DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter in any way, shape, or form.
He sat beside the lake, black hair blown back in the wind, emerald eyes glistening with tears behind round frames. It was well after dark but he had snuck away from the dorm, regardless. He could get caught. He probably would be caught. At this point, though, he didn't much care.
If
you swim in an ocean of sorrows,
you'll
eventually be engulfed by the waves.
Harry was drowning.
After the death of Sirius last year, his godfather and friend, he had gradually become more and more disheartened. All too often he'd dreamt of an end, of silver blade mingling with palest flesh... of blood flowing until his body was empty, as his soul already seemed to be. This year, only a week ago, the death of another friend... his best friend Ronald Bilius Weasley, at the hand of a renegade Death Eater scum, had lifted Harry to a new level of dispair.
He hugged himself, hunched small and lonely along the lakeside. That water... that all-inviting water. A single jump, a deep breath, and all the pain could end.
But no.
Harry's body wracked with sobs, he watched the moonlight flicker against the the rippling water. The light against the darkness. He knew that in a few hours, when morning came, the lake would be at it's most beautiful. A rainbow coloured glow would dance through azure waves, swirling in and out, over and under. He knew the light would triumph.
It was so hard, though. It was so painful. The struggle. No matter how much he wanted an easy resolution, Harry had promised himself that he would be strong. For Sirius, for Ron, for his parents. Cowardice would be a betrayl to their memories, and he would never succumb to it.
Harry picked a pebble from the ground beside him and tossed it into the lake. He watched as it skipped across the surface, but turned his head before he saw it sink.
As he stood up and began the walk back to the castle, he had a feeling that, somehow, it hadn't.