An Unhealthy Escape
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to the brilliant J K Rowling.
A/N: Hello! I know this is really early, but I was bored. Hope you enjoy it!
Chapter 12
"Harry! You're awake!" Molly Weasley rushed towards Harry, enveloping him in a bone-crushing hug. "Oh dear, it's so good to see you better. Don't you ever do that to us again young man," Molly whispered in Harry's ear as she pulled away to continue getting breakfast ready. Harry could have sworn he had seen tears on her cheeks, but when he looked again she had wiped them away. Harry felt guilty and ashamed for worrying everyone unnesicarily. He was sick of being such a burden.
"HARRY!" Harry turned just in time to be tackled by a very enthusiastic Hermione. "Oh, I'm so glad you're better!"
"Hey Hermione," Harry laughed. "I'd feel even better if I could breathe." Hermione pulled back immediately, a pink blush creeping up her neck.
"Good to see you up and about mate," Ron gave Harry a hug that looked very painful to the girls, slapping each other's backs as hard as the possibly could. "Sirius and Mum wouldn't let us see you. We asked Remus what happened but he wouldn't tell us anything," Ron frowned at Harry.
"I just slipped over. Nothing exciting," Harry remarked casually taking a seat next to Ginny at the table. Harry wrapped his arm around her shoulders and Ginny immediately snuggled into his side, taking comfort from the warmth of his familiar embrace. Nobody found this unusual, seeing as they had become such good friends. It was quite common to find Harry with his arm around Ginny, or Ginny running her fingers through the messy mop Harry called hair. Although at first Ginny's brothers had been quite uncomfortable with their idle touches.
"So you slipped over? What caused all of the blood?" Hermione asked. Sirius chose that moment to walk into the room and frowned at Hermione suspiciously. How did she know there was a lot of blood? Molly had made them stay downstairs. Ginny's petite form stiffened next to Harry and Harry face paled dramatically, losing the little color it had regained since he had woken up.
"Uh… well I don't know. I guess I must have landed on something. I was sort of out of it at the time, so I don't quite remember exactly what happened," Harry told her nervously. Hermione and Ron were both looking at him with narrowed eyes.
"Right. Did you like maybe slip over and fall on, I don't know, just off the top of my head, like one of those muggle razor things?" asked Ron. Harry could tell by the way Ron said it that it wasn't really a question and his face grew even paler. Sirius was starting to worry the he was getting sick. Mrs. Weasley looked around sharply at her son's words.
"Ronald Bilius Weasley! I thought I told you and Hermione to stay downstairs while Sirius and Remus went to help Harry!" She yelled, loud enough for the whole house to hear. Remus came down the stairs then and quietly put locking and silencing charms on the kitchen doors before taking a seat next to Sirius.
"Our friend was injured! Ginny came down here, blood covering her hands and clothes saying something about Harry and you expected us to just stay down here like good little children? You've got to be joking!" Ron shouted. Everyone's eyebrows shot up. No one ever dared to yell back at Molly Weasley. The biggest surprise however, was Molly's response.
"I'm sorry Ronald; I suppose that was rather silly of me. But you should have known that if I told you to stay down here I must have had a good reason for telling you that!" She exclaimed, exasperated.
"Sorry Mum," Ron muttered.
"Sorry Mrs. Weasley. We really were just worried about Harry. We saw the blood and no one would tell us what happened. We were just going to see he was okay," Hermione told her, looking ashamed of going against her orders.
"Of course dear, I understand," Mrs. Weasley told her kindly.
"Alright now that that's out of the way," Hermione turned her gaze back to Harry who shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Would you like to explain what the bloody hell happened? And cut the crap Harry, we know you didn't trip. Either you tell us, or we are going to force it out of you," Hermione told him. Her voice was cold and angry, but her eyes were full of regret and sadness for her friend.
Everyone was in shock after hearing Hermione swear. Remus supposed living with Harry and Ron had started to rub off on her.
"I told you, I slipped on some water that was on the ground," was Harry's reply.
"Harry mate, there was no water on the ground," Ron said, now frustrated. They were his best friends! Didn't they deserve to know! They only wanted to help him in any way they could.
"Harry, you did that deliberately didn't you. You hurt yourself," Hermione said so softly Harry almost didn't hear her. Almost. Harry looked between their determined faces. He really didn't want to tell them. He didn't want them to reject him, because that's what would happen if he told them. They would think he was a freak, that he was messed up. They wouldn't want to be friends with someone so broken, and Harry couldn't stand it if they abandoned him after everything they'd been through together. It would hurt too much.
"Harry, they deserve to know," Sirius told his godson. Harry looked up at him with a tortured expression. "Why don't you want to tell them?" Sirius didn't understand why Harry looked so upset at the idea. Ginny, however, understood perfectly.
"Harry they're not going to reject you. They just want to help you. They're not going to just abandon you because of this. This is a part of you, and they love you. Right?" Ginny asked looking towards Hermione and Ron. Sirius looked uncomfortable when Ginny said it was a part of Harry. He didn't like that wording. It made it sound like Harry had been cutting for a long time. He hadn't… had he? Hermione looked aghast.
