Friendly reminder that James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter bullied HIM, assaulted HIM, and tried to kill HIM.
Out of pure boredom. For fun. Out of jealousy.
And every time these four bullies are praised, I’m taken right back to my school days.
I see myself sitting in the classroom, holding back tears because no one wanted to share a room with me on the class trip.
I hear their voices shouting, “Ew… she touched me! I’m infected! Now I’m going to die!”
I hear them planning to hurt me physically.
I hear them insulting me, mocking me, or laughing when I did something clumsy in gym class.
I feel my anger and despair at not being able to defend myself.
I can taste my tears when they tell me that nobody loves me.
I feel their kicks against my backside and legs, and I feel them tripping me again.
I feel them pelting me with paper balls again.
I feel the rage that my teachers ignored it all.
I feel the sorrow when they tore down my profile sheet — the one that had been hanging there with everyone else’s — and threw it away.
I feel the sorrow when I realized that once again, everyone was ignoring me.
I feel the anger when they stole my backpack and threw it across the bus.
I feel the fear on my way to school, knowing it would start all over again.
I feel the anger when people told me, “Maybe it’s your own fault,” or “What did you do to provoke it?”
I hadn’t done anything. Never. I was simply there.
I was a child who had actually been happy to go to school.
A child who was excited about the chance to learn.
A child who was proud to finally be allowed to walk to school alone.
I didn’t know that instead of being a dream, it would become a nightmare.
All of that was more than ten years ago, and it still hurts.
I don’t have to get over it or look past it just because my bullies could.
Their school lives weren’t destroyed.
They didn’t have to go to therapy.
They didn’t wonder whether it might be better to end everything.
Bullying kills.
Looking away kills.
Excusing bullying kills.
Protecting bullies kills.
