DIARY OF A MADMAN
By RavenclawDrew
Spoilers Books 1-5. The start of Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and a new diary emerges to plague his existence. This time, it's his own.
3 October 1996
My first entry. How's this supposed to work? I just write and you listen, is that it, then? You better not write back, or we will have troubles. I feel stupid. Doing this. Why would anyone want to preserve their 16 year old self in a diary? It's all so overwrought and embarrassing. I don't even like to talk about myself, now I have to sit here and write about it? Don't I have enough to do with N.E.W.T.s this year? With Quidditch practise? With Voldemort?
Right. Well. My name is Harry Potter. I was born on 31 July 1980. My mum was Lily Evans and dad was James. They were both Gryffindors, just like me, even if it has been suggested I would have done well in Slytherin. As if. Everyone says I look just like dad. They say I have mum's eyes.
They died... NO. They were murdered when I was a baby… Halloween, 1981. That day, everything changed for me… and for my world. After they were killed, I was sent to my aunt's house. That was the place I lived (I'd never call it a home.) until I was 11. That's when everything changed again.
I don't like to talk about myself. This feels weird, but in for knut, in for a galleon. Here goes. It's finally happened. I've gone mad. And not just the rocking-back-and-forth-in-a-corner, glassy-eyed-thousand-meter-stare kind of mad, but raving-at-the-heavens, drooling-and-foaming-at-the-mouth, get-the-bugs-off-my-arms-look-at-me-I'm-Gilderoy-Lockhart-barking-mad.
Do you know the feeling when nothing in your stupid life makes sense? When what little tenuous hold on the masquerade of your reality slips through your fingers like sand? When the things you regard as fundamental and unshakable truths turn out not to be?
My life's a lot like that. It's this ridiculous litany of terrible occurrences… one after another. First, my parents are killed and I'm marked for death (but at least as an equal) by a mad man. Next, I wind up on the doorstep of Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia's Home of Daily Humiliations and Cruelties in Little Whinging, Surrey, where for 11 years I'm treated little better than a common dishrag.
I'm bullied by my fat arse cousin, who often invites his equally stupid, fat friends over to bully me a bit more. No clothes of my own. No birthday or Christmas presents. I live in a bloody cupboard underneath the bloody stairs! And on and on it goes until one day I get a letter (and subsequently a lot of letters!) and I find out I might be a little special. I might just have something to offer to the world… to be useful. It turns out I'm a wizard. Oddly enough, that isn't the thing that makes me mad. That's the thing that keeps me sane. Gives me just a bit of hope for myself.
Don't misunderstand. I've hardly ever complained, until just recently anyway. What would be the point? This is my life. I have the two most wonderful friends in the world who have (almost) always been there for me. They have supported me and held my hand through more horrors than I can recount, though I can remember them all with an unfortunate clarity that borders on the masochistic.
And as much I'm sure they'd take this burden from me, they can't. It's mine alone to bear. It's in this prophesy, you see. Some dithering old fraudulent hag with an alleged Inner Eye actually got one prediction right and here I am. And I'm right fucked to do anything about it.
So, anyway, you'll recall I'm a wizard, right? Remember that little bit? Not just any wizard, mind you, oh no. I am Harry-Fucking-Potter! The Boy Who Lived! I should print cards to that effect and hand them out at parties.
"Hello, nice to meet you. Here's my card: Harry-Fucking-Potter, The Boy Who Lived. Tell your friends. I'll be here all week."
Look, I know it sounds like I feel sorry for myself, but that's only because I do feel sorry for myself. It's my right. (He said petulantly.) I'm a 16 year old boy… man. Person. Whatever. Aaagh!
Everyone I've loved has been taken from me by Voldemort, the aforementioned mad man. Mum. Dad. Even my Godfather, Sirius Black…
Sirius. It hasn't even been a year since he died at the Department of Mysteries. It seems like a lifetime ago, albeit a relatively short one at that. Is it that I'm upset the people I love were taken from me, or that the people who loved me were taken away? Do I want to receive love more than I want to give it? Am I capable of really opening myself up to someone like that? Can I make that leap and hope they won't leave me, too? I know one person I desperately want to give love to… make love to. I want her to love me back.
