Because No One Else Should

Summary: Harry Potter savior of the wizarding world has finally defeated the evil Voldemort. He has lost everything including his will to live. Only a few hastily written words on a steadily yellowing piece of paper kept him alive. Written as a journal entry for the most part.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry or his world, they all belong to J. K. Rowling and the virtual army of people who helped her creations come into print and screen.

Rating: This is rated T for suicidal thoughts and general angst.

A/N Ok, this is the first update I have managed for this story since my decent into delirium. I don't know if that means my writing will be better or worse I just know it might not be the same.

Oh on a second slightly more personal note the poems found in this one-shot are all originals written by me during my dark times. (if anyone ever wishes to use the poems they find in my stories please ask me first. They are very personal to me I will probably let you use them but I just want to know the author they are going to so I don't run across them unexpectedly. They are from a very hard patch in my life and I never want to go back there again.)

So here we go I hope you enjoy this little story of mine.

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Isn't it funny how the simplest things in life are the ones that can hurt us the most, or in my case save us? It happened to me that way; there was a time in my life where I wanted it all to end to just stop living, to me it would have been a blessing. The reason I am still here and able to write this all down for you? Simple my savior came in the form of ink and paper.

I must admit a few years ago if you had told me I would find release in doing the very hermionish thing called writing then I would have sent you off to Saint Mungos with a request for a soft bed in a room with padded walls. After all every one knew as the Gryffindor Golden Boy my only interests were Quidditch and getting out of homework.

Things have changed since then I must say. I think it goes beyond saying that something drastic must have happened for me to be driven to near suicide. Well there is a response to that, I fulfilled my destiny, woo hoo whoever knew offing a Dark Lord would change so much.

At first everything was right in the world. Of course the stares and whispers in the Hogwarts corridors continued on in the same manner as they had done in past years. I had long sense grown used to the low droning sound surrounding me. .

I always hated that sound, well I did hate it until it went away. One of those funny coincidences, I didn't know what I had until it was gone. With that sound droning in my ear I had a constant reminder of the people that needed my help to survive. When it slowly died down and I was no longer needed, the sound stopped, and with it my will to keep breathing.

I honestly can't say whether or not I would have survived that long if I hadn't had all those lives on my conscience. I pulled myself through all those years because I refused to be responsible for the death of another. I know my home situation was bad, but I knew there was worse. I was never beaten or marks of any kind. They would have to be explained away to the neighbors and the perfect Dursleys refused to do anything that drew attention. How was I to know that the kind of neglect I felt, never knowing love or a kind touch could be just as damaging to a child as if they had been hit over the head?

When I stopped having a purpose to the wizarding world they stopped giving me the reason I live. I can never explain it well writing like this, here is one of my old poems from the first time I ever picked up a quill and put it to parchment.

I Want To Die

I sit here thinking

The future should be bright

But for me its

Dark, dank, dull, and deadly

I want to die

I just want the pain

To disappear from me

So I can rest in piece

But even death is too good for me

Please why wont the reaper take me

I am left here to suffer

Why do the innocent die

And the guilty live

I just want it all to end

To rip a blade through

The tender flesh of me

Watch the crimson blood

Well up from within

Spill over the edge

Feel the cold creep in

Let my limbs go stiff

And drift off

Now you see the problem

I don't care if I live

I want to die

Not very eloquent I know but it describes my feelings from then. I just didn't really care if I were to go on, but I actually wanted life to end. I was just lucky the last bit of cowardice left in me from the defeat of Voldemort made it so I didn't take immediate action.

I lived with a very tenuous grasp on life. I began picking up a quill more and more often leaving my potions knives in their case where they belonged.

I hated how my life had turned out but wasn't doing much to change it. I was falling and a large part of me didn't realize it. I remember very clearly the day it hit me that my life was spiraling out of control.

It was the date of my graduation from Hogwarts. I looked around me at my excited classmates who were ready to pounce upon a whole new world that had just opened its doors to them. I saw their exuberant faces and carefree smiles, after all they were going out into a Dark lord free world. They didn't have to worry about marrying and raising a family in the shadow of darkness.

It was that moment that told me explicitly I was no longer a part of them. I was an outsider. The warrior they had used and then patted on the head like a good watch dog then leaving the dog outside in the snow. I was numb to the feelings crossing their faces. I felt nothing from my on graduation and realized I didn't want the life I had been living recently. Then and there I wrote this poem.

Warrior

I am a warrior

A strong fighter

Yet I cannot beat this enemy

The pain inside me

Screaming out to be acknowledged

Crimson streams of life blood

Greet this perilous erg

So strong a feeling

I haven't a prayer of overcoming

I fight the feeling

Even if I lose

Everyday a new beginning

The mark of a fresh battle

With every breath

I battle my demons

The times I win are overshadowed by the losses

Yet the battles continue within me

A battle I am not sure how to fight

I dream of redemption

I live a life of scorn and shame

I am consumed by my battle

But no one notices

Until it is too late

After all who would care

I am just

The warrior

That summed up that point in my life.

Well I got my diploma that day and I started on the road to healing. At the celebratory party for the first time since the whispers had stopped I forced myself to be among the students again. I gave each of my friends some of the tightest hugs I will ever give to anyone. It doesn't seem like mush but to the boy who had grown up fearing touch believing it to only cause pain only reinforced by the pain felt as Voldemort touched me, receiving a hug from me was rare. Even rarer was me initiating the contact.

I have those people to thank for pulling me up out of the depths of my depression. Slowly I felt the emotions and feelings come back to me. It took years for even the slightest change to happen. In those years I grew older and hopefully wiser. Soon I had a purpose again. I was teaching, after graduation I had been given the Defense position at Hogwarts.

Finally it was only yesterday that one of my students, surprisingly a Slytherin, asked me a simple question. My sleaves had come up during the lesson showing the scars that had nothing to do with Voldemort and had everything to do with me. "Why do you keep those scars?" She asked. No one can even begin to understand why I don't cover them over with a glamour or get them treated by Poppy, but I can leave you with one last poem to try and answer that little girl's question and then I need to buy a new journal because alas I am on the final page.

Because No One Else Should

The scars on me

Are beacons of pain

A physical remnant

Of my troubled past

Even now while I fight

That consuming compulsion

I am branded by those scars

People can see them

Yet they don't see the reason

Why I carry them all

They find them grotesque

I guess they are but

They are a part of me

I will always carry these

Little reminders of time

They had better get used to scars

Hiding in the darkness

Is no life to live

So I will bare the scars of my past

With dignity and grace

That makes all the difference

Between who I was before

And who I am now

I bare the scars

Because no one else should

A/N I hope you enjoyed this newest installment of Oblivion about the life after the final battle. I wrote these poems when I wasn't in any shape to be thinking of fanfiction but when I finally got the guts to read them again these three fit so well together I just had to write this story.