A Reason To Live

Disclaimer: JKR owns HP universe; those are not my initials.


[A/N: And his rant continues... ]


Music listening: Durch den Monsun


A Reason to Live by black fungi
Part 01B: Survival of the Fittest


I can only say in my defense that this affliction of his (of being deader than dead from the neck up) is indeed contagious, and I'm afraid I happen to be unfortunately more susceptible to it today for that is the only plausible reason that I could satisfy myself with as to why I am risking my skinny, white arse for a no-good, irritating ingrate who is currently bent on defiling my delicate sensibilities with incessant filth spewing out from his gob. And by filth, I mean more stupidity that will doom any fair intellectual to an IQ lower than a mong's. The fact that he can speak dooms the Wizarding World; the fact that he exists dooms Humanity.


But oh.... What's that I hear? Or *didn't* hear...


Is he really... No, it cannot be! This is absolutely unacceptable! No! No! No! Not right after that smart remark (rather ingenious, if I do say so myself, wouldn't you say?) I made!


Back up a step, you insipid blondie! Common sense dictates I should be rejoicing at this temporary bliss rather than fretting over it, but alas, my curiosity always gets the best of me. I have, for most part of my regrettable association with the good Mister Robin here today, wisely tuned him out of sight, out of mind and out of my hearing.


Well... I did say for *most* part, and I did say that I was oddly vulnerable to stupidity today. I turn my head slowly in his direction, questioning the merit of my actions as I mentally prepare myself for the onslaught of flaming red on my poor eyes again; if being born to a poor family isn't a tragedy, it's having the misfortune of sporting tacky hair color.


Good goddesses! It *is* true! Even the rivulet of red from the gash at my temple that was somewhat blinding my right eye cannot dispute the obvious scene before me: THE BOY IS NOT SPEAKING ANYMORE!


Maybe he's yelled himself hoarse and his voice box finally gives up on him. Maybe he's discovered the futility of his action, and it hit him that screaming like a banshee wasn't the best approach to get hold of my attention. Maybe he's grown a brain in the span of five minutes.


"What are you staring at, ponce?!"


I'm a terrible optimist; sue me.


"You can't have him," a churlish voice snaps at me.


Huh? Say what?


"Whatever you think you are doing right now, you can't have him. So cut that frigging martyr act, and fucking let go!"


I blink. Could you umm... run that by me again? I am not usually slow on the uptake, but given present company...


"Didn't you hear me, bitch!" he screams, his face flushed with anger - a lovely shade of red, me thinks. "Let me fucking go! He's mine! You can whore your wares all you want, but that boy's still mine!"


Aha! So *that's* what it's all about - the evil eye since our last Hogmeade trip, rude shoves in the hallways that left my knees scraped, a rusty razor hidden in my bar of soap, my six-foot long potion essay shredded to confetti - and all this while I thought he was trying to woo me by appealing to my Slytherin side. Interesting. Heh, not that he has even a remote chance; I am not gay, homosexual or anything, and I'm not dishing porkies out either.


*Yes*.


*Really*.


*Honestly*.


Cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die muggle promise that I am not a bloody pouf, and the four sloppy kisses one self-righteous prick stole from me doesn't count. I mean where does he think he gets off, attacking me in the middle of the night in the privacy of my room, smacking his lips against mine and swapping icky (my apologies but the overwhelming disgust just flicked the switch off on my vocabulary) spit? Then he went on to suck my face in the Quidditch pitch, and another in a dusty broom closet, and another in the common showers... I hexed him good, of course, and the silly boy only blew a raspberry my way. I admit this turnabout behavior of his is very disturbing.


Maybe the idea of a truce really is a bad idea to begin with. I should've batted his hand away and put him down firmly in his "proper place" just as he did when he chose his freckled friend over me during our first year. But nooooooo, my brains had chosen then to pause and think on the pros and cons on his seemingly genial offer of friendship.


Decisions, decisions...


On one hand, he's the *most* coveted wizard in our lifetime, and on the other, he's the most coveted wizard in our *lifetime*. Demented Dark Lords, Harebrained Headmasters, Madcap Ministers of Magic, everyone literally wants a piece of him. Experience has wisely taught me there's always something wrong with wanting something a little too much, and when everyone else is wanting the same thing too, things are bound to get seriously ugly. They say it's because he will lead us to the inevitable fate that awaits, one that promises a brighter future. Taking in the horrors around me, I wouldn't know; his prophesized existence as the Savior of the Wizarding World, I see, only makes the war worse.


