Sometimes, when Harry stared up at the ceiling of his cell, it wasn't his failures that stared back.

Sometimes, but not often.

There were nights were he shadowed his eyes, tilted his head, and saw not shattered and bruised death, but a smiling boy with brown hair, all connected and happy.

And there were nights where, if he held his chin just so, he could make out a hand, waving about enthusiastically, and an arm, connected to an energetic girl, chattering happily to him about the world and life and anything in between.

Occasionally, when his dull and stringy hair fell in front of his eyes, he could, with enough searching, spot sneakered feet, skipping through a hallway, following the echo of a silvery laugh.

He could see a finger with a ring, and hands laced together. He could see a pair of laughing eyes, so like another, and a head of hair so bizarrely red it reminded him of the setting sun. He could see a smile, a spin, a floating giggle… He could see a pair of friends, sitting by a lake and laughing, he could see freckled skin, a crying face, and a grin so bright it hurt…

And then he'd blink and they'd all be gone.

The day would come, and the blood would be back, and the body parts nailed to his ceiling would return.

The laughter would fade, the fingers would splinter, and the broken corpses above him would say not a word, somehow taunting him still with their twisted and cracked silence. The severed hands would reach out to him, and the eyes, burst and dripping, would stare down.

Harry was greeted by failure once more.