AN: Inspired by the song "I'm Not That Girl" from Wicked. The title was taken from a line in the song. Standard disclaimer applies.
When I'm alone, I wonder if it could have been different. I wonder if I could have been different. I wonder whether, if given the right circumstances, I could have made different choices - better choices. I wonder if I could have been happy.
Usually I try to convince myself that I didn't make the choices at all. They were made for me and I just followed orders. I had no role in the way my life turned out, and I never desired one. Or at least, I never desired anything beyond following the path that was so clearly defined in front of me. But I know I'm lying to myself.
The truth is that I could have strayed off the path. I could have decided that I wanted to rule my own future, instead of being a bystander to my life. In essence, my lack of choices was, in fact, a choice. A choice to be apathetic; a choice not to hold myself accountable.
I often wonder if I truly believed in the cause. At the time, I didn't think about it at all. I was told what to believe in - Mudbloods bad, Dark Lord good - but I don't ever remember consciously deciding that my father's beliefs were mine too. It was easier to agree, to be brainwashed. After all, he was my father and he would never lead me astray. Even when he was carted off to Azkaban for heinous crimes against humanity - really though, it was just heinous crimes against Potter - I still didn't doubt. It was everyone else who was wrong, after all. We could never be wrong. Maybe I should have woken up then. Maybe that's when I should have started making my own choices.
But I didn't. I simply let someone else take over my life. At first it was my Aunt Bellatrix. She was strong and single-minded, the perfect person to command me because she would never allow me to think for myself. Once again, I couldn't be held responsible. They weren't my choices after all; they were her choices for me. She led me to the Dark Lord. And for the first time in my life, someone allowed me to make my own decisions. Yes, he told me how he wanted it to end - how it must end, really, if I wanted my parents to live - but how I got to that prescribed destination was up to me. And so I set out on my mission.
That's when I realized that I wasn't any good at making decisions. Everything I tried failed and I knew that I really couldn't plan my future or take charge of my destiny or anything important like that. I knew I must always rely on someone else. Luckily for me, there was a whole host of people to order me around: my father, my aunt, the Dark Lord, even my mother. And so I settled back into the habit of not making a decision, of choosing the easier, less thorny and complicated path.
She never let anyone make a choice for her. She always knew what she was doing and where she was going and she didn't care how thorny and complicated the path was. She stood up to authority and told them in no uncertain terms that they could shove their rules right up their arses. They didn't like that at all.
She was - and still is, I suppose - my hero. She didn't have to do everything she did. She could have stayed in the shadows and allowed Potter to rescue her. She didn't need to do anything. But she chose to. And nobody told her to do it either. It was all her. Even as I sneered and made derogatory and often crude comments about her and her family, I admired her. I couldn't decide if I wanted to be her or be like her. Secretly, I hoped some of her decisiveness would rub off on me. Part of me wanted to take control of my life. Without realizing it, I memorized her schedule and would go out of my way to pass her in the hall, too observe her and, too often, to criticize and torment her. She never backed down either, which just made me admire her even more.
I had almost decided to start making my own choices. Notice, I had almost decided. I never actually made the decision because she didn't come back to school after the Easter holidays. And so, without a role model, without someone - anyone, really - to look up to, I sank back into my old habits, all hope of reform gone. After all, it was easier this way.
And now, nineteen years after the Battle of Hogwarts, she's still who I think about when I'm alone. When I imagine how the different choices I could have made would have ended in my happiness, I always imagine her there, smiling encouragingly at me. I know that if she were in my life, she would make me choose for myself. She wouldn't put up with any of my usual indecisive shit.
But my dreams of a life full of choices and responsibility are shattered when I return to my reality. I turn my head to look at my nondescript wife and I know that we're not in love, even though we're married, and I wish that it was her standing next to me. I look at my son and, even though I love him, I know he'd be better with her as his mother. When I look at myself in the mirror, I know that I love her as Potter never could because I need her. I need her to make me choose to be better.
And when I look at her wiping tears from her eyes as she waves good-bye to her sons, her daughter's tiny hand clutched tightly in her own, I know that it could have been different. I know that I could have been different. I know that her presence in my life would have been all I needed to make better choices.
And I know that I could have been happy.
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