A/N: Thanks so much for all the reviews. Look for responses in the reviews section!

Warnings: Some mention of cutting and violenceand some language. Probably just PG for this chapter though.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 10: Normal?

Harry stood still, barely breathing as Snape looked down at his wounded arm. Snape's face was impassive, but having someone else see his injuries made Harry feel horrible.

"Oh my God, I am such a freak! How could I ever think I was normal? How could I think THIS is normal? I really AM crazy."

He never really felt like a freak while he was doing it . . . he was to busy thinking about other things. And afterwards, he was usually out in the world doing normal things and what he did in his bedroom, all alone, had no bearing on his real life. It was just something he did to cope when he was alone – no one else knew about it, so it was only half real in his mind. Indeed, every time he rolled back his sleeve he was so fascinated with the cuts because a small part of him expected them to not be there when he checked.

Harry tried to twist his arm away from his professor, but Snape's continued to grip his arm tightly.

"Let me go," Harry gasped, "you're hurting me!"

Harry expected a sarcastic retort to that, something along the lines of "and you certainly wouldn't want that, would you, Potter". Snape continued to say nothing, however, and only tightened his grip a bit. Only after Harry had stopped struggling, did Snape slowly release his arm. Snape turned his back on Harry.

"Well," he said finally, something odd in his voice, "come along then, Mr. Potter." Snape stepped toward the door.

"What? Where are we going?" Harry asked suspiciously.

"We are going to go talk to Professor McGonagall about those marks on your arm and then we are going to see Madam Pomfrey about healing them."

"What!" Harry froze. "Are you planning on telling the entire staff of Hogwarts about this? If Professor McGonagall finds out about this, then I'll die, I'll just die . . . "

Snape turned around at this and gave Harry a strange look.

"It . . . it's just an expression," Harry said, realizing what the look was for, "everyone says it. Didn't mean anything by it."

"I'm sure," said Snape, shortly. "Professor McGonagall is your Head of House, Mr. Potter. Whenever a teacher learns that a student has a personal problem, it is supposed to be taken to that student's Head of House."

"Oh, come on, do you think that's going to help?" Harry asked. "Can you imagine McGonagall understanding or. . . . or being able to help me? Not that I don't like Professor McGonagall, but she . . . I don't want her to know."

Snape said nothing

"Listen, sir," Harry said, trying to button up his shirt sleeve and realizing that Snape had ripped the button off. "Why don't you just forget that you saw this? Surely, you don't care whether or not I make a few little cuts on my arms?"

Suddenly Snape seemed to get very angry. "I didn't spend all this time looking after you, making sure that your stupidity didn't get you killed to have you puncture the wrong vein – either accidently or on purpose – and bleed to death, Potter!"

"I'm not going to do that! I have it under control!"

"Do you?" Snape snapped, grabbing Harry's arm, "What about this cut?" he touched a long gash on Harry's wrist. "Perilously close to that vein in your wrist, don't you think?"

"Maybe. I wasn't thinking, okay."

"Really? Doesn't sound like being in control to me."

Harry shivered. "Maybe," he admitted, "But God, I can't stand to think of their faces, if they found out. The pity, the horror. Having people who care about me think that I'm crazy."

"Professor McGonagall has been a Head of House for thirty years. I am sure that she's dealt with this type of thing before."

"In Gryffindor? Not bloody likely."

"Gryffindors can have problems too. As you have demonstrated."

"I bet that you've dealt with type of thing before too though, huh?" Harry asked quietly, hesitantly. "You're a Head of House also."

"Perhaps," Snape said evasively.

"And I bet you've got plenty of healing potions lying around."

"Mr. Potter, are you honestly suggesting that I try to help you with this?"

"I'd like it best if you could just forget about it," Harry breathed. "But I certainly don't want anyone else to know about it."

"I think it would be wise to have someone whom you trust and respect to talk to about this."

"No. . . . " Harry said slowly. "I think . . . " he collected his thoughts. "I think if someone has to know, then I don't mind so much that it's you. Because you don't like me. You don't have any expectations of me."

Snape gave Harry a dubious look.

"You're not going to feel disappointed or guilty or something," Harry tried to explain. "You can be objective about it. As long as you don't blurt it out to everyone in Slytherin or something stupid like that," Harry finished, thinking of what Snape had "let slip" about Lupin in third year.

"Do you think that I want to lose my job, Potter? I can't just tell this type of thing to anyone."

