Saving Harry

WARNINGS: Religious Fundamentalism - Religious Questioning even, Sensitive Subjects Mentioned, Future Lemon - things of varying sexual nature until that point, homosexual/slash relationships, intense bullying, varying degrees of abuse. If this puts a stick in your ass and offends you, turn back now.

Concept and Story heavily influenced by premise of Steven King's "Carrie". I heat chicken nuggets on review flames.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter [Warner Bros. do] nor do I own Yu-Gi-Oh! Or the great concept of Carrie by S. King

Chapter Three

Have you ever been so hungry that it keeps you awake, what about in pain? Two tablets every few hours did little to sooth the pain on Harry's hands that he could not sleep on. David and Petunia had not let him run them beneath colder so that they would not swell and had just bandaged them up, Harry knew they would take longer to heal, as swollen as they were. He knew he should go to hospital for it, it was a rare moment where the pain had crossed a line, but Harry knew he would not get to go. His 'nonsense' would heal it up, if he let it, but he didn't know how to make it do what he wanted. It was that Pagan power, he didn't want it, but the fact was it was there, no matter if exorcised, or prayed away, the same as he'd tried with praying the feelings away.

"Magic," he whispered to himself, on his bed, testing the word and making himself flinch. It was sin and it was disgusting, it was why God struck his parents down in that awful car crash and they'd marked him with it forever on his forehead.

He had two short dreams, waking up now and then from the pain his hands had caused him, feeling tears slide into the pillowcase, he wondered briefly if he was going to die. Sweat all over his persons, he panted softly in the covers, feeling his heart beat so fast his chest hurt now too. He remembered that face from his nightmares, the Pagan nightmares - that was what David had called them, of giants on motorcycles, screams and green lights. It was why he had a crucifix nailed to the headboard of his bed, but the dreams still came. Then the ones of girls or worse, the boys, and he felt a wild stab of pain in his hands every time he thought of yesterday because of where his teenage lust had gotten him.

Through his bleary vision - his glasses left on the table beside his bed, he could make out the demon of his dreams. He was sure he was hallucinating, from the tablets, lack of sleep and sheer pain after the nightmare, but clutched onto the covers tightly that night and whispered uncertainly into the pillow until it went.

"If I should die before I wake," he squeezed his eyes shut "-I pray the Lord my soul to take," he took the tail end of the children's prayer, and kept on saying it, until the red-eyed snake-like man-figure disappeared from the end of his bed and his mind cleared. He tried to sleep.

Then the battered alarm from the previous child, Harry's biological cousin Dudley left behind, went off.

Sometimes, Harry wondered how Dudley and Vernon were, they'd been awful but he still wondered - not out of care but curiosity. He imagined Dudley stuffing his face with chocolate gatto cake, never feeling this kind of starvation, never praying before what little dinner he had, as Dudley never had 'little' dinners and never prayed either. He imagined Dudley getting paid into going to a posh private school that he did not deserve to be at, having friends the way that Harry never got to.

Harry slowly rose up to get ready for school, trying to ignore the searing pain as he slowly got changed.

He felt envy.

First the owls, then the demons, then the boys, then envy.

He could not help but feel disgusted, even more so when he looked upon the crucifix nailed to his headboard and felt something else, resentment.

He asked for His protection and resented Him too, and himself - what sort of hypocrite was he?

A hypocrite with sick power and sick feelings, what God would make him this way?

And then, Harry hated himself.

David must have felt guilty, he fed Harry a small breakfast of Wheaties cereal as his hands shook too much for the spoon.

It had taken him an hour to get ready due to the profound difficulty of doing up the buttons to his polo-shirt and doing his tie, holding a hairbrush, every little action associated with getting ready was far too taxing. Harry felt like his hands would simply drop from the ends of his arms and that all that kept them attached to his wrists were the tight bandages.

Keeping his beaten up shoulder bag weight on his shoulder or arm, he avoided picking it up directly with his hands, looping his arm through the sagging strap which it was on the floor and jocking it to his shoulder blade.

David looked at his hands when he'd come down and very quietly pulled Harry aside.

"I don't want phone calls home," he said "-I want you to do your full day at school,"

Harry nodded, he wouldn't come home early even if they'd let him.

"You had a kitchen accident," said David tensely, glancing at Harry's mummified-hands and then into the tired green orbs of the unfortunate boy.