"You thought we'd just abandon you because you hurt yourself?"Hermione asked, shocked that Harry could ever think that was possible. Harry looked down at his lap in embarrassment and began fidgeting with his sleeves. Ginny grabbed his hands gently and held them in her own, tracing soft circles on his palms with her fingers. No one noticed this except for Sirius who smirked knowingly at the young couple.
"Harry, you're our best friend. We just want to help. We've been worried sick the past four days. Ginny refused to talk about it and everyone else just told us to mind our own business," Ron looked at his best friend. He was always so strong, it was heartbreaking to see him this broken.
"Harry you weren't… I mean – you weren't trying to… k-kill y-yourself, were you?" Hermione whispered, terrified at the thought of losing her best friend of four years to suicide. Sirius, Remus and Molly all watched intently for Harry's reaction. It was something they had all been wondering for the past four days. Harry's head shot up at Hermione's words.
"No! Of course I wasn't! I wouldn't – I wasn't… It was an accident!" Harry exclaimed. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
"How long, Harry?" Hermione asked her voice full of undisguised relief. Harry froze. He hadn't told anyone apart from Ginny how long he had been cutting for, not even Sirius and Remus, and he wasn't sure how they would react.
"I first cut myself when I was nine," Harry admitted. Everyone in the room gasped, and Hermione's hands flew to her mouth. Ginny wrapped her arms around Harry's neck, burying her face in his chest to hide the tears in her eyes. Harry his arms around her, holding her tightly to calm her down. She already knew this, but it didn't make it easier to hear. Sirius and Remus looked pained and shocked. Harry had been cutting since he was nine years old. Sirius looked like he was about to say something, but Harry continued speaking.
"It wasn't deep, but the pain helped. I stopped after I went to Hogwarts for my first year. I felt a lot happier, and I didn't need it anymore. Then after second year, after the Chamber…" harry trailed off and unconsciously held on to Ginny even tighter. "That's when it got bad. It still wasn't deep, but I did it more often, and I became… addicted I guess. To the pain, the relief. Then last year during the tournament the cuts got deeper. The other day I was upset, I don't know why, about everything that's going on I guess. It just became too much. I promised someone that I wouldn't cut myself, but eventually I couldn't do it anymore. I accidently went too deep and I passed out."
"Who was it that you promised?" Hermione asked curiously, thinking that it was probably Sirius or Remus.
"Me," Ginny said, shifting her position so that she was facing everyone but still safely cradled in Harry's arms.
"You knew about this?" Ron asked in disbelief, slightly hurt that his little sister found out before he did.
"Yes, I found out over a week ago," Ginny admitted, clearly worried about Ron and Hermione's reaction to the news. Hemrione was looking at the two suspiciously. They seemed to be even closer than they had been before Harry's 'accident', and it certainly had not escaped her notice.
"Ginny, why did you know about it?" Hemrione asked the younger witch.
"One night when I had a nightmare, Harry came to talk to me. We were going down to the kitchen to get some hot chocolate and I tripped. I grabbed his arms for support and he started screaming and there was blood everywhere. I made him show me his arm," Ginny told them, now fiddling slightly with her own sleeve. Harry grabbed her hands, just as she had done for him, and began tracing patterns on her ivory skin. Ginny shuddered as she remembered how the blood had soaked Harry's sleeve, the look of agony on his face as the cuts reopened and began to bleed.
"Alright, why don't we all have some breakfast?" suggested Remus, trying to lighten the mood. His half-hearted efforts were in vain however and the silent group trooped towards the counter to collect the plates Mrs. Weasley had prepared for them during their talk. Remus waved his wand towards the door and the twins stumbled in. They had clearly been trying to gain entrance for some time.
"Why couldn't we get in?" George asked.
"Yeah, we tried knocking but no one answered, and we couldn't hear anything!" Fred and George looked around at everyone's somber expressions. "You know what I'm thinking George?" Fred whispered in his twin's ear.
"Hopefully what I'm thinking Fred," George whispered back.
"We need to cheer everyone up with a prank," They both whispered together, retreating out of the room to collect their supplies. This exchange went unnoticed by the rest of the room who were now sitting and eating their meal in silence.
"Harry dear, you need to eat something," Mrs. Weasley chastised as she watched Harry push his food around his plate, never taking a single bite. "You too Ginevra," she said as she noticed her daughter was doing the same.
"Don't call me Ginevra," was Ginny's only reply. The two continued to play with their food, still not eating. Eventually Harry pushed the plate away and exited the room, slowly making his way back towards his bedroom. Ginny tried to follow but was stopped by her mother.
"Gine- sorry Ginny you are not leaving this table without eating something," Molly told her firmly. Ginny glared at her before sitting back down and picking at her food, not really paying attention to what she was eating. She was really getting sick of the adults in this house. She knew they meant well, but she also knew that not one of them, maybe with the exception of Remus, knew a single thing about what her and harry were going through. She was sick of it.
