprisoned in this ‘place’, forced to observe the world of the living when I can never again participate in it. Other times I’m simply glad that I have the chance to see it, if nothing else. I do know that I pray my son never ends up here, as much as I’d like to spend the rest of eternity with him. Harry is too much like his godfather in the respect that he has no patience for sitting idly by and watching things happen. Honestly, for being so huge, this place makes us all a bit claustrophobic, if only because we can never leave.
And I wonder what will happen when there is no longer anyone we wish to see. What will we do when those that we remember die? What interest will the world hold for us when there’s nothing but strange faces to look at? Perhaps we will finally leave this place at that point… or maybe we are cursed to stay here forever. If that is the case, I don’t know what we will do. Sirius, I’m sure, will simply go mad. James and I… I try not to think about what will happen to us.
But even if there is no other comfort in this ‘existence’, there is this: each day is different, and there is always something interesting to watch.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Author: jackiejlh
Rating: PG-13
Character(s): Harry Potter, Lily Potter, James Potter, Sirius Black, Severus Snape
Pairing(s): Lily/James, Lily/Severus
Warning(s): None
Summary: We sit up here and we watch.
We sit up here and watch. Where ‘up here’ is, I’m not sure. It’s been nearly sixteen years, and I still haven’t figured it out. But it’s not lonely here and it’s definitely not boring, so I don’t dwell on the ‘where’ as much as I did at first. Sirius still thinks on it from time to time, but I think he’s got just as caught up in watching as we have. It’s amazing, really. It reminds me of television-one of the few things I actually missed after entering the wizarding world-in the sense that we can watch everything that’s going on, but are unable to interfere. But unlike when watching television, we can choose which ‘characters’ we observe.
Most often, I watch Harry, my poor son, who’s so very alone in the world. I think we all watch him when we can. There’s no sleeping here, so I’m sure that someone always has their eyes on my child. Someone who loves him, I hope. James used to watch Sirius and Remus a lot, but now Sirius is here to keep an eye on the last living Marauder (the last true Marauder, that is), and James has other things on his mind. With Albus gone, Harry needs more help than ever. All we can offer is watchfulness and prayers, but we give those in such abundance that I’m almost certain he can feel it.
Albus didn’t come here. No one knows where he went when he died, but he didn’t join us in our vigil. Perhaps he knew where ‘here’ is, and decided to go elsewhere. Or maybe this is a place for those who need to watch…. Dumbledore always knew exactly what was going on when he was alive, and something tells me that he wouldn’t need to watch the world from ‘here’ after his death. He probably would have ruined the ending for us, anyway….
Sirius gets bored sometimes. I don’t understand how, but he does. You’d think that all of the time he spent sitting around in Grimmauld Place would have taught him patience, but it seems to have merely made him less content with his inability to interact with his old friends. He once told me that he wished he’d had the chance to become a ghost, because it would have meant that he could still be there for Harry. So far I’ve managed to refrain from admitting that, in a small way, I am almost glad that he isn’t able to give Harry advice anymore. Sirius became reckless in his last years, and there were quite a few times that I cursed him for leading my son down dangerous paths while I was left to watch it happen, unable to control the inevitable problems that arose.
When Harry nods off, I usually force myself to look away. I’ve spent enough hours watching him sleep, and there are other things to see. Very interesting things, at that….
I can watch Voldemort from here. Yes, he’s Voldemort now. When you’ve watched a man day in and day out, watched his failures along with his triumphs, you stop thinking of him as terrifying and see him for what he is: a man. A monstrous man of great power and even greater evil, yes, but still… just a man. I watch as he picks on Peter (and giggle in spite of myself), and as he gives his long, rambling monologues at every single Death Eater gathering, though I usually have to fight to keep my mind from wandering. I have to pay attention in case he actually says something of importance. But usually it’s a bunch of useless blather… he is all powerful, he is the smartest, most skilled wizard to ever walk the earth, he will reign supreme, and so on, generally punctuated by new and wonderful ways with which to cement his position as ruler of the known world. I don’t know how the man gained so many followers in spite of his monotonous meetings.
Occasionally, though, he talks about killing my son, at which point I seethe with anger and pace back and forth, praying for Harry’s safety. The Death Eaters usually roll their eyes behind his back at these moments; they are no more concerned with killing Harry than they are with killing any other little boy. All most of them wish for is power and wealth. A few look forward to a world free of ‘blood impurities’, but I think that they would gladly focus more wholly on ruling the world than with killing off all those that they would rule over, should Voldemort ever give them the chance.
