Chapter 10 – Face to Face

"What was that all about yesterday Harry?" Ron asked at the breakfast table next morning.

"Something about school work and stuff, Snape wants me to take extra potions lessons two times a week and Dumbledore wants to see me twice a week, something about You-know-who." Harry lied smoothly while playing with his food.

"But what about quidditch!"

"Well I'll have to do that on the other days. Besides I'm only missing one training session a week"

"Ron, school is more important than quidditch and I am glad Harry is getting these extra lessons." Commented Hermione. Ron huffed and started to act all cold with Hermione making over exaggerated movements whilst eating. His mood continued through the morning lessons, through lunch and into their defence against the dark arts lesson, which was now the lesson he dreaded more than anything.

Harry and Ron sat right at the back of the class as Gilderoy Lockheart made his usual dramatic entrance much to the boys dislike, took the register and continued with chapter 5 of Gadding with Ghouls and asked for a volunteer to help with the reading. Harry didn't even put his hand up or show any interest when Lockheart dragged him out of his seat and proclaimed Harrys as the Master of Ghouls and tried to make him make Ghoul noises. Harry was petrified being brought up in front of everyone like that all Harry could squeak was a "Please Sir, No thank you." And tried to make his way to his seat and trying not to panic.

"Nonsense Harry a big loud noise now if you please!" Harry didn't know what else to do, the room was spinning and he couldn't catch his breath so he ran, ran out of the classroom and down into the dungeons. The dungeons had loads of nooks and cranny's he could hide in to calm down. He also didn't want anyone else to find him so he dove into a small corner deep in the dungeons. Harry didn't know how long he was there for until he calmed down. He heard the bell go a couple of times but didn't move. He cut as he sat there letting the blood drip to the floor and not bothering to clean it up. He only moved when he could hear some movement from down the corridor. He didn't want to be found so he ran up and up the marble staircase and into the Gryffindor common room where everyone seemed to stare at him.

He turned back to go back out the portrait hall but was blocked by his transfiguration teacher and head of house Professor McGonagall. He couldn't move forward or backwards so the only way to stop everything was to make himself as small as he could. He sat on the floor and curled his knees into his chest, faced the wall and finally curled into a ball. He couldn't panic here he just couldn't deal with all the staring faces. Someone touched his back and Harry flinched away. He then heard an incantation and a some sort of light animal leave the Gryffindor common room.

Not long later a gentle voice he couldn't remember the face to spoke to him gently and placed their hand on his back and persisted, ignoring the flinch away. "Its okay Harry, come and say hello, its only me, Gareth. Deep breaths for me, in and out. That's it good lad" Harry slowly unravelled himself and Gareth took this opportunity to pick the small boy up and hold him close putting some calming magic into the boy. He noticed some blood on the white shirt under his robes and made a mental note to clean him up before he left tonight. "Come now, we will go find somewhere quiet we can talk okay?" Harry nodded into Gareth's chest and let him carry him out of the portrait. He knew everyone had seen and he didn't know what to do now. All he knew right there and then was that he was safe with Gareth and Gareth wasn't going to hurt him.

Gareth followed Professor McGonagall to the seventh floor corridor where a door appeared. Professor McGonagall opened the door and lead them inside. It was a small room with two comfortable squishy cream armchairs, black floors and walls with fairly lights hanging from each of the walls and the ceiling was enchanted to look like the night sky. There was a small table to the side of the chairs and a candle which smelt like tea and cinnamon It was rather relaxing.

"You may use this room as long as you need tonight. If you need any assistance just call Grizz the house elf and he will come."

"Thank you Minerva" Gareth replied placing Harry down on one of the seats and gestured his thanks to his old professor as she left and closed the door behind her. Gareth looked at Harry who had brought his knees back to his chest again and had his face hidden. "Harry can you look at me?" he asked as he sat down on the chair opposite.

"I'm such a freak!" cried Harry from behind his knees.

"You are not a freak Harry; you had a panic attack that's all"

"No one else has them; no one makes a fool out of themselves in front of everyone"

"It happens to the best of us. It's okay. Take a few nice deep breaths for me. That's it Harry. Now try and look at me" slowly but surely after about 15 minutes Gareth managed to get Harry to look at him. "Well done Harry. Would you like to tell me what happened today?"

"I lost control because I'm a freak and I'm a wimp"

"You are no wimp or freak. Was it during class? Or just when you got back to the Gryffindor common room? Your professor told me you have been missing since mid-morning class"

"I ran out of class," whimpered Harry trying not to cry.

"Because you panicked?" Harry nodded "Where did you go the rest of the day?"

"Hide" replied Harry

"Where?" Harry shook his head, obviously not giving anything up. "Ok don't worry. Do you remember what happened just before you panicked?"

"I had to do something in front of the class I asked nicely to not do it but he still made me so I ran I didn't know what else to do!" cried Harry starting to panic again. Gareth got to his feet and kneeled down by Harry and placed his hands on the boys shoulders and gave him some calming magic.

"It's okay, breathe son. It's okay crowds can make people feel nervous its normal especially if you didn't want to do it and aren't used to the crowds yet" Harry nodded "We can work on that together"

"Thanks" Harry replied nervously. Calmer now he had the magic in him and was continuing to flow. Slowly but carefully Gareth held Harrys hands and held his chin up to look into the boys eyes. Harry for once didn't look away straight away. Gareth carefully cradled Harrys injured arm and asked silent permission to have a look. Harry gave him a quick miniscule nod that no one else would have seen so slowly he rolled up the sleeve to his robe and sweatshirt.

He then went on to unbutton the button of the white shirt, which was now stained significantly red with dried blood. Carefully he rolled up the sleeve trying not to take the newly formed scabs off the cuts, that was impossible so Gareth conjured a damp sterile cloth to help with the bleeding and to wipe up the dried blood. After the arm was clean and stopped bleeding, he examined the battered arm. There was many white and red scars lining the arm interrupted occasionally with new cuts some deep others superficial. Gareth sighed quietly, what had happened to this young boy to make him feel like this?

Gareth looked up at Harry who was watching him. Harry thought at least Gareth didn't make a big thing about it and did everything lowly and gently, he was glad he didn't heal his cuts with magic. Gareth summoned some bandages and sticky strips and carefully pulled the open wounds together and keeping them together with the sticky strips after that he placed some sterile iodine over the area before bandaging up the arm securely. He then muttered a cleaning spell so that Harrys shirt was white again before pulling everything back down to cover the boys arm. Harry nodded his thanks to Gareth as he sat back down on the chair opposite hm.

"I'm not going to ask you about that tonight" said Gareth "But we will talk about it at a later date. I just want to let you know how dangerous it is, you could kill yourself if you go too deep, you don't want that to happen do you?" Harry started to cry, he had thought about it, made a plan at the Dursleys he did not think it mattered if he was gone. "It okay Harry" Gareth said as he picked him up and sat him on his lap. He poured some more magic into him, he could tell Harry was getting tired and was going to let him go but it was too late, Harry had fallen asleep in his arms.

Harry must trust him, Gareth thought as he was carrying Harry back to the Gryffindor dormitory's, the boy was so quiet and enclosed, to allow him to clean him up and talk a little more openly. Soon they were at the Fat Lady; it then occurred to Gareth that he didn't know the password. However, with showing the Fat Lady the sleeping Gryffindor in his arms she allowed him in. The common room was empty because it was so late. Gareth followed the stairs up to the second years dormitory's and placed harry down on the empty bed and covered him with the blankets before turning around and leaving the boy to sleep.