+HPGWHPGWHPGW+
When Harry reached his room, he went through the usual routine of pushing the desk against the door and locking it before reaching for his blade. He slowly rolled up his sleeves. The cuts that he had made a few days earlier had disappeared without a trace, not even leaving a scar. They must have been healed using magic.
Harry was slightly upset. He didn't like his scars. He thought they were ugly. They stopped him from wearing short sleeves because people would judge him; they proved that he was broken. Even though he didn't like them, he was somewhat proud of them. They were a part of who he was and he wouldn't want to get rid of them, even if he could. They showed just how messed up he really was, and the more masochistic side of him rather enjoyed watching them shimmer slightly in the sunlight coming through the window.
To him they were an imperfect reminder of the perfect pain from which they had been born. He knew that if he didn't have the scars a part of him would be lost. He knew that it would only encourage him to make new ones anyway. He liked being marked. He didn't like the scars, but he liked being scarred. He supposed that probably wouldn't make sense to anyone else, but to him, in his messed-up, demented, haunted mind it made perfect sense.
He pressed the blade hard into his skin and watched the blood bubble up out onto his arm before he dragged it violently across his wrist. He watched as the blood dripped down onto the sheets, not caring that someone would probably see it and Remus and Sirius would find out. He didn't care about much when he was hurting himself. He cut open his wrist again, this time going slightly deeper than he had gone before.
It seemed that every time he cut himself he went just a little deeper. He loved the feeling of panic that shot through his chest when he thought that he had cut a little too deep, the way his heart raced as he watched the blood pour from his skin, the dizziness that attacked his head as he watched more and more of the precious deep red liquid escape his veins and spill out onto the now bloody sheets. He cut himself a third time; this one was slightly shallower, but it still hurt him, and he loved the pain. Relished the burning, stinging feeling that accompanied cutting. It proved that he was alive, that he wasn't completely dead yet.
Harry heard a scraping noise at the door and looked up to see someone trying to force their way through the door. Harry could see that the desk wasn't going to stop them for much longer. He would have tried to cover it up, but he knew that it was no use. The sheets were soaked in his blood and they would probably check his arms anyway. He did attempt to hide the blade. He knew that it was no use, but he was running out of things to use. He carefully placed the blade under the alarm clock, hiding it from view, and then just sat there, blood running down his wrist in small, gory rivers.
A few seconds later, Sirius appeared in the doorway, closely followed by Ginny. The both ran over to the bed, Sirius only pausing to put locking and silencing charms on the door. Only Remus would be able to enter.
"Harry," he said. He grabbed to young boys wrist and started to say the healing charm, but Harry tore his arm from his grasp. Sirius looked up at him, confused and concerned. Ginny, as usual, understood him perfectly.
"Here Harry, let me bandage your arm," she said gently. She knew he wanted to keep the scars. The he felt oddly proud of them in a way. She began to clean his wounds with an antiseptic wipe, killing off any infection. Harry smiled a twisted, haunting smile as he felt the antiseptic sting the cuts, making them hurt even more. He loved every second of the pain. Sirius noticed his smile and his heart shattered. What had made this boy so broken that he smiled when in agonizing pain?
Ginny slowly wrapped a clean white bandage tightly around his wrist, taking care to cause as little pain as possible. Harry remained silent during the entire process. Once she finished, Harry looked up at Sirius. He winced at the tortured expression on his godfather's face, knowing that he was reason he was in so much pain.
"Stand up," Sirius said softly. Harry did as he was told. Sirius waved his wand and the bed sheets flew off the bed and piled themselves in the washing basket in the corner of the room. Another flick of his wand and the bed was covered in fresh sheets.
"Give me the blade Kid," Sirius said firmly, yet not unkindly. Harry looked down at his feet, reluctant to give it to him; He knew that he could easily find something else, but he still felt strangely protective of the small piece of metal that brought him so much relief. Sirius sighed when he did not move, and with another wave of his wand, the razor came flying out from beneath the clock.
"Remus and I need to talk to you about a few things. We'll meet you in the drawing room in ten minutes. Ginny you may come too if Harry wants you to," Sirius said quietly before leaving the room.
Harry pulled Ginny into his arms and sat down on his freshly made bed. Holding her made him feel better about everything. Like maybe he wasn't totally alone.
"Do you want me to come with you to see Remus and Sirius?" Ginny asked after a couple of minutes.
"Yes. I don't want to repeat everything again for you, you may as well just hear it now," Harry told her.
"What about Ron and Hermione?" Ginny asked. Surely Harry would want his friends to know too now that they were aware of his problem.
"I don't want them to know. I don't want them to treat me differently," Harry explained to her. Ginny nodded in understanding as she grabbed Harry's hand, pulling him up off the bed.
"Ready?" she asked him.
"As I'll ever be," Harry replied. He paused to give her a soft kiss on the lips before leading her out the door towards the drawing room. This was going to be a difficult conversation.
A/N: Hello! I know this chapter is really early again, but I'm on school holidays and I'll be going back to school soon so I won't be able to update as often. Hope that you enjoy it and please leave a review telling me what you thought! Milo.