"Yes Sir," that would be what he'd have to tell anyone who asked.

"It's not intense, it does not require medical assistance, stay in your lessons," in other words, don't go to the school nurse, and don't let any staff try to take you there either, downplay it, put your head down and shut up. Like a good boy.

"Yes Sir," Yes Sir, no sir, three-bags-full sir, thought Harry scathingly.

"Have a good day at school," said David, opening the door for him, Harry nodded, and felt a soft bitter smile making it's way over his face.

"I will Sir," Harry decided that today would be his last day of the wretched place.

Harry came to school late that day, not that anyone really noticed. Today would be a good day he decided, he had Mr Broderick for English for two whole hours in a double lesson, and the mean music teacher had left and Mr Dale was there now. Mr Dale was always nice and let Harry work on his own and never made him perform infront of everybody because he knew he was shy. He just didn't like the pitying look that Mr Dale gave him all the time. He had music right after and then art, on a Friday he had mixed art with the other class, because the pottery students would use the regular one. Harry didn't used to like the big class because more people would tease him, but today he decided he didn't care, because he liked art.

Holding a pen was extremely difficult, Mr Broderick had all but forced Harry to try to see the nurse until he told him he had a kitchen accident and put on his best act of innocence to persuade him that it the bandages made it look worse then it was.

Mr Broderick knew something was wrong, when he standardly asked Harry how he was doing when he was last to leave, as usual.

"You alright?" he asked, not knowing Harry had lied about how bad his hands were, not seeing how shaky and poor his spidery handwriting had been in the lesson.

"Yes Sir," he lied, and normally, David said these kinds of lies were like white lies, that they were okay.

Mr Broderick's annual conversation would usually end there, and Harry would leave. This time, Harry stopped before the door and looked over his shoulder and said quite earnestly...

"Goodbye Mr Broderick,"

"Bye Harry,"

He felt a pang of indescribable feeling, but shrugged it away, it was just a 'bye', his lesson was over after all.

So why did it feel like something more?

In Mr Dale's music class, Harry brightened when he saw Ryou Bakura, Marik Ishtar and Yugi in it, even though Marik wasn't really talking and Yugi looked like he was wondering what he should say. Harry cringed inwardly at the bubbly warmth in his stomach as Mr Dale smiled and paired him with Ryou, who grinned at him and began setting up the keyboard, Harry couldn't smile back, his face feeling hot.

Now was one of those times where it felt like his mouth would pour with red.

Ryou hesitantly began trying to play first, trying to play through the very basic tune as they were all behind in their subjects. Harry sat back until Ryou said it was his turn.

"C-C-Cant," squeaked out Harry finally. Mr Dale frowned and walked over before Ryou could encourage Harry to give it a try.

"Is there a problem Mr Potter?" he asked softly, cutting in.

Harry slowly raised his hands from his lap and letting his overly large sleeve roll up slightly to reveal heavily bandaged hands. Ryou's eyes widened, they looked swollen under the bandages and Yugi abruptly prodded Marik, who caught the glimpse of it.

"Mr Potter?"

"Kitchen accident," Harry shrugged as nonchalantly as possible "-it's okay Sir, M' seeing a doctor after school," he lied.

Mr Dale nodded slowly, and turned to Ryou "-continue playing Mr Bakura, examine his form and peer assess how he does Harry,"

"Okay Sir,"

Harry looked away from Ryou's questioning glance, feeling the ugly attractions, he could feel the stare of the other two students and sighed as they lingered to talk to him when the bell had gone.

Harry frowned slightly.

"I-T-Thanks for being nice to me," he managed out, and silenced their questions "-t-this is nothing, I-I'll see you around," he swallowed, his face and neck feeling hot as they looked at him and his stomach clenched.

"Bye!" called out Harry, and quickly dodged past them before they could follow.

Marik finally noticed that today, Harry wore a cross to school.

'The creepy religious kid, stay away, Potter's a loser,'- Daniel had said yet he hadn't even seen evidence Potter was religious, it appeared so, mentally noting it, he left for his next class with Ryou and Yugi left for Geography. He wondered just how many of the nasty rumors were true.