I peek in on Petunia from time to time. That son of hers is truly a mess…. I’ve actually found myself glad that my sister and her husband never loved Harry. He may have been unhappy as a child, but at least he grew up to be a boy who knew how to love, even if he hadn’t experienced that emotion since he was a year old. I shudder to think that he could have turned out like Dudley. James would have had a fit, I’m sure. As it is, he spent the first year or so we were ‘here’ ranting and raving about the way Harry was treated by my family. Finally we learned to console ourselves in the fact that he’d used accidental magic on a few occasions, and he would be heading off to Hogwarts before Petunia and Vernon had a chance to turn him into one of them.
And I don’t mean Muggles when I say them-after all, I was a Muggle for the first eleven years of my life, as far as anyone knew. What I’m referring to is the distinct possibility that Harry could have become a spoilt, conceited, selfish, whiney little brat like his cousin. I am thankful every day that he does not take after Petunia’s family… or James’, for that matter, though I’ll never admit that to my husband. If the Dursleys are the picture of mundane Muggle normality, James’ parents were the perfect example of self-important, pure-blood supremacists. But the elder Potters both passed on before Harry was born, and my son was never exposed to such ideals as theirs. Though I doubt they would have accepted him even if they’d had the chance. After all, he is a half-blood, the son of a Muggle-born. He was filth in their eyes, just as I was. Then again, his fame would have brought them popularity, and I don’t know that they would have been able to pass that up.
When I’ve had my fill of watching my nephew terrorise the neighbourhood children and my sister craning her neck up over the garden walls to spy on the family next door, I usually move on to other sights.
Sometimes I watch the Muggles-especially when the actions of the wizarding community threaten to cause disruption in their world. Other times I’ll just look into Hogwarts castle, observing the students and feeling nostalgic at the sight of the ancient halls where my friends and I used to walk every day. But when James is preoccupied with something else and Sirius is to busy sulking to notice, I allow myself to watch someone that I probably shouldn’t; I watch Severus.
He really is a nasty man, but I can’t help but wish for the ability to talk to him… to comfort him. Not that he shows his distress to the living; no, he conceals any weak part of him with disconcerting accuracy. But there are some advantages to being dead, and I’ve kept a close eye on him over the years. Part of me wonders if the hell that he’s forced to endure is my fault… after all, he hardly would have taken up with the Death Eaters without a good reason, and I worry that his ‘reason’ was loneliness. Severus was always trying to fit in when we were children, and for a time, I almost thought that he could.
I initially befriended him for that reason: he was lonely, and so was I. He scared me a bit, but everything scared me in the new world I’d been thrust into, and I wasn’t overly concerned with his ‘Dark’ side. When he defended me to those that singled me out because I was Muggle-born, I learned to trust him. And when he scribbled the simple phrase ‘Sectumsempra-for enemies’ on the corner of his textbook and slid it over to me, and later demonstrated it by literally slicing a rabbit in half with the hex, I was horrified, but oddly comforted by his willingness to protect me, though I refused to so much as watch him use the hex again.
I was a bit concerned when I realised that those same people that had taunted me in our early years of school were the ones that Severus began hanging around with as we grew up, and was hurt beyond measure when he began hiding our friendship from them, as if I was not good enough to speak with him in their presence. The final straw was when I tried to defend him to James and Sirius, insisting that they leave him alone for once. I was sure that he wasn’t nearly as bad as they said he was… I was sure that he would never hurt anyone without being provoked. I had to be certain, because he was my friend.
But in that moment, something between us changed. I was no longer ‘Lily, trusted friend and keeper of secrets’, but ‘Mudblood’. I never spoke with him in a civil tone after that moment - something I would later come to regret. The next summer I heard rumours that he’d joined the Death Eaters, though I never confronted him on that fact. He later obtained a teaching position at Hogwarts and settled into a routine there, and most thoughts about him quickly slipped from my mind as the war raged on. But I occasionally found myself wondering where his true loyalties lay, and I prayed fervently that I would never cross him in battle, afraid that I would not be able to raise my wand against my childhood friend.
I never did meet him at wand-point, though I know now that he had an unintentional hand in my death. And the moment that we were deposited ‘here’ by whatever power saw it fit to make us ‘watch’ for the rest of our afterlives and I had assured myself that Harry was in safe hands, I searched for Severus; I searched for answers to the questions I’d had about him for years. It wasn’t long before I pinpointed his whereabouts, sitting in his family’s tiny home, a glass of some green liquid in his hands. I recognised it as a well-known, easily brewed poison, and watched in horror as he swirled the liquid around in his glass. He stared at his drink, raising it to his lips countless times and then lowering it slowly, never actually tasting the substance, before smashing the cup against the wall and storming out of the house.
I’d lost track of him when he Apparated, but later pieced together enough information to know that somewhere along the line he’d come to a decision. He swore aloud, to God and anyone else up ‘here’ who happened to be listening, to do everything in his power to bring down Voldemort, should he ever rise again.
