An Unhealthy Escape
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter (obviously!) or any of the characters used in this story. Harry Potter belongs to the amazing J K Rowling! Also I don't own the little quote things I use, I just find them on the internet or in books.
A/N: Hello! I know that it has been a little while, sorry! This chapter is a bit more interesting than the first few, at least in my opinion. Please leave a review and tell me what you think! I really appreciate the feedback and try to take on board any suggestions given to me! Milo.
Chapter 4:
His heart was pounding. All he could hear was the pounding in his chest, his ears, his throat, his head. Every so often the pounding was interrupted by sudden bursts of noise, yelling and laughing, talking and crying. His throat seemed to constrict, and he couldn't breathe. That's when the world started spinning. His senses were in overdrive; he could feel every touch, every person that brushed up against him. He could hear every noise, every yell, every scream.
He jumped violently when he felt someone grab his arm in a firm grip and start dragging him away. He struggled against the grip, desperately trying to free himself. He heard a door close, and everything was silent except the ringing in his ears.
"Harry? Harry!" Harry could hear someone screaming. Harry started to sway on his feet, but before he could collapse someone had grabbed him and led him to a couch. Once Harry was sitting on the couch, he put his head in his hands, his body shaking like a leaf in the summer breeze.
"Harry! Remus what happened to him? What's wrong with him?" Harry heard a new voice enter the room. It seemed familiar, but Harry wasn't thinking straight at the moment.
"Harry! Harry what's wrong?" Harry looked up and saw his godfather kneeling on the floor in front of him looking panicked and worried. Harry blinked a few times and shook his head to clear it.
"Sorry," he mumbled looking at Remus, who was standing behind Sirius looking at him with his brows furrowed in concern.
"Harry what happened?" Sirius asked.
"Nothing. Nothing happened. I just… It was… nothing. I'm sorry."
"Nothing? You call that nothing? Harry you had a complete breakdown! It was almost like a panic attack, but ten times worse!" Remus almost yelled at the infuriating teen.
"I know what it was like, thanks," he replied coldly. After all, he thought; I am the one who has to live through these attacks.
"Harry, please, just tell us what is wrong," Sirius pleaded. "And don't say it's nothing, we're not stupid. We know there's something."
"I'm fine. Sorry." Harry stomped up the stairs rubbing his head. His attacks always left him with a pounding headache.
"Harry please just come back here and talk to us," Remus said softly. Harry paused halfway up the stairs. For a moment, Sirius and Remus both thought that he was going to come back down, but Harry just kept walking.
Once Harry reached his room, he locked the door and moved the desk in front of it. He flopped down onto his bed, face first and let out a scream which was muffled by his pillow. He was so stupid. How could he have let this happen? He was always so careful, putting up his mask, faking a smile and a laugh.
+A fake smile can hide a million tears+
He and Remus had been in Diagon Alley, and they had bought everything that Harry needed for school. They were on their way back to the Leaky Cauldron, when all of a sudden, everything got louder. People seemed to yell louder than they were before. It was as if someone had turned the volume up on the entire Alley. Everything seemed brighter and more overwhelming than it had before.
Harry often had these attacks, at random times. But there was usually something that triggered it; whether it was a mention of Voldemort or Cedric or Wormtail, or anything that reminded him of the horrendous tragedy of the Third Task. Today he couldn't think what caused it.
Harry knew these attacks were only getting worse. They had started out just like normal panic attack, only very rarely did he get them. But as time went on, his nightmares got worse and he could see into Voldemort's mind more often. Once or twice he had caught flashes of what he was doing, where he was. The truth was, this was killing him. Not physically; it was affecting his physical health greatly. He had stopped sleeping, stopped eating as much and he isolated himself from everyone else. He was pale and sickly looking and he didn't want to imagine what Mrs. Weasley would say if she saw how thin he was.
It was killing him on the inside. No one could see it, but he was dying. He felt like someone was trying to rip his heart out of his chest. He could feel Voldemort's emotions so often now that half the time he didn't know whether he was actually angry or sad or happy or whether it was Voldemort in his mind. He was going crazy. Literally. Harry knew he was crazy, but he hid it. He didn't need everyone else to know he was crazy.
Harry desperately wanted to sleep, but knew what was waiting for him when he closed his eyes. Visions of murder, death and destruction. Harry had recently started having old nightmares about the Quidditch World cup, and once or twice he had even woken up crying after seeing Ginny's unconscious form on the chamber floor.
Harry lay there on his bed for a while. He tried to fight the tiredness that seemed to weigh him down like weights. Eventually he lost his fight.
+ . . +
"What happened Remus?" Sirius asked his best friend in a pained voice. Harry had looked like hell when he came out of the fireplace; his whole body had been shaking violently and his face was deathly pale.
"I don't know," Remus replied, a thoughtful look on his face. "It was sort of like a panic attack. I don't know what happened. All of a sudden he just stopped. He was muttering nonsense and wasn't breathing properly."
"Why?"
"I don't know Padfoot, but there is something wrong," said Remus.
"Oh really, Moony? I only just noticed!" Sirius snapped at his only friend. Remus just rolled his eyes. He knew Sirius was just stressed and would probably apologize in about two minutes.
"I'm sorry Moony," Sirius said looking down.
"I know," Remus told him. "We need to get him to talk t us. We can see that something is seriously wrong, but he won't tell us what," said Moony. Both he and Sirius were slightly hurt that Harry didn't trust them enough to talk to them.
