A/N: I don't own any of these characters, and if I did I wouldn't be writing this right now.
Anger and a sudden rush of unknowing guilt were some of the things that Harry Potter felt at the moment. He couldn't explain what was happening to him. He didn't even know what was happening to him actually. Finally, back within the walls of Hogwarts you would think that he would have cheered up, right? Well, as hard as he tried, and boy did he try hard, nothing worked. He would have a good time, be happy even, but every so often there was just a little twinge of guilt in his stomach, the little twinge he fought so hard to keep down, deep inside of himself. He wanted nothing more than to be able to bottle up all of his emotions. He didn't care that they would tear him up from the inside out if he did. Harry didn't want to seem weak in front of his school mates.
Even as he sat against a wall of the school, looking outward toward the Whomping Willow. Not many of the students would go near the tree, which would probably be why Harry sought comfort in his current spot, even though he wasn't exactly near it. Listening to the woosh of the air as the willows branches swung wildly about, probably some bird had just flown by, Harry looked down at the ground before him. His emerald eyes focusing on a single blade of grass as he pushed all thoughts of school out of his head, letting the memory of the past events come flooding back to him, unwillingly.
He had spent his summers, at the Grimmauld place, acting like a complete jerk, to say the least. While he had hardly talked to anyone, there were times when he couldn't control the anger he felt for various things, often times that had resulted in him yelling at anyone who had tried to reason with him, who had tried to cheer him up. Other times he had just seemed so locked up, and cold. And to add? The train ride to school this year. The students of Hogwarts had all got a cold, hard slap on the face from reality as two students were killed during the attack on the Hogwarts Express. Oh, God, he didn't want to think about that.
Harry, with a groan, shifted his footing, pulling his knees up to him. He set his bag down next to him, and let his head hit the wall behind him, and groaned once more. Shutting his eyes he remembered one of the last things he was told before boarding the train this year, though who had said it to him flew by him. Cheer up, Harry. Right. Cheer up. What exactly was there to be cheery about in the first place? "Right, I'm going to be cheerful because I might just find myself dead before this year is over," Harry muttered to himself, looking skyward. "Cheer up Harry my arse."
There was hardly a thing to be cheerful about, or at least not to him. He'd been sitting out, watching the Whomping Willow as it swayed , just thinking. Running things through his head. What was Harry doing exactly in his head? He was dreaming about tomorrow, he was thinking of yesterday, and consuming himself in sorrow. He was searching for the answers that he knew he would never be able to find by himself. God. Life was just bent on screwing him up, wasn't it?
Or was it all in his head.
Oh, wonderful! Now he might just be going mental. Perfect, as if life wasn't be enough, now he was going mental. Maybe he'd get himself a room at St. Mungo's, and just stay there until Voldemort died of old age - but that was highly unlikely to happen anytime soon. Looking forward once more Harry stared out at the tree in front of him, almost becoming transfixed with it, even though it had pretty much stopped moving. Like the tree, why couldn't he just stop thinking? But then.. Also like the tree, his thoughts raced whenever something crossed his path sparked his interest, or further reminded him of any sort of past event.
Where was his reasoning? Or did he have one?
Harry was lost. Lost in a sea of his own thoughts still. The ball of guilt in his stomach was growing bigger with each breath he took. Or at least that's what it felt like. It was like everything that had happened kept replaying themselves in his head, and each word that was spoken lingered in his ears, never leaving him alone. He'd have to learn how to push it all away, and think of all of the positive things there were in life. Oh sure, he didn't deny himself any fun. He still had loads of fun, he never forced himself to have any of that. But he did allow himself to be over run by a ton of negative things. And he had a lot of those in his life, both good a bad.
Being The Boy Who Lived wasn't an easy thing. First off there was that whole gaping at the scar thing, then the never ending question of "Are you really Harry Potter?" and "Do you really have the scar?". Then came all of the mockery, and the horrid name calling. Of course, there was the press. All of the stories of him in the paper, all of the false stories. People saying he was going crazy. Well, if people kept all of that up, he would go crazy, or he might just take his leave from the wizarding world and simply disappear. What were they all trying to say anyway? "Pahaha, look, it's little baby Potter, lets make his life more of a hell than it already is"? If that's what they were trying to say, then they were doing a good job of it. Everyone.
Placing his hands on either side of him, Harry laces his fingers in the grass. Each blade of grass was cool to the touch, and different. For a moment, he looked down at his hands that were entwined with the grass before he begun pluck at the grass for lack of anything to do, his gaze remained on the Whomping Willow. The sun was beaming down on him, and for a moment, he closed his eyes, feeling the warmth upon his cheeks. He opened his eyes slowly, focusing on the tree once more as it seemed to have shuddered with a light breeze that passed. How long would they have this nice weather for anyway?
