ORDER ONLY: Private Message to Terry Boot and Alice Longbottom

[alt_frank]

hey, kiddo.

just wanted to see how you're doing.

and see if you had anything else you wanted to talk over.

some things are easier to write down than say out loud, yeah? and remember, questions are okay.

Comments

[alt_terry]

Dunno if it's easier, exactly. Especially if you've never been allowed to ask any questions before.

I want to ask them. But I'm afraid they'll make me sound stupid. or like I'm going barmy

[alt_frank]

I won't think they are.

that's a promise.

[alt_terry]

I dunno if you want to answer this. Especially where Mrs Longbottom can read it. But...

have you ever hurt someone so bad that it horrified you? Whether you were drinking or not, I mean; like when you'd come to your senses, you don't even recognize yourself?

I suppose there are other reasons than being drunk. Like if you're really angry.

Or if you're really frightened.

[alt_frank]

it's been a while. but yes.

it was that kid who tried to kidnap you, alice.

she was pregnant with neville.

I didn't see how scared he was. how young he was. he was a stupid kid trying to prove himself. didn't even have a mark yet.

[alt_frank]

sometimes being horrified is a good thing.

it'd be easier the other way around, but you wouldn't be you any more.

[alt_terry]

Yeah, I reckon that would make you scared. And hacked off, too.

I wonder if that makes it different somehow. If you're protecting someone else.

[alt_frank]

or if you're protecting yourself, kiddo.

[alt_terry]

But see, it's like--I don't know if this'll make any sense.

I don't know who I am. I never knew. Because I was always pretending, until I was just hollow inside. Because I had to be the best mudblood in the world, and mudbloods don't have feelings. They don't have thoughts. They only exist to serve their masters.

And then when Fred and George sort of adopted me, and they got me on the lock, and I started to have some hope, I started to dream. I thought, if only I could be free. If I could just get away from him, then everything would be great, because I could finally just be me.

But I was only able to get away from him by...by becoming like him, you see?

And you rescued me, and let me into this perfect place, but you don't realise that I don't deserve it, because he got his stinking claws into me, see? And I brought him, that evil taint right into Moddey Dhoo. Right in among all these innocent kids.

I'm scared of what might happen. If I can't be rid of him.

And I can't figure out how to get rid of him.

I never would have thought that killing him wouldn't be enough.

[alt_terry]

I'm sorry. this must sound so crazy.

[alt_terry]

See, I never thought I was worth protecting.

[alt_frank]

it doesn't.

it's just something new, is all.

and maybe part of all this is figuring out what sort of person you are now that he's gone. who you want to be.

when it comes to you being here at moddey, let's just say we come at it differently. because I think you deserve it more than anyone I know.

you're not evil, terry. he was. he did what he did because he was a sick fu wanted to. you did what you did to stay alive.

[alt_frank]

he tried very hard to make you think that way, yeah.

so what about if it was someone else? anyone else?

alice?

hermione?

dudley?

would you blame them if they defended themselves to stay alive?

because you can't be an exception to that rule, kid. not if you're a person. and last time I checked, you were.

part of you had to believe that, because you didn't give up. you fought back.

[alt_terry]

but I still did it.

see, my friends have been talking on the lock this week. about ethics, and where to draw the lines. And they've been saying stuff about killing, and when they talk about it, I just don't know what to say to them. it's eating me up inside.

I remember one of them said once that doing murder rips the soul.

How can I figure out who I am if I'm all ripped up inside?

[alt_terry]

is that the sort of thing that can be healed? like, ever?

[alt_frank]

I don't know.

sometimes I go a long time without thinking about something I've done or seen, and then it'll take me by surprise and it's like it just happened. I think it's different for different people.

[alt_terry]

I'll...I'll have to think about that.

[alt_frank]

you're not a murderer.

I know what the MLE would slap you with these days, because you're muggle born, but back when I was an Auror, we didn't call what you did murder. we called it self defence.

you're right. your friends can't understand what you've been through. and that means that they can't judge you either. they've never had to make that decision before.

if they're talking about that sort of thing, it's just an idea to them. a what-if. and they're thinking about it in their comfortable lives, where they don't have to be afraid every day.

[alt_terry]

Like it just happened. So it's that way for you, too, then?

I thought I was crazy. Because it's so incredibly vivid. And smells hook into it, like when I smelled the alcohol--you know. And tastes. sometimes I can still taste the blood.

And it keeps happening, over and over, those sensations taking me back so I'm reliving it. The more I try to push it away, the worse it seems to get. Does that ever get better, fade away?

[alt_terry]

I'm not a murderer?

So, back when you were an Auror, when I was treated like any other wizard, what would have happened to me? If I killed someone and it could be proved it was self defence? Would they still have put me in Azkaban? Or given me to the Dementors?

[alt_frank]

you'd be a free man. you wouldn't be charged with a crime.

when people came up with those laws, they decided that self-defence was justifiable. and those laws were written because so many people thought that was fair. so it's not just me saying it.

[alt_terry]

I'd be free? Not even charged, really?!

I had no idea. Blimey.

[alt_terry]

wow.

that helps. a little.

[alt_frank]

it is.

happens for al too. when that news story was published about leicester, she didn't sleep sound for a week.

but time helps.

it's like I was talking about earlier, about those scars on the inside that no-one can see. scars fade, don't they?

if you keep blaming yourself, keep feeling like you didn't deserve to make it out of there, I can see how that'd make it harder.

[alt_alice]

Good.

[alt_alice]

Whenever I woke up, I could still feel the grit under my fingernails, and my hands kept shaking.

I remembered faces I hadn't thought of in a decade. And then I felt so enormously guilty for having forgotten them.

[alt_terry]

Sleeping, yeah. That's another problem.

Transforming helps some. Because I don't think as much then, so this stuff isn't running through my mind, keeping me awake.

Dudley's starting to twit me about it a bit, though. He's always joking that if I spend too much time as the Professor I'll shed too much hair on his clothes.

[alt_terry]

Huh.

Don't think I'll ever manage to forget him. But if I do, I know I won't feel guilty.

I'll be grateful.

[alt_alice]

Let him twit away, love. You do what you must.