Secrets and Suprises. Chapter Four: Intervention

Disclaimer: Does a little dance I own NOTHING! JK Rowling is a Goddess and I am nothing but a lowlife.

Warnings: Teenage angst to the max. Slash, eventually. I am a whore for hurt and comfort.

When Harry woke it was an hour past dinner. "Damn…" He muttered groggily, reaching over to his nightstand for his glasses and cramming them on his face. Sighing, he stared up at the drapes covering his bed, reveling in his moment of quiet, warm in his bed, dormitory to himself. It made him want to go back to sleep. Hand reached up to take glasses off once more, then voices from the common room drifted up the stairs and hit Harry with a terrible feeling of duty.

Harry sagged. He had to go down there, didn't he? He missed dinner, Ron and Hermione must be furious. There was homework, too. He didn't do any of his weekend assignments, and desperately needed to catch up. Damn, damn his sense of duty, the thing so many people admired in him and that he wished he could destroy. Groaning a little, he tumbled out of bed and trudged downstairs.

Hermione and Ron were there, pretending to do homework. Harry didn't know that they had carefully rehearsed what they intended to say to him in the hour that Harry was absent after dinner.

"Heya, Harry. Seamus told us you were taking a nap, so we weren't sure if you'd be coming down…" Ron began, smiling warmly through his nerves. The state of his best mate worried him, and he hoped that this was the best thing to do.

"Yeah, just transfiguration today really, ah, took it out of me, you know?" Harry smiled the best he could in what he thought was a convincing way, rubbing his right eye with his knuckles sleepily.

Hermione wasn't convinced. "Harry, why don't you sit down with us? I feel like it's been forever since we've all been together." Her turn to smile now, she patted the seat of a chair next to hers.

That's because we haven't been together in forever, Hermione… Harry thought miserably, though his face wouldn't show it. "Sure. What's up?" He flopped into the seat heavily, sinking into cushion.

"Well, we, um…" Ron stammered. He wasn't quite sure how to begin.

"Harry, we're worried about you." Hermione blurted quickly, before she lost the wits to say it.

"Yeah, mate. It's like, we don't see you anymore. You know? You sleep a lot. And, and you haven't done your schoolwork in over a week. Which, would be normal for me, you know," Ron laughed nervously, not sure how to read the blank look on Harry's face, "But, well…"

Again, Hermione interjected. "Harry. You don't smile anymore." She looked at him sadly, waiting for a reaction. "And, you know, if it's anything we're doing, we'd be happy to fix it. Right, Ron?"

"Right!"

Harry felt very small. They were blaming themselves, then? He should tell them. He should tell them everything. Tell them about the lack of control he had over his own life. How he worried that he'd never be able to lead a normal life. Would there always be Rita Skeeters tracking him down, taking him out of context, make him the poster boy for an obscure cause that people loved to hate, or hated to love?

Harry opened his mouth, then closed it. How would he tell them? How would he tell them about the serpent? What would they do? And then, there was always the one thing. The thing that manifested itself Cho Chang in his fourth year. Not even that, it was that damned sense of duty that had made him nervous around her. He was obligated, wasn't he, to ask a girl to the Yule Ball, and not a…

"I need to take a walk!" He blurted out loudly, leaping to his feet and practically lunging towards the portrait hole.

Ron stood as if to follow him, but Hermione grabbed his arm. "Wait, Ron," she sighed, "He'll come back. At least he knows we care." She didn't sound too sure. Ron slumped a little, then nodded, resigned to the fact that maybe he didn't always know what was going on in his best friend's head, after all.