The Other Boy

Harry Potter sat alone on the Hogwarts Express. He always had.

He knew, when he arrived at school, he would be met only angry glares and tense silences. It had been this way for five years now.

And he knew why. It didn't make sense; it wasn't his fault; but it didn't seem to matter. He had sat on the sidelines while everyone else fought and fell. He had seen so much death, too much death.

And he knew, as did everyone else, that it would never end now.

He saw new people Sorted into his house every year. He knew vaguely that it used to be Slytherin that had a black mark, but now Gryffindor was the most reviled house. Nobody wanted to be in the same house as Harry Potter. They left him alone. He thought, sometimes, that he would have been happier if they yelled at him, screamed at him, beat him senseless. But they ignored him. He remembered the time when somebody had spit on him in the streets of Hogsmeade, and how he realized that he almost treasured that moment. Somebody had acknowleged his existence, even if it was in the worst way possible. Nobody else ever did.

He saw new teachers every year, sometimes two, three, four times a year. With each one he hoped for a respite, but it was always the same. As soon as they saw his name on the class roster, they looked up to be sure it was him. He knew from the moment their eyes met his that it would be the same.

He saw the headlines of the Daily Prophet, the only mail he ever received. Every day, they spoke of new horrors, new tortures, new deaths. It was the only way he knew what was really happening, because nobody else would tell him. Sometimes he saw groups of people crying softly in the halls. He didn't know who they mourned for. And then the next day, the headlines proclaimed the death of a name he would recognize. Abbot, Patil, Goyle, Lovegood. They were names he heard sometimes, but he could never match them to a face.

He saw his classmates and housemates get the dreaded Ministry owls, carrying the dreaded black envelopes, and burst into screaming tears before they even opened them, because they knew what was inside. Everyone knew what was inside. And everyone knew that it would never end.

And it all seemed to fall on him.

How could he be to blame for all this? Yes, he had survived the killing curse. His mother's death--a useless death--had made sure of that. Why couldn't she have stood aside? Had she had any idea about the prophecy? He would never know. And it wasn't his fault that the other boy, the Longbottom baby, had been the one. It wasn't his fault that Voldemort had crept into their house in the dead of night, killed the child silently and swiftly, and then left. Nobody had known. Nobody had stood by to sacrifice themselves for that baby. They had only gotten up the next morning to a bloodstained crib, unknowing that their child was the one who would have grown up to face down and kill this greatest evil their world had ever seen.

Harry leaned his head against the window of the train as the tears began to fall. He sat alone of the Hogwarts Express. He always had. He always would.