Harry did not go into his art class, but he did tell his art teacher 'bye' claiming he needed to go to the bathroom before lesson started, she nodded and let the sweet boy go. The raven haired mess looked on blankly, even as he was shoved in the corridor, he ducked into the normal art class before the Pottery students would pile in and made his way to the store cupboard. There was one in every art class, they kept paints and different mediums and paper in there, things like clay were kept in locked piles elsewhere. Harry knew this cupboard would empty and nobody would use it - likely until the next regular art class next week. Today was Friday, the cleaners never went in there, they would find him on Monday.

He took the small stool used to get the brushes off the top shelf and put it directly beneath the low hanging metal pipe. Moving a box of stacked up papers infront of the door to barricade it in, he got up on the stool and took off his tie.

His whole life he'd been hated.

Dudley hated him, Vernon had hated him, Aunt Petunia had always hated him, and David always said he'd loved Harry but he'd gone a step worse then the others and made him hate himself. The kid's at school hated him, they made his life hell. They shoved him, pushed him, spat at him, teased him, pranked him, blamed him and wore him down ever since his first year there.

He tried to rub away that awful freakishness that the kid's saw in him too and defied David in many little ways as a sacrifice to get them to like him. He took his cross off before school usually and never said grace when he used to have free school lunches. He never mentioned religion and did his best not to appear like the reverend did but it never did no good.

He would go home feeling worthless, then David would say Jesus still loved him - knowing he was bullied horribly, but would only love him if he did this, this and this, and did not do this, this and this, and renounced his freakish ways.

Oh how he tried, but he did not know how, he must not have been doing it properly but then he realized he was born this way.

Harry could not take the sick Pagan-ness out of him anymore then he could remove the envy, the anger, the jealousy, gluttonous desire or lust from himself either. David would try to help him every day with doing so but it never worked, maybe he was born for Hell.

He was jealous of Piers Polkiss, he gluttonously took school food, he was angry at God and had - or wanted to touch himself when spiked with lust - girls and boys like some sort of whore, his pagan magic would defy his guardian-acting-as-father whom God said he had to honor. He was everything he didn't want to be and hated among it all.

Harry would explain himself to God, and let God judge, not David - as he could not take a life that took so much pain, in his hands, in his stomach and in his heart as he cried and wished that he was liked.

The tie was knotted into a hoop and cleverly into a noose that hung from the ceiling-fixed stone pipes.

He pulled his head through it slowly, bandaged hands shaking as he squeezed his eyes shut, feeling warm liquid slide down his cheeks and a bitter smile came over him. Harry would have to kick the stool away, his head would be pulled by the tie, his neck would snap. He pictured how his body would sway and how one of those bastard children may find him instead of the pitying art teacher who never did enough when kids picked on him.

He hoped he'd be in there nightmares.

Just as he was about to jump into the noose and kick the stool away, the box of stacked papers was pushed back with ease as the door opened.

"Try the next store cupboard next door you two, here's a key, just bring the whole box of A3," said Miss Funnelworth, giving a small silver key "-it's through the Pottery class, through Miss Kennel's art office - should be empty, and on the left," they had run out of paper totally and Miss Funnelworth needed to restock her cupboard.

Ryou and Marik nodded and made a beeline for the Pottery class, ignoring the looks as they cut right through it after briefly explaining to the Pottery teacher.

There was a black curtain between Miss Kennel's office and the 'Pottery' art class room, a shut-down computer and messy office was true to Miss Funnelworth's words - empty.

On the left wall was a white wooden door, reading "Store Cupboard,", putting the key in, Ryou tried opening the door and felt something on the other side.

"Help me push it open Marik,"

So they did, and they gasped.

Harry felt the cross resting on his neck and touched it briefly.

Forgive me David, I really can't undo what I was born as. I did try though, and i'll tell God you did your best.

Grabbing a pair of scissors off the shelf, a pale set of hands immediately cut the tie with a gentle 'snip', Harry felt the material of the noose slide down his body and slowly opened his eyes -what happened? Did it come undone?

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" broke the silence, Harry looked up startled.

They were met with the sight of bloodshot eyes and a demented grin which had dropped instantly when they'd gone into the cupboard, it was perhaps one of the more disturbing things they'd seen in a while.

It was Harry Potter, with a noose made of out his school tie, around his head and neck.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Marik had said, stealing the words right from Ryou's mouth.

Harry slowly got off the stool, and then, he cried.