Harry Potter One-Shots

Chapter | One

Contest #4: Chapter 1

   "Dear Journal,

    I hate you.

    I don't see why Mother forces me to write in you - it is not accomplishing anything. She says that writing down my thoughts could help me discern from what is real and what is fantasy. She says I'm crazy and that I need to do what Doctor Dewy tells me; little does she know that Dewy is more insane than I could ever be.

    I'm not mad. They are. 

    I've been picking up on some random things lately, things I have never really noticed before now. There seems to be a change in the atmosphere, and hovering cloud that sucks your soul away. But, that's not really what has been giving me these 'insane thoughts'. I feel things. Things I shouldn't. Vibrations, shaking, rumblings under foot. Continually I would tell Mother about the earthquakes, the tremors, but she would laugh me off - tell me it was all in my mind. 

    How could it just be all in my mind when I can see the flower vase decoration our dining room table quivering with me? Mother began to get annoyed with my frequent talks about the shaking after the fifth time I bought it up, but, it was not until I began hearing voices, voices I had never heard before, all around me that she demanded I seek 'professional help'.

    Don't make me laugh. 

    Constantly, Mother would catch me with my ear against the bedroom wall, the kitchen ceiling, the bathroom floorboards, trying to decipher what the people were saying. But, it was in vain. It was as if a thick veil was put between myself and the voices, a covering that muffled and blocked them from me, but, I know they are there. I just know they are. -"

    "Gideon Wylkes," Mother hollered towards me from her seat at the dining room table. She was busy polishing the only valuable thing in our house, our silver candelabra, while sparing me an irritated glare. I hated that look in her sharp, almond colored eyes. "What are you doing, sitting there on the couch like a lump? Get up and shovel the walk way!" She snapped slightly.

    "Fine," I murmured, agitated. She had just told me to write, but now she was yelling at me for doing as she asked. She's crazy, not I. "Whatever."

    Mother tossed her polishing rag down with an angry huff and shot out of her chair, pointing a firm finger at me in rage. "How - how dare you use that tone with me, young man?! Go outside now and don't come back until you learn some proper respect!" 

    "FINE!" I yelled, chucking my leather bound journal across the room and through the window, breaking a small panel on the left into shards of sharp glass fragments. "I won't come back, either! Just like Father!" I hollered, face burning red with pent up aggression. 

    Grabbing my winter coat and wool scarf, I stepped out in the brisk December air, slamming the door shut in the process. I didn't bother to apologize for my words, nor for the pained look that I'd stamped onto her face. 

    Breathing in the cold air, I felt my boiling blood cool. Perhaps I shouldn't have yelled so harshly. My father was a sore subject; he had only left two years ago, but it feels just like yesterday. He packed his brief case and told Mom and I that he was done. We haven't heard from him since then.

    The prick.

    Mother and I were never particularly close. I used to be on better terms with Father. Now I am on better terms with no one. Dad is dead to me, and, I'm dead to Mom. I look just like him, the same slender frame, aristocrat face, and dark eyes. Sometimes I think she began sending me to therapy to get me out of the house when I'm not in school. So she doesn't have to see, doesn't have to look at the continual reminder that I am of dad.