Any road, in that one moment of hesitation at the offer (read to any thick-headed Gryffindork as "warm and welcomed acceptance from any cold-blooded Slytherin"), he burst out in a huge grin and slung his arm heavily over my shoulders. I remember cringing as he proclaimed loudly in front of two potential mini-Deatheaters that our childish rivalry was a thing of the past and "one shall never see the bestest of best friends than..." urghh, I don't think I could complete that quote without hurling my innards. Thank Merlin *and* Daddy Dearest, I'm sufficiently trained in Dark Arts 101 or the next wizard on Moldywart's hit list would have been yours truly.


You would have thought things could not have gotten worse from there, but it did. The boy doesn't know the meaning of subtlety or caution!


He greets me every morning outside the dark, dank Slytherin dungeons, offering to carry my books as he walks with me, his hands on the small of my back, to the Great Hall. Yes, after the years in Hogwarts, I do believe I know the way there.


I hear he waits close to an hour for my appearance. Well *excuse* me, some of us do not think a rat's nest disguised as hair remotely qualifies as a fashion statement. He waits *alone* for an hour in his enemies' territory when the threat of war is looming over us all - another one of many Gryffindork's legendary foolishness that has stood the test of time. Know that nothing *weird* passed by a self-respecting Slytherin without notice, and boy, did they take notice of that weirdo; he stands out like a sore thumb anywhere with those tatty clothes! Il devrait poursuivre sien tailleur en justice!


I honestly don't know how many times I can obliviate a person's memory without seriously affecting his mental processes in the long run, and I was casting it left and right that I lost count. I could, I suppose, put my other skills to better use, but it would've been far too obvious for my nature, and most certainly, set Dumbly and the aurors on my tail.


Darn it! He could've been hurt. He could've been cursed. He could've been kidnapped and hauled over to that scaly madman, and none would be wiser! I know I haven't seen it happening, but for crying out loud, there's an indecent price on his head, and him loitering alone in the snake pit, where almost seventy percent of its inhabitants have parents who openly swore allegiance to the Dark Lord, is not helping at all!


I don't understand that buffoon and his irrepressible lack of common sense! Perhaps I've missed Gryffindor's definition of "friendship"; I should've looked under 'S' - between "stupid" and "suicidal".


When I miss my meals - rough nights, and my appetite is usually wretched in the mornings - he nicks two sweet savory buns for me from the kitchens so I wouldn't have to go hungry until lunch. I must have told him those were my favorite, though I'm quite, quite positive that I hadn't. Just as I've surely not told him that I prefer warm milk to pumpkin juice, that I suffer terrible burns if I'm out too long in the sun, that I hate how my hair keeps getting in my face but kept it long because the Lord wishes it, and that I'm predisposed to the awful cold bug.


Then again, my traitorous memory has failed me on rare occasions, and I must have told him all that: he carries a muggle thermos filled with warm milk; in his breast pocket, a travel-sized tube of 30-SPF sunscreen lotion; an endless supply of small, black hairclips that he fishes out of nowhere; and he cajoles me into accepting his robes whenever he detects the slightest shiver.


I'm not totally ungrateful, mind you, and I appreciate his concerns, but his attentiveness to my person has given me my own concerns like wondering if anyone notices his change in demeanor towards his arch-rival, and if I should be packing my Tami(tm) bags out of Slytherin in view of an impending riot and public execution; Slytherins do not take kindly to betrayal, and the Gryffindors have been looking at me funny.


Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I've gone exceedingly competent in avoiding him entirely. Except for Potions, unfortunately. He voluntarily sits next to me in Potions! Potions, I tell you!


Did you know that he has made a trying habit of saving me a seat for every class we share and going out of his way to make sure he is seated close to me? Every Thursday, I have Double Potions immediately after Advanced Runes, which I take with one Gryffindork and a Ravenclaw. It was unbecoming of someone like myself to run across the hall to class, and it is always a bother to find a good seat that is not beside a revoltingly cheerful Hufflepuff, my two dumb cronies and a fumbling Longbottom. Sitting next to brave Mr. Potty at the front under the professor's menacing glare is the lesser Evil; it is my favorite and usual seating, and I do enjoy the look on the mudblood's red, panting face (yes, she runs to her classes) when he flatly refuses to give up that seat for her.


