Title: Don't Speak

Author: mintapotter

A/N: WARNING: You only get one of these, so here it is. THIS IS A STRONG MATURE RATING. If that isn't your cup of tea, please don't be alarmed when things get messy.

Thank you to all the reviewers of my stories, I live for reviews so please keep them coming! I do not own the titles of these chapters, they are from the song 'A Rush Of Blood to the Head' by Coldplay but THIS ISN'T A SONGFIC! I only use the lyrics for the names of the chapters but the content isn't following the song.

As well, each chapters starts with the ending (in italics). Don't worry, you'll get it quickly.

All right? Let's get started then…

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Chapter 1 - …See It All Disappear Without A Trace…

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"Harry? Harry, say something, come on, don't do this to me. Say something Harry! What happened? What's wrong?"

Ron's soaking wet, but I can't quite place why. I'm wet too, and cold. I'm shivering, and I can't stop. I'm crying and I don't know when that happened either. There's water everywhere, red water on the white tile floor. I want him to explain this to me, tell me what's wrong, but he doesn't have the answers to my questions. I can't ask them, and he can't explain.

I wish that this would

All

Just

Stop.

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I woke up this morning, the same as every other morning this year. I got up before the rest of the 6th year Gryffindor boys, and took a shower as to avoid them. I can't stand them chattering in the morning, groaning over sunlight and not having finished last nights homework. It irks me that they manage to complain over such small and insignificant things.

After my shower I dress quietly as the rest of the tower is awakening, tying my shoes as the first yawns of the morning can be heard. I shake Ron awake but leave before he's coherent enough to speak, to try and start a conversation.

As I walk towards the breakfast hall, I wonder about how he's doing. How he feels, what he's up to. It's not that I can't stand being around him, it's just that he brings everything back into harsh reality when all I want to do is ignore it.

A couple of teachers are milling into the Great Hall as I do, Dumbledore already seated and tucking into a steaming bowl of porridge at the head table. It disgusts me. I sit alone at my table and manage to eat half an apple and a glass of orange juice. After that, any other food is repulsive. The heaping piles of it on the table nauseate me, so I leave the Hall as quickly as I came, walking past Draco and his gang as they enter the Hall.

He makes some smart remark about how I look lately, but I mostly ignore it. I wish him to be quiet constantly, to just go off and die in some hole so as to that I don't have to deal with him daily. My wishes aren't granted.

I sit under a tree by the lake, enjoying the quiet of the grounds in the early morning, free of gossiping girls and yelling boys, void of any human life but my own. The breeze is crisp but light, and the sunlight that shines on me is warm and perfect. This is when I am closest to being happy, when I am alone with only my thoughts as company.

Eventually I realize that classes are going to start soon, so I summon my books and head off to the first class of the day. I hand in my assignments and sit next to Hermione and Ron, although I manage not to speak anything more than three words to them at a time all day. They share worried glances during every class, but I ignore them just as I do Draco. The teachers even seem worried, but I hand in all my assignments and complete all the work they assign in every class, giving them nothing academic to pin me down on.

Lunch is yet again spent alone, me skipping the meal fast becoming a daily ritual. The rest of the day is a blur, right up until supper.

It unfortunately is compulsory so I must attend, every day. At least, that's a rule as of this year. I sit with my table and eat a few bites of some peas and chicken, then give up on the meal as a whole. Ron prods me with questions of Quidditch, which I answer curtly, while Hermione tries to bring up how well I am doing in class. I always cut off a conversation before it starts; something that I have become a pro at. Eventually they give up and fall back into a conversation with the rest of my schoolmates, and leave me be.

The meal ends after who knows how much time and I am finally able to break free.

This is where my day really starts.

Draco casually approaches me as I exit the Great Hall alone, not bringing his cronies with him for once.

"So Potter, noticed a few changes in you lately. Sulking seems to have replaced Quidditch for you, huh?" His laugh is harsh, a laugh I despise.

"Shut up Malfoy." I get to the point and speed up, trying to put some distance between him and me.

"Oh, bitchy are we? No need to snap at me, snap at your ever so perfect Headmaster if anyone. He's the one that let you down." He's smirking by now, his smile like that of the Cheshire cat.

"Did you not understand me? Stop speaking, please." I speed up more now, the crowds far behind us as we cross hallway after hallway, climb staircase after staircase.

"I hit a nerve! Yes, if you need to be angry with anyone, let it be Dumbledore! He's the one who let you down, he's the one that caused your Godfather to die." I stop and let the words settle into my mind, let the idea that Malfoy, Draco Malfoy of all people knows about Sirius. Knows about my personal life, my inner problems.

"Stop it." I whisper. My voice has failed me, the air around me too thin to support my words.

"It's all true, and you know it. You show it every day, how much you hate him, hate being here. I know all about it Potter, all about what happened. I know about how you-"

"STOP IT! JUST STOP!" I explode at him, then implode onto myself. I can feel my resolve failing, can see the image of him falling through that veil, remember how I tried to shoot the Cruciatus curse out of such pure anger.

"Why should I stop? Why should I…" He's off and on about it again, but I'm already gone. I whip up the stairs, through the swung over portraiture of the fat lady, through the common room and up more stairs, until I reach the dormitory. I collapse into my bed, my breathing ragged not from running but anger and fear and sadness all at once.

I pull the hangings shut and just breathe for a while, trying to reel in my feelings, harness them. I hate it when I let my guard down, let myself remember all the things around me. Let myself feel anything. If I eat anything that triggers a happy memory then that leads to something sad. If I talk to someone and the line 'Remember when…" comes up, it can lead nowhere good. If I could live my life in a shell, make everything around me quiet, then I would. If I could just be alone for a little while, I feel like maybe I could fix myself up.

