AN: Trigger warning for suicide, self-harm, and general self-hatred. There's no shame in skipping this fic if any of those things are triggering for you.
At the graveyard, Harry isn't killed. He isn't tortured, or threatened, or even really harassed.
Cedric dies. Pettigrew cuts him, uses the blood to resurrect Voldemort, and then they just-
Leave.
Just like that.
There isn't a speech. There isn't any gloating.
It's just him, the corpse of a classmate, and the crickets chirping.
He thinks that this is worse, anyway.
He knows what people are saying.
He knows that everyone has at least considered the possibility of him being a murderer, a liar, a Death Eater, a deranged maniac, or whatever else he's being called in newspapers.
He wonders if they're right.
Cedric is dead because Harry isn't.
Voldemort is alive again because Harry is, too.
At night, once his breaths have evened out and he starts dreaming, he knows he sees something.
He sees flashes of grass, too big to be from his perspective, and watches as hands that are too pale to be his wrap around a wand he's never seen before and people in silver masks and dark robes suffer.
Not even people without magic or insight into the wizarding world think he's sane, or even just tolerable, so people who know how many people have gotten hurt because of him and how many people are being hurt because he wasn't are probably right to agree. If people with and without magic, who have such stark differences in general opinions and views, can agree on this one thing, there's probably reason and logic behind it.
And, as he watches the trees and rivers through the windows of the Hogwarts Express blur as he gets closer and closer to being back at the Dursleys, he thinks that this is one puzzle that even he can solve, even if he's not smart like Hermione or clever like Ron.
The Dursleys ignore him just as much as they usually do, now.
They still mock and taunt him, but it's better than when he had bouts of accidental magic almost weekly. It's not a week in the cupboard with a box of stale crackers and a lukewarm water bottle. It's a few harsh truths and white lies tossed around to make sure he never forgets that this house isn't his, that this world is one that he's a plague to, that there are people who are worse off than him and that he should be grateful.
He thinks that maybe those white lies aren't lies at all, that maybe he deserves the locks on his door and bars on his window and a can of soup through the catflap on his door every morning and evening. That maybe he's a blight and should just- stop.
Should just sit in his bed and drift away like a bit of dust in the sunlight.
Aunt Petunia yelling for him to weed the garden and mow the lawn drags him from his staring contest with the stain over his ceiling.
The first time, he thinks it's just karma.
Because of him, Cedric had died, so when he's cutting vegetables for the Dursleys' dinner and suddenly feels a slight stinging near his knuckle and sees a dot of red, he takes a moment to feel the weight of the guilt hanging over his head lessen ever-so-slightly and then keeps cutting up carrots.
Now, as he slips the smallest knife in the kitchen into a pocket, he thinks he's just arming himself in case Voldemort comes back to finish the job or a Death Eater attacks him.
As blood drips onto his sheets and the thin hole he's left in the skin covering his left thigh, he thinks about Ginny. About how in his second year, when he had rushed into the Chamber of Secrets, there had been blood on her temple, pooling under her head and matting her hair, because he hadn't arrived quickly enough, or even just figured out where the chamber was quick enough.
He thinks that the blood glinting in the light shining through his window might make up for it, at least a bit.
The summer is a blur.
There's the dementor, the Ministry, the garden, sweat on the back of his neck from the heat, scabbed-over cuts lining his thighs, sunburns over his face and back, and finally, Hogwarts.
And after that, it's less of a blur because of the heat and monotony of the Dursleys and more of a blur because of the blood loss.
Umbridge has him write lines a few nights a week, which would be fine if the quill she forced him to use didn't cut through his hand to leave ink on the paper.
It's fine, though. He knows the lightheadedness of blood loss, knows to take deep breaths and do what he can to ground himself when he's stumbling back to his dorm and to let everything get foggy and muted while Umbridge giggles shrilly at the books she brings to detention and his hand bleeds.
And then there's the first joint detention.
He had thought it would just be him and Umbridge in her office, waiting in near-total silence until enough hours had passed and blood had been lost for Umbridge to be momentarily satisfied.
