Harry stared out the window of his bedroom, fiddling with a rip in his pillowcase. He sat on the bed, staring without seeing, oblivious to everything except the rushing torrent of emotions chipping away at him like water violently beating at a rock. Harry sat, and he sat like this until a sudden and sharp knock at his bedroom door startled him out of his melancholic reverie.
"Mum says to come down, dinner's ready." The voice of his cousin Dudley was audible through the solid wood of Harry's bedroom door. Harry sighed.
"Tell her I'm not hungry." He heard Dudley shuffle back down the stairs and flopped back down onto his bed. This was the new routine; Harry refusing meals, although he knew he'd have to eat eventually. He rubbed his fingers across the fabrics of his bedsheet. They weren't silky smooth, but not too scratchy, just some normal bedsheets. Harry stood up and walked over to his school trunk. He crouched down next to it, looking at the dust that had settled on it since the day he returned from Hogwarts. He rubbed his fingers hard on the surface of the dusty trunk until they felt weird and tingly. Harry closed his eyes.
It had been a few months since Harry's godfather died. It was funny, Harry thought, that just as he had finally found something good in his life it had been snatched away. Too soon, he'd mumble to himself.
Harry didn't know how he felt anymore. He was definitely sad, oh yes, but there was other stuff. He was angry. Angry at Sirius for dying, for leaving Harry alone with the weight of the world back on his shoulders. Angry at his classmates, for treating him like their Messiah but turning their backs on him when he needed them the most. Angry at Dumbledore, for his calmness at the fact that Sirius had fucking died. Angry at his friends Ron and Hermione, for not understanding his grief, for muttering about him when they thought he wasn't listening or looking. Yep, he was especially angry at them. But even that paled in comparison to the insurmountable rage he felt when he thought about Bellatrix Lestrange.
His fury at how Bellatrix killed Sirius and escaped justice weighed him down, liquid lead in his veins and red-hot fire to his senses. He had gotten so close to getting her, but she got away. Harry grit his teeth and itched to break something, to scream, whenever he thought of that bastard.
But, all in all, yes, he was sad.
More than sad, although he didn't realize it. People call it depression. Harry also didn't realize other things.
Harry didn't realize that, somehow, someway, that two of the Dursleys were worried about him. Petunia wouldn't admit it, even hated herself for it, but she did truly care for the boy, and felt anxious whenever she was him now. Dark circles under his eyes, hair messy and tangled, cracked lips, dull eyes, pale pallor. And-was she imagining it?-Dudley's old clothes seemed to hang off him more. But what scared Petunia the most were the slashes on Harry's arms. Petunia may have been lacking in some areas, but she wasn't stupid enough to not know that Harry was cutting himself. She wanted so bad to intervene, to help Harry, but she knew deep down she was a despicable coward. She couldn't bring herself to say the simple words that could have saved Harry.
And so that's how we find Harry, sitting at the table on the fresh morning of September first. He was due to the Hogwarts Express in a few hours, but little did the Dursleys know that he'd never make it.
Harry grinned at the Dursleys, humming sickeningly as he spread jam on a single slice of toast. My death row meal, he thought to himself. After he ate his toast, he left the table and went up the stairs. One step at a time. Twenty three steps, he had counted them, on the stairs and to his bed, where he decided he was going to sleep.
One. Harry breathed in.
Two. He let the air out of his lungs. So many people don't appreciate life.
Three. He had never felt so alive before, which was ironic.
Four. Oh, wonderful world, he thought.
Five. Oh, trees and grass, flowers and lakes, snow and sun.
Six. Life is too wonderful for people to appreciate.
Seven. How fitting that it's going to be taken away by him.
Eight. Harry hummed "Tiptoe By the Tulips". He remembered how Uncle Vernon had hummed that very same song when Harry was eleven.
And so it went, up the stairs and to the bed. Harry grinned the entire time.
And so that's how we found Harry, laying down on his bed, the pill bottle still in his limp hand, and him still grinning though he had long gone. If you were there, you could hear the sirens, the moans of anguish coming from Petunia. If you showed up a little later, you could hear the gasps of pain and shock escaping from Ron and Hermione 's mouths as they saw Harry. You could feel the sobs wrenching out of Molly Weasley's chest as if you were Molly yourself, feel the tears rolling down your aged cheeks like Dumbledore did, feel your world fall apart as you see the last remaining token of the woman you loved dead just like her, as Severus had.
But why settle for that?
Why be there after Harry's life had ended, if you could've been there before in time to save it?