"WE should go check on him, make sure he's alright," Sirius said before getting up off the couch and walking up the stairs, closely followed by Remus.
When they got up to the top of the staircase, they heard screaming. Harry. Both Remus and Sirius ran the rest of the way to the teen's room and burst open the door.
Harry was on his bed, asleep. He seemed to be having a nightmare of some sort.
"NO! PLEASE! DON'T HURT HER! KILL ME INSTEAD!"
"Harry! Harry wake up! Wake up!"
"Harry wake up, it's just a nightmare."
Both Remus and Sirius tried to wake the sleeping boy. After a few minutes of this, Harry bolted upright breathing heavily. He was shaking and pale, drenched in sweat.
"Harry! Are you ok?" Harry started at the sound of his godfather's voice.
"AGH!" Harry yelled before falling backwards off the bed. He hastily leapt to his feet and pulled out his wand before realizing it was just Sirius and Remus.
"Harry are you alright?" Sirius asked after Harry had lowered his wand.
"Fine," Harry answered shortly placing his wand back on the bedside table. "I'm fine."
"Harry you're not fine, there is clearly something wrong," Remus said. "You've been unhappy ever since you got here, you don't want to see your friends, then whatever that was today in Diagon Alley, and now we find out that you've been having nightmares. You can't tell us that there's nothing wrong Harry." Remus tried to reason with him.
"I'm fine," Harry repeated, sitting down on his bed. He clearly hadn't been doing as good a job as he thought he had at hiding his depression. He would just have to try harder from now on, he decided. "And I haven't been having nightmares, that was the first one," Harry lied. Harry hated lying, but he also didn't want Sirius and Remus to worry about him Anymore than they already were.
"Harry, can you tell us the truth please?" Sirius asked. "How long have these nightmares been happening. Harry looked up at his godfather and tried to put on his best happy face.
"It's fine, it wasn't even that bad. They don't happen often," Harry smiled. Sirius just rolled his eyes. Remus had to hold back a laugh. He had just jumped out of bed screaming and turned his wand on them and was now smiling like Christmas had come early and telling them it wasn't that bad.
"Harry you were screaming bloody murder," Sirius pointed out to his stubborn godson.
"Oh. Sorry about that," Harry winced at the expressions on both Sirius and Remus' faces.
'Damn,' he thought to himself. He had to try to stop doing that. There was not much he could do about it though; after all he was asleep when it happened.
"Harry how long have you been having these nightmares for?" Sirius asked again, his voice now barely louder than a whisper. Harry looked at them both and sighed in defeat. They weren't going to leave him alone until he told them, and he knew that.
"I've been having nightmares ever since I can remember. When I was little I would see a lot of green light and hear screams; my parents," Sirius and Remus both flinched at the mention of their best friend's murders. "Ever since the third task I've been having nightmares once or twice every night."
Harry instantly regretted telling them the moment that he saw their faces. "What was that one about?" Remus asked is a strained voice.
"Ginny. In the chamber. And Tom… he said he was going to murder her," Harry told them. This one was particularly bad, and he had it often now. He wasn't sure why it hurt him so much to see Ginny unconscious on the chamber floor. He figured it was because she was like a sister to him, but deep down, though he would never admit it to himself, he knew that it was something more.
"Do you have that one often?" Sirius asked, confused. Yes, what happened in the chamber was terrible, but it had been over two years since then, and harry had faced worse since then. Much worse.
"Yes. But usually it's about Cedric." Harry said. He wasn't sure why he was telling them this. Perhaps it was because he had locked everything away for so long, he had never had someone to care for him before.
"Harry why didn't you tell us?" Sirius asked the teen.
"I – I didn't want to worry you?" Harry's statement came out sounding more like a question. Sirius pulled the idiotic teen into a tight hug. How could he have been so stupid? His godson, James and Lily's son, had been suffering and he hadn't even realize, he hadn't done anything about it. 'I'm so sorry James,' Sirius thought.
"We should get you some dreamless sleep potion," said Remus.
"No," Harry told him. "I don't need it, and it tastes gross," Harry said scrunching his face up in disgust. Sirius laughed at his godson's childishness.
"Harry," Remus warned. Harry looked up at the werewolf who had a determined look on his face.
"But I don't need it!" Harry argued. Sirius and Remus tried to convince him, but Harry would not cooperate with the two. Eventually they told him that as long as he told them every time he had a nightmare, he didn't have to take the potion. For now anyway.
"You promise you'll come and tell one of us if you have a nightmare?" asked Remus.
"Yes Remus, I promise," Harry lied through his teeth again. There was no way that he was going to go to either of them in the night like a scared child.
"Alright. Come down and have some dinner," Sirius said.
"I'll just get changed," Harry told them both as they left the room. As soon as they left, he reached under his pillow for the comfort of the metal blade, and hurried to the bathroom with it. He added three new cuts to the ones that already littered his pale arm. He felt the familiar feeling of relief and the odd numb feeling that cutting gave him.
He quickly dressed in a dark gray long sleeve top, blue jeans and a black jacket, and hurried downstairs before Remus or Sirius could get too suspicious.
A/N: Hello! I hope you liked this chapter. I know that it was a bit different to the other chapters, so please leave a review and tell me if you liked it! The next chapter will be up shortly. Sirius and Remus found out about Harry's nightmare, so they are surely going to start watching him a bit closer. I hope you like it! Milo.