Winter was nice, but everyone was all was cooped up inside the castle, and this year it was sure to be overly crowed. But he supposed he'd just have to live with that when the time came. Besides, he always stuck around with Ron and Hermione during that season, as he did every season. It was like the three of them couldn't be taken a part, and in a sense they couldn't. For sixteen years they had stuck side by side, even with what little spats they had had throughout each year. He was surprised really, that they were still willing to be his friends even after all the danger that he had put them through, after all the danger they put themselves into by merely being his friends.
In time, he had a feeling that they would be used against him. Oh, Merlin, he could only hope not.
In his dreams Harry could hear people screaming. Not matter what he did, he could never make it go away. He would try to make a sound, but no one would hear him. And then the pain would come, and then he'd finally see everyone that was screaming. And just weeks before the term had started the people he heard screaming weren't just people - they were the students of Hogwarts. Another time they were just innocent children, both muggles and wizarding children. Harry would wake up from those dreams, his head pounding something awful, wondering if anyone else in the world knew his pain. But he knew that answer. No. How could anyone know his pain?
Stretching his legs out finally, Harry slouched against the stone wall a bit, resting his head against the cool stone. Green eyes behind black rimmed glasses staring up, sky ward. When a branch of the Whomping Willow shifted he had heard it, and that was enough to actually bring a small smile to his face, but as soon as it had come, it had gone. The look still clear in his eyes however. The Gryffindor wished he could be as normal as a teenage wizard could be, not wanting to feel like he was about to break from being under all the pressure he was being put under. He already had normal friends, a normal name. What wasn't normal about him? The scar on his forehead, the fact that he had the Dark Lord, and his goons, the Death Eaters, after him, his parents were murdered, and people were starting to think that he was crazy. Oh lord. Why, oh why couldn't he have just been normal?
Hell, he was always being stared at, too. Harry for one didn't like to be stared at. Staring meant that there was something interesting, and unusual, or that you were an animal on display for the rest of the world. Oh wait, that had been Harry his whole life. Ten years even without knowing. Throughout his years at Hogwarts his reaction to being looked at had changed greatly. His first year, and second year he had felt a bit uncomfortable, third year an uncomfortable annoyance was settling in, forth year he was getting tired of it, and by his fifth and sixth year he had started to become a bit moody and annoyed with it. What? Did people really not expect Harry Potter, a supposed famous wizard child not to attend Hogwarts? Merlin, it had gone as bad as last year after the start of term feast a first year had asked him for his autograph. That had to have been one of the worst moments of being a supposed famous wizard, to him.
Most people didn't know how to act around Harry. They all seemed to think that because he was famous that there was some special way of talking with him. Either that or they were actually afraid of talking with him. A bit stupid if you asked him. And then the people who already knew him, just not well - personally were always afraid to ask him questions, thinking that they would probably get snapped at or something of the sort. People often judged Harry as being the typical stuck up famous boy with no parents. 'Oh, oh. Pity me! Voldemort killed my parents, and wants to kill me! Oh, oh, I've got a lightning bolt shaped scar on my head! Pity me!', that's what most people seemed to think he was trying to do. And when Voldemort came back to power?
They thought he had gone mad. They didn't believe him. Well, who's fault was that now?
If there was one thing that Harry didn't like it was people taking pity on him. He'd much rather pity himself than to have others do that for him, and lately people seemed to have been doing that more and more. This all cause a moody Harry. A very moody Harry. With the death of his godfather, his way of dealing with it had to not talk about it, letting it all sink in slowly. His mind was telling him that Sirius wasn't dead, but his heart was telling him the truth, and inwardly, the two battled, and finally his heart had one. Though, finally coming to the understanding that his godfather was actually gone didn't mean that Harry was going to start talking, he became worse. He felt like he didn't have anyone left. Voldemort had taken his parents, and Lestrange had taken his godfather.
There was one thing that Harry knew for sure. He wasn't going to let Voldemort take anymore of his loved ones, his friends. He wanted them to live in a safe world, to be happy without the threat of Voldemort looming over and casting his dark shadow down on all that opposed to him. Hell, Harry would wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in a cold sweat, his scar aching something awful, and the only thought he had was to God, to simply let him die. Not because he had given up on hope, but because he didn't want to deal with the pain, hurt, and loss any longer. He was seventeen years old and he felt like a eighty year old man who has lived a long life, and has seen too much death. Harry wanted his pain to end, he didn't like the fact that everyone he befriended was being put into danger simply because of who he was.
Finally Harry managed to pull himself out of his thoughts, though while he did so he realized something. He saw the world though his own eyes. He saw the world behind green eyes. The green eyes that saw so much pain, the green eyes that people only saw and instantly knew that they were his mothers. "Bugger," Harry groaned just as he was getting up. He'd forgotten that there was a stone wall behind him, now he sat there with a hand placed on the back of his head.
Yes, the green eyed boy wasn't always very bright.