Chapter 7! This one is much shorter than the last few chapters but it isn't too short. Feel free to review, I'd like to know what you think.

Alright how to start this letter? Should he write two separate letters or just one? One would be best, that way they could read it together and talk about it. They could decide what they would do together. They always had before, doing things as a team and Harry knew they would discuss everything anyway. He fingered his quill before dipping it into an inkwell, tapping the side to get rid of the drips and pressing it down into the parchment.

Dear Ron and Hermione,

I'm not sure how to start this letter. I've never been more nervous to write anything in my entire life. I don't think I was this nervous when I got sorted, or when I had my first quidditch match or during the Triwizard tournament. It shouldn't be so hard but it is. I've been keeping a secret from you guys for a long time. Well I've been keeping a secret from everyone for as long as I can remember. Snape found out the secret and now there isn't any reason to keep it from you. Please don't freak out yet. Finish the letter before you decide to be angry with me.

A little over a week ago I was doing some chores in the backyard when someone apparated into my back garden. It was Professor Snape and he was bleeding and unconscious and bruised all over. My relatives were gone so I took him inside and up to my room. I couldn't just leave him in my backyard to die when I could help. No matter what he'd done to me in the past. I had a lot of healing potions and I could use Snape's wand so I was able to use magic to heal him up.

I called Hermione the next day asking her to send a letter to Ron to be sent to the headmaster so that someone could get Snape and give him the medical care he needed. I found out from Snape that neither of you guys were going to write to me at all since Dumbledore had ordered it. Because of Hedwig not being with me I had to wait a week for the message to get to Dumbledore.

Well Snape wasn't so bad. He had used up most of his magical energy trying to get to a safe house before fainting which meant that he was too weak to do anything but lay there for about four days. During that time he learned what kind of people the Dursely's were and how they treated me. I also learned that he was best friends with my mother while they were in Hogwarts. We had a lot of time to talk while I was locked in my room and he was on bedrest.

We've come to a truce now. He doesn't hate me and I don't hate him. In fact he has been pretty decent and helped me out a lot these past few days. I trust him with my life now. I know that you both probably think that's crazy. I mean he's always treated me like dirt and we've always suspected him of being on Voldemort's side.

He was on Voldemort's side for about two years before he turned spy for Dumbledore. The reason the man was so hurt was because Voldemort found out. Voldemort nearly murdered Snape before he could get away. I'm still not quite sure how he ended up at my house but I'm not going to question it. I know you guys might not believe me yet but trust me Snape is a good person.

I'm at Hogwarts right now, living in Snape's quarters. He's kind of my guardian until the school year starts since my relatives were found to be unacceptable. I've been dancing around the subject at hand, the real reason that Snape and me got so close. I just don't want to say it. I've avoided talking about what happened there with anyone for years and it's so hard to do it now.

I guess one way to say it is that my aunt and uncle never treated me well, or kindly, or with anything resembling human decency. They've always been cruel, hateful and spiteful towards me. They certainly never loved me like guardians are supposed to do. They made it clear from a very young age what I meant to them. I didn't know my own name until I went to school. They always called me 'Freak', my bedroom was the tiny cupboard under the stairs. I was a tool for them nothing more. They always yelled and screeched cruel things at me. Telling me for as long as I can remember how worthless and unlovable I was.

They hardly ever fed me. Their favorite punishments when I was smaller were locking me in the cupboard for days at a time and withholding food. That's why I'm so small and skinny. I never got enough to eat, ever. I was lucky if I got to eat the crumbs some days. As I got bigger the punishments for imagined misdeeds got more violent.

Aunt Petunia liked to whack at me with her metal frying pain or a newspaper. Whatever was on hand really. Dudley, my cousin who bullied me outside the home, liked to use his fists. Uncle Vernon was the worst though. He liked to use his belt to hit me. He would do it whenever I had an incident of accidental magic, or if anything terrible happened to him at work. I was beaten if I did better than Dudley at school. Sometimes he hit me for no reason at all.

I never told. Not once. Never. I was too scared. From a young age Vernon made sure I knew not to tell. I couldn't bring myself to tell you. I probably wouldn't unless Snape didn't already know. He found out pretty quickly. It's hard to miss the signs when you are stuck in a room full of them all day long. The reason I'm at Hogwarts now is because Snape and I had to leave quite quickly one night. Vernon came home drunk and started whipping me. Right in front of Snape. I had used a sticking charm to keep the man on the bed, and a silencing charm so that Snape could scream or yell or gasp without alerting Vernon. Then I covered Snape in my invisibility cloak. When uncle hit me with the metal end of the belt Snape got so outraged that he wandlessly broke the sticking charm and hexed Vernon away from me and got my stuff. We apparated to Hogwarts and he healed me.

