So this story talks a lot about depression, cutting, suicide mentions, talks about abuse, anxiety and OCD, so there's mention of intrusive thought that have a lot to do with death. If you are triggered by this, please click off, I'm writing this for myself as a way of coping with such topics.

If you chose to stay, let me explain this story in more detail. So to me, after the war Harry was left with severe depression, his need for control all of his life finally lead to him developing OCD. This is an eight year story, it settles a year after the end of war, the year was spent with the rebuilding of Hogwarts. Also note that since I can't relate to the actual dates of when this happened, I will be writing this mentioning technology from current years.

Pairings:

Brief Harry/Ginny

Ron/Hermione

Eventual Harry/Draco

Rating: M for some sex scenes and also depression related content.

In a final note, Harry's OCD is a reflection of my own OCD.

Harry tapped his finger over his thigh in the familiar manner, if just to focus on something else.

Tap tap.

Tap.

Tap tap.

Tap.

Tap tap.

Tap.

He breathed in, breathed out. He focused on the way the shadows changed when the train passed a tunnel. He focused on the way Hermione's mouth moved as she explained something to Ginny. He tried to focus on the way Ginny kept stroking his right hand, the one that wasn't tapping.

He finally snapped. He got up from his seat beside the window and got out of the compartment. Muttering under his breath the word 'bathroom', just so they wouldn't look for him immediately once they noticed he had been gone for a few minutes. He passed in front of closed and open compartment doors, pretending not to notice the way some people got out of their seats just to look at him, even though he greeted the annoying distraction the staring gave him. He finally reached the last cart of the train and opened the door that lead to the outside. Heaving a great lungful of fresh air, he leaned against the railing and looked up at the stormy sky that stretched over his head.

He did a pattern with which he was entirely too familiar with to calm himself down. He rolled his head from side to side, stretched his arms above his head and closed his eyes. He breathed as he counted to a hundred twenty, skipping the odd numbers. Finally, he felt like he could breathe again and reentered the train.

As he entered the second to last cart, he bumped into the shoulder of a guy whom was walking briskly in the other direction.

"Sorry" the other guy grumbled under his breath. Harry's breath got caught in his throat as he recognized the voice. But before he could reply, Malfoy had gone into the compartment near the door and shut it with a carefulness that didn't match his stride. But he shook his head, after all, he shouldn't be surprised to see him be back, he had spoken in his trial in hopes of them not sentencing him to Azkaban. But the knowledge didn't make it easier for him to see him again after almost a year of the boy being absent from the world. He shook his head and continued walking until he got with his friends and reseated beside Ginny. Their conversation flowed around him, they all seemed so excited to be back, so was he after all, if only he could convince his mind that that was true.

"It's crazy how things seem to be back to normal." Hermione said with a smile.

"It won't be though" commented Ginny with a frown, the smile on Hermione's face dimmed drastically, but it seemed she was intent on staying hopeful.

There were a few seconds in which nobody said anything, which were broken by Ron.

"So…quidditch. I'm thinking of trying out again this year, with some luck there won't be any ridiculously talented first years." He winked at Harry, he attempted at a smile.

"Bollocks Ron, you know you're hopeless." Said Ginny with a smirk.

"That's not true, I did improve with time on sixth year." Ron replied sounding quite offended by Ginny's comment.

"With time…" Ginny's smirk only grew.

"What about you, Harry?" Hermione said just as Ron was about to say something which was obviously not nice enough for sibling relation according to Hermione's reaction.

"Haven't really thought about quidditch, I guess I'll decide when the moment arrives" He shrugged and went back to looking out the window, but not before he saw Hermione frown at him, her brows furrowed in concern. He dismissed it in his head before he too grew concerned for himself.

He did, however, feel excitement fill his veins as he saw Hogwarts loom into view, and for the first time since a few months ago, he smiled brightly. He turned to Ginny and smiled at her, she seemed confused but smiled nonetheless. They changed into their school robes hurriedly and prepared to descend from the train.

It finally came to a halt and they waited for a few seconds as the thundering of hundreds of kids passed to get out. When they were outside, Hermione left their group to go direct the first years with Hagrid, as she had become Head Girl for their eight year.

"Come on mate, we gotta hurry up if we want to catch and empty coach." Ron tugged on his sleeve and dragged him to an empty coach near the back of the line, in which Ginny, Luna and Neville were already seated. Hermione entered hurriedly just the moment before the coaches started moving. Harry watched with sad eyes as his friends saw for the first times the bat like thestrals that cared the coaches to the entrance of Hogwarts, but now he didn't feel alone in the knowledge of said beasts, as he felt his friends could understand him a little better now, though it wasn't such a good thought.

