The Scream
Harry could not remember how it had begun. It had been such an inconsequential moment that until the end of his life, he could not identify what it had been. Perhaps it was a routine frustration that had set him off, an undeserved grade or the tip of his quill breaking.
The scream had suddenly been.
The scream was an echo at the back of his head. It was a whisper carried by the breeze. More than half imagined, he did not think it was real. The scream was the constant companion of his dreams and a faithful friend while he stood awake. The scream did not waver in pitch, it did not pause to take breath. Harry felt as if he had touched a moment of infinity, a pure and eternal scream.
At first it had been a guilty indulgence. Caught in the intermingled expectations of an entire world, Harry knew he deserved a little indulgence. This was the least he could possibly demand, he had abandoned his liberty and his future.
It had been such a delicious self-indulgence. Carrying the scream within him, he surrendered to the hedonistic thrill that accompanied it. His decadent secret was all his own, he drew strength from it.
He fed the scream his darkest impulses, fears, hatreds and frustrations. He cared for it as for a lover. In early days, he glowed with the knowledge it was his forever.
Yet the scream did not cease. It grew stronger, its tonal assault unrelenting. A constant drone that shook his head, disoriented his senses and eroded his self-control. Harry was ashamed at his weakness. He did not want to face the barren and silent void of its' absence.
The scream unremittingly drilled into his consciousness. He no longer dreamed. The scream filled the darkness of his sleep. Each morning he would get up more exhausted than the last.
Harry grew to hate the scream. He no longer had the power to imagine it away. It stole the taste of his food, and the breath from his lips. Everything outside himself was grey and formless, devoid of interest or meaning.
The scream called the blood under his skin. He no longer felt anything but the beat of his blood. It rushed and pulsed with abandon as it answered the siren's call.
Harry knew the scream was slowly driving him insane. Constant and methodical it had insinuated itself into him until he could no longer tell where the scream ended and he began. Without hope, he abandoned himself to its' strength.
Those he had known in a past life found the body of Harry Potter a week later. His face was twisted into a terrible deformation.
The faintest whisper of a scream suggested itself to their thoughts.