A/N: I'm sorry this is short again, guys, but it's going to get longer. Bear with me, please!
x.x.x
A man with messy black hair and almond-shaped green eyes stands atop a balcony of a skyscraper, watching smoke curl into the air. His lips are curled into a cruel smile, his eyes cold. The man's face is pale and hardened, with a pale-pink scar on his forehead. He has the air of one who had been hurt far too young to ever recover, and because of that he is broken. He was crushed, now he has finally gotten away
.
A younger version of the man, standing with his clothes ripped and torn, covered in blood. His eyes are those of a madman, flicking around, always planning his escape. A woman - young, bloody, exhausted - holds onto his hand as she looks into those maniacal eyes, with tears in her own stunning green ones. Her lips move - in a plea, in a confession, in a prayer - but he doesn't hear a thing. He twists and breaks her grasp, and her arms fall to her sides as she experiences an utter betrayal. He is drowning, suffocating in the insanity of his world. He turns, and with a crack that fills the morning air, he is gone.
.
Beside him stands a table piled high with papers, and in front of him burns a fire, blackening the concrete around it. He watches the smoke spiral into the air, and he grins. The letters of his loved ones are burning, just like his heart.
He knows he is going mad, and he doesn't give a fuck. That is the difference between Old Him and New Him. Old Him cared. New Him doesn't. He hates the world, himself, and the fact that he hates everything.
An owl wings its way through the smoke, jolting him out of his thoughts. It is another letter from those he left behind, another cry from the void. He drops it in the fire without reading it, but not before he reads the words written on the outside in a familiar hand: "To Harry, From Ginny." This is not the first letter from his old love, but still, it sends a pang through his heart.
.
A forest, this time. Oak, pine, and fir. Songbirds twitter among the trees, and fall silent as the man appears with a pop. Blood drips from a cut above his eye as he plucks two sticks from the tattered robes he wears, and drops them to the ground. One is badly broken, the tuft of a red feather protruding from the middle. With the heel of his boot, he steps on the unbroken one, cracking it as sparks shoot out the end. In the next moment, the man is gone, crashing through the trees with no concern for where he is going.
.
He hates himself. He hates himself for his weakness, for his selfishness, for his stupidity in leaving the closest thing to a family he ever had. And he can't bring himself to humble his pride enough to go back. And what's worse, he knows they'll forgive him. He doesn't want forgiveness, he wants to be hurt, to be punished for his sins. Not because he enjoys pain, but because it would mean that there's someone else out there that hates him as much as he hates himself.
And then he realizes, and the comprehension dawns on his face.
There is only one person in the world who could have the capacity to hate him as much as did. And he needs that hate, needs it like a fish needs water. He needs it to breathe, to eat, to survive. Because he has grown up in a world so full of hate that he can't survive without it.
He is going home.