But I digress. Horrible and horrible. Troll battle and slain unicorns and oh, look Professor Quirrel's got two faces, how odd. Say, isn't that He-Who-Has-No-Legs? Acromantulas and Basilisks and Hermione's petrified and haunted bloody diaries reviving insane dark wizards. Dementors and betrayal and fucking little rat-men and Lupin's a werewolf, hmm? Dark Marks and Death Eaters and Tri-wizard terrors, merpeople, dragons, and Cedric dead because of me and oh yeah Voldemort's really alive this time, I swear, didn't you know? Umbridge tortures and Dumbledore's been sacked and horrendous dreams and a brain room (come again?) and prophecies and death in the Department of Mysteries and Hermione's hurt again… and Oh, Christ, why didn't I listen to that git, Snape. It's my fault. My fault she was hurt. It's always my fault she's hurt.
7 October 1996
Never got around to mentioning the whole point of this, did I? Why am I insane? Here it is then. I've got the eyes of the wizarding world expecting me to be some kind of magical messiah (good title for my autobiography, that.) I will have to face down the most powerful dark wizard to walk the earth in a thousand years and one of us will die. You'd think that would take up the bulk of my gallingly awful utterly predictable and stereotypical teen angst, but no.
As I said, here it is: I'm in love with my very best friend and I don't know what to do about it I can't stop thinking about her and I don't know that I would ever want to and I just want to be with her and hear her laugh and watch her smile and make mad love to her and hear her squeal with pleasure and wake up in her arms and I have never felt so confused and out of control in my life and I am so utterly screwed.
I never should have let Dumbledore talk me into doing this.
"To truly mask your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions from a gifted Legilimens such as Voldemort, you must yourself know what they are. As such, I recommend you begin keeping a journal. To conceal the contents of your mind, you must first reveal the contents of your heart."
That is so typical of him. How about we start with, "I hate you why don't you shove it up your arse you lavender-robe-wearing twinkly-eyed poncy git."
Merlin. He wants me to keep a diary! Look where that got Ginny. I'm not supposed to have a handle on my emotions. I'm supposed to be a slave to them like every other teenage boy in the world. It's not fair!
Hermione. Besides being "the most talented witch of our age," (ahem) she is, and has been, my best friend since I was 11 years old. Funny, it seems longer than that.
Of course, at first, Ron and I couldn't stand her, fussy, bossy, obstinate know-it-all that she was. All the things that drove me around the bend with her are now the things I find most endearing. Am I idealising her? I don't think so; I don't suppose I really know.
I still hate it when she and Ron launch into yet another row. Their arguments are so predictable. It's like they keep having the same one over and over again. Only the situations change. Ron's insensitive. Hermione bristles and corrects his behavior. He retaliates. She parries. Reload. Repeat. It's so boring I want to scream! Why do they do that?
God, Hermione! Why can't you just notice how I feel without me having to expose myself like that? You're supposed to be so smart, isn't it obvious? It's always been you. You who I come to for advice or a shoulder to lean on. I depend on you more than you can know. I'd be totally lost without you… her, I mean. (When did I start talking to Hermione and stop talking to myself?)
I suppose I've always heard your voice in my head, Hermione. You're my voice of reason. My compass. You're my biggest supporter and if we're honest here, my closest friend. You know me more intimately than anyone else. Through every mood, pleasant and foul, you have never wavered. Even when part of me pushes you away, you manage to find your way back to me when I need you most.
I love watching you work in the library. Massive books spread all over, the soft-flicker of firelight casting dancing shadows and those lush red lips sucking your quill in that thoughtful way you have… eyebrows crinkling in concentration and still chewing on that pouty lower lip and God, what I'd give to be your quill.
