A/N Sorry that it's taken me so long to get chapter one up...hope it's worth the wait..R&R, bitte!
All was silent at the breakfast table that morning. Harry kept his eyes resolutely glued to his fingers twiddling the bottle in his hands, for any glace upward would be met with either Ron's badly masked concern or the tears that stood behind Herimione's eyes, just waiting to fall. They had had another fight the night before, the result of which had sent Hermione to Ron's arms in tears and Harry to his room to seek comfort in his liquid friends...sometimes, he thought, the only friends he had left. The only friends he wanted to have left.
Fights with Hermione were becoming more and more common (by common, they were at each other's throats nearly three times a week), and they tended to centre on one theme. Hermione couldn't stand that Harry was letting himself go to waste so, and the pressure that her job put on her, combined with her incapability to sit by and watch Harry, made her nitpick at him constantly. Harry, however, was much more combative than Hermione, and usually won these arguments (although to be fair intimidation was not always ruled out of the game), and by this point most of Ron's shirts had tear stains on them.
This is not to say that Ron just sat by and watched Harry ruin himself, but he was able to choose his battles much more carefully. After Hermione sprung from the table without a word and slammed the door behind her, Ron wasted not a second in starting in on Harry.
"Why do you do this to yourself?"
"Do what?" Harry kept his eyes resolutely on the bottle.
Ron's laugh had no humor in it. "Do you honestly need to ask? Are you blind as well as stupid? Do you mean to tell me that you can't see what you're doing to Hermione, that you can't see what you're staring at this very second, that-" He was cut off be Harry slamming the bottle down on the table and standing up. He stalked behind the counter in the kitchen and simply stood there for a moment with his back to the breakfast table, to Ron's questions.
Harry ran his hand through his unruly black hair. His words were so quiet that Ron had to lean in to hear him: "Of course I see it...of course I see it...but don't you understand, that only makes it worse! To need to deal with your face, and Hermione's, and the questions, and this damn injury- there are things which I cannot let go of, Ron! I cannot let go of them because none of them- not the injury, not you, not Hermione- will let go of me!"
"Harry, I understand, but-"
"No, you don't understand! You sit there, Ron, in your three-piece suit, with your steady, well-paying job, as good as engaged- but I? I stand in ragged clothes, unable to keep a job, with concern weighing on my shoulders instead of love in my heart. How could you understand? HOW?"
All Ron could do was stare- for once he had been found speechless. Harry, with a look so plaintive and somehow at the same time so furious, saw the surprise that his tone had caused. And suddenly the weight of what he said hit him. How different his life truly had become from those of his friends. How little they were able to comprehend of the turmoil that raged inside him. And it had all become too much...simply too much...he just couldn't deal with it anymore.
Quietly without another glance at Ron Harry picked his wallet up off the counter and put it in his pocket. He slowly went to the door and put on his coat. As he left, Harry dimly thought he heard Ron ask where he was going, even get up to stop him. But everything was a dim blur, and Harry couldn't be stopped.
It was only after Harry reached the street that he realized he'd left his wand at home.