Hero Like Me

by Echo Vanity

Drarry Eating disorder fic "He's lost everything. But unlike them he never really had anything to begin with... And maybe when he's skinny enough his ghosts won't be trapped in his bones..."

3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note**

I apologise in advance for this chapter. It's kind of a filler/catlyst chapter. If this story seems slow moving, I'm sorry. It's just how it's coming out in my head and I have no control over what my hands type. Next chapter THERE WILL BE DRARRY! PROMMMIIISSEE! And I'm looking forward to that. However this chapter unlike the last two isn't all doom and gloom. It has happy fits! So, yay! A massive shout out to LukeAndLorelai Brucas Fan because she has reviwed every chapter of this fic and that's awesome! Again I do my whiny writer thing and ask you to pleaase review! If there's something you love or hate or I fuck up majorly TELL ME! And this story is still being written...you can change the ending..

**Trigger warnings as always.**

The insanely talented J.K Rowling owns all and she would hate me for the things I do to her characters...

(Title from Manic Street Preachers "4st 7lbs" which is fucking amazing!)

Chapter 3: Want To Walk In The Snow And Not Soil It's Purity

It is December and Christmas is in one short week and Harry has to lose 3 pounds in that short space of time or he won't be allowed any Christmas pudding.

And if he doesn't eat pudding people might talk and Molly would get that look in her eyes like "If you were my son…" and Harry will feel guilty for being oh so thankful he is not.

Harry is currently in a period of triumphant weight-loss and in three short weeks he has gone down from a loathed 117.7 to

A glorious

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1

1

and it's all so easy and he even managed to get 5 hours of

Beautiful

Natural

Dreamless

Sleep.

But Christmas and Molly's triumphant turkeys and glistening piles of golden roast potato's and magnificent fruit cake and the trifle and the honey baked ham and the sweet baby peas slathered in butter and the fresh baked bread and the endless piles of chocolate and candy and a thousand other things his tortured frenzied starving mind is far too terrified to comprehend

Could threaten destroy annihilate

Everything.

And now he's dreaming again as the count down continues

Only he doesn't see Fred or Dumbledore or his parents.

He sees piles of potato's dripping with cream oozing persistently towards him and he wants to run but his feet are glued to the floor with a sickly concoction of treacle and marmalade and then suddenly he is in a vortex in space and there's a wormhole only it turns into a pizza and he's hurtling towards it at the speed of light and his wand is clutched too too tight in his sweaty suddenly meaty fist but it's a Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes gag wand and it's turning into a roast chicken in his hand and he's going to crash into the pizza it's going to swallow him whole-!

And then he wakes as sweaty and terrified as if it was Voldemort he dreamt of and not high-calorie foods, and his empty stomach aches and he has to run his fingers across it to make sure it is still as flat as when he went to sleep. And he only breathes again when his questing fingers find that it is indeed so.

In the deepest darkest 4.00 a.m. silence

Harry traces his callused fingers across his protruding ribs and examines the curve of his wrist bone in the faint moonlight and wonders what Draco

(because he's had his name on his lips too many times to pretend it's not him he so desperately wants)

Would think if he could see them.

He wonders if Draco has ever lain awake in bed wishing he could step out of the fleshy cage of his body and be invisible-be free.

He traces his fingers across his scar and yearns for something long forgotten, something he cannot name. A sense of home, familiarity, safety, wholeness.

He wonders what scars Draco bears from the war and if he'll ever be allowed to know.

And as icy tears streak down the cavernous wasteland of his cheeks and he digs his fingers into the flesh of his stomach, he wonders whether Draco cries for the thought of what might have been.

4 days til Christmas and 2 days til he leaves for the Burrow and Harry knows something is wrong

And everything is finally right.

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8

And close enough to taste his goal (even though he's not quite sure what that is anymore)

And when he closes his eyes the ghosts do not come out to play and his mind is lit with the familiar flash of Lily-eyed green and the lullaby laughter of a dead man dead monster and the snake hisses

I'm

Almost

Proud

Don't you dare fuck it up.

And he sees a pair of quicksilver eyes gazing at him in wonder

And he realises its not a fantasy but a memory

He hadn't realised he'd made.

Harry dreams and it tastes like ashes and honey and blood and he wakes refreshed

And eats, for the first time in 9 days, what is his first proper meal in 2 months.

He can taste the Christmas pudding on the back of his tongue. It tastes like promise, fulfilment and hope.

And he catches Ginny's eye as she stares wide eyed at his plate.

She doesn't quite smile but there's a warmth in her eyes and he realises she never hated him-

Harry, that is, she hated Harry Potter Boy Who Lived

Just like he does.

He vows to speak to her and ask her why she loved Riddle.

And maybe he'll mention the mercury eyed boy who is glancing over surreptitiously beneath his glacial fringe.

Harry's stomach twists with butterflies-not hunger pangs.

And maybe maybe maybe he can do this. Can survive a little longer.

And then there is a flurry of ginger hair and plump, motherly arms are encircling his wasted frame and exclaiming over how skinny he is just like every other year. And Harry realises that he must have blinked

And suddenly he's at the Burrow and Christmas is here.

