14 May 2018, 11:19
Spent
Fingers brush the crinkled letter with edges more jagged than an aging cliff side, folded to the point of tearing, and worn with ink spots of an indecisive owner. Nothing he did was ever elegant, it wasn't refined or well crafted. Everything was never by design but more by grit, marred with indecision that blasted from the end of a quill. The letter was coming from a young boy filled with doubt, one that made him question his place in Hogwarts, and one that seethed with anger.
His words were poised fists, fingertips like spent shotgun shells and singed plastic with a bad attitude. Perhaps bitter of a failure that he wasn't used to, not to this magnitude. Bitter of the fear that suddenly took a hold of him and prevented sleep and uneasiness, bitter of what all of the bad things left in its wake. This was a year of new bonds, but he was so scared to tell them that the bad loomed more than the good. That despite all of these shenanigans and the happiness he's had, it was not enough to forget the times where that folded like a house of cards.
He was afraid to get a letter back that would confirm his dad's belief that this school was robbing him of a future he can have without it. Reid was naive to the fact that he simply didn't know how to let go of his feelings, that he was finally at the peak of it. The oxygen up there felt so limited that he found himself choking in the worries that plagued him. But it was too hard to come back down, it was too hard for him to accept his shortcomings.
He didn't excel in studies, he didn't have grades worthy of praise, and he couldn't prove his wizardry. But his heart made up for what he lacked, loyal and true to friends and his house alike. Still, it was hard to be this way when he felt displaced, like a picture that needs readjusting. Part of him wanted to remind himself that this was just him overthinking and overstating, but the other was a boy who was lightning before the thunder.
It wasn't people that tested his patience, it was circumstances - ones he couldn't fully comprehend when he was so immature. All it needed was the right climate for him to react in such a way; he wasn't proud of it. But he was human. So this was where it left him, his clothes, wrapped fingers, and a letter in his hand that refused to be sent. The temper was gone, temporarily eroded by the time he spent alone, away from the carefree students of Hogwarts.
It wasn't so bad, it gave him time to think and to hope that even after all that has happened - they wouldn't misunderstand. There was hope in the possibility that he'd get a letter back that would prove him otherwise and what he was feeling was temporary; that failure was part of life and it wouldn't always be this way. With hesitance, it was attached.
Here's to hoping.
"Trouble usually finds me."