Blood Stained and Lettered

Chapter 3: Minute by Minute

Okay, so this is a CONTINUED ENDING to the previous chapter, technically... but it could also count as a general ALTERNATE ENDING to the first chapter, haha. So there. Two in one.
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Today wasn't so bad.

I—usually I write to you when I've just gone through some humiliating experience, or pain, or hurt, because you can just wipe it all away so easily... but today, today wasn't so bad. I'm actually sort of content. Well, not with the state of the Wizarding World and the fact that I'm held prisoner in a home I'm not welcome in, but in a live-in-the-moment way, today was... okay.

And it makes me think of things, things that I don't want to think of. It makes me hope, makes me wish for someone to take me away, because it's so much easier to think when you're not being beaten to three inches away from death. I don't like these thoughts, but I'm human. Hard to not wish for life, y'know?

I...

When a day like this happens, rare and fleeting as it is, I can feel the desire to live, to survive again spring up from deep inside of me. It makes me angry, sometimes, because I know it'd just be easier to hope for death, and no matter what anyone says, I'd prefer the easy way in my situation. I don't deserve any pity, and I probably don't deserve sacrifices either, ironic in the fact that my mother so believed that, but what I'm trying to say is— is—

It'd be easier for everyone, I think. If I'm dead and forgotten. If I never existed. If I had died that night.

But I didn't. And now the Wizarding World is looking at the Boy-Who-Lived with expectations in their eyes, wishing me to vanquish a monster several decades ahead of me in experience.

I think it's foolish, but on simplistic, easy days like these...

I forget, and that tiny speck of hope breaks free.

It wasn't a relaxing days by any means—I still had to wake up far before my relatives, cook a brilliant breakfast that I received no compliment on, ate some scraps that I was able to sneak, and then received my list of chores. And, despite the fact that I was forced to tend to my Aunt's garden in this ridiculously hot weather, I enjoyed the calm. It was easy, being outside away from my relatives. Sure, the sun made me sweat like hell and the work was exhausting, but I always had a think for the outside, y'know?

Anywhere away from my relatives.

So when I made a flawless dinner, washed the dishes, finished cleaning, and marched up to my room to lock myself in, it was a relief when my Uncle didn't call out to me in demand. It was a relief that no surging anger had broke free today. It was a relief, an enormous weight off of my shoulders, when my relatives went to sleep with not a word to me. Not an angry bark at me. No yelling, no screaming, no hitting, no pain...

Today, I was okay.

And, well, I'm not leaving any blood on this paper, either, so I guess that's a plus on your side. You don't have to try and squint your way through any smudgy words, how's that for once? Well, my handwriting is abysmal, so maybe you do have to stutter through my letter—but hey, no blood!

...Sorry, my humor sucks.

And so I hope, and hope, and hope until something hurts me again. That's sort of what always happens, really. It's stupid, and I should know better—I do, honest!—but my heart doesn't understand that. It just takes another blow, and another, and another, and it makes me feel like I'm invincible and prone to going mad all at the same time. I want these feelings to stop.

But I also want them to come true.

How great would it be, to have someone come break me out of my prison? How amazing would it be, if the twins and Ron came and took me away? How wonderful would it be, knowing I could stay somewhere that accepted and loved me?