Snape... But different.
My god...
The sun is setting now, casting a long fiery orange shadow across the too placid lake. Shadows and flame. He's still sitting there, so very still, moonbeam perfection in his own gangly, adolescent way. I take a moment to appreciate him. It's an aesthetic appeal, not sexual (Merlin knows there's nothing sexual about a fourteen year old boy), but it's nice to step away from the heavy roles of the Professor and the Potions Master and the Sly One and the Spy and simply LOOK. Look and see the world without Slytherin tinted eyes. And I do look and I see a tentative kind of beauty in him.
It's . . . comforting somehow. He's slowly growing out of Potter's features, allowing the gentle glide of his mother's cheek-the slight arch of Lily Evan's brow, the easy grace of her movement-to emerge and vie for dominance. As was always the case when they were alive, the hot, raging flame that was James Potter recedes with the approach of Lily
Evans-even in the pale, brooding, enchantingly flawed features of their child.
For the first time since I've met the child I realize that he is truly his parents' legacy. The thought is not accompanied by the usual rancor that curls in my stomach at the mention of James Potter. It's more like a strange, weeping sort of envy intermingled with pity. Profound pity. Is this what has made him a legend?
I envy the Potters because I will never leave such a profound mark on the world. Never leave a child like this: this remarkable little miniature adult who holds our very world in his rough, unsteady hands. I pity him because this child, remarkable though he may be, is all that they will ever have in this world. This child.
Who will in all probability not even live to see twenty.
Who will never grow up. Never have children. Never leave any mark on the world greater than the facts that he Lived, was loved, and somewhere along the way saved the world. And most of the world will never even know it.
No, he does not need the accolades that I so scorn and that everyone else presses into his maladroit hands. He needs our apologies. Six billion apologies and one cry of impotent rage so loud that the very gods sit up and take notice. The cry is mine and the gods...
Vain cuts it to the quick. In a language so beautiful it took my breath away.
The sun is setting now, casting a long fiery orange shadow across the too placid lake. Shadows and flame. He's still sitting there, so very still, moonbeam perfection in his own gangly, adolescent way. I take a moment to appreciate him. It's an aesthetic appeal, not sexual (Merlin knows there's nothing sexual about a fourteen year old boy), but it's nice to step away from the heavy roles of the Professor and the Potions Master and the Sly One and the Spy and simply LOOK. Look and see the world without Slytherin tinted eyes. And I do look and I see a tentative kind of beauty in him.
It's . . . comforting somehow. He's slowly growing out of Potter's features, allowing the gentle glide of his mother's cheek-the slight arch of Lily Evan's brow, the easy grace of her movement-to emerge and vie for dominance. As was always the case when they were alive, the hot, raging flame that was James Potter recedes with the approach of Lily
Evans-even in the pale, brooding, enchantingly flawed features of their child.
For the first time since I've met the child I realize that he is truly his parents' legacy. The thought is not accompanied by the usual rancor that curls in my stomach at the mention of James Potter. It's more like a strange, weeping sort of envy intermingled with pity. Profound pity. Is this what has made him a legend?
I envy the Potters because I will never leave such a profound mark on the world. Never leave a child like this: this remarkable little miniature adult who holds our very world in his rough, unsteady hands. I pity him because this child, remarkable though he may be, is all that they will ever have in this world. This child.
Who will in all probability not even live to see twenty.
Who will never grow up. Never have children. Never leave any mark on the world greater than the facts that he Lived, was loved, and somewhere along the way saved the world. And most of the world will never even know it.
No, he does not need the accolades that I so scorn and that everyone else presses into his maladroit hands. He needs our apologies. Six billion apologies and one cry of impotent rage so loud that the very gods sit up and take notice. The cry is mine and the gods...
Vain cuts it to the quick. In a language so beautiful it took my breath away.