Title: Guilty Conscience

Pairing(s): Harry/?? (Revealed Later)

Summary: Harry is overwhelmed by his guilt.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction set in the Harry Potter universe – all recognisable characters and settings are the property of J. K. Rowling and her associates. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made from this work. Please observe your local laws with regards to the age-limit and content of this work

Warning(s): Angst. Attempted suicide. MPreg.

Part One

It's like a stab in the back: painful and unexpected. Followed by the sudden realisation that it's not really such a surprise at all. That's what it's like. That's what waking up from a nightmare feels like. He wakes up every time, sweat-drenched and panting, like he's been running for his life. Afterwards, he can't close his eyes again, all he sees are those eyes. Eyes that used to be filled with so much love for him, now in a cold and unseeing state. A state of death. In his dreams, those eyes are blaming him, condemning him for not saving him. Blaming him for not telling him he loved him one last time. And there isn't a lot Harry can say to that.

Sometimes, the dreams are different. In these dreams he's alive and they're together. In love. Happy. It's like a muggle movie, Harry watches the characters laugh and fight and argue and cry and scream and…fall in love. They're all so deliriously happy that it can't be real. And it's not: not anymore. There is no harsh awakening from these dreams. He simply sways on the brink of reality for an endless amount of time. Then the realisation starts seeping through his barriers and it's like a painkiller wearing off: gradual and aching. It spreads like a poison through his body until he's completely infected and even the most potent cure would be too little. Too late. That's when he remembers. He remembers that his love is dead and those memories are just that, memories. And he can't help but think that the nightmares hurt less than that thought.

His friends can tell something is wrong, that he's wrong, but he can't find it in himself to put them at ease. It hurts to smile and the pain is unbearable already. They ask him questions all the time: Are you ok? Is it getting better? And it's hard knowing that he's not, it's not and that it's only going to get worse. He knows this, because he can feel it and isn't that a fucking joke in itself because he hasn't felt anything in what seems like forever. Though deep down, he knows it's not forever. Just since he died.

Harry can tell he's losing his mind. It's slipping from his grasp and no matter how much his fingers scramble and grab for it, the guilt is slowly eating him. He knows that he's in a dangerous place right now. On the edge of a cliff and in front of him is the sharp, long, deep, never ending drop into the darkness below. The abyss. Sometimes, he wonders if it would be easier for him to jump, rather than wait to fall.

It's two weeks after his death that Harry finally loses it. His drive, his sanity, gone. His will to go on, gone too. It's so easy to just give in, that he wonders why it took him so long to do it. And the numbness that spreads through him is such a bitter sweet relief, he wants to cry. He doesn't though, he's shed enough tears.

On that night, he leaves dinner early. I'm tired, he tells his friends when they ask and it's such a simple mistruth that none of them question it. He wonders absently as he makes his way to the tower, when it became so easy for him to lie to his friends and he's certain he should be much more upset about the fact that he doesn't even remember. He bluntly recites the password to the fat lady, not sparing a glance to the empty common room before he makes his way up the stairs to his dormitory. He strips off his robes, throwing them carelessly onto the pile of dirty laundry the five boys have built up in the corner of the room, before he removes his shoes, rolls up his sleeves and sits, cross legged, in the middle of his bed.

He's been planning this for a few days now and he knows the incantations, the hand movements and what the outcome will be when he does it well enough to know that, if it works, he wont have to feel anymore pain again. In his distracted and distorted mind, he has the time to think wryly that this probably wasn't the reason that Professor Flitwick taught them this charm, but the thought soon dissolves to the back of his head and he refocuses on the task at hand. Grasping his wand firmly in his stronger hand, he points it to his left wrist and mutters the simple cutting charm they learnt during the housework project, part of the gardening charms and moves his hand in the correct gestures. It works.

He watches as the blood wells up in the collection of cuts he has made in the flesh of his arm. The red stands out shockingly against the paleness of his wrist and he thinks it should probably hurt. But it doesn't. And he isn't sure whether to be pleased about that, or not. He does it again, on the same arm, until the red is dripping on to the sheets below and his school shirt and his trousers are dark with his sacrifice. He notices his left arm is getting weak, so he swaps his wand and casts the cutting charm almost desperately onto his right arm. Again and again, until he can't lift his wand anymore.

The blood has almost spread across the whole bed now. Harry notices, with morbid amusement, that it matches the colour of the curtains around the bed. He's feeling weaker now and he scoots himself up to lean against the bed head, with no small amount of difficulty. His clothes are wet and sticky with the warm substance and they rub against the skin on his body. Though his movements are sluggish and his vision slightly blurry now, he moves his hand to a dip in the fabric of his sheets, where the blood has pooled in a lake of crimson mortality and traces words with his finger tips. A message in blood.

I'm sorry… It's my fault… I loved you…I love you…I'm sorry….so sorry….my fault….all my fault….I love you

Then it all fades to black.

Please read and review. I'm not sure whether or not this is worth continuing or not. I do have some more written but not much, so I would like to see what people think.