Disclaimer: I make no money form this whatsoever, and this 'thing' is the result of a bout of sleeplessness. Harry and The Order of the Phoenix and all related HP books belong to the Goddess J.K. Rowling and none other. So there.

Summary: In which there are unmitigated spoilers, existential thought, angsty!Harry, and an author who just HAD to write something upon finishing book 5.

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.

Seriously- for Book 5- if you haven't read, and don't want to know. Please don't read then get pissy about it.

PLEASE!

DIFFERENT

By Orin.

Harry's eyes burn. They burn with the slow constant aching of someone who needs sleep, with a sharp grittiness that itches with every blink.

But Harry does not sleep. Sleep still brings dreams. And darkness. And the dreams, perversely enough, make everything real.

He blinks once, heavily, willing the pain to just go away, for time to pass more quickly, for it to be day because though the daylight pains his eyes more, it's easier to stay alert. He just wants to sleep. He just wants to stay awake. He's tired.

The summer drags and the nightmares with it, of-

The Death.

Harry calls it that, knowing it's needlessly melodramatic, hearing echoing taunts in his mind every time his memories dredge up the recollection of-

If Potter hadn't rushed in- Always the Golden Boy. Couldn't wait, could you? The thought of all that glory-

Famous Harry Potter.

Sometimes it's Snape's cold drawl, sometimes Malfoy's. Sometimes even Cho's. Or a whisper from Dumbledore.

Sometimes it's even Sirius.

Harry has not slept in nearly two weeks. He cannot remember the last time he has eaten. The letters he had promised to Lupin, and Moody come and go. They are obligatory. Harry realises that to miss even one is to cause unnecessary alarm. They would come running.

They need him.

He is their weapon.

Harry curls into a ball on his side, the covers discarded sometime at the bottom of the bed. The door is not locked, has not been locked all summer. Hedgewig is allowed complete freedom outside of her cage, Harry is fed regularly, allowed more liberty than he has ever been permitted - and it should be a vast improvement over every other summer he has spent at the Durselys.

Harry hates it.

The clock reads 3:22. It is digital. (How Mr. Weasley would be enchanted) New. Dudley gave it to him, with a stammered apology for the Dementor incident a year ago. Petunia and Vernon behind him, looking disapproving and scared and furious all in one go.

Harry took it. Not surprised.

Less than year ago he would have been. Less than a year ago he would have had to hide underneath the window and listen for news reports, to sneak in a quick peek when no one was looking- Less than a year ago.

It will be light in another half of an hour. Harry has been awake long enough to know it is usually a few minutes after four when the first birds start outside.

Sometimes when Harry closes his eyes, strangely enough, he is a little boy, curled into a corner, hiding from the hook-nosed man screaming at the cowering woman. Crying softly. Not hiding from Dudley, of his gang. Or running from them.

He has no idea why that particular memory has decided to imprint itself into his mind. It is not his after all.

He is miserable enough without adding the memories of Snape to his sleeping psyche….

He is miserable enough. He doesn't want to care. It is easier not to. With a faint jolt Harry has a sudden flash of why the likes of Snape can be so cold. It is easier.

There is a photograph on the locker beside his bed. Folded up against the new digital alarm-clock. Harry looked at it two weeks ago, and then folded it over, with innumerable care. It is a picture, of his father, and Lupin and-

Harry never thinks of his father as the hero anymore. He hates Snape for that. Even Dumbledore a little. But mostly Snape. And a part of Harry hates James too. For not being the hero Harry always thought him to be. Just a reckless, headstrong boy-

Famous Mr. Potter.

They don't know, Lupin, his father, Sirius, as they look back at him from that picture. How their lives will change, beyond recognition. How they won't survive. How even if they do, they are cursed. 

Sirius is always smiling, his eyes bright with laughter, a hint of arrogance, but serene. Always serene. And when Harry looked, that one and only time, he wondered, if somehow, Sirius knew.

And Harry keeps his eyes open, because behind them, Sirius Black is still dead. And awake Harry can see him anytime he likes, waving from the photograph on his locker.

~FIN~

Sorry. It popped out. But I cried at the end of this book. And the middle for that matter. It was powerful. Rowling has hit a whole new level and a whole different playing field.

I had to get this out of my system. All the emotion in book 5.

So, done in the space of five minutes, and hopefully without mistakes... Purely a therapeutic affair. Will probably remove in a few days anyway…. So not to worry.

*Hugs & Chocolate Frogs*

Orin.