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I remember.
I remember you.
You’re always someone different, but I remember. Last time, you were a young man with pale blue eyes and jet-black hair—a Slytherin, like me. The time before, a Ravenclaw girl, much shorter but just as unforgettable. No matter who you are, you always light up a room. You’re impossible to miss.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a boy or a girl, I fall for you every time.
And sometimes you fall back. Other times… Well, I try not to think about that.
My parents were never religious—Anne and I never practiced anything—but the concepts of heaven and hell are difficult, nigh impossible, to avoid.
I think I may be in hell: the same repetitive loop, over and over again, without fail. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.
If this is hell, at least you’re here with me. That provides some semblance of relief, of consolation which I sorely need.
Anne is always cursed in this horrible place. If this is hell, I hope up there, in the world of the living, that isn’t the case. I hope Anne is alive, still at Hogwarts, happy and healthy.
Because down here, I never heal her. That’s the worst part. Every single time, I repeat everything—finding the spellbook, taking the relic, murdering my uncle—only for nothing to be resolved. I either end up aimlessly roaming the halls of Hogwarts or, worse yet, imprisoned in Azkaban until everything starts again.
Do I ever learn my lesson, if there was even a lesson to begin with? Merlin, you’d think one of these days I would, but I don’t. I don’t! And each time, a piece of my soul dies with me, if I even had a soul to begin with.
How long have I been here, wherever this is? It looks like Hogwarts, my home for the past five years. It feels like Hogwarts, but is it really?
And who are you? This mysterious person with godlike powers who changes shapes and personalities in every loop?
Why do you never help me? You say you’ll speak to the Keepers about Anne, but do you ever do so? I never know.
What does this all mean? There’s a meaning for everything, isn’t there?
Am I even real?
Or was I just made for you?
I suppose there’s no point in dwelling on it. I’ll never get the answers I seek. I’ll never cure my sister. I’ll never even hold your hand. Not in this loop or the next.
I’ve resigned myself to that.
So for now, for always, I’ll fall back on the only thought that keeps me going: you.
I remember.
I remember you.