Disclaimer: I am not making money off of this, nor do I own any share of the Harry Potter franchise.

Warnings: Strong Language, Abuse, Drug Use, Underage Drinking.

Author's Note: So far I've only gotten reviews from a few people, but that's more than enough for me! I'm really happy people are reading my work and approving; so here's the first chapter! =)

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Chapter One

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Ronald Weasley did not worry easily, or rather; his worries were not easily aroused. Only if something quite obviously worrisome took place, such as someone vomiting blood, or gushing blood, or the appearance of anything with multiple legs that scuttled and had more than two eyes, were his worries fanned. That is to say; someone looking tired or ill didn't worry him, not like it did Hermione. But when Ron laid eyes on Harry, the reaction was the same as looking at his father gushing blood, vomiting blood, and sprouting eyes and legs while scuttling across the floor… to put it more simply; he was worried.

"Um, Harry?" Ron slid the door of the train compartment shut and stared at his friend, who was slumped over, staring out the window with tired eyes. "Harry?" He repeated, craning his neck to get a better view of his friends face. "Harry?" He said with much more volume and nudged Harry in the shin violently.

The reaction was instant: Harry bolted from his slumped position, turned his vibrant green glare upon his red-haired friend and hissed. "What the fuck was that for?" He demanded.

Ron gaped. He'd known Harry for five years, and never once had Harry sworn at him; he'd yelled some, but never sworn with such vulgarity. He stepped back and studied his best mate slowly. Harry was taller, gangly, not bad looking; he had that bad-boy look about him that girls simply adored. But he looked tired, angry, too skinny, and… worn.

"Who pissed in your cheerios?" Ron demanded and tossed his luggage on the designated rack, his face red and scrunched up. To think; I was nearly worried about the twit. Turns out he's just being a pissy git like always. Ron thought unhappily and slumped down into his seat, determined to avoid Harry's gaze.

"Shit." Harry whispered and Ron heard a shifting noise as his friend leaned back and closed his eyes. "Ron," he said more loudly, "Ron, I'm sorry. You just scared me is all. I'm really sorry." He said slowly without opening his eyes.

Ron's eyes slid back over to his friend and as he took in the sight of a withered Harry his anger melted. He hadn't talked to the boy all summer, after all. He knew that Harry had been completely cut off from the world he loved for the whole three months away from Hogwarts; when he thought about it like that, Ron figured that Harry's little outburst was actually less than he deserved. With an inward shrug, Ron's face lit up with a smile and his happiness at being reunited with the Wizarding World's Savior overflowed.

"It's alright, mate. I suppose I deserved it, anyway. It was real awful of me not to write you all summer, but Dumbledore told everyone that we weren't supposed to." Ron winced in apology. "But when Hermione gets here we'll tell you all about it, alright?" He blushed at the mention of Hermione, his eyes sliding off to the side to avoid Harry's vivid green ones.

"Oh…" Harry went quiet for a moment as he thought back to the beginning of the summer; before he'd met Gwennie, Joey, and Kanyon. Thinking hard he recalled that was his reason for attempting suicide; he'd thought everyone was simply glad to be rid of him. But he was pretty over that now. "Don't even worry about it, Ron." He waved his hand in the air dismissively and nearly missed Ron's offended expression. "Well, I mean, it's not that I didn't miss you guys. I did! I missed you guys an awful lot, but I was really, um, tied up over the summer." He tied a knot in the air, pulling it tight with his hands.

"Yeah? Were the Dursleys on your back a lot?" Ron asked in a sad tone and slid to the side as the Hogwarts Express gave a little jolt.

"Well, they didn't make me clean or anything; they got sort of violent, though." He shrugged, his throat going a little dry. "But, other than that they made sure I was out of the house mostly; didn't bug me a bit."

"Violent? They beat you?!" Ron gasped.

Harry gave a little shrug. "Well, I mean, not really. But a little, I guess." He suppressed a shudder when he recalled the many times Uncle Vernon's huge mass had blocked all escapes, seeming to fill the entire room, pushing Harry against a wall, making the air thin and scarce. "Well, no, I mean…" he stuttered. "Oh, hey, where's Hermione, anyway?"

"Oh, I'll bet she's going and flashing her Prefects badge around, making sure all the little Firsties know where to find her." He chuckled. "When we got the letters she nearly fainted, you should've heard her… squealing 'Oh! Oh, Ron! Look at what I got! Oh, and Ron, look at what you've got!'" He mimicked Hermione nearly perfectly and rolled his eyes.

