Everybody always says things get a lot clearer once you know you�re going to die�that your life gains new meaning and purpose, a new sense of urgency.
Whatever. Everybody�s fucking wrong.
Everybody knows they�re going to die, sure�but there�s always that moment when you know�when you know that everything in your life is leading up to that one moment; that nothing else matters. When you look at your life and know that none of it, not the good or the bad, will last past that.
It�s hard to concentrate after it hits you. Death drums over and over again in your ears. It makes your food stick in your throat, makes all your smiles feel stiff. Makes you not care how loud you yell or how hard you hit. It sits heavy on your eyelids at night even while it robs you of sleep. It makes you tired�tired of everything around you, and tired most of all of yourself.
It�s not numbness. That�s the worst part�it�s not like you just dry up one day and stop feeling things. You still feel. You feel so much you want to rip your lungs open in a constant scream. What you feel is despair. What you feel is the ultimate misery of a world where no one is in control, where good men suffer their whole lives and then die for no purpose and the most you can hope for is a few moments of brief happiness before someone or something takes everything you love away from you. What you feel is agony. What you feel is your heart beating, not because you particularly want it to, but because it has to. What you feel is your spirit slipping away from you a little more each day. What you feel is a gnawing pang inside you that says fight, fight to keep it, don�t give up�even though the thing that gnaws at you isn�t hope but desperation: desperation and frustration, because sure, you can always fight when you have to, but one puny little spirit doesn�t seem worth it. Not when it�s just yours.
The desperation�that stays. It�s like a monster eating its own tail: you�re desperate to fight back against all that pain, but the pain is too much to battle with, which just makes you more desperate. You know that this comes to everyone on earth, this never-ending desolation, and it just makes it all hurt worse. How can you keep anybody else from it if you can�t keep yourself from it? You want to try anything, some days, just to find a reason to try at all; to get back to the place where, even though you had no idea what it was, you knew you had a purpose, a goal, a future. But there�s nothing to try, is there. Not really. Not when all you want to do is be left alone long enough for your heart to break.
Nobody ever leaves you alone, of course. The rituals, the demands, the expectant looks in the eyes of the people around you�none of that goes away. With everyone watching you, every mistake, every misstep, every moment of hesitation, every moment when you are stupid and awkward and back in the cupboard under the stairs, is magnified and judged by people who don�t even know you, really, and don�t really want to. When you get angry, you get twice as angry as before. You strike the first blows when people upset you, and it feels good, for a little while at least�then later you wish you could have been your better self, and wonder if you even have a better self. You don�t feel very good at anything, except being lucky. Your luck will run out soon, you know this. But it�s not like you really even care at this point.
You aren�t very good at doing things with girls, but that doesn�t stop you from always trying, and always embarrassing yourself. At least they seem to like it. You, though�you�re too busy waiting for a new surge of despair to flood you, the cue to push them away before they start acting, well, girly, and just making things worse. Girls are dumb things to think about anyway. Girls are supposed to take away the grinding hunger in the pit of your stomach, but they never do. At least, one girl is supposed to�one girl like your mom, somebody who can make you better inside and out, who will love you and let you love her, if you can find her. But you can�t find her.
You want a girl to be like Quidditch. You want to be able to master her easily and still never find her predictable and boring. You want to get lost in her, windswept in the joy and exhilaration of her, even if it�s only til your feet touch the ground again. For those few seconds in the air, you think everything might just be worth it. You think with the right girl life might start to feel more like flying again, like flying in the open sunshine, and less like fumbling your way through dark cold passages not knowing where you�re going.
If you could just find that one spark in the Girl�s eyes�that look, the one that will tell you that some things still matter, beyond the ache in your stomach and the pang in your heart, or the quiet worried looks on the faces of your friends. And so you make yourself look for her. You make your eyes travel over the girls you see, begging each time for that jolt of interest, of recognition, that never comes.
It gets harder to drag yourself out of bed each morning. You always do it, though, even though at this point you barely know why. You tell yourself it�s a good thing that none of the girls make you want to sidle into a dark corner. You�d only hurt them, or drive them away, or get killed and leave them with a huge chunk torn out of their heart. Somewhere inside you a voice is saying you should look after your own heart and screw everybody else�s; but you can�t do that�or maybe it�s just that that attitude takes too much energy to hold on to. Besides, you�re too full of the longing to be held to think about holding on to something yourself.
You do hold on to some things. You hold on to fatigue, to weariness, hate and bitterness. They hold on to you. They are all familiar, old friends. You can�t fling them away from you on the rare moments you try. You don�t really want to be rid of them�these things at least get you reactions, the kind of reactions that let you know the things you do still matter�even if the reaction is a hard slap in the face from Hermione or a spate of death threats rained on your head from Malfoy. These things at least make you realize that you still count, at least while you�re here, at least to a handful of people. You�ve never thought of inflicting pain to be the kind of reaction you want�but it�s easier to fix the pain you create than the pain of just being alive, that you can never take away, ever. You�ve never thought that pushing extremes could be satisfying; but extremes aren�t that extreme when you know you�re going to die. It�s not that much of a difference, anyway�not between dying and living, or between giving love and giving pain. And the taste of blood on your mouth is still better than tasting nothing at all.
So on the day you get the right reaction�that reaction�from the wrong person, you�re too tired to fight back against the wave of relief that overtakes you. It doesn�t make sense�it doesn�t even feel good, exactly. It just is. There is no answer, no still small voice that comes to you in the night with a clear vision of a better future. There�s only this. What you know. What you�ve always known�an eternal fight. You will fight to save everyone else�of course you will, because you want to�but there�s no joy in salvation, no one there to save you. There�s no last-minute rescue awaiting you, no nick of time. There just is this, your life, and all the things you feel from moment to moment. When you realize you�ve spent too much time already wondering whether or not to kiss someone, something shudders inside you, and you know deep in your heart that this is all there will ever be, and all you can hope for. And as for the fact that the someone is all wrong�it�s just one more thing that stops mattering.
After all, when you�re already this far in the dark, you can�t tell who you�re dancing with anyway.