I sit alone for while, hoping that it lasts forever, angrily scribbling a note about all my thoughts and wishes on a scrap of parchment from my pocket. Splotches of ink from me attacking the parchment so angrily dot my lines, some sentences incoherent or ending halfway. The point isn't for the note to make sense to anybody, more that it purges my thoughts into something else, taking them away from me. I hear someone enter the room and I crumple the paper inside my palm, hiding it away from the world.

Alone is what I won't be. Ron comes, and tries to talk to me. I let him inside the hangings, my resolve failed. He tells me that he's always around if I need to talk, but that I don't have to. He asks me if I'm ok, what happened. I don't say a word, just nod at appropriate moments and shake my head 'no' when he asks if I'm ok. At least I'm not lying about something. I ask him to let me be alone for a little while, so he leaves, probably telling the other guys not to bother me. I'm ok with that.

I take out the knife Sirius gave me from under my bed frame, cutting the tip of my finger when I slide it along the blade. I have no clue what I'm going to do when I get there, but I know how I'll get in, at least.

I don the invisibility cloak that should be illegal by now, and head out. All I have is it, the knife and the note still resting in my palm. I just keep going down, down, down, until I reach the dungeons. My memories are foggy from all the years ago that I got into the Slytherin common room, but I somehow navigate all the twists and turns and manage to find my way in. The knife slides easily down the length of the door and I step into the common room unnoticed, the cool dungeon air making me shiver. I don't care.

There are two hallways, and since I can't enter one of them I start down the other instead, counting six doors until I arrive in what I think to be the Slytherin boys 6th year dormitory.

Indeed it is, only instead of a shared room it is another poorly lit hallway, with each door labeled with the last name of its occupant. Malfoy seemed to have claimed the very last room on the left hand side of the hallway as his own, and I sneak in with much help from the knife, allowing myself time to think about what I am going to do now that I'm here.

The walls are rough-hewn stone and are cold against my fingertips. Draco is asleep in a single bed on the far side of the small room, the magical window on the wall behind him casting an unearthly moonlit glow over the entire room.

"Who's there." He asks, his grey eyes snapping open suddenly, seeing straight through me. I take off the cloak without a second thought, not caring about the consequences. He gasps and bolts upright, his wand already drawn from his bedside table.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing here Potter? How the hell did you get in, you creep?" his tone is abrasive and angry, his eyes flashing malice.

"I need to know how you found out all about me. How you know all the things you do." He's still searching for a reason to hex me, still worried and afraid. I guess that's why he's angry, he's like a cornered dog with no way to defend itself.

"My Father you nitwit, he's got his ways of…" he trails off, his eyes twitching down to my hand. "You're not here to talk, you're here to knife me! You're unbelievable Potter!" he's yelling now, having spotted the knife in my hand and getting the wrong impression.

"No, you don't understand, just let me explain…" I try and comfort him with my words but he's yelling over me.

"You are sick and twisted Potter, but I'm not that stupid! I have the wand and therefore the upper hand here you stupid fuck, you thought you'd just come down here and kill me, huh?" He's standing now, advancing towards me. "You are not getting away with this that easily, I'm not letting you just run off! You are so going to pay for this, trust me." His words are angry and loud in my ears, I keep shaking my head 'no' but he just won't stop accusing me.

"Stop, stop, stop please, just let me explain." I'm only whispering, begging him to stop this and just listen, but now he's yelling, picking up steam.

"STOP IT! STOP SPEAKING, JUST STOP!" I scream at him, his words cut off abruptly by my outburst. I take the opportunity to turn and run back out, dropping the note and leaving my invisibility cloak far behind me. I run up every set of stairs, ignoring the burning in my lungs, the exhaustion of my legs. I just keep running until I get to my dormitory.

I'm shaking, I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I'm confused. My roommates are all asleep, but they'll notice me soon enough.

I slip into the showers, and turn them all on as cold as they'll go. The water is freezing, waking me up from the absurdist dream of my life. I sit against a wall and shiver, thinking only about the sound of the water around me. It's not a soft pitter-patter of rain, but a hard sound against the white tiles. I'm so cold now that I wonder if I can even feel anything anymore, if I've finally managed to become numb, to disappear from reality without a trace.

I take out the knife and run it very, very lightly on the transparent skin of my wrist. It leaves a paper-thin trail of blood behind it, and when I see this it makes me feel sick. I think of it instead as drawing on my skin, not cutting but drawing.

I draw another line, then another. Each time I let it go a little deeper as I inch my way up my arm, testing to see how much of the stinging pain I can endure. By the time I'm almost at the crook of my arm my hand is shaking so violently that when I go to make a semi deep cut, it goes all the way in. The pain isn't what I'm expecting, so I try and pull the knife up but I only succeed in slicing deeper, all the way across.

My teeth are chattering, but I can't hear them. I watch my arm bleed for a few seconds, then begin to feel faint from watching it, from it flowing so much and so long. I pull my knees up a little, sit with my back against the freezing bathroom wall. My arm rests on my knees, scarlet pouring down my legs and around my waist, pooling and swirling around me in the water, going from red to pink as it moves away.

I realize what I've done, what this looks like.

I scream.

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"Harry? Harry, say something, come on, don't do this to me. Say something Harry! What happened? What's wrong?"

Ron's soaking wet, but I can't quite place why. I'm wet too, and cold. I'm shivering, and I can't stop. I'm crying and I don't know when that happened either. There's water everywhere, red water on the white tile floor. I want him to explain this to me, tell me what's wrong, but he doesn't have the answers to my questions. I can't ask them, and he can't explain.

I wish that this would

All

Just

Stop.

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A/N: Please review!

mintapotter