I don’t know why that sentence seems like an ominous way to start a week, but it feels that way. I suppose it all depends on the story that comes out if it though, so let’s set those timers and see.
Slightly dark, and to me an interesting start, but not as ominous as I suspected from the sentence.
Monday, February 12th: There are always consequences.
There are always consequences. Harry knew that. He had always known that. It was one of the driving tenants of his childhood. Spill the milk and there would be consequences. He would have to scrub the kitchen and he would have no milk for a week, eating his cereal dry if that’s what was chosen for breakfast.
There were consequences for everything, some harsher than others. Some that even now as an adult he didn’t care to look back on. While most of his child hood he understood better as an adult, he reconciled the pain and punishment and for the most part set it aside. He knew that his family life was bad and that the adults in his world were classified as abusive by any reasonable test. He understood and accepted this.
Yet the fact that there were always consequences stayed with him. It was ingrained in him deeper than any scar tissue, clearer than any memory. Often, during interviews he was asked what drove him. What caused him to be who he was, to work so hard. They wanted to know the secret of his success. He knew that.
He also knew that he would never tell them. The understanding that there were always consequences driving him forward in an effort to avoid the punishing consequences, would give in some small way credit for his success to those who made them. He understood they shaped him. But they did so in order to beat him into a shape that suited him, To mold him into something of their design.
He might be what he was because of what they did, but the design of him was not what they intended. Not what they hoped or strove for. He made himself out of the wreckage they left behind when they could break him no further.
That was his secret. The others were broken. The others became what was wanted of them. They were shaped into the wanted design. The same methods did not work on him. There reached a point where he would break no further. They heaped pain and consequences upon him, but instead of breaking he ran. He left them behind, did his best to heal and to become something of his design.
He was often asked what he saw when he looked back on his life and what advice he would give to a younger self. As he grew older and his brilliant innovations became standard, as his newly blazed pathways became part of the established roadmap and his dark hair started to frost, the question came more and more often. He reached a stage in his life where others felt he ought to be nostalgic.
He knew that tonight with this interview, the question would come again.
This he would answer with a smile and some words of encouragement about holding fast to dreams and believing in himself. They would take the answer and be satisfied. There was only one time in truth that he looked back. And it was never something he would bring up to the press, or anyone else for that matter. It was a secret he would take to the grave.
Ten til Midnight 