A/N: I wrote this forever ago but only just found it again.

Rating is just for the subject matter really. It's a bit dark.

Disclaimer: J.K Rowling owns Harry Potter and probably remembers where she saves her writing so she doesn't forget about it until she happens across it seven months later.

It had been thirty hours.

Thirty hours since he had finally called Harry on his lack of plan. Thirty hours since he had heard Hermione's cries. Thirty hours since he had let the beast consume him and destroy every part of his being that had been worth saving, leaving nothing but a bitter and angry mess behind.

Thirty hours since he had left.

He stood, shaking, on the cliff side, watching the sun rise. The harsh light burned his eyes but he welcomed the streaming tears that dripped down his cheeks. He had spent most of his time at Shell Cottage in the bedroom he now called his own, trying to cry, to somehow purge his body of the shame, but he couldn't. These tears may not be natural but they were the best he could do for now.

Everything was so wrong right now that he could barely think. He wanted more than anything to crawl back to his friends, wherever they were, and beg them to take him back, but he knew he couldn't. They had moved, left without a second thought. They didn't think he would return. Or maybe they didn't want him to?

A shuddering breath left his lungs, the force of it causing his whole body to shake. His eye lids slipped closed as he bowed his heavy head and tried not to listen to the hissing voice in his mind, but he was struggling; it had been his only friend for weeks.

No. It's not your friend. Not even close.

But still the words that sounded so like his own kept coming, a merciless onslaught of disappointment and frustration, that cut to the bone and kept cutting. The sibilance could have been from a hot iron, branding words like 'failure' and 'traitor' into his skin where they belonged.

Whenever anyone had ever complimented him, they had said he was loyal. A loyal friend. A loyal brother. It all meant nothing now. His one redeeming feature lay in pieces at his bare feet; he could almost see it being blown away in the breeze. Loyalty wasn't running away when things became too hard. Loyalty wasn't what he had said to his friends. Loyalty wasn't forgetting his cause because he was too miserable to remember what it was.

He had thought removing the locket and putting as much distance as possible between him and the cursed thing would make the voice disappear, but it lingered, apparently as much a part of him now as his flaws and regrets. Maybe it hadn't been the horcrux putting these ideas in his head? Maybe they were already there to begin with? Maybe everybody else thought the same things?

Maybe she thought the same things?

A ripple of fear.

A shiver of acceptance.

His eyes still closed, but filled now with moisture he could not blame on the sun, he took another step forward.

For all of his life he had been a second thought, a spare part, but no one needed him now. Those that he thought might were better off without him and he couldn't bear to tell everyone else the tale. Really all he was doing was wasting oxygen that other humans could use to change the world. If he stopped, no one would notice. They didn't know where he was and he doubted they would care. She had chosen him. His mother had chosen his siblings. He couldn't think of anyone else who had ever looked at him like they had.

Slowly, as to only let the glare of the sun in gradually, his eyes crept open and looked onto the rocks being battered by the waves below. In his new position, his toes were hanging off the edge and he could only feel the dewy grass tickling his large feet. He wriggled them, glorying in the nothingness that surrounded them and he thought briefly how it would feel if all of him could experience it.

He could be free. He could have the cold air wrap around him like a blanket, keeping him safe and separate from everything else. It would be wonderful to not have to support his own weight, to not have to remain upright. Above all, the voice would be blocked out by the whistling wind as he passed it. It would stop altogether.

As these thoughts passed through his mind, the voice grew louder and more intense, taking over everything else. It reached its crescendo as he took a deep breath and went to take another step forward…

But then the voice stopped.

The hissing and spitting, that had been his guide these past weeks, cut out, leaving him with nothing but the howl of the wind and his panting breaths. The moment caught up with him and he saw that his right leg was raised, ready to take a weightless step into nothing and the sound of the rest of the world came rushing back in.

With a cry, he threw himself backwards onto the damp ground. Trembling, in nothing but a thin top and shorts, he realised how cold he was and what he was about to do. He had been moments, seconds away from shifting his weight forward. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that he could've done it and that, above everything else, was what scared him the most.

As he gasped for air and tried to make sense of what had just happened, he planned to rid himself of the voice and every drop of poison it had fed him. People cared about him. People missed him. Above all, he knew he could be better than what he was currently. He may be beaten, lost and barely recognisable now, but the real him and the person he could be, were still there somewhere.

That was what she had told him anyway.

Even though it was a blurry memory now, a vision of her face forced its way to the forefront of his mind. Try as he might, he could barely make out the details and he was well aware that time would soon take the few that remained. Curling into a ball, trying to shield his eyes from the rising sun, he repeated the apology he wished more than anything that she could hear.

It had been thirty hours.

Thirty hours since he had landed on the beach, trying not to look at her unmoving body. Thirty hours since he had stared true evil in the face. Thirty hours since the chandelier fell, the blade was thrown and everything had become more real.

Thirty hours had passed and his head was still locked in that cellar, hopelessly scraping at the walls.

It would have been naïve of him to think that sleep would come to him easily after what had happened that day so he wasn't shocked to find himself in the kitchen as the rest of the house slept. In the quiet, he was surprised that he seemed to be on edge, waiting to hear the next scream. It was the only proof he had that she was still living and breathing and fighting somewhere above him. That was the only comfort that could be found in them though.

Violently rubbing his hands over his face in the hope that it could quell the ghosts that were sure to haunt him for years, he tried to think of something else, but it was useless. She was usually what he thought of the last thing at night and first thing in the morning and now was a mixture of both. If it wasn't the fear that he would never reach her, it was the terror of when he had. If it wasn't the worry of when she was being strong and repeating that she was fine, it was the sadness of when she gave in and cried in his arms, away from everyone else.

He'd never seen her look as weak as she had then and he had vowed to protect her from anything that would make her so again.

It was with a heavy sigh that he turned to the window and felt his heart stop.

There, on the horizon, gazing out from the cliff edge, she stood, her hair swirling around her.

His throat was still closed up when he was half way up the grassy bank towards her, calling her name in a voice filled with razorblades and dread.

It was a shock, when she turned around and smiled at him through the half light of the pre-dawn. Nothing about her gave off the desperation and need for escape he had felt when he had stood in this very spot those few short months ago. In fact, her whole face was shining with some untold joy he wasn't sure still existed in the world. Dressed in just her thin pyjamas, a few soft freckles and an over-whelming aura of hope, she was the embodiment of everything that was still right in a time when everything had fallen apart. He could've stared at her for the rest of the day and through the night as well.

Still scared and breathing more rapidly than was normal, he asked her in as calm a voice as he could manage, what she was doing out here and didn't she know how dangerous it was? Her laugh of a response filled him and calmed him, until his muscles relaxed and the iron first around his heart unclenched. His face must have shown some level of confusion, as she faced him fully and gave him a brilliant smile and said two words; two words that should have been obvious, but that he hadn't fully appreciated until now.

I'm alive.

The relief hit him like a wave and took with it his fear as he pulled her into a hug. Straight away, her arms wrapped around him, warming him to the core in a way he suspected nothing else could. He didn't know what it meant and for once he didn't analyse where she had placed her hands or how tightly she held him because he didn't care. She was there, he was with her and that would always be enough to make him take that step back away from the edge.