I admit, Shakespeare isn’t my favorite writer, but I have picked him up once in a while for a bit of light reading. I have read most of his plays, and most of them are okay. I’m sure they’re all better on stage, but going into Muggle London for a night at the theater is not recommended for werewolves. Besides, ticket prices are way beyond my means.
It’s all right, though. I like using my imagination. I’m sure that the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet never looks as good on stage as it does in my mind, and I’m sure that Juliet’s never as pretty as I imagine her, or at least, not in the same way. Definitely not in the same way. And it’s the same with all the other plays.
I’ve only gotten to see one on stage. Lily took me to a production of King Lear, which isn’t my favorite play, but it was entertaining enough for us intellectuals. James fell asleep halfway through. He was never big on Shakespeare. That is to say, I doubt he understood more than on in twenty words in the first act. But that was okay. It’s not for everyone.
Lily did offer to take me to a production of my favorite show, but I declined. I don’t want to know how someone else interprets it. I want to read it myself. Sometimes, when I’m especially bored or lonely, I get up and read the whole “Is this a dagger” speech out loud in an over-dramatic fashion.
Yes, Macbeth is my favorite Shakespeare play, and not just because of the witches. To us in the wizarding world, they seem pretty funny, although once I left my copy of the play open to Act four, scene one. You know, the one where the witches are brewing their potion. James and Sirius found it, read enough to figure out what was going on, and decided to try brewing that potion themselves. After they found, bought, stole, or borrowed the ingredients- that was hard work, since most of them are Class C Non-Tradable items- they brewed the potion during a “free experiment” class period, while chanting the Bard’s silly rhyme. Let’s just say that free experiment class periods immediately ceased to exist.
But while Macbeth is my favorite- how could it not be, it’s the most exciting play I’ve ever read- my life feels like one of my least favorite texts, and I feel like one of the supporting roles.
I’m not saying that Hamlet is bad. It’s really not. I’m just saying that Old Will could have cut some of the chit-chat and put in a bit more action. I mean, for two acts, the most exciting thing that happens is that Hamlet talks to the ghost of his murdered father. To someone who’s used to talking to ghosts, it’s not really that thrilling. In act three, sure, Hamlet does accidentally stab Polonius, and then things speed up a little, but it’s mostly just people running around and throwing tantrums, and Ophelia acting like she’s taken a badly-made Depressing Draft. I mean, the girl was absolute fruit loops. Come to think on it, Hamlet is insane, too. They really deserve each other.
But weirdly enough, that what my life feels like. I’ve started thinking of James and Lily as Hamlet and Ophelia- not that James and Lily were crazy, but they ended up like Hamlet and Ophelia. Victims of circumstance. James was especially like Hamlet- a little nuts, kind of depressed at times, and ultimately betrayed by someone he thought was a friend- and Lily got swept up with him, much like Ophelia did. I think of Peter as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern rolled into one- another victim, one who was unexpected.
That was six years ago. But as far as my friends go, that’s where the similarities end. I can’t decide yet if Sirius, locked up in Azkaban, was Claudius- the traitor working for ambition- or Laertes, the depressed young man who is connived into killing Hamlet to avenge his father and sister. It’s hard to choose. Sirius was always ambitious, but sometimes I hope that he didn’t really know what he was doing. That he was just so broken up about something that it was easy for Voldemort to convince him to betray James. I make myself think of Sirius as Laertes. As another victim.
But the character I feel connected to, the guy I really feel for throughout that play, is Horatio, the poor sap who’s left alive to tell the story at the end. That’s who I am. I survived the war. I didn’t turn against my friends, I wasn’t kill, I wasn’t even seriously physically injured. And somehow, I feel that my tragedy is the greatest.
Yes. My tragedy. Because I have to live with it. I’ve had to live with it every day for six years. I’m the one who’s had to keep going, and probably, someday, I’ll have to tell the story. I’ll have to explain Lily and James and Peter and Sirius.
That’s what Shakespeare didn’t explain. How Horatio kept going after Hamlet was dead. How a man could keep on living after all his friends were gone. How someone could keep their life together after all of that.
Believe me, I understand why Horatio wanted to die at the end of that show. It wasn’t because Hamlet was dead. Horatio could live through that. It was the burden Hamlet gave him at the end. The task of living with it. The job of remembering.
I have to do that for James. I have to remember him. And in remembering James, I remember the others. I remember the story. And I have to be able to tell it. Maybe someday I’ll have to explain it to Harry.
I never wanted to be Hamlet. I never wanted to be any of Shakespeare’s main characters, not even in the comedies. I didn’t like any of the comedies as much. And as for the tragedies... well, being a hero is all well and good, but not when the play ends in your death. Not that James would have ever understood that. He always wanted to be the hero, even if the play was a tragedy. I know that our plays end in our deaths eventually, but death comes sooner for the hero.
It’s funny. Shakespeare spends a lot of time saying that people are dead.
“The Queen, my lord, is dead.”*
“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.”**
“He’s gone, he’s killed, he’s dead!”***
It seems that the only person who isn’t dead in Shakespeare is Horatio.
The only person who isn’t dead in my life is me.
I knew him. All too well.
Horatio.
Horatio by armagod679
Story Notes:
I do not own Harry Potter or any of the wonderful plays by William Shakespeare.
Chapter Endnotes: *Macbeth, Act Five
**Hamlet, Act Five
***Romeo and Juliet, Act Four