Other Slytherins, however, are not amused; everyone knows we always occupy the front seats in Potion classes, and having a right Gryffindor – you can't get more Gryffindor than he - in our midst, is disconcerting to say the least. I hear too that they have tried their hardest to "discourage" him, but he is nothing if not tenacious.


Incidentally, one of those Thursdays happened to be the very day we were to choose our laboratory partner, and that greasy Godfather of mine (bless his creepy sense of humor) had decided that the person seated on your right would automatically work with you for the year!


A *whole* year!


And the boy can't even tell the difference between wolfslang and blubberworm! I shudder to think the outcome of all our potion-brewing if it weren't for my ingrained talent and incomparable aptitude at the subject, and while he doesn't have the Luck of Longbottom, we came awfully close to burning the old school down once, which is once too many for my liking. He was strangely ecstatic, of course, upon hearing the news, babbling about the excellent company (that I cannot refute, I'm all charm) and how we would spend all that "wonderful time together" (I quote) in Potions. I, on the other hand, was wondering which deity I pissed off to deserve this.


"You think he'll take you back, huh? You think if you saved me, he'll take you back. Isn't that rich!" He gives another pull.


Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Just fuck fucking great! The little fuckwit has to choose *now* to get insanely insecure about his relation-fucking-ship with his fuck buddy!


Breathe. Don't faint.


Oh dear.


Oh dear, that is terribly uncouth of me.


All right then... Let's not lose sight of what's important now. It won't take long; I know it'll be over soon. Breathe in deep; exhale. It does not hurt.


It.


Never.


Hurts.


I slowly roll my shoulder to relieve the ache there; I have to take care I'm in my most comfortable position when some Deatheaters start throwing random curses at me later. Breathe in again and exhale.


We do not trade our composure and inconvenient ourselves dredging emotion with whom whose merits are the slightest questionable. Or in his case, he's not even worthy of a comparison. What was it maman used to say to these plebs in her sweetest voice? "Essaye cette manoeuvre: Prendre cinquante-soixante pas en arrière. Prendre plusieurs souffles profonds. Sprinter en avant à toute vitesse. Faire un triple saut périlleux en l'air et disparaître dans ton propre cul." I smile easily as I speak these words from memory, and the heaviness in my heart begins to lift. Mothers do know best.


"What didja just say!" my reluctant partner-in-crime shrieks, suddenly suspicious of my grin.


"Shut your trap." My voice was not above a whisper, but it is enough to grab his attention; it is enough to spare an odd moment of peace for my battered eardrums and the poundings in my head. But you know how the old adage goes...


"Or what? You'll let go? But you can't, can you? Aww, don't tell me he had you broken already!"


I am suddenly checked into stillness, recalling an older memory of someone else hatefully accusing me just that.


Has he really?


Am I broken?


Maybe I am. I used to be a lot of things I'm not; most of which will not bear repeating here. My two closest comrades don't recognize me anymore, complaining I am acting out of character, strange and sometimes actually frightening. I know I've done the Scary Malfoy bit and we three have pulled quite a panic with our usual childish antics in our common rooms for wicked laughs, but some days, the things I do makes me question the person that I am or that I thought to be. It's not a bad thing... I think...


I think if I were the old me, I wouldn't need a reason at all; I would have left him to croak and continued my merry way. I think I was mean and spiteful like that; I'm not now; I can think of *many* reasons to please the sanctimonious members of the "Order of the Light" why I should not bother at all sticking out my neck for this cretin of a wizard.


But I can settle for three.


For one, he is one heavy bugger. Even if my arms weren't ripped almost into bloody shreds, I am surprised that I have the strength to support his weight *and* mine while suspending in mid-air. The bastard won't even help, hanging his full, dead weight off my arm, and an annoying smirk appears in his face every now and then at the knowledge of the added strain on my injuries that he helped put there.