Harry said nothing. Snape gave a long sigh as though resigning himself. "Sit down in that chair, Potter," he said.

Harry sat down, Snape promptly left the room. Harry hoped that he wasn't going to get McGonagall or Pomfrey or (worse) Dumbledore. After a minute or two, however, Snape came back in holding some potion.

"So now he's going to heal me?"

"Take off your shirt," Snape said shortly.

Harry took off his shirt and looked down at his arms. He had never really looked at them as a whole before, he had always been focused on this or that cut, not on an entire arm. He was rather disgusted. His arms barely even looked like human limbs anymore. Snape pulled up a chair across from him.

"Hold out your arm," he said.

"I can do it myself," Harry said defensively, "I'm not a kid."

"I'm not going to allow you to do it sloppily or purposefully leave parts of your arms out. Hold out your arm."

Harry thrust his arm out, feeling very silly. Snape began to methodically apply a green, gooey potion to each of his cuts. With the number of cuts that he had, he would have thought it would have been easier to just pour the stuff over his whole arm, but this is not what Snape did. Snape came to a particularly nasty cut that looked infected.

"Not that one," Harry said suddenly. Snape looked at him in surprise. "It's my favorite," Harry said in a small voice.

Snape gripped his arm firmly and seemed to take some kind of vindictive pleasure in laving a large amount of the potion over this cut. Harry sighed.

"Why did you feel the need to do this?" Snape asked, still treating Harry's arms. "You have everything that a young man your age could possibly want. Isn't it enough for you?" Snape's voice was not sarcastic, Harry had the feeling that the man was asking him sincerely.

"I have nothing," Harry said angrily. "Everything that other teenagers get to experience, it's not for me. I don't want to talk about it."

"I see."

They were both silent as Snape continued to heal Harry's arms. Harry shivered again, it was cold in Snape's office without his shirt, despite the fact that he was wearing an undershirt. When Snape was nearly done, he began speaking again.

"I'm going to give you some of this potion and I want you to use it every day," he said, businesslike. "Your cuts and other injuries should begin to heal soon, although if many of them are magically inflicted, then I suspect that you will have permanent scars."

Harry hadn't thought of that. Would he never be able to wear short sleeves again?

"Although, you can probably find a spell to disguise them."

"Will you show me a spell to hide these ones on my hand?" Harry asked.

Snape snorted. "And give you a way to hide any that you may inflict upon yourself in the future? I think not, Mr. Potter."

"You will show me your arms at the beginning of every Occlumency lesson," Snape continued after a moment.

"What?" Harry asked. "No, no. . . . "

"And," Snape continued, as though he hadn't heard Harry, "if you continue to show signs of having harmed yourself, then I will be forced to tell Professor McGonagall or Professor Dumbledore."

"You can't!"

"Then don't do it!"

After a moment Snape finished treating him and spoke again. "You will also go up to your room right now and bring me your razor, your pocketknife, whatever potion that you've been using to burn yourself like that and anything else you might have."

"But . . . "

"NOW, Potter."

"I should have let him tell McGonagall after all. She probably would have just given me a stern lecture and some significant glances during classes."

"Yes, sir," Harry said, hopelessly. He put his shirt back on and headed up to his dormitory. He took out the items that Snape had asked (there were only a few drops of the potion left), placed them in his bag and hurried back down to Snape's office. He wasn't too concerned, he could always just use one the many spells in his book if he ever needed it again. He could always cut his legs or other places. Snape couldn't very well strip search him at the beginning of every lesson.

When he got back, Harry silently unloaded the items from his bag and handed them, one by one, to Snape.

"This is a potion that you learned in my class," Snape commented.

"Where else do you think that I would learn to brew a potion?"

"Oh, I don't know. I thought that you might actually read a book."

"Are we going to do Occlumency now?" Harry asked, in exasperation.

"I think that we are already running several minutes late, actually."

"Oh damn!" Harry yelled. "Oh – I mean . . . sorry. I have Quiditch practice right now, so I've got to run."

"Five points off Gryffindor for language, Mr. Potter," Snape said smoothly.

Harry scowled. Surely Snape could give him a break, now? He didn't want to think about all this. He started to run out of the room.

Snape's voice stopped him. "Potter," the man said.

"Yeah?" Harry cringed.

"You could have things far worse, you know."

Harry bowed his head and walked out.

He showed up to Quiditch practice a few minutes late and found everyone sitting in a circle on the Quiditch pitch.