He let me sleep in his bed since I had been sleeping on the floor for the past week while he took my bed. He's been helping me a lot with all of the stuff that's going through my mind. I'm healing fine and should be back to normal in a few days, a week at the most. I'll try and find time to visit you at Headquarters but don't worry about me. I think I'm going to be okay. Everything is pretty hard right now. I hurt and I'm exhausted. I'll get better, Snape promised. Please write back. Even if it's to yell at me for not telling anyone. This past month has been hell without hearing from you guys. Since I'm at Hogwarts there is no position to give away. If Dumbledore tells you not to write; do it anyway. I need you.

-Harry Potter.

P.S. even if you guys are so mad you want to do nothing but scream don't tell anyone what was in this letter! Especially not Snuffles.

Harry didn't know if the letter was any good. It was his 51st try though and he didn't think he could write it again. He folded the letter and placed it in a thick envelope. He wrote out the names of the recipients on top of the envelope and fell back into his bed. He fell asleep after that and a few hours later Snape came in with dinner.

"It's time to eat Harry."

"Yes sir." Harry said sitting up and yawning.

Snape handed him a plate filled with food and Harry began to scarf it down.

"Where does the yellow door lead?" Snape asked pointing towards the door in question.

"The chamber of secrets." Harry answered back nonchalantly.

Snape coughed on his food in surprise. Harry grinned.

"Yeah I think Hogwarts wants me to go down there for some reason."

"Harry, you will not gallivant through a dangerous chamber in your condition."

"What if I took you with me?" Harry wheedled. "You could make sure I'm safe and you can see the Basilisk corpse. I've heard those are pretty rare and she was over 60 feet long when I brained her."

"Brained?"

"I used Godric Gryffindor's sword to fight the Basilisk. I struck the final blow by jumping into her mouth and thrusting the sword up through her mouth and into her brain." Harry explained lightly.

Snape paled and Harry laughed.

"Did you not know what happened down there?"

"No one knows except for you, Harry. You didn't even tell Albus the full story."

"Oh." Harry said realizing he had only told Ron and Hermione. "Would you like to know? It's a pretty interesting story."

"Enlighten me."

So Harry did. He told the entire story including forcing Lockhart to go down there with them. When he got to the part about being bitten, Harry had pulled his shirt down to show the scar which caused Snape to narrow his eyes.

"You were bitten by a Basilisk?"

"Yep. Fawkes cried into the wound and saved my life." Harry said.

"Do I want to know how many times you've almost died?"

"Probably not."

"Will I find out anyway?"

"If you ask sir."

The man leaned back and seemed to consider the challenge. He glanced at the clock it was 7pm. That should be enough time right?

"Fine tell me."

"Well I won't get into the times I nearly died growing up. Most of those were just dealing with neglect and stuff, it's depressing." Harry said waiting for the man to agree.

"Fine let's start with when you began Hogwarts."

"So first year, there was my first quidditch game when my broom got hexed. You saved me from that by doing the counter curse. The troll incident on Halloween. I helped Hagrid raise an illegal dragon and while I never got bit there were a couple of times I almost did. Do you count raising a baby dragon and then helping smuggle it out of the country as life threatening?"

The man glared at him.

"Right stupid question. Then there was the detention I had in the forbidden forest with Hagrid, Hermione and Draco. We met Quirrel while Voldemort was in complete control and drinking unicorn blood. I was saved by Firenze the centaur. Then there's the whole philosophers stone when I faced off with a homicidal DADA professor with a dark lord on the back of his head. So in my first year I guess there's five major times. One could argue that since Quirrel had been possessed the whole time I was in danger that entire year if he ever decided to attack me in class or something. My head hurt so much that year like he was trying to attack it or something."

Harry did not notice that the man raised his eyebrows at that description he was just trying to remember all the times he nearly died.

"So then there's second year in which I arrived at Hogwarts in a flying car and was nearly gutted by the whomping willow. Ginny was being possessed by a Horcrux throughout the year under the noses of everyone, so just like Quirrel she could've attacked me at any time. She never did, all Tom had her do was kill all the roosters and write messages in blood, and attack students using the Basilisk things like that. The Basilisk was attacking muggleborn students but from what I can tell it was more of attacks of opportunity." Harry mused. "No one really attacked me personally that year, oh wait Aragog! I forgot about him. So after Hagrid was arrested once again for crimes he didn't commit he gave me and Ron a clue, to follow the spiders. You see spiders are deathly afraid of basilisks and all of the spiders on the grounds were running to the acromantula nest in the forest. So we followed the spiders straight into the nest, got some important information, and was saved from being eaten by the same flying car."

Snape groaned, apparently he had not heard of all of these stories.

"Then there was the whole chamber of secrets incident where I had to fight off a basilisk at 12. So three or four incidents that I can think of right off the top of my head."

"So that's nine major incidents as you call them?"

"Yes. I mean I was injured other times but those weren't the life threatening kinds you know. I mean there was the cursed Bludger but all that did was break my arm."

