Chapter 1
Three weeks
In the long run, three weeks was barely any time at all, it wasn't even a month. But to him it was everything. It was the longest he had been able to stay clean since the day he started years ago.
21 days, 504 hours, 30240 minutes
During the day he could hide behind smiles and jokes, pretend he was anyone but himself. Try to believe it himself. It was during the night when he couldn't slow his thoughts, where his limbs seemed to have a mind of their own leading him to his trunk and then to the bathroom.
When he picked up the blade he told himself he was just going to hold it, and then when he felt like he could finally breathe again, he would put it back down.
He wouldn't do this to himself again, after how hard he worked just to get here. He had to be better than that if not for himself then to not be an embarrassment to everyone who knows him.
If he relapsed, It would show just how weak he truly was. He could do something else instead, no one noticed when he skipped meals or ran until he couldn't walk. But they weren't enough anymore.
They didn't stop the ache in his chest, or the thoughts constantly running through his head.
No mask he put on could hide this, and he hated it. Or maybe he loved it, being able to show others how they couldn't say or do anything that he hadn't done to himself already. How the pain he was going through was finally on his terms.
Maybe it was the stress of the week or the day he just had, or the fact his friends always seemed to be mad or just too busy for him nowadays. He was always the second choice, the one people talked to until someone else showed up.
Maybe it was that he hadn't been able to sleep lately and he felt as if he would pass out from exhaustion at any moment. Or maybe there was no reason for what he was about to do, and it was just the fact he was broken beyond repair, too weak to stop the inevitable.
Thoughts of his blade and the cuts on his wrist consumed him, there wasn't a second that went by where he could turn them off. Not even when he was cutting. But they went from shouts to whispers and that had to mean something.
If doing this was so bad for him, then why did it hurt so good?
At first, when he looked at his wrists he felt proud there were no new cuts. That he could do the simplest things like take a hot shower without pain. He could finally look at himself and feel proud.
Now all he saw were all the places new cuts would fit into the patchwork of scars. The places that were too empty for his liking, the scars that were too long. If only he could break them up with another cut in a different direction then he would be able to think properly. He would feel satisfied, maybe even be able to look at his arm without cringing away.
Maybe he would finally feel normal
From the moment he took the blade in his hand, he was no longer thinking of all the promises he had made to himself or the progress he had fought so hard to keep. He could only think of all the ways that the blade would solve his problems.
What was the point of holding back now if he would find himself in the same situation time and time again?
So he cut into his wrists more times than he could count. Each cut only led him to feel more and more unsatisfied, leading him to cut deeper searching for something he knew he wouldn't find. No, that's not how this is supposed to work. It's supposed to give him the air his lungs desperately craved, not be another thing that took away the little he had.
Maybe if he left one more cut he would feel right and he would put the blade back down and finally quit this time. If doing this couldn't make him feel better then it would all be for nothing. It had to be for something.
He lost track of time as he watched the blood drip down his arms which were now nearly completely covered in fresh scars. It was hypnotizing and horrifying in all the same ways, he couldn't have looked away if he tried.
He felt sick, it hadn't been worth it
The second he came back to his senses he knew he would regret this, he already did. Not the pain or how his arms looked. To him, the scars were a reminder of all the ways others were more deserving, better than him in every way that mattered.
It was a comfort of sorts knowing nothing he ever could do would measure up so why bother trying?
But to them, they were another way to show he was different just another outcast who would never fit in.
He knew people judged his scars, or at least the few that had seen them. Only a few had ever said anything to his face, but he wished they all had so he knew what they truly thought instead of hearing the whispers that followed him when his back was turned.
Like he had countless times before, he found himself wishing he had someone to talk to about this. Not someone who would sit there and tell him “This must be so hard for you, I hate to see you hurting like this. I'm always here if you want to talk, you don't need to do this alone!”. They didn't know he had no choice but to pick the blade back up.
As selfish as he knew it was he wanted someone who was going through the same thing. Who would know the right thing to say was to quiet down the thoughts? Someone who hurts the same as him. Who would get it?
He wanted someone who had experienced every second of the pain and suffering he had suffered through, so at least he wouldn't have gone through it alone. So he would have someone to sit with on these cold bathroom floors with a blade in his hands.
But there was no one, he was alone like he had been his entire life. He thought he would get used to being alone seeing as it's all he has ever known but it never gets old. The pain of seeing those around you laugh and smile with their friends, while he sat alone trying to make himself unnoticeable. Having someone who cared for you as much as you cared for them. To hold you when you were too weak to hold yourself up.
He never had that, he was long past believing he ever would
He had nowhere to go, no one to turn to, and nothing to do. He was alone with a group full of people who never even cared about him. Gryffindor shouldn't have even been his house, he was just too stupid trying to fit in into a world he was thrown into, to see it.
The hat told him that Gryffindor wouldn't have people who would understand him and that he would never feel at home. How he would be better off with the Slytherins or even the Ravenclaws. But he never believed it.
He regretted his choice every day
Gryffindors were loud, always moving, and a seemingly fun group to be around. But with them, he always needed to put on a mask. He knew they wouldn't like the version of him they saw behind the mask so he didn't bother trying to get them to understand knowing he would inevitably be faced with rejection. He knew better.
He liked to be with people he could be quiet around, to be able to sit in comfortable silence and do nothing around. But most of all to be able to be upset around, to laugh through the hard times with.
Someone willing to stick with him at his worst times no matter what situation he found himself in.
He was in his fifth year, and everyone already had their friends and their houses. So that was that, he dug his grave it was time to lie in it. He had to stop dreaming about all the possibilities his life could have held if he had only listened to the hat. He had to face reality which was that he would forever be alone.
When the sun finally rose he would need to walk through groups of people and have them ignore his existence till they needed him to save them yet again. To have the few people who knew see what he had done to himself. Have them judge him for it, to think less of him because of it.
He will have to pretend not to see the stares or hear the comments they will make. The worst part is he will have to do it with a smile on his face, all because he chose lions over snakes.