You are mad, Potter. I bet she doesn't have this disjointed, rambling, look-at-the-lonely-teenage wizard-he-has-so-much-on-his-shoulders internal dialogue all the time. She always knows what to do. She must be the least insecure teenager at Hogwarts. She always has the answers. If she doesn't, she knows where to go or who to ask to get them. I wish she could help with this, but she's the one person I can't talk to.
Love to hear that conversation…
"So, Hermione. I was just staring at you for the last hour and have come to the realization that I can't live without you. Yes, you heard me. I love you. I LOVE YOU! And what's more, I've loved you for years. I love your hair… that frizzy, bushy thatch of hair you constantly battle. I love it and I know how you feel. See? Something else we have in common. You, me and Sleekeasy's Hair Potion.
I love the way you bite your lower lip when you're nervous or concentrating really hard on something… arithmancy homework or ancient runes. How many times have I watched you chew on that lip, that poor, swollen, velvety, sexy, gorgeous lip? How many times have I wanted to reach over and trace the line of your lip with my finger?"
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
I'm actually quoting a muggle poet for you from the book you gave me for my 16th birthday! Who gives a book of muggle poetry to a 16 year old boy?
I love that there's always just the littlest bit of ink on your fingers and some smudged on the side of your hand from rubbing your parchment. I imagine your hands in my hair, stroking my face, caressing my lips. Ah, yes! Lips! How COULD I forget them? Yours are the loveliest lips I've ever laid eyes on. I wish I could run my tongue over them, kiss them, swallow them… Oh, God, that would be brilliant.
You know what else? I love your knees. Yes. I said your knees. I love Hermione's knees. Why? When you stalk down the corridors, they're the only bit of skin I can see. Just between the pleats of your skirt and your stockings, there are Hermione's amazing knees. I see your knees and it makes me think of your thighs. Then I think, well. Let's just say I think a lot about your whole upper thigh area and leave it at that. Just the merest suggestion of what lies there hidden beneath pleats of grey wool is enough to drive me mad.
I love your walk, as well. Never looks like you're wandering. Always purposeful, determined. Your walk yields no quarter and never pauses for questions. "I am Hermione Jane Granger and I must get to the library. Mission of the utmost importance, you know," your walk says. I love that about you.
Of course it isn't just physical. Here I've been on and on about lips and hair and eyes and knees! I sound like such a shallow tosser, don't I? You are beautiful… more so because you've no idea just HOW beautiful. I suppose I love you not just because of who you are, but who I can be when we're together. None of the boy-who-lived rubbish. Just Harry. Before all this began, that's what I was: just Harry. Just a small, skinny boy with the odd-shaped scar and beastly relatives. When I'm with you, it's really the only time I can let my guard down and simply be. (The boy who is?) No looking over my shoulder or doubting people's motivations. I feel safe with you. I know you are now and always will be there for me, supporting me, believing in me, no matter how unworthy I am of that faith and trust.
I love you for the person you are, forgetting all your more obvious (to me, at least) physical attributes. You are compassionate and caring. You treat people (and elves) exactly as you would want to be treated. You have a fierce depth of emotion and conviction that's almost scary, and when I'm around you, I can feel it radiating out of you like an exploding star.
That pretty much sums you up: you give yourself over completely to your beliefs, your work, your friends; there's no 'halfway' with you, Hermione. I know that. I know what I'm in for by thinking about you like this. But I'm not afraid. (Maybe a little.) Not of you or us… but of me letting you down. Not measuring up. Not being good enough to deserve you.
You do seem a bit nervous about this, don't you? Don't tell me. You had no idea I felt this way, did you? I think you are the most brilliantly radiant person I know. Look at the blush rising in your cheeks…
Enough! This is insane. I'm driving myself mad now. It's not happening TO me, I'm making it happen. I've actively taken my Firebolt by the handle (and by Firebolt I mean my broom, not little Harry, you dirty mind, you) and I'm diving straight to the pitch.
She'd never let me talk to her like that. She'd have all sorts of arguments and points to make. "Harry!" I can hear her say.
"Don't be ridiculous. I don't delude myself into believing I am anything but what I am. I am average, perhaps above average in looks. Certainly I'm no Lavender or Parvati or Cho."
