Garnet

He had learned years ago not to get his hopes up, not to get used to anything. It would hurt that much more when it was inevitably taken away. He was stupid, he hadn't meant to start trusting the Slytherins.

He hadn’t even realized he had started to until it was ripped away from him. Until he knew they would never want to see him again. He knew they kept him around because of obligation, why else?

Snape hurt worst of all, switching into his house made him hate Harry even more. Harry had thought that without the red robes, he would remind the man less of his father. He knew Snape had been friends with his mum, so maybe he could act like her and he would tolerate him.

He hadn’t even known his mum before she got herself killed for him so why he conjured up that idea he would never know. Snape was just like Sirius, looking for someone else in him. He was like everyone else in the wizarding world.

Harry couldn't be James, he couldn't be Lily, and he certainly couldn't be any version of the perfect Gryffindor the world wanted. He couldn't even be a half-decent Slytherin.

He wasn't anyone.

He didn't know how to be his own person, maybe that's where he went wrong. He was fucked up beyond repair and the people who were his last chance at accepting him finally realized it. He hadn't even lasted a month until he ruined everything. He knew there had never been a chance he would find his place in Slytherin, but he couldn't help but hope.

This time he didn't even need Voldy’s help to ruin his life he did it all by himself this time. Fuck, he was absolutely fucked. Where was he supposed to go? He knew he had limited time until someone came looking for him if he had to guess Fred and George.

So he quickly rushed to the astronomy tower, the only place he truly felt at home.

He didn’t want to disappoint them, he really didn’t. They would be upset sure but he knew they would never truly be mad at him for what he had to do. He had a feeling they all knew it was only a matter of time until he ended up this way. Back on the ledge. If they hadn’t realized that by now it was on them.

His life was always going to end like this, him standing at the edge of the astronomy tower with no one but himself to lean on. It was always going to be him and the night sky, him and his thoughts, a blade, and no one to care if he made it out or not.
Well, they would care but not about him. They would only care about the inconvenience that it would cause them.

He had tried to be the person people wanted to be around. The one who laughs at all the right times always has a witty comment on the tip of his tongue and has a smile that is impossible to ignore. He never could quite master the act they could see right through him. They hadn’t even cared when he quit the act. He had tried to be nothing, easily ignored, easily forgotten.

That hadn't worked any better.

It was inevitable he wouldn't make it past seventeen, cursed by the mistakes of those who came before him. There was never any hope for him to make it out alive with the prophecy made about him, and Voldemort after him.

It was just him and a clock ticking down to his untimely death. Sure, he could try and beat Voldemort or run away and start a new life instead of where he was now but there wasn't any point. He knew no matter where he was he would pick his blade back up again so why bother?

In a way, he was running away, after all this night was going to be his last.

How did everyone expect him to do what hundreds before him were unable to do? Kill the dark lord, the greatest wizard except for Merlin himself.

Dumbledore always liked to say it was him, but he was wrong. All he is is a coward who uses those who he has power over to do his dirty work for him.

Harry was always expected to do the right and noble thing for the greater good of the world. To put everyones needs over his own since all he is, is an orphan, a nobody, an unwanted soul. To do everything for the world that has taken everything from him, and ruined any chance of anything good in his life.

Why should he wait for Dumbledore or Voldemort to decide it's time for him to die when he was always going to either way?

He was finally going to do something for himself without anyone telling him he was selfish or a bad person for even thinking about doing it. Dumbledore could figure out how to destroy the rest of the Horcruxes by himself.

He was a Black after all, it had only been a matter of time until the Black madness caught up to him. He had a feeling it had always been there but that was neither here nor there.

If the world expected a sixteen-year-old to be able to solve all their problems how hard can it be? Let's see how they like being left to deal with everything by themselves with no warning and no choice. To be thrown into life-or-death situations and be expected to make it out with a smile on your face.

That's why Harry stands where he is now, at the top of the astronomy tower blade in hand. When he decided to put his blade away at the park he had thought he would have more time. He should have just gotten the inevitable done with. Fuck he regretted not slitting his wrists that night. He knew he would regret it but self-sabotage was kind of his thing.

Besides, he was finally going to right that wrong.
The sky was scattered with stars. He knew he should feel cold since all he was wearing were trousers and a short-sleeved shirt but he didn't. He has long since lost the ability to feel much of anything.

