Harry leaned against the foot of his bed, he had been in this position for hours if anyone had bothered to check on him.
Yet despite this realisation, he still couldn't stop the deep-seated disappointment from welling up inside of his heart.
How he hated living here.
He hated feeling like the leftovers, surplus to requirement, a burden. His existence was nothing more than a resented afterthought.
The young wizard sighed as he gazed up at the bare ceiling, the faint echo of the television wafted up the stairs to greet his ears. Though it was far from welcomed as it was quickly accompanied by an eruption of laughter.
He closed his eyes, he didn't need to get up and investigate to know who's those voices belonged to, he knew them all too well already.
He could just picture the smug, bordering on arrogant smirk that so frequently made itself at home on his uncle's lips. The same smile replicated in earnest upon his son. Harry ground his teeth together as he forced his mind to wander, it was bad enough being stuck in the same house as his revolting relatives, but he would be damned if they invaded his mind also.
It was no use as another round of laughter dragged him back to his reality.
But it had always been this way, so why was it only bothering him like this now?
Harry didn't have to think far to know the answer to that question. It was Dudley's birthday and he had yet again received a barrage of endless presents, not to mention unbridled attention and infinite affection.
His own birthday was ignored every year, soon gone without acknowledgement as though it were a speck of dust floating away on a gust of wind.
Harry gasped as he felt another wave of heaviness float across his heart, hardly surprised as it loitered, apparently having no intention to move anywhere.
He slid his fingers under his bed, soon withdrawing from it's a depth an object that he had become all too familiar with.
A dagger.
He wrapped his fingers around the ornate gold handle, grasping it tightly before pointing it's tip at his left wrist. He took a deep breath before piercing his skin with the tip of the blade. He steered the sharp blade down his arm, tracing the faint outline of a vein, mesmerised as the green faded to red.
Why did this deplorable act give him so much pleasure? So much satisfaction?
Was he perhaps punishing himself for his own existence? The boy who everybody expected so much of, yet he knew he would only ultimately disappoint them all.
It was no longer enough.
Harry drove the blade in deeper, wanting at that point in time to silence his soul, destroy his body, punish it for ever existing in the first place.
A stream of blood began to trail down his arm.
It seemed as though his body was crying, begging for a mercy that Harry had no intention of granting.
He loathed himself, his body the final manifestation of everything he hated about himself.
He found himself wondering more and more why.
Why did life have to pan out this way for him?
Why did his parents have to die when he was so young? Abandoned him to this pathetic, worthless existence?
Why would life not grant him the release he had been so desperately craving?
It wouldn't be long now until he could return to Hogwarts, a temporary reprieve to his sordid home life.
He wiped the blade on his pants, staining them with traces of blood before sliding the knife back under his bed.
If he stopped now, the scars might just fade in time for returning to school.
*~.~*
Harry took his usual seat in potions class, his first lesson since he returned from another dreadful summer at the Dursley's.
He had hardly pulled out his book when Snape swooped into the classroom, flicking his wand in a very stalk like fashion as shutters slammed in front of windows like a series of dominoes. All sunlight was expelled from the room in the process as Snape took his place at the front of the classroom.
"Welcome back to potions fifth years." Snape drawled, though nothing in his voice suggested that his words were in anyway sincere.
Snape's eyes darted to Harry as though searching for a reason to single him out in front of everyone. His eyes ran over the boy's books, his quill and his pot of ink. All of which was laid out in a precise fashion that hardly matched the boy's unorganised history.
Suspicious.
Snape seemed disappointed as he stepped forward, as though doubting his own eyesight. His gaze danced over his favourite verbal punching bag once more, only this time they fell not on the boy's books or quill, but rather his partially rolled up sleeve.
His eyes narrowed slightly, as though he were a detective carefully inspecting the scene of a crime.
Was that scar tissue?
"Turn to page 12 of your workbooks." Snape commanded, not taking his eyes off of Harry as he took yet another step closer to the young wizard. The professor's undivided attention on Harry could no longer be ignored by the class as they too turned to stare at him.
Harry always despised being the centre of attention, was Snape doing this on purpose? The young wizard refused to show weakness to the professor as he followed his gaze steadily south. Harry gasped as it dawned on him what it was that had so greatly captivated Snape's attention.
His sleeve.
When had it rolled up like that?
Harry quickly yanked it down, making sure to cover every inch of scar tissue. Though, even as he did so he knew it was pointless. Snape had already seen it.
The whole lesson carried on as per usual, except that Snape kept hovering around him, never more than five meters away from him.
Harry grimaced as the end of the lesson approached. He had taken four pages of notes, if for no other reason that to distract himself from Snape's eternal glare. He should be more than prepared to brew wit sharpening potion during the next potions lesson. He had just closed his book and was in the process of sliding it into his bag when Snape strode to the front of the class.
"Class dismissed." He announced, much to everyone's apparent relief as they all began to stand up from behind their desks.
"Except for you Mr Potter."
Harry closed his eyes, as though praying this were all a bad dream and it was time to wake up.
Alas, he should have known this was going to happen.