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Lucius had been gone longer than he had thought he would be, Voldemort noted with a frown. Had something happened? He left the throne room and made his way up the stairs, his glamour fading as he did so, revealing his far more human appearance with his healthier pale skin, neat dark hair, crimson eyes-not to mention a proper nose and mouth.
He found Lucius standing outside the room Potter had been placed in, leaning against the door, head tilted back and eyes closed. His brow was pinched in what looked to be concern.
"Lucius?"
The blond sighed deeply and lowered his head, opening his eyes. "He's not well, Marvolo," he spoke quietly, using the Dark Lord's preferred name when he wasn't in his snake hybrid form.
"Beyond the obvious self-harm wounds, I presume?"
"Yes, beyond those, but no doubt feeding into them. He didn't say a word to me, didn't put up any sort of struggle. Even the expression on his face barely changed."
"And now?"
"He is asleep. I doubt he will wake any time soon. He appears exhausted."
Marvolo had noticed that himself. Just a single look at the boy's face had been proof enough. He glanced at the door Potter was behind, frown deepening.
"I wonder if Severus knows about any of this," Lucius spoke abruptly.
The older man turned his attention back to him. "About the self-harm?"
"That, and everything else. But I suppose he doesn't. Severus would surely have said something otherwise."
That was true, Marvolo realized. Severus was a man who was all too familiar with self-harm, among many other horrid things. It was he who normally aided students at Hogwarts who suffered being abused, or with problems such as depression, or anxiety, or self-harm, or thoughts of suicide, among other mental health problems. He was the one who aided them, because he was the only member of the staff who truly understood what those children were going through.
And Severus would never refuse aid to one of these students. It mattered not who they were, or the relationship they had, or what House they were in. He would have done all he could even for Potter.
But he hadn't said anything about that. Which meant he likely didn't know, or had been forbidden from doing or saying anything about it by Dumbledore, which was not such an odd or unheard of thing for the old man to do, in Marvolo's opinion.
Dumbledore made sure only those he wanted under his thumb were aided. That was why Severus himself had gone so long without help. Marvolo too had had many problems that had gone ignored.
But Potter was, well, Potter. The Saviour of the Light. The Boy-Who-Lived. Would Dumbledore really want his weapon to be like this?
Actually, yes, he would, Marvolo realized. Because it would mean Potter would have to rely on Dumbledore, and would greatly appreciate any help he could get. It was just another form of manipulation-something the Dark Lord knew Dumbledore was a master of.
But whatever the old man seemed to have been planning for Potter seemed to have backfired. The boy was clearly more broken than he thought. And now, by accepting Lucius' hand, Potter had willingly come to the Dark Lord.
What did that mean for the Light now? What did that mean for the Dark?
When Severus returned to Riddle Manor after the incredibly boring Order meeting he had been made to attend, he was quite surprised, and actually kind of alarmed to learn that Potter was here too. He was quickly filled in on what had happened, and then taken to see the boy for himself. And the sight that greeted him was hardly a pleasant one.
He stood at Potter's bedside, staring at his arms-staring at the scars, all such neat, straight lines. Even the oldest ones did not appear very old-a year or two at most, but even that was too much.
He had missed this. All of it. Whatever Potter had been going through, however long he may have been going through it, Severus had somehow missed each and every sign of it.
Missed or ignored?
And now all he could do was stare, filled with a strange sense of-of failure. Of guilt. He had told himself years ago, told himself when he had first become a professor (unwilling though it had been), that he would always do what he could to help these dangered students so they didn't go ignored like he had been. Maybe that meant he ignored the other ones, but what did that matter? Other professors would happily support and aid them. These few, the ones in danger of themselves, they had no one. They rarely did. No one who listened. No one who understood. No one who cared. So he always focused his attention on them. Most ended up in his own House, but that wasn't always the case.
It wasn't because Potter was a Gryffindor that he had missed the signs. It wasn't even entirely that Potter was a Potter. Both of those were a part of it, he knew, past judgements clouding his vision, but it weren't it entirely.
Potter was a good actor. A very good one, actually. Severus had been suspicious during the boy's first year-had seen certain signs, but had been hesitant to act, because the boy was Harry Potter. He had gone to Dumbledore, sure that even if the Headmaster would dismiss other cases of such things, he would never do the same to his Saviour.
But he had. Dumbledore had assured him, more than once, that Potter was perfectly fine. That it was simply homesickness. And since the boy had soon become what Severus thought to be a typical Gryffindor, acting out and talking back and slacking off, Severus had decided to believe what Dumbledore said.
And it had been a lie, Severus now realized. Potter hadn't been homesick at all. The quiet, curious boy Potter had initially been in his first year had likely just been Potter as he always had been up until that point.
Then the mimicking had started. Potter had begun to mimic his new friend, Ron Weasley. He had soon begun to speak like him, behave like him. Had he done that so he wouldn't lose his friend? Had he even realized he had been doing it?
Potter had changed a little when Granger had joined the boys too, hadn't he? He still acted more like Weasley, but he was happy to take his school work a little more seriously than Weasley, enough so to keep Granger content and off his back for the most part.
But even then there had been times, Severus realized as he thought back, where Potter had behaved in what he had thought to be an odd manner, that was surely how he really was.
Those times when Potter became quiet. When he became serious. When he became thoughtful. The times when he became angry and frustrated, exploding out instead of bottling things in and smiling along dutifully.
The guilt grew. The sense of failure did too. Severus reached down and took Potter's closest arm, gently running his calloused fingers over the scars and scabs. He had a salve that could vanish the scars. He knew it worked, because he had invented it to use on himself.
When Potter woke, he would ask if he wanted these scars on his arms gone.
That's it for now. I should be posting the next chapter tomorrow, circumstances permitting, since I've already finished writing it. Looking forward to reviews! Laterz!
