A fragmentary ficlet
Two portraits and a quotation - a Harry Potter fragment
1.
A father is what he has never had; a force to match his own, to meet face to face, to give him a model and a frame for his manhood. All he had known in his childhood was violence, and however little he might know of mankind, he knew at least that what he met at home was wrong and not to be accepted.
As a result, he was forever without balance. His immense inner power would either unleash itself without control, hurting friend and foe alike, or retire within itself, nervous, scared of the harm it could do, scared, too, of dealing with people - he had never been taught how. He knew, at some level, that the potential for great things lay within him; but how could that sense join with the confused, half-broken person he was, he could never imagine. And so, even that sense of potential was not an asset, but a condemnation, hanging over him as a demand he could never fulfil.
2.
He could have lived with a son greater than himself. As he turned back to contemplate his fathers and his fathers’ fathers, he was aware that he stood on the shoulders, or in the shadow, of giants; that what had made him was fearsome, perhaps even dreadful, but never petty. And as his life continued, so he grew more aware of his lineage; of the duty he owed them - of being always in the shadow of greatness.
He had sought to live according to his heritage - high and demanding in his private life, married to the most high-born and beautiful lady, herself a treasure to be touched sparingly and with respect. And to preserve her beauty, he - not she - had decreed that they should have only one son.
He could have lived with a son greater than himself; a son who did not proclaim, in everything he said and did, an inevitable mediocrity - a mediocrity that sometimes seemed to reflect his own as in a mocking mirror. He could have lived with a son he could believe in, as now his self-belief was being eaten away from inside by what he saw every day - and could not change. He could have lived with a son that brought out the best of himself, instead of leaving him to set up an awful and brittle façade behind which nobody, not even himself, was allowed to look.
A Quotation
(from The Mask of Apollo, by Mary Renault)
He will rage through the world like a flame, like a lion; seeking, never finding. Like a lion he will hunt for his proper food, and fasting make do with what he finds; like a lion he will be sometimes angry. Always he will be loved, never knowing the love he missed.
All tragedies deal with fated meetings… No-one will ever make a tragedy - and that is as well, for one could not bear it - whose grief is that the principals never meet.
1.
A father is what he has never had; a force to match his own, to meet face to face, to give him a model and a frame for his manhood. All he had known in his childhood was violence, and however little he might know of mankind, he knew at least that what he met at home was wrong and not to be accepted.
As a result, he was forever without balance. His immense inner power would either unleash itself without control, hurting friend and foe alike, or retire within itself, nervous, scared of the harm it could do, scared, too, of dealing with people - he had never been taught how. He knew, at some level, that the potential for great things lay within him; but how could that sense join with the confused, half-broken person he was, he could never imagine. And so, even that sense of potential was not an asset, but a condemnation, hanging over him as a demand he could never fulfil.
2.
He could have lived with a son greater than himself. As he turned back to contemplate his fathers and his fathers’ fathers, he was aware that he stood on the shoulders, or in the shadow, of giants; that what had made him was fearsome, perhaps even dreadful, but never petty. And as his life continued, so he grew more aware of his lineage; of the duty he owed them - of being always in the shadow of greatness.
He had sought to live according to his heritage - high and demanding in his private life, married to the most high-born and beautiful lady, herself a treasure to be touched sparingly and with respect. And to preserve her beauty, he - not she - had decreed that they should have only one son.
He could have lived with a son greater than himself; a son who did not proclaim, in everything he said and did, an inevitable mediocrity - a mediocrity that sometimes seemed to reflect his own as in a mocking mirror. He could have lived with a son he could believe in, as now his self-belief was being eaten away from inside by what he saw every day - and could not change. He could have lived with a son that brought out the best of himself, instead of leaving him to set up an awful and brittle façade behind which nobody, not even himself, was allowed to look.
A Quotation
(from The Mask of Apollo, by Mary Renault)
He will rage through the world like a flame, like a lion; seeking, never finding. Like a lion he will hunt for his proper food, and fasting make do with what he finds; like a lion he will be sometimes angry. Always he will be loved, never knowing the love he missed.
All tragedies deal with fated meetings… No-one will ever make a tragedy - and that is as well, for one could not bear it - whose grief is that the principals never meet.