His self-imposed break was over.

Even though the detention with Snape had surprisingly made him feel less of an urge to cut, the overwhelming longing had returned when he entered the dorm room and found the other boys descend into silence upon his entering. He didn't look up at them because he didn't want to see the distrust and anger on their faces. Especially not on Ron's face.

That was why he entered the bathroom as quickly as possible. He applied the locking charm he had perfected by now. It was impossible to break it quickly; there was a special counter curse to it that required at least 3 minutes.

And he would be alerted by the red glow of the door as soon as someone attempted to break it. That gave him more than enough time to clean everything up.

Once done, he took off everything but his boxers and turned on the shower. Silencing charms would be too suspicious after all. After taking his place on the toilet lid, he acciod the quill from his robe pocket and twirled it in his hand carefully. The bruises on his arm had a greenish blue tint to them by now.

His nervous excitement increased as he transfigured the quill into the razor blade it was supposed to be. Merely holding it made him feel more relieved than he had felt the entire week. Everything would be fine now.

For the first time since entering, he looked down at his thighs. As he looked at the slowly healing cuts the familiar mixture of fear and contentment bubbled up inside of him.

Harry was afraid of anyone seeing his cuts more than he was afraid of Voldemort trying to kill him again. But at the same time, seeing his cuts made him happy because they were his. This was something he could decide to do. Something he had full control over, despite that one time he hadn't - but that one time was probably only because of a lack of sleep and food. It hadn't had much to do with cutting.

He took a deep breath and lowered the blade so that it was touching his right thigh on some of the rare areas that weren't filled with unsealed cuts. When he thought back to last time, he remembered how much satisfaction seeing the blood assemble in the deep cut had invoked. If he only cut deep, but not too many times, nothing bad would happen.

He lifted the blade a bit and looked away. He sunk into his memories of all the things he regretted and made the cut. He exhaled as he felt the wonderful sharp sting on his skin. As he looked down at it, he saw that it was deeper and wider than usual but not quite as wide and deep as the one from last week. There was the moment in which only a bit of white was peaking out from between his torn apart skin, but it filled with blood quickly until it overflowed. Harry didn't care about the blood - he would clean it later. He made another cut right next to the bleeding one. They were similar and made him relieved in equal measures. His shoulder blades relaxed as he watched the blood drops gather to cover up the white in this cut too.

Harry wanted to cut more. There were few things he wanted to do more, but he feared that he would feel the way he had felt the last time again. He hadn't eaten or slept much more than last week after all.

After showering, Harry cleaned up meticulously and bandaged and glamoured his cuts.

He almost grinned.

He hadn't felt this great the whole week and nothing had gone wrong.

PMFAF

"Harry?" It was Hermione's voice that called through the curtains of his four poster bed. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"

His heartbeat sped up, but he opened his curtains anyway. She sat down tentatively on the edge of the bed next to him. Harry was relieved to see that no one else was around.

"I... haven't seen you in a while." Her voice was chocked, as if she didn't have enough air to breathe.

When the silence dragged on, Harry realized that it was an invitation for him to explain himself.

"Uh..." he said awkwardly. "I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd want to see me."

"What?" Hermione seemed vaguely surprised by his answer. The surprise quickly turned into anger though. "Why wouldn't I want to see you, Harry? Ron and I both have been extremely worried about you! And when you stopped coming to the Great Hall..." She looked him over critically. "Were you eating anything at all?"

"Yes." He wasn't lying. He still had some sweets in his trunk. "You don't have to worry about me Hermione."

He was surprised when Hermione's response was to hit his shoulder with the book in her hands repeatedly while saying "Harry!" Hit. "Don't you get..." Another hit. "...It?" She hit him with the book one last time. It didn't hurt much, but he could feel the emotion in it nonetheless. "We don't worry about you because we have to!" She let the book drop to her lap as her anger seemed to have left her. Tears started to gather in her eyes. "We worry because we care and it's not up to you to... decide!"

"We...?" Harty asked, confused. "I thought Ron-"

"Ron," She repeated. "Ron devised a plan about going to Professor McGonagall with our concerns if you don't start talking to us within this week."

Harry gaped at her, expecting to see signs of insincerity. There were none. "Ron? But-"

"That was my first reaction too." She explained. "Even though I wholeheartedly believe that that is the right course of action," She gave him a pointed look that made him scowl. Ignoring it, she went on, "I couldn't believe that Ron would ever think about going to teachers about anything whatsoever." She heaved a deep sigh. "Harry, I'm telling you this because it shows how much he cares about you. His worry about you makes him behave differently."

Harry looked away from her eyes full of concern and hopefulness. They made him feel uncomfortable. As did Ron's concern. Because he knew that their friendship wouldn't last if they knew the truth about him. His friends didn't care about him; they only cared about who they believed him to be.

"That was probably before the fight." Harry said softly, fiddling with his sleeves.

"Weren't you listening?" Hermione asked, tilting his chin upwards so that he was looking at her again. "I just said that Ron's idea about seeing Professor McGonagall occurred to him sometime in the past few days. Which logically means that it was after your so-called 'fight'." Instead of the usual lecturing tone of voice that came with these sorts of talks, her voice was gentle and comforting.

"But...But he said he didn't want to talk to me anymore."

"Ron said something that he feels sorry about now. He's just too proud to apologise." She rolled her eyes. "We all say stuff we don't mean while desperate, Harry. All he wants is to have you with us again."