"What are we doing?" Harry asked, sitting down beside Ginny, his mind, understandably on other matters.

"Waiting for you to show up," Ron answered. "We were supposed to pick a new captain today and all the team members have to be here to vote."

"Oh, right," Harry said breathlessly. "Well, I vote for Ron."

"What?" Ron asked. "I've only been on the team for two years."

"Yeah, but the only people who have been on longer are me and Katie and neither one of us wants it."

"How do we know that you're not just saying this because he's your mate," Jack Sloper asked.

"Ron's the best choice," Harry answered defiantly, "he loves Quiditch, no one knows more about strategy and I would guess that he's willing to keep all you in line."

Ron blushed. "I couldn't be captain."

"I'll vote for Ron," Katie said, smiling.

"But . . . but . . . " Ron said.

"Who all votes for Ron as team captain?" Harry yelled.

One by one everyone on the team raised their hands. Harry smiled.

After practice, Ron found Harry alone in their room.

"Er, hi Harry," he said, running his hands through his hair, awkwardly.

"Hi," Harry said softly.

"So, um, why did you do that for me, even though we were fighting?"

"I wasn't lying when I said that you would make the best captain. Besides," Harry shrugged, "you're still my friend."

"Yeah. I am really sorry about some of the stuff I said to you before," Ron looked at him, hopefully. Harry knew that he couldn't expect a more eloquent apology than that.

"You were right. I was being selfish. If I wanted to quit the team, I should have just quit. I shouldn't have left everyone hanging like I did."

"So are you still going to quit?"

Harry thought for a moment. "Yeah," he said, "I didn't do it just to spite you, you know. This is what I need right now."

Ron looked at him keenly. "I don't really understand that. I mean, Quiditch was always something that you really liked. But I guess I won't say anything else about it."

Harry was in a good mood for the rest of the evening, it was so nice to know that he and Ron could be friends no matter what differences they may have. Later that night, however, Harry began to worry about Snape knowing his secret. It definitely complicated things and Snape was unpredictable, he could tell anyone. Harry still thought that it was much better than having his friends know and think he was a freak, however.

Worrying kept Harry up into the late hours of the night. Normally, in a time like this, he would hurt himself, but he thought it a good idea to at least cut down on the practice now. Harry began going through his possessions, looking for something to take his mind off of cutting. He came upon the Marauder's Map.

"I've barely even looked at it this year," Harry thought fondly, opening the map up and looking over it. When he couldn't go to sleep, he often made a game of looking for Filch or Snape wandering the corridors, Dumbledore was also often out late at night.

Harry's eyes wandered over the map, looking for people out in the corridors. He did a double take when he saw three dots together, up in one of the scarcely visited third floor corridors.

"Did I see that right?"

Three dots, two facing one, they were labeled Draco Malfoy, Theodore Nott, and Caydon Snape. Harry frowned, this was definitely worth checking out. Harry threw on his invisibility cloak and went to have a look.

Harry crept around the corner, trying to keep quiet so he wouldn't be heard. He found only Caydon, huddled up against the wall, sniffling. Was he crying? Harry hastily checked his map, no Malfoy anywhere in sight.

He stepped back around the corner and took off his cloak, so Caydon wouldn't see that it was an invisibility cloak. Then he softly walked up to the boy.

"Caydon?" he said softly.

Caydon jumped and looked up. Harry gasped, the boy was hurt, although it was hard to see by the light of Caydon's Lumos. His nose was bleeding, his robes ripped, and he had the beginnings of a black eye.

"H – Harry," Caydon stuttered.

"Did Malfoy beat you up?" Harry asked.

"What! No, why would you say that?" Caydon asked, still crying.

"What happened to you then?"

Caydon said nothing, just continued to cry softly.

"Come on, I'll take you to see Madam Pomfrey," Harry urged.

"NO!" Caydon cried suddenly.

"You need to be healed. I'm not just going to leave you here."

"Take me to my father, then," Caydon said, finally. "He will help me."

A/N: Another cliffy! Reading over that, it has come to my attention that some of it could be interpreted in a slashy way. It is not MEANT to be, this is not a SS/HP story. Harry took his shirt off because I thought it would be really awkward if not impossible for him to roll both his sleeves up all the way. Still accepting suggestions about Ron and Hermione finding out, especially Hermione.

Coming Soon: Snape's reaction (again). Caydon has a secret. Harry ponders.