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“Harry Potter!”
No. No, no, no. This can’t be happening. He just wanted a peaceful year. A single year where he didn’t have to fear for his life.
He can feel his breathing picking up, but it’s distant, all of his senses muted as if he’s covered with bubble wrap. He slaps a hand over his mouth, fighting back the wave of nausea he feels and trying to blink back tears.
He’s going to die. Even experienced wizards have died in this tournament, how is a fourteen year old supposed to do this?
Scratching his arms, an old habit that he thought he had kicked, he tries to think. Indistinct voices call out to him, hands grab his wrists, and he wrenches them away with a whimper and suddenly all he can hear is freakfreakfreak you deserve this freaks like you deserve to die you take up too much space; all he can see is flashes of dark cupboards and blood and meager scraps of food and hands pressed into the top of the stove, the phantom pain of the burns shooting up his arms.
Tears sting his face, and he lets loose a painful sob. He tears at his hair, it’s too long — you look like a fairy, you worthless fuck — and the hands are back on him — sorrysorrysorry I didn’t mean it please — grabbing too tight.
He’s back in elementary school, teacher groping at him, whispering threats of expulsion if he didn’t comply. He’s in his cupboard, cold and so hungry that he’s dizzy with it. He’s in the Chamber of Secrets, basilisk venom eating at his flesh from the inside out. He’s in his cradle, watching green light take all he has.
He’s in the Great Hall, teachers rushing around him, students staring — they’re always staring.
He’s going to die. He knows it. On some level, he always has known that he would die young. But he didn’t think it would be so soon. Will his friends miss him when he’s gone? He hopes they’ll be able to move on. He doesn’t deserve their grief. He’s just some freak who slacks in school — you can’t have possibly scored higher than Dudley. You must have cheated. You’ll pay for this — and whose only worth is a night he can’t even remember.
Harry vaguely registers the sensation of falling before everything goes dark.