But now, looking into the wide eyes of a second-year Hufflepuff, he knows he had been stupid to think he was the only one writing lines.
Now that he knows what to look for, he sees the signs.
There are students that keep their hands tucked away whenever possible and have bandages wrapped across and around their palms when they stir potions or re-pot plants. There are little, mostly unnoticeable stains along the hallways leading away from Umbridge's office that haven't been properly cleaned and leave a faint scent of iron in the air. Professor Snape keeps assigning the twins detention for stealing blood-replenishing potions, no matter how much or little evidence there is supporting it being the twins who are stealing and not prefects who share the stolen potions with the first years.
And he can do nothing about it.
He had tried to talk to Professor McGonagall about Umbridge's detentions but had been told to keep his head down and follow instructions.
He had tried to tell Headmaster Dumbledore about the Hufflepuffs he's seen crying in the library while looking through books on healing but hadn't even been able to say a word before he was shooed away.
And as he stares blankly at the inflamed, bleeding cuts on the back of his hand, sees the quill press into the paper and the phrase 'I must not tell lies.' get deeper and deeper into his skin and the muscle underneath it, he thinks it's his fault.
If he hadn't said Voldemort had been revived, hadn't insisted Cedric grab the cup with him, everything would be fine. Cedric would be alive, Umbridge wouldn't be torturing students, and maybe he'd have a nice, boring school year for once.
Everything that's gone wrong so far in the year is his fault, though, and there's next to nothing he can do about it.
As he presses his wand to his thigh, next to another thin scar, he thinks back to learning a spell made with the intent to cut fabric to make sewing more efficient.
The wand movement was simple, a sharp flick in the direction you want the fabric to be cut and a simple Latin phrase for the incantation.
And, as he uses it to cut through old and new scar tissue, to take a peek into the muscle and fat under his skin, he can't help but think that it's started to be less about spilling his blood as an apology and more about spilling his blood because it's the only thing keeping him from floating away and never coming back. He thinks that it's stopped being a punishment and started being a reprieve.
He thinks that his legs have started to run out of room for new cuts and his arms are looking awfully bare.
The first person to find out about the crisscrossing lines of raised red scar tissue and fading lines of white scattered over his skin is Snape.
It's in potions class, as he's adding an ingredient and a student is whispering about how he's gone around the bend, that his sleeve rides up a bit. The scars on his forearms and wrists are all mostly faded, but Snape had swooped towards him the second that he picked up the moth wings, and his eyes went to the faded marks.
He would have panicked about Snape telling someone if he hadn't just smirked and gone on a tirade about idiocy and arrogance.
So far, all of the cuts have been shallow and thin, just enough for a bit of blood to well up and easy to cover and hide.
He can't help but go a little further, cut a little deeper, when he realizes that Dumbledore's avoiding him. If Dumbledore, the only one Voldemort fears, the one who took Harry away from the Dursleys has turned from him, he's done something wrong. He's done something that's worth the extra blood and the long, jagged lines of red that he can't feel anymore.
It's when he's coming back to Hogwarts after rushing to the Ministry because he had thought Sirius was being held captive, only to find Death Eaters waiting for him, that he finally realizes how he can reach absolution.
His friends are all injured because of him, he had almost hurt Dumbledore when he was possessed, he had tried to torture Bellatrix Lestrange, and he knows by now that swathes of people have died for him.
The only thing he's ever been is a parasite, and from what little he heard from Madam Pomphrey when she was getting the jellyfish thing off of Ron, parasites are only ever harmful and dangerous and sound like selfish monsters. Like him, because what is he if not a harmful, dangerous, selfish freak?
All he's done is taken people's trust in him and hurt them, led people to their deaths, and fail.
Now, as he slips into the Astronomy Tower and locks the door behind him, he thinks he may have found something he won't fail at.
After all, nobody could survive a fall from so high, especially not someone who's practically become an omen of death.
And, as the dewy green grass gets closer and the purple sky farther, he thinks that he should have realized how impossible it would be to stop being so awful sooner and cut just a little deeper.