"He isn't angry?" Harry frowned.

"I think between all the worrying and regretting, there isn't much anger left." She smiled at him sadly.

"Oh..." Harry said eloquently. He never would have expected this.

"Just come to the Great Hall with us." She grimaced, very unhermionelike. "And eat something."

"Will you not go to McGonagall then?"

"If you continue to come to the Great Hall with us, we won't." She grinned.

PMFAF

"How is the situation with your friends?" Snape asked.

"Very good, sir." Potter smiled. "They're the best friends anyone could wish for." Snape never would have admitted that he didn't enjoy seeing Potter's cheerfulness disappear with that sentence. Even though he hated the smile that was so much like Lily's - but on Potter's face - the usual negative emotions there made Snape feel emotions he didn't ever want to feel.

"What's the matter Potter?" He inquired carefully.

"Nothing, sir." Potter's face was blank again. He cursed the boy for being so much more composed than the last two times. They had at least gotten somewhere then.

Luckily an inquiring eyebrow was all that was necessary to prompt an attempt at further explanations from Potter. "It's just..." He sighed. "I..." He took another deep breath, probably steeling himself. "It's..." Potter looked at him thoughtfully, as if trying to determine whether he should tell him or not.

"I took an unbreakable vow." Snape reminded the boy. "As such, I would be unable to do anything with the information you're about to provide me with even if I wanted to."

"Okay, sir." Potter said. "Thank you, sir."

Snape made an impatient gesture, urging him to continue. These

'sessions' could be very tiring sometimes.

"Uh...well... it's just that I'm not sure if they really want to be MY friends, you know?" Snape didn't know, but he nodded anyway. "If they really knew the truth about me. They probably see someone else and that's why they're concerned."

Snape never ceased to be completely baffled by these type of statements, even though they occurred quite often when Potter was being sincere. They always reminded him about the reason for these sessions and about the vast differences between James and Harry Potter. However much Potter looked like his father, he wasn't him. Snape knew that by now, but he was reminded of his misjudgements regularly by Potter's nonchalant words.

"Potter, do you pretend to be someone else when you're spending time with your friends?" Snape asked.

"Well... lately I tried to behave... differently." Potter said. "And I keep secrets."

"That wasn't my question." Snape stated. "Are you 'someone else' entirely?"

"No..." Potter hurried on to add, "... but I'm trying to be better."

"Firstly, keeping secrets and not being open about your feelings only means that you aren't entirely honest with them at the moment."

"How do you know-"

"I realized that you have become more... private this year." Snape said. "But that is beside the point. What's important is that you know that this doesn't render your friendships less real." He paused to give Potter time to let it sink in. "You should, however, try to be honest with them as much as possible if it bothers you so much." If anyone could see him now - trying to give Potter advice on how to deal with his teenage angst - they would probably die from shock.

"That's the problem. I don't want to tell them, because they will stop being my friends them." Potter muttered quietly. It was not meant for Snape to hear so he had the grace not to comment on it.

"Is the steak not to your liking?" He changed the subject. "You have barely touched it."

"No, it's very good sir." Potter said hastily. "I'm just not hungry. I'm sure you cooked it really well though."

Snape snorted. "I didn't make it, Potter." He said. "I asked the house elves to prepare the food."

"Oh... okay." His pale cheeks were coloured just a bit. "Well, you should tell them it's good then, sir."

"I certainly will." Snape agreed, just to humour the boy. "You could do them the curtesy of eating it."

"I'm not hungry." Potter repeated. "I ate too much in the Great Hall already."

"You barely finished one piece of toast, Potter."

The boy looked at him suspiciously. "Were you watching me eat, sir?"

"Believe me, I have better things to do than watch you wrestle down pitiful amounts of food." He sneered. "I asked one of the house elves to keep track of your food consumption."

"You... What?!" Potter asked indignantly.

"It is a common thing to do when the student is in danger of dying from malnutrition."

"I'm not-"

"Did you look in the mirror lately, Potter?" Snape snarled. "You're acting as if the damage caused by your relatives wasn't enough and you're desperately trying to finish what they started!"

Silence followed that exclamation. Snape didn't know what had prompted him to react this emotionally. All he knew was that he didn't like it.

He had to do some damage control now.

It was an unspoken rule that Snape didn't directly bring up the boy's horrible relatives. And Snape had broken that rule.

He took a deep breath.

"Potter..." The boy's face was pale while he was glaring at the plate of food in front of him as if it had been the only thing responsible for the situation. He didn't look up. "I didn't mean to say it this way. But I find it astounding that you're not using the provided opportunities to heal." He was aware how much of a hypocrite he was being, but Potter didn't have to know that.

He took another deep breath. "Either way, I apologise for saying it in the wrong way."

Potter's gaze softened and he looked up at him again. "It's okay, sir." The boy picked up his fork and started eating slowly. It was obvious by his grimace that he felt as if the perfectly nice steak was torture to him. But he kept shovelling the food into his mouth, looking at him for confirmation. Snape wasn't sure whether sudden change of space was healthy, but he welcomed it for now. He knew that Potter would probably only do it this once. But even one meal would keep Potter a bit farther away from starvation.

And Potter seemed to listen to what he had said. The boy perhaps even wanted to please him. Who knew it could go so fast?