Two, I hate him. Well, at least I think I do. It's hard to feel anything these days. Between rushing to attend Deatheater meetings and slipping information to Dumbly, coordinating attacks on defenseless muggles, fornicating with the Dark Lord whenever he pleases, playing nanny to our hero and his sidekicks, and fending off our Golden Boy's not-too-subtle overtures of... I don't know what he's playing, but I think it's reasonable to say that my plate is full right now to entertain another admirer and his maddeningly jealous best friend. I don't want all this complications of friendship, and I don't want his friends either.


Three, the mudblood hates him. She absolutely *hates* him. Huh, big surprise there. I wasn't privy to the details, but I imagine it must be one of those classic, messy breakups: Girl has a longtime crush on boy; boy finally gets a clue; boy shags girl senseless; girl obviously doesn't have sense to begin with; boy unfortunately suffers from acute roving eye (and hand); girl finds boy making out with some slut and ends it with the full waterworks.


Of course, I could be wrong, and it could be all in my head. I doubt they had time to romp in the sack or know the practicalities of what goes where, and I honestly cannot believe the priggish Gryffindor Honor would allow them to engage in illicit affairs on the side, but I've always thought they would be the "happily ever after" couple, those two. His parents are a prime example of two people in a fairy tale marriage – a couple that stays together because of love and *only* love - and I had expected a bit of that romanticism to rub off on the lil' chip. I must say I am not accustomed to disappointment, and that is enough reason.


Why, then, am I not relaxing my grip?


I am not a hero. My actions are not always honorable, but they have always been purposeful. This idiot has - as much it sickens me to say this – a "purpose" after the War, and I intend that he fulfil it.


I know the mudblood would have looked upon me with pride were she to see "the reformed" me now. It touches me with a kind of reverential gratitude that after all the abuse we set upon each other she believes in me. Stranger alliance has forged in the crucible of war, or perhaps that was just the old Veela charm working, that she may even like me... As in *like* like - if her hand on my thigh this morning is any indication. What was it doing there? Tsk, that is no business of yours to ask.


Or it could simply be that I had fallen under the curse of her wet blubbering to keep him safe at all cost and she drew from me a grudging promise. I hate it when girls play dirty! She has developed this terrible habit of making the Great Deluge seems like a leaky faucet of late - no thanks to her two best friends - and has no qualms flinging herself into my arms, bursting into a loud bawl at the slightest thing after knowing my weaknesses for teary females; I don't fancy snot on a thousand-galleon suit. How do you think my date got me to attend the Yule Ball in the first -


- oh shite... I swallow with difficulty, my mouth dry and my tongue thick, when I spy my favorite people entering the room – two Deatheaters. I think my heavy burden notices it too and has finally given thought about our miserable situation because he is now his quietest yet.


"Psst," he whispers *loudly*. "You don't think they'll see us up here, do you?"


Ah, now I know why I had to take those curses; my dreamscape is on mute. Thinking, I suspect, is indeed an alien activity for this poor bloke, but I have already mentally prepared to be struck with a -


- Whatever bullshit they've fed you, trust me, it never -


- Urgh! gets easier with curses. You build just -


- You build... fuck! ...just enough tolerance -


- Viens m'enculer! Vous établissez seulement assez de tolérance pour vous assurer que vous pas -


- Go crazy.


I hurt. My brains hurt; even my eyelashes hurt, but I am still alive and breathing and still able to construe coherent sentences together, so I suppose I can't complain too much.


One thing you would have to learn about casting an Unforgivable in general is that you can only cast it at one person at a time. That is unless you are extremely powerful or equally insane because such curses drain your powers fast in a rather unpredictable manner and if you are not careful, you could end up a squib. Permanently. Evidently, my redhead partner is not at all affected, and judging by the look on his freckled face, I say he takes perverse pleasure in my suffering.


Tell me again that "Light versus Dark" story, how Light shall hold triumph because it is all good and pure, and the Good shall always prevail. I think I'm going to vomit through my nose if it wasn't so beneath my station.


All right. Show's over. I'm done as the muggle would call it "hanging around". That's 6 bloody curses I took for the Light, then someone is going to stupefy these lapdogs, and we shall proceed to the Great Hall and... and... and I only counted 5 curses.


There should've been 6.


No, I assure you I *haven't* lost my mind. Yet. I distinctly remember this scene and I played it often enough to know there should be another curse coming. Perhaps they are pathetically squabbling about who would have the honor to cast the last curse, and if they are, I do hope they would get on with it soon; our rescuer will not appear until I live through the sixth curse and my fingers have decidedly gone numb. I look around for the Deatheaters, blinking the blood and sweat furiously from my eyes.