She'd never believe it. I don't think she sees herself as attractive in that way. I do. I think of little else, truth be told. Thank God for silencing charms. Dean and Seamus. Neville. Ron! If they could hear what's going on behind these curtains… I have worked myself up a bit, so to say.
I'm now having my favorite fantasy. A re-imagining of a love scene from a muggle film, except in my fevered imagination, Hermione and I are alone in the prefect's compartment on the Hogwarts Express. Love on a real train, indeed.
God, I love you. I wish you could know just how much.
11 October 1996
Hello again. Resident Gryffindor pervert. Still barking mad. Thought you should know.
14 October 1996
Snape is a pustulating, oozing boil. A great cancerous carbuncle festering on the planters's wart clinging to the inflamed hairy cyst inside the cavernous diseased colon of a blast-ended skrewt and I hope he dies and dies and I hope it hurts. A lot.
15 October 1996
Regarding previous entry… It's too painful to even consider, and yet, now I must. Snape was right. There I said it. Snape was right about occlumency. I really must perfect it and the sooner the better. The reason why I've become so desperate, you ask? Nothing really, just that Snape. Saw. Me. In. My. Four-Poster. Alone. Eyes closed. Hands working… and not with my quill on some bit of parchment, I can tell you. I was bloody fantasising about Hermione! I think I might just take that flight into the pitch.
Today's torture session started the way it usually does. Knock knock *sneer* hello, Professor - Legilimens! No "Hello, Potter. I hate you as I hated your father. I'm coming to invade your brain; stop me if you can." No setup. No anticipation. No scathing repartee, the trading of well-placed barbs, jabs and innuendo. No romance. A Perfunctory mind-shag without so much as a by-your-leave; didn't even leave a few galleons on the dresser for my troubles. Very nice.
No surprise I was thinking about her. Oddly enough, I was thinking about the way she smells… like cloves and vanilla and baking bread with… what else? The whisper of parchment. Where does that come from? Her hair? Perfume? Knowing Hermione, it's just how she decided she would smell. Warm, exotic, tantalizing and so inviting. I swear my mouth is watering just writing about it now. Sometimes her smell shrouds me like an invisibility cloak, surrounding me with the incredible feeling that I'm swimming somewhere inside her. It feels like I'm finally at home. Just the smell of her makes me feel somehow safe and protected. Funny.
Legilimens! And the warm feelings evaporate replaced by that sneering git wheedling his way into places where I do not want him to go. God, I'm barely comfortable in those places… thinking of my Hermione and the things I want to do with her. The person I've become because of her. The man I want to be for her.
No one was supposed to know about the way I feel, certainly not that… person. At least not until Hermione knows. He wouldn't tell her, would he? Oh, no, Harry. Not at all. Just because it would be the most horribly humiliating thing in the world for her to know, why would he tell her?
I can hear him now, the smug bastard. "So, Ms. Granger. Has Potter mentioned what he's been… UP to lately? I do believe he's had his hands quite full." Bastard. "Ooh, look at me! Aren't I clever with my suggestive remarks and my lewd double entendres?"
What if he does tell her? Bloody hell. I've got to get to her first. What if I'm not ready? What if she laughs at me? What if she loves someone else? Viktor or even... or even Ron? What if I step in it and ruin everything? Once it's out, it's out. We can't go back to the way it was. Maybe I'll just obliviate us both and try to forget the whole thing. Have I mentioned I'm screwed?
18 October 1996
Snape knows. Now Ron knows. I swear I don't know how, but he does. He knows. Ron knows how I feel. How does he know? I don't know, but he does. He knows!
I caught him looking at me in the common room this evening. We were revising Transfiguration work for the N.E.W.T.s, even though they're months away (guess whose idea that was) when I saw him look between me and Hermione. I'm such an idiot. I was just gaping at her with what must have been the most ridiculous look on my stupid face. Not reading. Not writing. Just daydreaming. About her.
