I do not own Harry Potter etc...

Unbreakable

The wizarding world believed he was unbreakable. The boy who had defeated Voldermort as a child would be in Gryffindor – he was, even if he'd had to beg the Sorting Hat. The students expected him to be perfect and when he wasn't he was avoided, excluded and scorned. The teachers expected him to be average at everything but excel at Defense against the Dark Arts so he did. Dumbledore expected him to save the Philosophers stone, so he did. He slayed a Basilisk, he drove off dementors, he battled a dragon, he faced Voldermort, he was tortured but went on, he stood unwaveringly against the ministry, all because he knew that he must.

Untouchable, unbreakable and golden; that was what the wizarding world needed and expected him to be. And that was what his mask was – it was a perfect facade born of desperation and despair because he simply couldn't take any more hatred.

The Dursleys expected him to be small, vulnerable, broken. And he was, oh he truly was. Eleven years of emotional and physical abuse as well as neglect had taken its toll on Harry Potter and now he could not believe he had ever been whole. The abuse hadn't stopped when he reached Hogwarts, but he had hidden it easily because no one looked for it. It wasn't possible that the Golden Boy had been abused by muggles when he could face and defeat Voldermort.

Pain was Harry Potter's constant companion. Physical pain from the Dursleys, emotional pain as his friends betrayed him and all his secrets to Dumbledore because of jealousy and their need to feel superior. But the pain was blunted because they had betrayed Harry Potter the hero of the wizarding world, and he did not exist. He was not Harry Potter. He was simply broken.

As he walked to his own death he felt nothing, but then emotions had been beaten out of him a long time ago. Dumbledore had always told him that love would save him. Love, an unknown quantity to him; Harry Potter might understand love, but he did not. No one loved freaks. So there was no fear as he walked towards oblivion. There was no doubt, only for the first time in his life, peace.

He watched the green light fly towards him and felt nothing. As he felt the world leave him he felt an unknown emotion – hope.