And I found them.


One of them is lying prone on the ground, twitching from the visible green remnants of a telltale curse. The other was pointing his wand stick at the wrong mudblood who has stuck out her chin defiantly; he has another wand stick in his other hand. My wonderful powers of deduction has come to conclude that at some point during those 5 curses, this busybody of a mudblood witch has taken one of them unaware, but the other was fast enough to disarm her.


Right. Recklessness is not a trait I would consider a virtue, even if it were reasoned with the very best intention. Something about a muggle saying "a path paved to Hell", I think. I told her to stay behind with him; she would be safe; they can keep each other safe; I threatened her with a hex.


If she's here, who's watching his back now?


And what has happened to my actual would-be rescuer? Did he forget to excuse himself from whatever he was doing and find poor helpless us? I hope they didn't switch roles and he stayed with Potty instead because that would most certainly get himself stupidly killed. I shouldn't worry, should I? Of course, he's on his way; I did literally scream my advice in his ear before we separated; it wasn't too hard for his mudblood brains to understand my instruction, was it?


Doesn't anyone fucking do the things they're told anymore? Do you now see what I put up with every single day?


Gods, I don't know how this will affect our "bright future". This is not how it is supposed to happen. This is not the dream I dreamt last night or the many nights before, and I don't care to dream again. Something must have happened between now and the time of our clash with the Deatheaters earlier to have seriously unbalanced the fates of our time.


I quickly do a mental scan through my memories to fit the events so far. We are supposed to be separated from the group; that much we've done. He and I, we are to provide a distraction that would draw the many followers away from where the real battle is fought, which we did; they couldn't resist the pull and I even tolerated this Gryffindork's nauseating pawing.


I am where I am supposed to be, I took the curses and I kept this ungrateful git alive in spite of his baitings... although I didn't quite foresee us losing *both* our wands; I could've calculated that in had I known and make for future preparation.


What do I do?


The deatheater is pushing the mudblood closer to the wall, and she steps back.


What do I do?


She too has purpose after the war, but I wonder now if her part in the future has changed because of this new development, and that goes the same for everyone else. I cannot see anything beyond tonight's new madness, and I don't know if I want to.


But my eyes flutter shut against my will and a familiar hot flash engulfs my mind -


- a woman is screaming under her third curse -


- raw -


- a dark-haired man is holding a bloody knife -


- excruciating -


- two blondes kissing and a child laughing -


- pain -


- a blond lie gasping for breath in the arms of a sobbing woman -


- and I'm back in my skin, gasping. I do not have the luxury of time to go over this new sight, but I know what I must do now, and I think he realizes what I mean to do when our eyes meet.


"Hold... on," I whisper. "This will not hurt."


"You fucking shithole! You're really going drop me, aren't you!" he screams as he looks at me with a pair of accusing eyes - those frightened eyes - and I know he is terrified, lost and alone. Now where have I seen those eyes before?


"I will not die! I refuse to die! You will not let me die!" he wails and pulls at my arm again, but I can no longer feel it. I hear another scream in the background, joining his. That is the third curse, I think, and I know I mustn't tarry if I want my future to be realized.


I close my eyes and pray: "... wisdom to know the difference." And then, I hear the screams no more.


TBC

DEC 08 2005

[A/N: Not beta-ed. Trying to finish this chappie before my muse does the Houdini act again. I don't usually write in the first person, but it's not half as bad as I thought it would turn out to be; it's almost like writing a tediously protracted bitching.

Thanks for the reviews! :-)

French translation for those inclined...

maman – mommy

il devrait poursuivre sien tailleur en justice! – he should sue his tailor!

Essaye cette manoeuvre: Prendre cinquante-soixante pas en arrière. Prendre plusieurs souffles profonds. Sprinter en avant à toute vitesse. Faire un triple saut périlleux en l'air et disparaître dans ton propre cul. - Try this maneuver: Take 50-60 paces backwards. Take several deep breaths. Sprint forward at full speed. Do a triple summersault through the air, and disappear up your own ass.

viens m'enculer! – fuck me (in the ass)!

vous établissez seulement assez de tolérance pour vous assurer que vous pas – you build just enough tolerance to make sure you do not]