The Burrow is cosy and warm like Hogwarts has never quite managed to be and Harry can smell roasting meat and the sweet scent of rum and fruit in the air and he's handed a crumbling fruit mince tart and a warm piece of shortbread before his coat is even off. (Which he doesn't eat, of course. Harry is saving himself for the Christmas pudding with custard he has been fantasising about more frequently than Draco and maybe a slice of beef or ham and a roast potato. After all, it is a holiday.)

And Harry is so caught up in his daydreams he fails to see the horrified look on Molly's face as she takes in his emaciated frame. He fails to see the grim look on Ron's face as he shrugs at his father in a way that screams "I told you so!"

He doesn't notice that Hermione's face is taut with stress and worry or that she's clutching Ron's hand like a lifeline. That even Bill and Fleur look shocked.

That of the 20 or so people gathered for a family Christmas, he is the only one who is looking half-way cheerful.

(And that in itself is an accomplishment

And a terrifying thought.)

He doesn't notice anything anymore beyond silver eyes and how many calories he can burn by breathing.

He does however notice the awkward silence and the many eyes that all seem to be staring at him.

And he knows he fucking knows they are about to put their fat ugly noses in where they're not wanted, needed he can smell it taste it like a thick coating of fat on the back of his tongue-

And suddenly the spell that was enveloping him in it's warmth is shattered and he scowls.

"Harry love…" Molly begins tentatively and he turns the wrath of his Avada Kedavra glare on her.

She seems to wilt and suddenly he is filled with scorn for this dumpy pathetic little woman with too many children and too little sense of leaving well enough alone.

"Yes Molly?" He asks and his voice is like frozen honey.

Her eyes fill with tears and she chokes back a sob before throwing her arms around him once more.

"Oh I missed you! And I think your jumper will have to be taken in!" and she laughs and the sound is brittle but Harry laughs too because if they are laughing

It means they are scared

And if they are scared of him, of what he has become then they won't try to fix him-

Not yet.

Not yet not yet please not just yet-

a few pounds more to kill the ghosts and stop the staring and let him sleep-

But Harry's heart is beating a million miles an hour and he can taste bile in the back of his throat and he realises he has never known true terror

Until now.

And it is 2.00 a.m and Harry can't sleep, not with the unfamiliar sensation of too much food filling his stomach.

His ghosts are particularly loud tonight.

Liquor makes Harry maudlin, but the Firewhiskey has made the ghosts jolly and he wishes they didn't know everything about him.

Right now they're teasing him tormenting him over Ginny and Cho and even Malfoy and what an unattractive

Fuck

Up

He is when it comes to romance (real or imagined it doesn't make a difference cause really Ginny and Cho were just as imaginary as his scornful smirking silver Draco) and Sirius is laughing loudest tonight and his bark like laugh is echoing in Harry's head and Ron is snoring too fucking loudly and Harry doesn't have curtains and a four-poster to block him out with and everything is too fucking loud and if he doesn't get

out

Out

OUT

FUCKING

OUT

NOW!

He

Will

Go

Crazy.

So he slips from his bed and the floor boards do not creak beneath his feet and he begins to shake violently in the frigid December air. It is a cold that 3 Molly-jumpers and two long sleeved shirts and his two thickest pairs of flannel pyjama pants and three pairs of woollen socks and thermal fucking underwear cannot alleviate. It's in his bones, his heart, his mind and it will never ever ever ever fucking leave

But he wraps himself in one of the four down quilts on his bed anyway and shoves on another pair of socks before he puts on his fur lined dragon-hide boots (which he had specially made as a Christmas present to himself when he realised his tatty old sneakers would result in losing a toe or ten).

And then he makes his way silently as smoke around the house, listening attentively.

He hears a low murmuring and a hastily muffled giggle and a quickly cut off moan from Bill and Fleur's room and the sounds cause something sour to fill his throat.

Charlie's room rumbles with loud masculine snores and the occasional snuffling grunt and Harry isn't sure why but he finds the sound oddly comforting- it reminds him of a time he cannot remember, but carries within him reminds him of laughing green eyes and messy black hair and a startled expression and love.

Arthur and Molly's room he scurries past quickly because he can taste in the air and the sharp raw quality to the noises that filter out that they are discussing him and his

Problem

And he just doesn't want to know. Doesn't need to know.

The door to the room Ginny and Hermione share is ajar and he can see a flash of familiar bushy brown but no hint of Ginny's blazing mane. Harry frowns, disliking not being able to account for everyone. He wonders what she could possibly be doing at 2.00a.m.

And then Hermione mumbles something in her sleep and he thinks he catches the words

"..'Ry please.." and he creeps forward to see her pretty face all tight lines and fast moving eyes beneath purple lids and he backs away, faintly terrified.

But before he leaves the room he hears her say his name again only this time its panicked- "Harry!" and before he can stop himself he's bending low and pressing a gentle kiss to her temple

(The first contact he has initiated in 6 long months)

And he murmurs softly gently "I'm fine, 'Mione. Promise, I'm fine."

