Scariest experience [TM challenge]

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I have to say, I have seen things in my life, that would most probably scare ordinary men witless. I have endured such things as well, on my own body and mind and they have left their marks. But they have never truly scared me per se.

Ordinary is a term I have never connected easily to myself and my character. I have always been at odds with my surroundings and the people in them, no exeptions.

So this might seem a mundane or even ridiculous thing, compared with my later life and the way I'm often perceived.

But the scariest experience for me was leaving home to go to Hogwarts. As disfunctional as my home was, it was home. It was safe and it was mine. I had my own room, my own things and only had my parents to answer to. Well, my father specifically, but that is another matter for another day.

Hogwarts I both longed for, in my never ending pursuit for knowledge and skills, and feared for the unknown factor it was in my future. But when I boarded the train, surrounded by strange and loud and fairly obnoxious people, I knew what true fear was.

It was isolation in the midst of a crowd - which is far more crippling that true solitude, I can tell you from experience - the lack of privacy, the constant rivalry and fights in my House, the opressive and constant presence of people around me, who I wanted nothing to do with.

Of course, the fear passed, like a phobia that dwindles under the constant exposure to the source of that fear. In truth though, it didn't truly pass, it transformed. But that is also another story for another time.

Muse: Severus Snape
Fandom: Harry Potter
Wordcount: 292