Over the years, I’ve come to believe that his allegiance lay with Voldemort only briefly and ended long before that fateful night in Godric’s Hollow, though I have very little information to base this on. Perhaps the only real basis for my assumption is my own hope that he truly had changed sides, and not just pretended to as so many of the Death Eaters did during the days after Voldemort fell. But Dumbledore trusted Severus, so much, in fact, that he placed Harry’s safety in his hands many times, and I suppose that is reason enough for me to maintain faith in him.
That, and years later when an Order member asked his reason for going to such lengths at such a great personal risk to bring down the monster he once served, he stated simply that he was avenging a death. I am sure that he was speaking of someone that passed on long before I ever knew Severus, or in the days after our friendship dissolved, but a part of me hoped, in a small way, that I was wrong. I wondered if it made me conceited to imagine that it may have been my death he was planning on avenging… and what James would say if he knew that I wondered about such things at all.
These days, though, I don’t focus on the past; instead, I spend much of my time worrying about the present and the future. Harry wasn’t the only one deeply affected by Albus’ death, and while my son allowed strength and determination to grow out of his grief, Severus seems to have simply become more sullen, angry, and dangerous. God, sometimes I wish Albus was ‘here’ with us, if only to provide us with his insight…at this point, I don’t know what to think.
I know what I saw, that’s simple enough. I watched as my once-best-friend killed a man that I loved and respected, a man who was one of the only sources for answers (and protection) for my son. I stared in horror as the green light enveloped Albus, and watched as his body lifted up over the wall and fell to the ground below. And I watched as Severus’ face paled much more than I thought possible, a fleeting look of pain dashing across his face as he turned away from where his mentor and trusted friend had been only seconds earlier.
When he ran from the castle, pushing the Malfoy boy ahead of him and away from the battle, I followed him with my eyes. I was witness to his fight with Harry, and witness to the anguished, tortured expression on Severus’ face when he was labelled a coward. My mind and heart were torn between fear for my son and fear for my friend through most of the battle, and I hated myself for even thinking about Severus when Harry was so obviously in danger.
I want to believe that there was more to that horrific day than I know. After all, while Severus had the opportunity to kill Harry on a few occasions, as well as a few other students and staff members, he did nothing more than Stun those he came in contact with. The obvious exception to this, the death of Albus… well, there was a lot going on that I didn’t see, and not knowing the whole story, I’ve managed to convince myself that there is a good chance Severus had a reason for doing what he did. Although perhaps it is only wishful thinking coupled with a more-than-healthy dose of denial that allows me to believe this.
And even though Severus helped the Malfoy child escape, he now claims that he doesn’t know the boy’s whereabouts-or the location of Narcissa Malfoy, for that matter. I’m hopeful that he’s hidden them away to keep them safe, and that I simply missed that conversation somehow. I need to believe that I’m missing something…. I refuse to accept that there’s no more to Severus than James and Sirius saw back in our school days. I refuse to accept that my first school friend is truly evil. But I can no more read minds than that Trelawney woman can, so I’m just as confused about Severus’ loyalties and goals as everyone else.
It scares me to acknowledge the fact that I think about these things quite a bit more often than I should, and it terrifies me to realise that I would be no less interested in-and fascinated with-Severus’ life if it was proven that only Voldemort held his devotion. And I will always feel guilty, because I’m certain that I should have done something, anything, to prevent what has happened, if only by simply discouraging Severus’ Dark tendencies more often when we were younger instead of laughing them off. They say that life is full of regrets… it seems so very unfair that I had few regrets while I was alive, but have so many now that I am no longer in a position to rectify my mistakes…. But I have an eternity to spend regretting my actions, and there are far better things to do at the moment, such as concentrating on blocking all thoughts of Severus Snape from my mind. Though I suppose this would be easier if I didn’t allow my eyes to seek him out almost daily….
Sometimes I wish that I wasn’t imprisoned in this ‘place’, forced to observe the world of the living when I can never again participate in it. Other times I’m simply glad that I have the chance to see it, if nothing else. I do know that I pray my son never ends up here, as much as I’d like to spend the rest of eternity with him. Harry is too much like his godfather in the respect that he has no patience for sitting idly by and watching things happen. Honestly, for being so huge, this place makes us all a bit claustrophobic, if only because we can never leave.
And I wonder what will happen when there is no longer anyone we wish to see. What will we do when those that we remember die? What interest will the world hold for us when there’s nothing but strange faces to look at? Perhaps we will finally leave this place at that point… or maybe we are cursed to stay here forever. If that is the case, I don’t know what we will do. Sirius, I’m sure, will simply go mad. James and I… I try not to think about what will happen to us.
But even if there is no other comfort in this ‘existence’, there is this: each day is different, and there is always something interesting to watch.