Rubbish.

((My other story is going to have very little kindness or love in it, and I need something to put that stuff in, or I'll go a little crazy. So, here's a much sweeter, albeit angsty and wicked, story to balance things out.))

Harry rolled over in bed and stared up at the ceiling of his room at #4 Privet Drive, folding his hands together over his chest and struggling against the tears that threatened to spill from his bright green eyes, his lower lip captured in his teeth. 'What am I going to do? What good is my life now? There's no reason for me to live with him gone, everything is finished and yet...' "Here I remain." He whispered softly to the darkness around his lumpy bed, feeling the tingling in his wounds where the healing potions worked their magic to knit together flesh and bone.


He sucked in a sharp breath and slid from his bed, picking up his dressing gown, pulling it on over his pajamas before tying it closed tightly at his waist, padding silently from his room and down the hall to the stairs. He paused on the landing to listen intently, not wanting anyone to catch him in his current moment of weakness, but all was still. He tiptoed down the stairs and into the kitchen, retrieving a glass of water to carry to the living room, settling on the couch to stare silently at the dark television screen.


'No one ever suspected he would come after the Dursley's, or that I would kill him in such a weirdly mundane fashion. No great bloody battle, just him stalking into the house and me shouting the Killing Curse without even thinking. Was that how it was supposed to happen?' He tried to wrap his mind around the knowledge that the war was over, he was alive and whole, rid of the fragment of Voldemort's soul that had been living within him like a cancer undetected. His hand rose to touch his forehead, fingers trembling as they felt the smooth skin where his scar once resided.


'How can Avada Kedavra account for the loss of my scar? Voices raised, his so deathly cold and certain, mine...well, I barely even remember leaving my bed, let alone cursing him. How bright it must have been here, green light like toxic waste shining from both of our wands...' He looked around numbly at the living room and the foyer beyond the archway, shocked that no sign of the final confrontation remained. 'There should be some sign, shouldn't there? Sixteen years building up to one final moment and nothing to show for it but...well, a smooth brow.' A frown touched his lips and he fought the urge to fling his water glass at the television, scream and break things until this queer hurricane within him was sated and blew it's self out.


His hand tightened on the glass until he heard it crack and he forced his muscles to relax, taking a series of long, deep breaths to slow the frantic beating of his heart. 'What if it was a dream? What if everything was just some horrible nightmare and I'm laying in bed right now?' He shifted and the deep, terrible pain in his back and chest disproved that theory rather effectively, and wrenched a soft sigh from his quivering lips. 'What am I to do now?' He leaned forward and set the glass on the coffee table, then turned and picked up a throw pillow from the couch beside him, lifting it to his face to muffle a scream of frustration, fear and anger that he could no longer restrain.


As if the cry had broken his control, his tears suddenly flowed to wet the scratchy tweed pillow, and he fell over to hug it tightly to his face, wracking sobs wrenching through his sore body. 'It's all wrong! It wasn't supposed to be this way, I was supposed to die and everything was finally supposed to be over. What is left for me in this world now? A house that was never my home, the last of my living relatives dead by my enemy's hand, and this stupid, pathetic end to a battle I've been fighting literally since birth?' His breathing became ragged and shallow, the sound of wheezing laughter replacing his sobs sending a chilly spike into his heart.


'Oh, and have I forgotten to mention that I'm going mental?' He laughed harder, rolling off of the couch to curl into a fetal position on the floor, cackling in a way that terrified him and yet he could not stop himself. 'The most powerful Dark Wizard who ever lived, defeated by a sleepy sixteen year old with the remnants of a wet dream drying on his crotch in a Muggle house at three in the bloody morning! Doesn't it have it's own wild, brilliant irony?' The pain in his chest began to feel far worse, like a tearing deep inside and he wondered idly if he could kill himself laughing. Of course, the idea only made his mad laughter that much worse.


"Stupify!" The shout and the spell worked in concert to instantly stop the dangerous hysteria and Harry blinked in surprise, unable to see yet who had saved him from possibly giggling himself into the afterlife, or at the very least the psych ward at St. Mungo's. "Mr. Potter, I am not sure if you are aware or not, but there are other people in this damnable house attempting to sleep, and it is very difficult to do so with you rolling about on the floor laughing your foolish head off."


The sneering tones of the newly appointed DADA professor worked to further squash any lingering amusement from Harry's mind and he narrowed his eyes as the darkly-cloaked, pale figure strode around the couch and stared down at him frowning. "Now, I will remove my spell if you will indicate to me that it will not facilitate another fit of hilarity." Harry swallowed thickly and blinked twice rapidly, then sat up as the spell was removed, hands pressing to his chest with a low groan of pain. The fire in his chest felt like it was getting hotter.


"Sit still, Mr. Potter. We wouldn't want your life to be protected for a second time from the Killing Curse only to have you die from a fit of the giggles." Snape muttered healing spells and slipped a potion from his pocket to hand to the rumpled figure seated on the floor at his feet. Harry tipped the bottle back and downed the potion, glad to feel the deep ache in his chest fading. "Why not? After all, it would be the perfect, pointless end to a life lived in vain." His words came out in a mocking tone that was worthy of any Slytherin, and he cast a weary smirk up to Snape as he climbed to his feet.


"You think your life was all in vain, Mr. Potter? Or, maybe you think that all the others who have been killed leading up to the point of Voldemort's demise were also wasted in vain?" Contempt laced his words and he peered disdainfully at Harry, turning to stride over and peer out of the curtains covering one window. Harry dropped back on the couch, reaching over to stroke the damp marks his tears had left on the pillow beside him.


"Not them, but my life seems pretty well pointless after what happened earlier. I'm like...a used tissue, disposable, except I'm not smart enough to go into the trash bin like I'm supposed to..." Snape swiveled and strode over to grasp the front of Harry's robe in one fist, jerking him to his feet and bending close to hiss into his face. "Grow up, you self-indulgent little prat. You belittle the sacrifices made for you by calling yourself such, and I will not have you doing so in my presence. Your mother knew you were worth more than a used tissue, as did Albus Dumbledore, Hermione Granger, and Ronald Weasley. Everyone of them died to make sure that you lived, and now you are living...and you act as if you wish you had died!"


He flung the boy back to the couch and glared at him before sneering. "Go to bed, Mr. Potter. We have a long journey tomorrow and I do not relish having to deal with your self-pity on less than the proper amount of sleep." He turned and marched from the living room, leaving a rather stunned and guilty Harry behind him.


Harry stared at his hands, swallowing as more tears threatened, thoughts of Hermione and Ron's deaths weighing heavily on his heart, the thought of them being tortured to give up the address at Privet Drive, how many nights and days they had spent in the Dark Lord's hands... Harry shook his head violently, pushing off the couch and making his way back upstairs, grinding the tears from his eyes with the heels of his hands, mumbling to himself softly. "No time to feel guilty, Mr. Potter. Tomorrow it's off to Snape's house until your seventeenth birthday, and won't that be fun."