Unleashed Solo Finished

(or alternatively: Dmitri Bleaches His Hair)
set on April 20, 2020

The raven-haired Slytherin looked at his image in the foggy bathroom mirror and saw a shaken boy.

Reflected on that one large panel of glass attached to the wall was a mere child whose carefully built defenses have been challenged by an uncontrollable and unpredictable force.

Fear. Desperation. Powerlessness.

It can be seen quite clearly in the way the reflection's eyes flickered, moved, never settled; a billion outcomes, one worse than the last, running courses and laps through his fourteen-year-old mind.

It has never been this... bad.

For two years, Dmitri Kazimir Jones has rejoiced in the fact that his life was his for the taking--that it was entirely in the palm of his hand. The knowledge that he was capable of holding it safe right there all by himself pushed him to greater heights in his self-sufficiency.

Hogwarts was an eye-opener.

It was in his time at Hogwarts that he learned about the fickleness of human connection when countless people broke his trust; that one can only be assured of his own actions--never the actions of others.

It drove him to grow to love solitude and the power he holds over himself.

It was in his time at Hogwarts that he learned about the insignificance of one in the sea of multitudes when so many of the people he once knew disappeared with nary a bat of the eye of the others.

It drove him to stand out--to excel beyond everyone's standards--so people will notice, nay, remember him when he, too, was gone.

And it was in his time at Hogwarts that he realized that he wasn't as helpless to the whims of fate as he so previously thought--that through his efforts, he could tailor his future as he meant it to be: safe and stable.

It drove him to shun any and everything that threatened his perfect little crafted world.

For some time, it worked in his favor.

Though the school had its share of tragedies over the years, none have come close to even garnering the boy's attention. There was always a homework here and a required reading there that took Dmitri safely away from the most-often-fatal action the other students got into. The boy was lost in his own world of perfection and stability--and he was happy.

Until he suddenly wasn't.

Because this time, the tragedy didn't strike far from the boy.

Blackening limbs, spider bites, and fatal injuries. A whirlwind of despair and pain--and it happened right outside his door. Suddenly, his bubble of manufactured calm and control burst in a flurry of dark specks.

It could have been him.

This fact shook him to the core--challenging the single worldview that worked for him so far. Without his convictions, Dmitri was simply a boy of fourteen years, barely able to take care of himself outside of schoolwork.

It wasn't something he particularly liked feeling.

Which was why he was here, in the Slytherin dorms' bathroom late at night, looking into the mirror at the boy he has allowed himself to become. A boy who avoids anything with even the tiniest bit of possibility of going wrong. Dmitri knew for a while now that this needed to change--he was intelligent, if not self-aware, and so he knows this deep inside.

This weakness.

This episode in the bathroom was simply a culmination of year's worth of denial--fueled by the wake-up call that is the Slytherin incident.

He knew you can't avoid problems for too long, yet still tried to do just that. And now that he has come too close to losing his luck, he has finally embraced this fact.

Problems did not disappear when you avoid them.

No.

They disappear when you confront them; face them head-on.

What Dmitri wanted was a world void of anything that can take him by surprise--anything unpredictable; anything with even the slightest odd of going awry. And he cannot achieve it by dodging whatever is coming his way.

He stared at his reflection and vowed to stop running as he squeezed a tube of chemicals into his open palm. With it was the will to begin anew as a better version of himself.

He vowed to take a firmer hold on his plans and dreams of a better life as he took a firm hold of his raven hair to distribute the liquid evenly. With it was the determination to take matters into his own capable hands.

He swore he'll get rid of anything--and anyone who stands in his way as he bent to get rid of the chemicals with a good, thorough rinse. And with it were his dreams of a better future untainted by the past.

The boy watched as the running water swept the product and the color from his hair away and imagined the fear and inhibition spiraling down the drain along with it. Like picking off a splinter embedded in your skin, there was a certain kind of relief within that release--drastic but definitely necessary.

Unleashed.

With the change in his hair came a change in perspective that would continue to be his for the foreseeable future--anything worth having was worth fighting for, and he'd fight tooth and nail to have whatever his heart desired.

For others, colored hair was a statement--a statement of change, of a shift so great it needs to be memorialized.

For Dmitri, it was more than that.

Because his bleached hair was his warpaint.