When A Slaughterhouse Becomes A Home (selfcest/tomarry)

thirteen

Dear Ron and Hermione,

I love you. I know I haven't been acting like it lately, but it's for your own good. Your own protection. Everyone around me is in danger. I hurt everyone I love sooner or later and I know probably, with this note, I'm hurting you now. I don't mean to. It isn't my intention. I am tired and selfish and consumed. There's something wrong with me, or everyone else, and it's worn me down.

I am tired of living. So that's why I'm doing this. And you deserve a proper explanation, and I'm sorry I haven't given it to you.

And to Sirius. I hope this message reaches you. I love you. I wish I was around more often than I am, and I'm sorry I'm not my father. The mischief I get up to gets me called evil.

I think I am. Evil, that is. I know that isn't what any of you want to hear, but look at the way I hurt people, the way I push them away, the way I am consistently and selfishly alive.

And it is selfish. For me to be alive. I have lived so long knowing that one day me or Voldemort will face off and that will be it, the final showdown, but I'm not enough. My greatest enemy is myself. Someone else will face him, probably Dumbledore, and someone else will win.

I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. No one is perfect, but you all were close enough. You mistakes are nothing compared to mine, and I love you through them.

Stay safe. Stay alive. And stay well.

Sincerely,

Harry.

Harry sighs and crumbles up the message, throwing it in the fireplace and watching it burn. He glares at it, as if it is what's personally offended him.

He doesn't know what's come over him, writing stuff like that. He's got a responsibility to live. Obviously. He knows this. But still...

The past week has been difficult. He hadn't realized it'd been so maddening being alone, and it was no wonder he'd put up with Potter and Tom for as long as he did. It hurts to suffer and it hurts even more to suffer when there's no one to share it with, no one to talk to it about.

The school hates him, and loves him, and thinks him a lair and a freak. It is his second year again, with a firm line being drawn in the sand between those who hate him and those who support him.

Word has somehow gotten around that he saved Arthur Weasley's life with his vision, and people are either in awe -- an overwhelming response, and Harry much preferred their silence -- or completely suspicious. They think it's somehow connected to Sybill -- who's classes Harry has been skipping out on, thank you very much -- or that Harry is the one that put Arthur in danger in the first place.

Harry doesn't appreciate either side. Quite frankly, he'd like to be left alone. He would like to be less of a celebrity, always talk of the town, and more of a person. He would like to be left alone, and left to die.

Damn.

There it is again, that thought. That he would be better off dead, joining his parents, free from the stress of navigating his personal life and Voldemort and being rumored about and having to return to the Dursleys in a few short months.

It would be so much easier, so much easier if he was dead. He knows that the people he loves love him -- even if he's been trying to give them reasons not to -- and would miss him dearly, but he also knows that something about him is immensely selfish. He didn't tell Dumbledore about the vision personally because he just wouldn't accept facing a man that refused to face him. He'd do it again, too.

Tom and Potter have been... influences, best put, on his life, on how he views things. Every selfish impulse he's had has been not only accepted, but encouraged.

It is like they are actively trying to make him a worse person. Make him more like them, like Potter and Tom themselves are.

Though Harry doesn't believe Tom to be on Voldemort's side, he doesn't think that he's a good person. He is structurally evil. He's mean to Harry because that's all he knows how to do. And Potter, the unknown, was made, somewhere along the way, into something similar.

Or he is just desperate. Harry's been theorizing a lot in their time apart, and he thinks he's put it together. Harry thinks that Potter wants to hurt him plainly because he is tired of living; what Harry suspects is that the immortal cannot die as he is... so he must die when he is younger. It's all so clever, really.

Harry respects it, even if he thinks it makes Potter untrustworthy. And, Hell, here is, about to give him what he wants.

Harry ducks his head to hide his tears. He cannot believe he's here, writing and trashing suicide notes.

If Voldemort could see him now.

He wraps his arms around himself, trying to soothe his itching need for contact. But it is nothing compared to the way Tom and Potter held him, like a lover, like they actually cared for him, despite the toxicity of their presence. He knows he is touch starved, but he didn't think it was this bad.

Because without touch, and without them, he feels alone. So anxious that he is sick to his stomach, and so depressed that he wades through his classes in a thick fog of despair.

"Potter?" he says. The common room is empty. It is just him.

And Potter. Potter is there, always; he's made himself invisible, upon Harry's request and their falling out, and stopped talking to him, but if Harry feels a breath besides his ear, he knows who it belongs to.

Potter appears in the armchair opposite of him. His legs are crossed and his arms folded neatly in front of him. "Harry." He says Harry's name, and it sounds like coming home.

Harry squeezes his eyes shut, cutting the image of Potter before him out of his mind. He ignores the shame he feels asking this. He speaks quietly. "Can I have a hug?"

And Potter's arms are around him in a moment and it feels lovely and warm and ohgodhemissedthis. He sniffs into Potter's shoulder. And it is not forgiveness. Potter is not forgiven.

But it is something, and it's a step toward it. Forgiveness.