Other

Branches whip the arms and face of the young boy as he runs through the Forbidden Forest, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care that it hurts, that grit is getting in his eyes, that he'll be scratched and bleeding when - if - he ever bothers to check. He only wants to get away. Get away from the castle, from other people, from them.

But then, it's always about them, isn't it?

He trips. Falls. Bites his lip against making a sound, and glares at the tree root that's been his downfall. Damn that root. Damn it! It's probably come up from the ground just to trip him. Stupid root. He doesn't like trees, anyway. They just get in the way all the time. Stupid trees. Stupid forest. It'd probably been grown as a backdrop for the castle, no real reason. Stupid forest. Stupid waste-of-a-time forest. Stupid waste-of-a-time castle. Stupid waste-of-a-time people in the castle. He hates them. The trees, the forest, the castle, the other people. Especially the other people. Especially the Gryffindors. Especially them. Always laughing at him, always taunting him, always playing stupid-cruel-not-at-all-funny-that-other-people-think-are-funny-which-only-proves-that-they're-all-stupid pranks on him. Robes dyed, hair dyed, teeth grown, head soaked, hair and skin and face and eyes and voice and family and personality and intelligence all verbally dissected and disemboweled like dead toads in a barrel. This afternoon: Custard in the hair. Stupid custard. He hates custard. And he hates spoons too. Spoons used to flick stupid smelly slimy custard at a person who wasn't doing anything, not saying anything to them (like saying everything he thought of them because what he thinks is true and all the stupid biased teachers who he's smarter than anyway don't like to hear the truth when it comes out of the mouth of a slimy greasy Dark Wizard in the making even though he's just eleven and hasn't been in school for more than three months Slytherin instead of the beautiful brave wonderful even though they do horrible pranks and are a bunch of cruel prejudiced hypocritical bastard Gryffindors), not doing anything to them (like cursing them until everybody finally realizes just how ugly they are inside except that wouldn't really do anything because if it happened to Gryffindors everybody would just start babbling about how looks don't really matter which you learn is complete nonsense the first time the boy next door calls you a slimy standoffish git and gives you a black eye even though it's not your fault that he's an arrogant fat idiot and that he happened to be in the same room when you said so), just quietly reading his book when they get the not-funny-that-everyone-thinks-is-funny-to-the-extent-that-you-just-want-to-curl-up-and-die-except-you-won't-give-them-the-satisfaction-because-they-all-hate-you idea that custard is somehow funny when it's flicked and smeared and thrown at someone's head, and he gets up from the table, runs out of the room and hides in the forest because suddenly all the stupid trees don't seem so bad because they all hate him. Not the trees, the other people. They hate him. They hate him.

The tears come fast and thick, soaking the collar of his robes. He doesn't care. They've been ripped by the branches anyway. He likes it better that way. Easier to breathe when your robes are torn. Easier to think. Less restrained. Not as formal. Not as judgmental. The robes don't hate him, definitely a plus. Don't think that he's weird. Don't think he's different, too different to be around just because he's smart and strange and snarly and other. Other. That's what he is. Not one of them, he's other. And other is a bad thing, a bad shameful horrible thing to them even though he doesn't see anything wrong with liking to brew potions and figuring out how to read when he was two because it fit together, the letters all fit together like Mum's socks in her drawer at home because she likes them organized by color. All labeled and lined up like his thoughts, like his mind, the mind that made things so easy for him except that it wasn't easy because easy makes him smart and smart is bad. Hide it away. Shove it away. Don't talk, don't act, don't feel or you'll show them what you are except that you can't not show those things and so they push you away and laugh at you and taunt you and flick custard at your hair and no matter how smart you are it hurts so bad you want to die. The Hat, that stupid Hat, put him in Slytherin because he's "sly" no matter that he doesn't really care about being sly, he just wants to get through seven years here without killing himself because everybody hates him. Poison. Poison is good. The right poison, anyway. Quick and clean and discrete and painless and if you do it right it won't distort your face so that they can laugh at you even after you're dead, oh ha ha ha the greasy git is dead.