“I won’t go back there ever,” He swears to himself when Ron is asleep.  “The Dursleys aren’t my home. I have no home.”

Something breaks further inside his heart as he whispers these words to his pillow.  He has never felt so alone.

His eyes swim with tears that drip into his ears.  

“I’d rather go anywhere else.  I’d live on the street before I lived there again.  I’d live with Snape before I lived there again!”

He’d be boiled and chopped into ingredients if he tried to live with Snape.  

But at least I’d be clean, is his wry thought to himself as he contemplates where exactly he could live instead of his relatives’.

“I don’t want to live where I’d be second best.  I don’t want to go where I’m just an afterthought.  I want to be wanted.”

It surprises him how fiercely his mind latches onto that last sentiment.  

“I want to be wanted,” He repeats quietly again, hugging his arms around his middle in a poor semblance of a hug.