I can't work. I can't concentrate on anything but her and how I want to snog her senseless in the Astronomy Tower. Cor, I'd snog her senseless jumping up and down among venomous tentaculas in Sprout's restricted greenhouse. I'd snog her senseless with a herd of Hungarian Horntails bearing down on me, though there may be just the slight threat of performance anxiety in that scenario.
Just thinking about her makes me think I can do anything. Just being near her makes my heart beat out of my chest. I want to shout at the top of my lungs from Gryffindor tower, "I am in love with Hermione Granger and I will not rest until she's mine." Of course, that would require a bit more forthrightness than I am currently capable of producing.
You know what else makes this so hard? She's not that slight, scared little girl cowering from a mountain troll under a sink anymore. She's hardly even a girl. She's become a woman. When did this happen? She's so self-assured and together and brilliant and cor, what a body. She has grown in all the right places. I can't believe I didn't notice it before the Yule Ball, but I'll never bloody forget it now.
She's just the right height; her head comes to just below my chin. She has the most amazing curve running the length of her body from just under arm down to her waist, up and over her hips before ending down at her little feet. I'm bursting to lie on the couch in the common room and run my fingertips over all those new curves.
When did she sprout such spectacular breasts? One minute she's all big teeth and hair flying everywhere and plain little Hermione. The next, she's this extravagantly proportioned… creation. She wasn't born; I swear she was created for me. She's everything I've ever wanted. Everything I've ever let myself dream or hope for.
I just want to lay with her; to feel her body against mine. Feel her breathing in time with my own. Feel her warm breath on my chest, her tongue tracing the curve of my neck, blood pounding through my head (on its rapid southward voyage away from it!), taking her mouth with my own, merging as one, tongues tentatively at first then more desperately searching, demanding, imploring… alright then. I've got to stop. I'm starting to hyperventilate and I've got petrificus phallus right now with which I could drive nails. Time for yet another in a series of cold showers.
20 October 1996
So Ron knows. I reckon I'll have to say something to him, but what? Do I lie and tell him I was merely distracted and thinking of something or someone else? I'll tell you what I want to do. I want to tell him it's true. Is it selfish of me that I could care less what his feelings are? I really don't care. She is my one chance at happiness (whatever that is) and now that I've come to this realisation, I want to grab her with both hands and never let go. Besides, he'll get his chance after Voldemort kills me.
There's a happy thought. Thinking of a future with Hermione when Mr. Dark and Scary's out there trying to figure out how to deprive me of one.
No use thinking of that. What happens will happen and when it does, I'll be as ready as I can be. In the meantime, I have a life to live. Mum and Dad would have wanted that and so would Sirius. I owe them that. All of them. I can't worry about dying; I have too much to think about just living then, don't I?
Ron deserves to know, but I think that will have to wait until I've spoken with Hermione. How to do it? When? What will I say? And what will I wear?
23 October 1996
Yes! I did it I did it I did it! Hah! Snape tried to get to me and I slammed my mind to him like I was tossing a salesman out the front door. I could almost hear the whoosh as the wall went up. I could hear him knocking, trying to peer in the windows, but I closed myself up like a fan. No solicitors today, you great greasy prat
I don't really know how I managed it. It's hard to describe. It's like I saw him through a foggy window stalking toward me. I watched him coming at me and I remember thinking that I wanted nothing to do with him, but instead of just watching him wash over me, I started to run. At once, the fog got thicker and he got further away. I started imagining him disappearing altogether so I could be alone.
Then I was. I was alone in my head. The fog… the fog I created lifted and I was alone (in a good way) with my thoughts and the most desperate desire of my heart. When I was alone, I thought again of Hermione smiling back at me like… like a patronus in my head.
I realized that's what I needed to do. The secret to occlumency (at least for me) is like casting a Patronus. I use my happy memory until I feel hope swell inside me. It seems so obvious now. It was a true epiphany. Summon my mental patronus who happens to be Hermione, my protector and saviour, then the fog rolls in, the wall goes up, and Snape can bugger off.