They entered the Great Hall along with everyone else, and Harry felt again as hundreds of people turned to look at him, to whisper and point in his direction. He felt a blush creep up his face and felt deeply irritated with himself for letting their staring affect him. But there was a pair of eyes he couldn't ignore though he tried. He turned in the direction of the Slytherin table and caught the eyes of none other than Draco Malfoy, he was sneering in his direction, which wasn't unusual, what was unusual was the lack of hate in his eyes, his expression didn't match his stare at all, and Harry felt compelled to stare at him, he couldn't stop looking in the boy's direction, not until Ron saw who he was looking at.

"Just ignore the git" he tugged on his arm and led him with the others, but not before giving Malfoy the finger. Harry dropped his eyes and followed Ron.

Draco couldn't help but cringe inwardly as his eyes met the impossibly green ones of none other than the Golden Boy's himself. He supposed he had already failed twice at his attempt to be on good terms with Potter, not that he had tried, but he had thought to do so, quite a lot if he admitted it. All throughout he couldn't stop thinking about what he had said at his trial, how his eyes had shone as he spoke in favor of Draco keeping his freedom, but most of all, he couldn't forget the way he looked impossibly tired, as though he had stayed awake for a century and knew that no matter how much he tried to sleep the tiredness away, it just wouldn't go away, and Draco couldn't help noticing how that same look could be found in himself. So he had convinced himself he could be nice to Potter, he would try with all – most really – of his might to get the tiredness out of Potter's eyes.

"Draco, are you even listening to me?" Pansy snapped at him and he turned slowly to look at her, he only smirked halfheartedly at her, she huffed but he saw the barest hint of a smile on her face as she turned to her left to speak with a seven year slytherin girl.

Draco continued to be absent of mind all throughout the sorting of the first years. He didn't snap out of his trance until half way through dinner Theo kicked him harshly on his shin from under the table. He hissed and glared at him as he rubbed his leg, he only laughed and smirked at him.

"Thinking about Potter, are you?" He said as he continued to smirk. Draco huffed but felt himself flush faintly, he pretended to be carefully concentrated on cutting his baked potato. He heard Pansy snort beside him and looked sideways to see her winking at Theo, which only made him snort with laughter and smirk at Blaise in turn.

"I would never do such a thing" he finally said in an over undignified manner.

"Of course not honey. You'd never talk about Potter, let alone think about him. It's not like we don't know any of his secrets thanks to you, like perhaps his pants colour." Pansy said bluntly. He tried to kick her feet but it seemed she had heightened senses for she moved her feet away the moment almost crashed.

"Of course not" he muttered, but he knew that what they were saying was true, not use in denying it.

Whatever, he thought. They don't even know half of it.

Harry washed his face roughly. Then he dried it by patting a towel over his face. After that he brushed his teeth, counting to twenty on every side and spitting out tooth paste at least twice before he was finally done. If he felt like the anxiety wasn't at bay, he would use mouth wash, but it didn't feel like it was that kind of day. He sighed tiredly as he considered his amount of anxiety to know what the next step of his routine would be. He clenched his hands into fists and watched as other boys moved inside the bathroom. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, breathed deeply and then opened them, he saw Dean's confused face through the mirror as he walked into the bathroom. He looked down and gathered his things.

As a strategy to achieve inter-house unity, Mcgonagall had placed all of the eight years in a separate dorm room from their classmates of other houses. They each got a single room, seeing as there weren't many of them at all, but they had to share bathrooms, the common room and classrooms with each other.

Harry walked to his room so he could go to sleep, it was almost eleven at night after all. He waved at Hermione and Ron, who were seated in a love chair across the common room. He walked into his room and grabbed his pajamas from his trunk and changed into them, then he closed his curtains, grabbed his wand and set an alarm for the morning. He got under the covers and closed his eyes.

Harry didn't really notice when he had stated feeling the way he felt, it was like one day he woke up and felt the need to do certain things so his brain could finally move on, he didn't notice when he started thinking things he knew he shouldn't, he didn't notice when he got depressed. It wasn't like he hadn't tried to acknowledge this things, he had, but he just couldn't find the words to explain how he no longer could do mundane things like grab a knife to cut his food without getting the image in his head of him killing a loved one. Or how he would grip his wand a little tighter when he walked across a railing or beside a sewer without feeling the impulse of throwing it across it or letting it fall. He knew he would never kill anyone, he was too afraid for that, and he also knew that if he dropped his wand, he would feel guilt creep into him and swallow him slowly, but his brain didn't seem to register that, so he walked briskly away, or cut his food faster to just drop the knife. And his depression, oh he knew it was caused by all of the events from his life bottling up, and it seemed it had finally reached its limit.

Harry turned to his side to get in a more comfortable position. He slowly felt sleep creep into him, he always knew he would fall asleep, the anxiety of not doing so and the events of each day always left him drained of energy.