"Unfortunately Harry I do."

"Right third year. The dementors were the real danger for me that year. I would faint anytime they got too close since my worst memory was so bad. I almost got kissed once or twice. Of course all the times Sirius broke into the castle but he wasn't trying to kill me was he? So I won't count those even though they felt life threatening." Harry corrected. "Then there was that night when Ron got kidnapped by Sirius. I was faced against a werewolf who foolishly forgot his Wolfsbane and over 100 dementors. You and Sirius were able to help with Lupin but I had to deal with the dementors on my own."

"How did you get out of that jam?"

"Well Hermione had a time turner and we used it to save Sirius and Buckbeak the hippogriff. While we were doing that I saw myself in the other time getting attacked and I cast a patronous to save myself which was powerful enough to make the dementors flee. When it happened I had thought it was my dad saving me but really I saved myself."

The man was pale.

"So for third year there were about four major incidents. I was real lucky that Pettigrew didn't try and kidnap and take me to the dark lord in my sleep. If he had done that then I would probably be dead."

"That's 13 incidents and we are not even done." Snape blurted out.

"Fourth year was a big one too. I can't help but wonder what'll happen this year." Harry joked trying to lighten the depressing atmosphere. "So the Triwizard tournament. I nearly died during the first two tasks, not to mention all those times I was alone with Barty Crouch Junior. I almost died twice in the maze alone and then once more once the portkey took us to the graveyard. Voldemort and I dueled in the graveyard. Well he dueled I hid and tried to disarm him since that was the only spell I could think of in my shock. When I got back I was nearly kidnapped by Crouch in his Moody form but you and Dumbledore got there in time."

"How many is that then?"

"5 or 6, I think."

"So in all 18 incidents?"

"That I know of. Who knows how many failed assassination attempts have occurred and I was too dense to notice."

"So we add those 18 incidents onto the danger you faced at home. Have you ever really been safe?" The man asked.

"I don't think so sir. Every time I think I am I'm proven wrong very quickly. I feel safe now with you in this room but I'm not really. I don't think I've been safe since the night my parents died."

The man looked very guilty and sad. Harry felt bad, his life wasn't that awful.

"It isn't that bad sir. I mean it's not good but I've still been happy. I have friends and the Weasley's have all but adopted me. I've got Sirius, even though he's a felon. I've got magic and now I've got you too." Harry argued. "Don't make it seem like my life has been nothing but doom and gloom. If I were to have you sit here and tell you the story of my life there would be some parts that are downright awful but there were plenty of times where I was happy."

The man was looking at him with a look of incomprehension. As if Harry had just recited some overly complicated formula. The man leaned forward looking at him deeply as if searching for something. Harry did his best not to flinch under the stern gaze. Finally the man seemed to accept what he was seeing.

"Did you parents give you a time limit on your scar issue?"

"They said the sooner the better but that I had as much time as I needed."

"I agree. We will come up with a plan tomorrow and once you are up to full strength implement it. Do you need anything else before we retire?"

"No sir."

"Good, good night Harry."

"Good night sir."

Harry watched the man wave his wand causing the lights to dim. The man left the room then shutting the blue door behind him. Harry knew that he would sleep now if he laid down he just wanted to do some things first. He waved his own wand and the lights turned back on. Crawling out of bed he put everything away into its proper place. He found that Hogwarts had somehow provided him with muggle clothing that was his size. He had thanked the castle for that too and grabbed some clean clothing and a towel.

Harry stripped down and made his way over to the purple door and went into the bathroom. He studied his damaged body in the mirror frowning at it. He was scrawny and under fed. He slowly and carefully removed the bandages that Snape had wrapped around his chest and back. The wounds were healing nicely and Harry was careful not to move quickly so as to not open them once more.

He made his way into the shower which had a seat built into the wall for him just in case he got tired. He took a long shower, the water was just the right temperature and did not beat harshly on his body but instead came out at a comfortable pressure. He washed every inch of himself, scrubbing harder than was required. He wanted the stench and the feeling of his relatives off of him. An hour later his skin red from rubbing and his hair dripping wet Harry stepped out of the shower. A thoughtful house elf had gotten him clean bandages as well as the correct creams.

He bandaged himself as he had done so many times before. Rubbing the anti-infection and anti-scarring creams, as well as a salve designed to speed up healing into all of his wounds. The ones on his back were difficult to get but he managed to do it. He took the clean bandages and began wrapping his body. Once that was done he dressed himself into some loose fitting soft pajama bottoms. He wanted his chest and back to be able to breathe.

He left the bathroom and made his way over to the bed collapsing on top of it. His skin was still red and raw but Harry felt clean and almost relaxed in a way. He fell asleep on top of the covers his hair making the pillow below him damp. He fell into a restful sleep and stayed that way for most of the night.