You don't really need to read Broken before this but it'll give context to the storyline

Disclaimer: Harry does not belong to me, mores the pity

Warnings: mentions of cutting

Shattered

Images flashing ... green light.. echoing screams..cruel high-pitched laughter and always, always the empty eyes that accuse me wordlessly. Sometimes my parents, sometimes Cedric, the worst times are when its Sirius.

My fault, all my fault.

Will their ghosts ever stop haunting me?

Day in and day out, life stays the same for me, food, lessons, homework, sleep, and it begins all over again, the monotony tearing into me, the front I put up becoming an unbreachable barrier between myself and everyone else. Sometimes I want so badly to give up, give in, that I can almost taste it, a bitterness in my mouth, like an acrid poison filling my senses and slowly draining my life from me.

I want to die.

Now and again I feel like screaming it to them all, my friends who think I've started to recover from all the loss when I haven't, I don't think I ever will, I've just become better at hiding it, I can laugh with them now, without wincing at the sharp pull situated somewhere near my heart that reminds me they will never laugh with their friends again. It took me a while just to work the sick desperation out of my laugh, it made Ron and Hermione glance at each other nervously and treat like I was fragile somehow, I hated that the most, the sympathy, the pity, I didn't deserve it and I didn't want it. I found myself listening to how they laughed instead, the normal people, learning how to fake it effectively, even practicing on my own till I was sure I could effectively make people believe I was doing alright, make them believe I was genuinely happy when I laughed, when I smiled because that was more important than anything.

They need me to be their saviour, the 'Boy Who Lived', the happy golden child with the blessed life with so many to care for him, strange how they can all believe the lie just because they want so badly for it to be true, but the reality is surely better for them because when He comes for me, foolish little Tom Riddle, I won't be afraid to die, not like he is, I would welcome it and take him down with me. Only then would the ghosts of the past finally be laid to rest, when the reasons for all their deaths are finally gone, Voldemort will be made to suffer, he will be made to confront his mortality and I can be with those I love again, even if just to beg their forgiveness.

The ghosts surround me, so close they choke the air from my lungs, at night when I lie awake I almost feel as I could reach them if I just stretched my hand out a little further, they are more real to me now than the warm-blooded beings who live, breathe and laugh alongside me. I'm rotting on the inside, the only thing that carries me now is the thought of Voldemort, desire for revenge every bit as bitter as the knawing guilt and remorse.

It makes me feel so utterly alone.

I wonder about others, whether any of them do the same as me, pretend, and nobody notices them either, hundreds of students, surely there is someone else amongst the masses, someone else who feels as dead as I do but carries on anyway, an imitation of life. I imagine them sometimes, imagine meeting them, sharing with them or just forgetting everything with them, it makes me feel less lonely, helps me get up again each day, just imagining that they are doing the same, that maybe, just maybe, there might be someone who could understand instead of just pitying me. I find myself looking at people differently, secretly asking, is it you? Would you save me?

I don't think I believe in being saved, not anymore, months and months, years even when I take into account my abusive, miserable childhood, of the nauseating pain and emptiness blackening my heart, has beaten it out of me, but I still want it, a part of me can still dream of what it must be like to not feel like this all the time, an uncertain image based on things I've heard from others and books. Only, I find myself indulging in this less and less often, its not as though I deserve it anyway but I'm just too tired of everything to work up the effort to think of it getting better, it just makes the disappointment harsher when a new day comes and nothing has changed.

Something has changed though, not my pain, never the pain, but in Potions last week, something changed irrevocably, Malfoy, cool and collected, arrogant and oddly ethereal Malfoy, hurts himself. Thin little red lines marring his white skin, some a dark congealed brown of scabs, others the faint pink of a fading scar, the pattern of them burned onto the back of my eyelids in the short moments before he pulled his sleeve down sharply, barely managing to meet my eye. I know that he noticed me looking and now I can't see him the same way anymore, he isn't the person I thought I knew, what if he's as messed up as me? I've thought about hurting myself before when it gets to be too much but the thought of what Sirius would say somehow brings me back from the edge, it makes me think that perhaps there isn't anyone to do that for him, no reminder that he was at least cared for once.

My gaze is drawn to him now when we eat in the Great Hall, Ron and Hermione bicker between each other, happily oblivious as always, they always are when it comes to each other, lost in their own world, one that I can't touch, so I look at Malfoy instead. I notice how he replies politely to anyone addressing him and if anyone were just glancing they would probably think he were joining in the conversation happily, yet to me he seems withdrawn, detached, its as if I'm looking in a mirror and disturbs me more than I thought possible.

Only, now I can't help thinking, what if its all been a mask, all along, the snide comments, the repulsive derision of muggle-borns, what if none of it was really him, just a front he had to put up for the rest of the world as the 'Malfoy heir', as Lucuis' son. Part of me thinks I'm fooling myself, that he is who I've always thought he was, just a bit more messed up than I originally presumed, that my suspicions are born solely from a desperation to just not be alone. Another part of me wants to confront him about it, determined that I'm right, determined to tear that mask away, determined that its the only way to save us both.

I followed him the other day, told my friends I was going to the bathroom when I saw him leave the Charms classroom on his own, flashed them a quick reassuring smile that died on my lips as soon as they turned away and slowly crept behind him, never daring to get too close but somehow drawn onwards. I don't really know what I expected, what I was looking for, perhaps I wanted evidence, perhaps I wanted to see a reflection of something inside myself but all I saw was him walking, utterly composed, in the direction of the dungeons, the only hint that anything troubled him being perhaps in the slight stoop of his shoulders and the tight grip of his hands around his books. I stopped before he entered the corridor down to the dungeons, watching silently as he walked away, a new sort of ache in my chest, shaking my head at my own foolishness I turned swiftly to return to the Gryffindor common room.

I shouldn't be worrying about Malfoy, its enough making myself get up in the mornings and acting happy around everyone, a feat that seems to take more and more effort till I start to feel resentment towards them all for insisting on being around me all the time, there were times when I just wanted, needed, to be on my own. I felt it so much tonight, sitting in the common room, the sheer noise of them all crashing in my ears, drowning out my sense as I felt panic and claustrophobia rise in my throat, tightening around my chest like so many iron bars, crushing me. Eventually I couldn't stand it anymore and made some excuse about being tired before almost running upstairs to the blissfully empty dormitory, that was a couple hours ago now, I had pretended to be asleep as my roommates came up in ones and twos, my curtains closed so they wouldn'y disturb me.

I can't sleep though, it happens when I can't stop the churning of my thoughts, every time I close my eyes to try my brain is flooded with images of the dead, its past midnight and I'm so tired but sleep doesn't come. I know that tomorrow the lethargy will only feed my apathy, the frustration builds till finally I'm throwing off my covers and collecting my invisibility cloak, at least outside I'll have a slightly more interesting view than the ceiling.

Let me know what you think, it will make me smile :)

Theres going to be one more in this series I think, with both Draco and Harry, sort of a resolution if you want to read it ~xx~