"Really, Ron!" Said a high pitched, offended voice. "I do not sound like that!"

In the doorway stood a bushy-haired, blushing Hermione Granger. She looked much the same, perhaps a little more womanly than the past years, growing as all girls do, but she still held herself as though she were better than everyone else, and now she stood at an angle, almost unconsciously, so that her badge gleamed just a little.

"Er—hello, Hermione." Ron said and looked down, ashamed. "Didn't hear you come in."

"No, you wouldn't have, not over your dreadful mimicking voice." She snapped and then slid shut the door with more force than necessary and shooed Ron away from the window, so she might sit across from Harry, and at first, she said nothing. "Oh, Harry, what happened to you over the summer?"

Hermione's detail oriented eyes surveyed Harry closely, excruciatingly closely. She took in his incredibly thin stature, his improved height, his lack of muscle tone, the way his hands shook. She frowned and leaned forward, pressing her warm hands to his forehead to find it cool and sticky with sweat. She then reached down and took his hand gingerly, holding her fingers at his wrist as she stared at the face of her wrist watch.

"Nothing much, it was good." He said in a half lie, half truth. It was true that it had been a good summer; it had been a smashing summer, in fact, the best he could remember. However, a lot had happened. A lot of stuff he couldn't remember, a lot of stuff he did remember, and a lot of stuff he wished he couldn't remember. But nonetheless; a lot of stuff. "How was yours?" He asked around a clogged throat.

She pulled back with a frown still on her face; what was wrong with Harry? Cold sweat, high heart rate, his chest was laboring with breath. She thought for a moment and decided it was simply stress. Harry was always under a lot of stress, after all. Hermione smiled to herself and Harry, took a deep breath, and then relaxed.

"Oh, it was alright. We did miss you terribly, though." She smiled as though speaking to a small child. "Oh! Did Ron tell you about our becoming Prefects? I am just so excited! You won't believe the privileges we get—"

Harry nodded and listened as Hermione babbled on and on, Ron laughing and Harry occasionally forcing a laugh. Somehow, it just wasn't the same. Last year, on the train, he remembered laughing so hard he thought his gut would have burst, but this just wasn't his idea of fun. The realization that Hogwarts was going to be a nuisance this year hit Harry like a car. He felt breathless.

**

Harry flopped down onto the bed gratefully, loving the way the soft cotton underneath rippled against his sudden weight. During the summer he'd usually bunked on a couch, a lumpy couch most often, sometimes a floor or perhaps a rooftop. Very rarely he'd bunk on his own mattress, the rock-filled one the Dursleys had provided him with, and sometimes he'd crash with Kanyon. Well, actually, he always crashed with Kanyon, be it on a couch or a floor, but it was to say that Harry sometimes stayed with Kanyon, though his mattress wasn't the most comfortable, either. But none of them even came close to being as soft and comfortable as the mattress he now lay upon.

Ah, so this is what I missed about this damn school. Harry's thoughts murmured in sleepy echoes through his mind as he cuddled close to a very full pillow, he was vaguely aware of telling Ron he wasn't hungry as his eyelids drifted close. In the back of his mind there was a voice reminding him that he was going to miss the feast in the Great Hall, but that voice was shut by a much louder voice, the voice of Anemone, and so Harry fell asleep. Deep asleep; the sort of sleep only attainable after coming down from a very high up high.

**

"Ron? Where's Harry?" Hermione asked as Ron settled in beside her, eyeing the platters piled high with chicken and other tender meats. "Isn't he coming down to eat?" She vividly remembered his state of emaciation.

"Nope." Ron shook his head as he reached for the lemon seasoned chicken. "We got up there and put our lugguage away, and then he lay down and fell asleep nearly right after. He said he wasn't hungry, anyway."

"Oh, well… do you think we should try to wake him? I mean…" she flushed a little bit as she spread thick butter atop a steamy roll. "Well, Ron, did you see how skinny he was?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Ron, he was twig thick!" She demonstrated by making a tiny space between her thumb and four finger.

Ron's face fell and he slowed in his piling of nutrition as he digested her words. "You, um, you noticed, too?" He said slowly and moved his hands under the table, whipping them on his robes.

Hermione snorted. "It's kind of hard not to notice, Ronald." She snapped. "God, it's only the first day and already I'm worried sick about him." She muttered and bit into her roll angrily."Well, what do you think is wrong with him?"

