Instead, he found himself telling Hedwig his plans to just allow what would happen to happen and not fight any more. If the world wanted him dead this badly, he'd comply. Surely his parents would be happy to see him when he left this world behind. Why should he wish to stay in a world that so clearly only wanted to see how much pain, torment and torture he could stand before he died anyway? He hadn't ever had anything that made living worthwhile and he was damn tired of trying to find something he could hold onto and believe in. He wanted to go home to his Mum because at least he knew she had loved him.
He wasn't depressed. He'd left depression behind a long time ago. Now he was angry. Angry at a world that refused to accept him as he was. Angry at people who treated him like a hero one minute and condemned him as a criminal the next. Only to follow that by treating him like a lab rat in the hours that followed. A world that had no respect for him at all. That treated his every move as something they had a right to critique for hidden motives and/or punish him for things they thought he shouldn't have done. Or things they thought he should've done but didn't. A world that gave him no privacy and did it's best to deny his humanity while loudly lambasting him for every mistake whether real or imagined.
And bitter. Bitter because no matter how hard he had tried to be a good person, no one cared. No one had ever appreciated his efforts to help them. To be there for them when they needed someone. Bitter because even those he'd thought of as friends were really just enemies in sheep's wool. He'd saved people from certain death and not a single one had ever thanked him for it. They'd taken it for granted that of course he'd save them. They deserved it. Because they were worthy people. Worthy of his efforts and sacrifices. Yet they gave him nothing. Nothing worth having. What they gave in return was only what they themselves didn't want. Would never want. Pain and misery. And of course accusations that called into question what he'd really been trying to do to them even as what he did saved them from what was endangering them at the time.
And he was tired. Tired of always having to be on his guard. Tired of never knowing who could be trusted or when to trust someone. Tired of being used as a punching bag or a scapegoat for crimes he hadn't, and wouldn't have, committed even if he'd been asked. Tired of having to explain himself over things he hadn't done or that had occurred long before he had even been born. Tired of watching for the hand that held the knife to be shoved in his back this time. Tired of paying for sins not his own.
Snape still singled him out in Potions class to ridicule. He took more points from Harry than he did any other two students in the castle combined. But no one protested his treatment this year any more than they ever really had and Harry no longer cared either. He refused to rise to the challenge the snarky man was issuing. He didn't care if the man vanished his potion attempts or what Draco or his cronies threw into his cauldron to cause it to explode. Draco had the idea since Harry had caused him injury via an exploding cauldron it was his right to explode Harry's whenever he felt like it regardless of how the exploded potion would affect Harry once he was covered in it. And of course, Draco never got into trouble for doing so as Harry had. Just as he'd never been lectured for refusing Harry's apology for that long ago exploded potion. This year Harry didn't even try to make the potions correctly. Instead he used his lab time to experiment with the recipe of choice that day. Snape wouldn't ever accept anything Harry Potter did as being acceptable anyway. So there was no point in doing the assigned potion as it was assigned.
Draco soon lost his enjoyment of getting Potter detentions when Harry quit rising to the bait and simply looked at him without expression and cold, dead eyes covered in whatever they'd been told to brew that day. Never once did Harry cry out or even say a word no matter how painful the results of the explosion had to be. And sometimes even Draco knew he'd gone too far. That Harry was really injured by the explosion. Yet no one, including Harry, ever said a word. He'd just look at Draco with those cold, dead green eyes that silently asked if Draco was happy now. Did he feel avenged now? Feel superior because he'd trashed another's work? Caused them an injury?