There was no one to blame for this but himself, in the end. He never did anything to stop what was being done to him by his relatives. If anything he only made his situation worse by adding to the damage with the cuts on his thighs and wrists almost solely being from his own doing, and the malnutrition he is faced with only being worsened by his unwillingness to eat when he is allowed.

And all of Slytherin saw he would be a laughing stock. They would think he was pathetic, he couldn't really blame them. He was. He refused to be there to see the fallout of Snape's actions.

Hell maybe the man would feel bad about what he had done, crazier things had happened.

Maybe in another life, he would have had someone who cared about him or a loving family to protect him from the hurt of the world. But in this lifetime, he had none of that. Nothing he could have done would have changed his fate.

In this life, he hadn't made a home for himself that was filled with people and things that would make living worth it. He never made any friends who would pick him out of a room filled with people or found someone who treated him like part of their family or thought of him like a son.

He was nobody's son.

Maybe that hurt the most. It was the one thing that should have been a given, something everyone has, by blood or choice. Yet he didn't.

Everyone always told him how similar to James he was or how he had Lily's eyes. All this caused was more hurt, a constant reminder of what he lost. He never knew either of them and wishing he had wouldn't bring them back so what was the point? All he had was himself and that was okay, solitude grows on you especially if it is all you ever have known.

Yet in his final moments, he couldn’t help long for company.

The stars reminded him of all the people before him who had stood on this very same tower, thinking the same thoughts as him. All the people who like him have found comfort in all those who have been through the same as them years ago and who will continue to years from now. He is just another person who will soon lose the battle with himself.

Another cautionary tale or tragedy, a star that burned too bright.

No one cares until it's too late until you're just a picture in the paper. It's not until you're gone that people who were supposed to be there for you come around and say how you were such a good person.

Someone who did no wrong and how upset they are that you're gone. How they wish they had seen the signs, how you were just so good at hiding them, there was no way they could have known how you were feeling and all you have been through but they wish they had.

Beyond repair, he was ruined. Broken, scarred, haunted by memories and the blood of those whose lives were lost because of him. Would they forgive him if they knew he didn't mean for their deaths to happen?

If they knew how much he regretted ever being born? How if he could sacrifice himself for them he would without a second thought? Probably not, but he couldn't find it in himself to be upset at that thought. He should have tried harder to save everyone, to be stronger, and to train harder. But he didn't.

Part of him wished he had someone to say goodbye to. Someone who would mourn his death, who would be hurt beyond repair at even the thought of losing him. He knew it was selfish of him to want even to hope the hurt he felt over the death of Cedric on someone else but he didn't care. He wanted to be wanted, someone who against all odds stuck with him in the shit hole of his life.

To make him smile when all he wants to do is be gone, to make living worth it in a way it never had before. To look at him first in a crowded room of people and to laugh about things only both of you would get.

Want, want, want all he ever does is want.

There was no place on his arms that was unmarked showing years of battles lost. This was going to be the last time and he wanted to make sure there was no chance he would survive. So he cut vertical lines from his wrist to halfway up both his arms.

He immediately dropped the blade as his arms started to slightly shake. This hadn't happened to him before but these cuts were to optimize blood loss instead of as a way to make him forget so it was probably fine. Until it wasn't and his knees bucked, he couldn't get his legs to work well enough to stand back up.

At least now the last thing he would see was the stars, they really were beautiful. He spent countless hours year after year staring at the night sky. When he was locked in his bedroom at Privet Drive with nothing to do besides name the stars he saw, they were there for him when he would otherwise be alone.

They raised him when no one else would.
When he was shunned by the school as they believed him to be the heir of Slytherin, when everyone thought he put his name in the goblet of fire the stars were there. When he couldn't sleep he was able to come to this very tower and watch the stars. Now they hated him for going to the snakes.

For showing even a fraction of his true self.

When he had no one to talk to the stars would always listen. They were the most consistent thing in his life, which should have made him feel upset, yet it never did. It was just another reason why it was a good thing he wouldn't make it to the next day.

He almost wished he felt something while life was slowly leaving him. But as soon as the nothingness washed over him he was left empty. He couldn’t bring himself to savor his final moments, or the pain that was consuming him.

It wasn’t a comfort anymore.

His vision was starting to fill with black spots, each time he closed his eyes it was harder and harder to open them once more. He thought he heard a gasp somewhere behind him but he also heard constant ringing in his ears ever since he fell to the ground so he couldn't be sure of anything at this point.

The last thing he saw before his eyes dropped closed were the stars staring back at him, welcoming him home.