Her face seems to relax slightly and he feels his constricted heart ease, minutely.

And George's room is the only one he has not visited, George himself the only one who has remained unseen. Cocooned in a grief that even Harry with all his ghosts will never understand.

8 long months since the war has ended. And George hasn't said a word.

Harry thinks of his own replication features. Himself a whole made of two easily identifiable halves.

He wonders what it would be like to look in a mirror and know you are half of a whole that has been irrevocably destroyed.

He wonders what it would be like to have your own face

Haunt you.

So he stays away from George's silent as a tomb room.

He makes his way outside to a world covered in a fleecy blanket of fresh fallen snow and illuminated with a golden harvest moon.

And it is beautiful and

Oh

So

Silent

And seeing the soft pure landscape makes him wish he was skinny enough

To not leave foot prints in the snow.

He spies a blazing head of hair like a beacon in the pearlescent sheen of the night and makes his way toward it because he promised himself he would talk to her and Harry Potter is a Gryffindor

For the most part

And therefore not coward.

And if he faced the most evil wizard who ever lived-

Someone who had literally been inside his fucking head-

Then he can face Ginny Weasely.

Probably.

"Ginny?" he asks and though his voice falls flat in the muffled night air, she turns and smiles at him and moves over on the enchanted bench she is sitting on under an oak tree.

Harry wonders if she was waiting for him.

She's wrapped in a blanket just like him but she holds some of hers out to wrap around his shoulders and Harry blinks away sudden tears at the gesture.

She smiles again, slow and soft and sad and Harry knows he is responsible for the death of the girl with the blaze in her brilliant eyes and nothing he can ever do will ever change the fact that he is a

Murderer

In his own eyes.

"I'm so sorry." he says after what seems like millennia of silence and he is aware on some primitive level that she knows exactly who and what he is talking about. He wonders if it due to the fact the were both

Possessed

By a portion of Voldemort's soul

Or if maybe they have always been connected, will always be connected, regardless of circumstance.

That they know the other without need for speech.

Ginny is silent for an age and when she finally speaks, her voice is as fragile as gossamer spider webs

And as brittle as fractured glass.

"Harry I-

I will not lie. I blamed you. For killing Tom Riddle. It destroyed me. When you stuck the Basilisk fang into the diary-

I felt it in my own heart. I could feel my insides corroding

With grief.

And it took me so fucking long to pretend to be

Normal.

I lost the love of my life at 11 years old and no one can measure up to the beauty of his eyes.

And then one day I looked at you. Like I'd looked at you a thousand times before. But this was different. I knew it was…you were somehow-

Different.

And I burned.

Not the blazing all consuming fire I had felt for Tom

Like it would turn me to ash and leave me to blow away in the wind

But a warm kind of hot kind of

Something.

And it would do.

And it wasn't til I saw Voldemort with his snake like face all twisted in rage pointing his wand at you that I knew what I had been holding out some kind of perverted hope for was long since

Dead.

And it had nothing to do with you or with me; it was the choice of the bastard in front of you.

He had cut out the bit of him that was my

Fucked up beautiful burning boy named Tom and nothing would ever bring him back. Nothing would ever have been able to make him whole

Because he didn't exist in the first place."

Her breathing is ragged when she finishes and her voice is full of such raw grief it twists Harry's heart in two. He knows it is the first time she has ever said it out loud

And he knows it will be the last.

He wraps his twig-like arms around her and holds her close and her tiny hands wrap around his waist and she sobs and sobs and sobs until dawn streaks the sky.

When she speaks again her voice is hoarse.

"Harry?" she asks

"Yeah, Gin?"

"They know, about how you've stopped eating. You might want to be careful. Convince them nothing is wrong. Mum's like a dog with a bone when she gets an idea in her head. After she found out I slept with Seamus she barely let me out of the house and made me take a condom wherever I went. If she knows for sure you're barely eating, she'll force feed you. Literally. And I don't think you would want that…"

Harry is so shocked that for a second he forgets to breathe.

There is no condemnation in her voice, just understanding.

"Thanks for the heads up, Gin." and the relief in his voice is palpable.

Ginny simply smiles warmly at him as she stands and stretches and as she does a sliver of ivory flesh marred with scarlet lines appears.

Harry stares, fascinated and Ginny follows his gaze.

She meets his eyes and he sees a shadow of the former defiant blazing life.

"We all have our coping methods, Harry. And there's nothing wrong with that."

She's got that mulish look on her face and he grins.

"Course not Gin,"

And at that she laughs and twirls and the blanket around her shoulders flares out like wings and the joy on her face in the radiant light of a winter's dawn all gleaming and reflecting on the snow is beautiful enough to make his breath catch.

"Oh and Harry dear?" her voice is like treacle and she cackles as she dances up the hill.

"Draco hasn't stopped staring at you for a month. And you have sneaked a peak on several occasions! You simply must tell me all the details!"

And for a moment as Harry chases Ginny up the hill toward the house he forgets that even that makes his lungs ache and legs shake.

Because for a moment he feels like he can fly.