"Finally, Potter. You may not be nearly as hopeless as you seem." Thank you, Snivelus. I'll take that as a compliment.
31 October 1996
15 years ago today. Everything changed. Today, everything changed again. This time, no one died. This time, something good happened. Very good. Very fucking unbelievably brilliantly perfect and good.
You do remember that girl I've been on about, right? Don't you diary? Hermione? You know the one. I talked to her. She listened to me. I told her everything, and I mean everything. She didn't run away. She didn't scream. She did cry a bit, and that was scary, but it was alright. It was good.
I finally worked up enough of the alleged Gryffindor courage to tell Hermione how I feel. I told her I was desperately in love with her. I told her I had been for ages. She was beautiful and lovely. She was luminous.
We were in the library (where else?) and I don't know what happened. It just seemed right. There was no build up. No panic. I just knew. Does it happen like this for everyone or am I the first? I knew with absolute clarity that this was it and she is the one and I want Hermione for now and forever. My whole body just resonated with the certainty of it all. Everything changed for me in that one moment. Did you feel it, too?
Then I just opened up and poured my heart out. The words came in short bursts… a few here and there, dribbling down my chin like treacle from a tart. Then the gush… words spewing from my heart and out of my mouth and falling into her lap like perfect polished stones. She looked at me at first like I had a pair of mandrakes screaming and writhing their way out of my head through my scar.
I was worried about that look. She was bewildered, then furious, then concerned then… I saw it in her face like the wave of a wand. The same feeling I had when I got my wand I had tonight. The same rush of power. The same flood of love and acceptance and hope and goodness in a shower of red and gold sparks. The wand may choose the wizard, but this wizard chooses the witch. I choose Hermione for now and always.
And I saw the same feeling I had in my heart reflecting back at me through Hermione's eyes. Those lovely caramel brown eyes. They have the most amazing little flecks of gold in them, like tiny snitches flitting across her field of vision. But instead of catching them, they flew up and swarmed around my head, tickling me with their gossamer feathers, and captured me. I just fell into her eyes and reveled in the feeling. The browns and gold flew apart and reformed coalescing into tiny galaxies… millions of stars exploding before my eyes and when I thought my heart would burst, it just kept filling up with more and more and more.
Then we, I… she kissed me. She came up out of her chair like she'd been hit with a tickling charm. She just pounced on me; I was so surprised I fell out of my chair and we collapsed on the floor together in a very noisy heap. Books and parchment, ink and quills and us bouncing to the ground in a most un-ferret like manner.
Madam Pince was on us just as quickly telling us the library was no place for such juvenile behavior and young witches and wizards today just have no respect for social mores and when I was a student I never and we just ran away laughing like a pair of ickle firsties. I almost missed old Pince as we ended up just walking the corridors in a very uneasy silence.
"Hermione?"
"Harry?"
"Can you tell me what you're thinking please before I run off to the Room of Requirements wherein will reside a very large gallows where I can hang myself to escape the embarrassment of this moment?"
"I don't know Harry. What do you want me to say? If what you told me is true, you've had a lot of time to think about… this. Us."
"Well, yeah, but you did kiss me…"
"Merlin, Harry. I'm just having you on. How many boys do you think I've kissed? How many do you think I've kissed in public? And how many in the library in front of the Gods know who? Of course I feel the same way about you. I'm really quite surprised you haven't noticed it before. And I'm equally disappointed it's taken you this long to realise FINALLY your feelings and tell me. Really, Harry. Did you ever think I would say 'no' to you? It's always been you, you daft git. Now, please kiss me properly before I change my mind." And she stood there, smirking with a lopsided grin of triumph, waiting for me to start breathing again.
Stunned. Like polly parrot pining for the fjords. She knew there was an "us" long before I did and was just waiting for me to come around. That's my Hermione. As it turns out she always was "my" Hermione. And as usual, she figured it out long before I did. I solemnly swear I will never underestimate Hermione Jane Granger again.
You know what else I love about you? You have an annoying way of always being right. Pushy know-it-all.