1"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."
-John Quincy Adams
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[the reunion at hand may bring joy
it may bring fear]
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The first thing James noticed about Remus was his scar.
It was cut across his face, starting from the left eyebrow down to the corner of his mouth, and quite the ugly, prominent thing. He could tell it was at least a few years old, but he bit his tongue about asking him about it and instead questioned him for his name.
He noticed a couple hours later, when they were changing in their brand new dormitory (Gryffindor, just like his mother was) that there were similar scars, across his front and back, although Remus tried to hide them by changing quickly in the corner. His curiosity burned to ask where he had gotten them, why they looked like large claws or why some of them still seemed raw, but kept his mouth shut and instead wished his new classmates a good night.
Sometimes James could keep his mouth shut, especially if it involved something others weren't comfortable with.
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When Tom Riddle first came to Hogwarts, full of thirst for knowledge and desire for power, he had his own scars from the orphanage. Old ones, nasty ones, from tricks the other children played on him before he learned that he had to fight back. One was on the back of his right leg, a long jagged one, from when he was pushed onto a piece of wood from the debris of what was once a home. Another was on his shoulders, where it was a paler white then the rest of his skin, when they completely burned it all off by holding him down on a metal slide that still was smoking from a nearby bomb that had been dropped.
No one mentioned his scars when he changed at school, too disgusted at his rough hands and flawed skin. He sneered at their soft and perfect hands, smooth and unblemished; the hands of an aristocrat, a dying breed in the muggle world. They wouldn't live if they didn't get their hands dirty, he knew. They couldn't do anything if someone wasn't there to do it for them, or magic to aid them. With magic to heal up the small scrapes of childhood, to make it so it wasn't even there, they never learned. They never kept their scars. They didn't look down at them and be reminded of fond days long past, or harsh words that fueled their resolve.
They didn't learn, but Tom did.
And Tom knew what he had to do.
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Hermione was young, eleven, and bright eyed, with big bucked teeth and a thirst for knowledge as well. She could have been great, loved even perhaps by some of the more studious Slytherins and Ravenclaws, had she not had muggle blood.
She came with scars just like any other normal child. One on her knee, still a rather concerning purple from when she was pulled on concrete. Another on her arm, a burn mark, from where she had accidentally burned herself on the oven. A third was on the small of her back, from when a baby cousin had accidentally bit her, leaving a bite mark (that one was always very fun to explain).
But physical scars she could handle. She didn't think of them as goals, or remembering terrible things to blame herself for. Why should she? She looked at them and smiled, remembering when she was pulled on concrete by a too enthusiastic dog, or how delicious the cake was after she had put her arm under the facet and was given the first slice, or how much she loved to tease the baby cousin now that they had grown up.
She had her scars, but that's all they were. Scars.
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PART 4.
prompt: quote up there.