Ron shrugged and stared at his food. "I'm not sure. But, you know, when I walked into the compartment he was sort of asleep… only awake. Day-dreaming, I guess. But anyway, I was trying to talk to him and he wasn't listening, so I kicked him in the shin, just lightly, and he… well, he was really mad." Ron supplied carefully and then frantically began to cut his meet, suddenly ravenous.

"What did he say?" Hermione asked, knowing Harry had a slight temper, but nothing that should make Ron so flustered.

"He bolted up and said 'What the fuck was that for?!' real loud." Ron said and shot a glare at a First Year whose eyes bulged at Ron's colourful language.

Hermione grimaced. "Maybe it just hurt him more than you thought it would. But we're probably just worrying over nothing, he's probably just feeling stressed and… alone. We did leave him be all summer, I'm surprised his in such good temperament, actually."

"Yeah," Ron brightened, "I'll bet that's it! So, you think he'll get over it?"

Hermione smiled just a little bit and gave a little nod. "Mm-hm. We'll just have to make sure he gets enough to eat, and spend a lot of time with him." She nodded again, more to herself.

**

Harry was very, very careful as he slunk across the roof, his eyes fogged with drugs, alcohol, and adrenaline. He breathed heavily, coated in sweat from dancing and being crushed in with so many other people. The night air did nothing to cool him or his nerves as he got closer and closer to his window, praying to God that Uncle Vernon had simply forgotten about him.

The window was opened just enough for Harry to slide his thin fingers underneath and heft it quietly up, just how he had left it. He climbed in with a careful sort grace, unable to see in the dark of his bedroom, but not feeling any other presence in the room. He didn't notice the hulking shadow under it had its hand around Harry's thin neck, thick and disgusting.

"Damn you, you ungrateful little brat!" Uncle Vernon panted as he thrust Harry back and forth. "Where the hell have you been?" He hissed and pulled Harry close, close enough that he was able to smell the scent of wrong-doing the boy was drenched in. "Oh," he sneered, "Oh, is that the game we're playing? Pity poor Potter, is it? Poor little Potter with his abusive Uncle has to go get high just to make it through another day. Is that it, Potter?" Vernon shook the boy violently, again and again until something popped.

Harry could say nothing as he flew back and forth, hating the feel of his Uncle's hands on him. He was terrified; he had to admit, of the hulking human being. Uncle Vernon had been experimenting with new types of punishment lately, and Harry hated them more than anything else in the world. His Uncle had burned him, cut him, even lashed him and sometimes, sometimes when that was happening, he'd get a strange look on his face, a look Harry didn't like at all. But when something in Harry popped, the look on Vernon's face was something worse than Satan's fondest dream.

"Oh god." Harry mumbled as he dropped limply to the ground, vaguely aware that there was a painful sensation in his left arm, but not his right. He groaned and hid his face from his Uncle, who continued to loom over the confused Potter.

"Oh, poor pity Potter." Vernon mocked and turned to the door, throwing Harry a disgusted look over his shoulder. "That should teach you to stay out all night, Potter." He sneered and slammed the door, leaving Harry on the floor, unable to move the whole of his left arm.

**

Harry leapt up with a gasp, his robes clinging to his sweat coated body as he tried to ward the memory away. He grasped his left arm, it was fine now, but then it hadn't been. He had never been quite sure what Uncle Vernon had done to it, but Harry had managed to crawl back to a nearly sober Kanyon who had done his best to fix it, though it still hurt like hell every once in a while.

"Harry, mate, are you alright?" Ron asked from across the room and Harry's green eyes moved over to stare at his red-haired friend. "You've been having nightmares since I got back last night. And you've slept past breakfast." He frowned.

Harry glared at his friend, not liking the idea of someone being on the outside world, looking in on Harry's many memories. "I'm not hungry, anyway." He mumbled and crawled from the bed, need making his hands shaky. "Um… when do we get our class schedules?" He asked and carefully peeled off his robes, not wanting Ron to notice the many scars and marks he'd gained over the summer.

"Lunch, I think. But classes don't start until tomorrow." He studied his dark-haired friend.

"Um, yeah, okay." He said slowly, pain bursting in the back of his mind. "You know, I'm going to go for a walk, I'm not feeling so well." Harry said quickly and rummaged through his suitcase for a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that actually belonged to Kanyon.

"Yeah… okay. But you better be at lunch, Hermione's been worried about you, mate." Ron supplied and watched as Harry made his way out of the dorms, fumbling with a lighter he thought Ron couldn't see.