Title: Scarred

Character: Harry Potter; because he's the most underappreciated.

Summary: Harry Potter; defined by a scar and a certificate that reads orphan. Character-death.

Notes: Well. I don't know where this came from... It's Drarry, OOC, and contains suicidal themes. I honestly think that the most underappreciated character in Harry Potter, is Harry. I've never heard anyone say that Harry is their favourite character. But I honestly love him, and I think that if he had let himself be like OOTP!Harry all the time, this may have actually happened. And if he was in love with Draco, of course. I sincerely hope you enjoy!

Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived.

That's all, right?

He's nothing more than a scar and a pair of glasses; average test results, friends too involved with each other, and a family that are either dead, or don't want him. Or both. Teachers that both abhor him and adore him, peers who fear him and revere him, and a boy who doesn't care.

He sometimes wonders: what must it be like to be Justin Finch-Fletchley? Dennis Creevey? Even Ernie Macmillan?

He sometimes imagines that he could be anyone but Harry, just Harry; maybe he has blue eyes, brown hair and a small smile. Maybe he's thinner, smarter, more handsome, more comical. Maybe he doesn't have a scar on his forehead, but one on his ankle from falling off his mother's swing set when he was eight.

Maybe he's a boy Draco Malfoy could fall in love with.

But Harry Potter?

Messy back hair and bespectacled green eyes and frown lines before his time; too average, too average, just average. Harry Potter; defined by a scar and a certificate that reads orphan.

Imagine a world where liar-liar-saviour-saviour Harry Potter doesn't save it; imagine a world where Draco Malfoy hears the words, "Potter likes you."

Imagine Potions on Monday morning - the stares, the glares, and the whispers - and sitting next to Malfoy. Watching Malfoy refuse to sneer that pretty little sneer that Harry's mind twists into a smile and refuse to look him in the eyes.

Imagine a world in which nobody speaks but Harry can still hear the screams.

He won't leave; he won't give up. He's come so far, now. He has a mastermind to defeat and a world to save and Transfiguration homework to do - he can't afford to give up.

But he wants to.

Harry reads articles of children who damage themselves - who bleed for the sake of knowing they still can. He reads stories of teenagers who vomit so that the acid can't eat them up from the inside.

He reads fairytales where the princess kills herself.

And he thinks, "If I died tomorrow..." But he doesn't finish his sentence, because he has already been given his life sentence, has been condemned to a life of after Voldemort. Only one can survive. Harry cannot survive, cannot live, if Voldemort is still out there.

He can't afford to.

Life-after-Voldemort is the only option.

Hermione tells him, "You just have to stay strong, Harry. We'll get through this if you can be strong." Harry shakes his head and blinks back tears because how could pretty bookworm Hermione Granger understand?

Ron shuffles uncomfortably, and says, "It'll all be over soon, mate. Don't understand why you're still worked up about it, to be honest."

But what can hetero best mate Ron Weasley know about Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy?

Because Harry is hiding; Harry is performing his own masquerade, caught between two worlds of right and wrong, treading the line, walking the tightrope. He is confined to this life, and this life alone. He isn't allowed Malfoy, even if Malfoy wanted him.

So one night, when Luna tells him that falling is just like flying, Harry, he walks up to the Astronomy Tower.

He looks out over Hogwarts; the Quidditch Pitch and the forbidden forest and Hagrid's hut. He looks up, at Sirius and Regulus and all those other stars that don't seem to shine as bright.

Harry wonders if his parents are up there, somewhere. Cedric Diggory, too.

He thinks of the people who will miss him - Hermione, Ron, Luna, Ginny, Neville - and the people who will miss the Boy Who Lived - Dumbledore, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, maybe Rita Skeeter - and the people who won't miss him at all - the Dursleys, the Slytherins... well.

A lot of people won't miss Harry once he's gone. Including Draco Malfoy.

So he looks up at the stars and thinks of suicide.

He's not worth their pity, that's for sure; he's not worth anything but their resentment and maybe their awe and nothing else. He's Harry; just Harry. He'd like to be that, for once. Maybe he will be. Maybe he'll have a chance to be more than just their saviour.

Harry looks away from the moon and away from the Quidditch Pitch and down at his body. He's a person, scars 'n' all, but nobody seems to care about that.

He starts to think of life-after-Harry. Ron can have his Firebolt, Hermione can have his Invisibility cloak, Fred and George can have the Map, if they want it (it was theirs first, after all), and Ginny can have Hedwig. He doesn't have much else.

If he wanted to be sentimental, he'd say that Malfoy could have his heart, but he wouldn't want it anyway, whether Harry was alive or... not.

Life-after-Harry doesn't sound so bad.

He moves a foot forward.

He could have been carefree Justin, or ecstatic Dennis, or even pompous Ernie, in another life. But he's really just average Harry, trusted to do extraordinary things. He's scared and he's scarred - so many scars - and none of the ones that matter are in the shape of lightning bolts. He closes his eyes, his mother's eyes. He breathes in.

Breathe out.

He is nothing but a scar and a pair of glasses. He's just Harry Potter.

The Boy Who Jumped.