AN. I do not have rights to the Harry Potter franchise in any form.

Please be warned that this story might contain mature and potentially trigerring elements, like murder, mentions of depression and mental health issues, and sexual content.

June 7th, 2002

They're having a staring match. Harry would like to say he's winning, but unfortunately, he can't. He's being beaten. Badly.

And it's only been two minutes or so.

"Are you going to…" He breaks off expectantly.

"I asked if you wanted to tell me why you're here. I thought you've been trying to determine your answer."

"Oh! That was a serious question?"

Now he's done it. She gives him a piercing stare from above the frames of her glasses, like he's an extremely interesting specimen, and she's patiently waiting for him to snap and pour out everything that's been boiling inside him right at her elegant Oxfords.

"I just thought…" He shifts uncomfortably. "I mean, you know the story."

"I don't like to assume," she says calmly. "People seek therapy for many different reasons. I would never assume what brought you today to this office, Mr. Potter."

"Harry," he mumbles, mortified for not doing it before, when she asked him to call her Diane. "I just never… told anyone," he admits quietly. "Never had to."

She uncrosses her legs and puts her notebook on her lap. "Well, maybe it's about time."

She wants his secrets.

"Please, start from the beginning."

He has plenty.

"Whenever you feel comfortable," she adds, but it doesn't sound like an afterthought.

Comfortable isn't the first word he would use to describe this situation.

"Well, when I was a kid, I was told I'm supposed to kill a guy. And then I did."

He blinks. Put like that, it sounds completely ludicrous. It isn't even what happened, and it definitely isn't the point. Nobody cares about the guy; nobody's missed him, least of all him. It's literally benefited all of humanity. So why the fuck…?

"And how does it make you feel?"

He wants to laugh in her face, but he's too scared he would burst into tears.

"Used."

Whose bright idea was it again? Right. He wouldn't end up in this blasted office if it weren't for Severus fucking Snape. Even from beyond the grave, he still manages to mess with him. Those last words his permanently annoyed portrait uttered to Harry got stuck in his head for some reason. 'Maybe after years of therapy you will even resemble something of a human being, Potter.' Back then, Harry just choked and sputtered indignantly for a minute, no witty retort coming to mind until hours after he stormed off.

Do wizards even do therapy? As it turned out, they don't, so he easily shelved the idea due to a lack of means. Until another culprit decided to put in his two cents. It was during one of Kingsley's 'Isn't it time for you to come by an Auror Department, Harry?'. He answered with a glare that basically said, 'Stop fucking asking'. Normally, Kingsley would have dropped it, but that one time he pushed.

"What exactly are you waiting for?"

Harry mulled over the question for a long couple of minutes before he decided to give him an actual answer—something real, unlike the perfunctory 'I'm fine' he would have given everyone else.

"To feel like I can move on."

And he should have by then. It's been years. It was already the beginning of March when they had that conversation. In two short months, they would be celebrating the fourth anniversary of the Final Battle.

The first year had passed in a daze. Hogwarts, rebuilding, and complementary classes to prepare them for their N.E.W.T.'s. Being stared at all the time, treated like something unreal, almost mythical. Hiding outside on the edge of the forest, in the Room of Requirement, behind empty tapestries, illegally in Head Girl's dormitory. Being somewhere in between, unable to believe that the war was over and that the rest of his life was glaring him in the face. For Harry, it was like going through the motions in a constant daze.

And then, in the blink of an eye, they were out in the real world. Harry thought he knew what the plan was and what he was supposed to do. But first, the breakup happened, and shortly after, the auror training began. It was brutal—not physically or even mentally. It was just all so… formalised. He went through war without any preparation, and suddenly they tried to prepare him for something similar, but much more mundane, in a sterile, safe environment. There was something unsettling about it, even though he couldn't fully grasp what it was.

In some fields, he excelled and felt like a veteran. In others, he didn't even know what they were talking about. It was like, outside the safety of Hogwarts, the Wizarding World suddenly became much bigger. Or his own world became smaller, maybe. It left him feeling wrong-footed. Along with the stares—aggressive but reverent, following him everywhere, like their owners thought that he belonged to their eyes, like it was their right to take a chunk of this commodity that graced them with his presence for themselves—he wasn't even surprised with himself when he went to speak to Kingsley after the first seven months, close to the end of his training. It was also the first time he consciously used the privilege of being Harry Potter. He didn't even bother to inform the Deputy Colman, who oversaw recruitment, or any of his instructors. No, he went straight to the Minister for Magic to tell him that he wouldn't be attending his assessment at this time, and he left it to him to handle the bureaucracy. Kingsley, of course, assured him that it was fine, that he had all the time he needed, and that whenever he felt ready, they would be waiting for him with open arms.

Ever since, Kingsley has been checking in with him every couple of months. Harry's answer has stayed the same.

"Don't you think a full-time job might help with that?"

Harry shrugged.

When that was the only reaction he got, Kingsley continued, "If you're still feeling stuck, then it won't go away on its own. Have you thought of talking to someone?"

And suddenly Harry was sent back to that day at the end of his eighth year, sitting in McGonagall's office and attempting to have a civil conversation with his most hated potion master and spy extraordinaire. Snape's words were coming back to haunt him. When he protested weakly that therapy wasn't something wizards knew much about and going to a muggle therapist would be completely pointless, Kingsley of course had an answer to that too.

"My sister-in-law has a practice, actually. She uses a lot of muggle techniques. You know that Roddy…"

Harry blinked. Yes, he knew, even though he hadn't been aware of the existence of Kingsley's brother until the last New Year's Eve party.

It was a nasty story. Roderick Shacklebolt was born a squib and was promptly cast away, as was common practice at the time. Not that it's changed all that much; it might have been hip to be progressive ever since the war ended, but it didn't suddenly make people happy to have magicless kids. Roderick ended up in the States, where he was a part of some kind of government special forces, and married a muggleborn witch who was indeed a therapist. They didn't come back to Britain until after the war ended; the atmosphere wasn't all that friendly before, to put it mildly, but also, not to sound crude, they waited until the old Mr. and Mrs. Shacklebolt wouldn't be bothered by Roderick's presence anymore. Harry had no idea before that Kingsley's mom had been murdered when Kingsley refused to stay in line after Pius Thicknesse became Minister. The Shacklebolts weren't even fully anti-Voldemort. Neutral, as far as Harry understood. After his wife's death, Kingsley's dad left Britain; Kingsley wasn't forthcoming as to what happened to him.

Apparently, it was much easier to re-join British wizarding society when your brother was the Minister and pro-squib rights.

Making it possible for Harry to work with her was way harder than it sounds and way harder than it would have been under regular circumstances. Doctor Diane Frost had to take multiple oaths and sign multiple NDAs in order to have the doubtful pleasure of psychoanalysing Harry. She was deeply offended by the assumption that otherwise she might break doctor-patient confidentiality, but she knew a top-level patient when she saw one and didn't put up much of a fight. Harry would have never thought to secure himself—and the wizarding world—to such a degree on his own without Kingsley and Roderick holding his hand. Well, nobody says that Harry doesn't have plenty left to learn.

And here he is, turning over a new leaf. Some cynical part of him doesn't believe it will get him anywhere. Why the hell would talking to a stranger make him want to go out, meet someone, do something new, or start living when that is the exact problem: that he has no desire to do either of these things?

But he's tired and so fucking scared that he reached his prime at seventeen when he was manipulated into murdering someone in order to survive, and that would forever be the only entry on his list of achievements.

Because that can't be it. He kinda wants to become an auror. Or figure out what else he could become. He kinda wants to find a hobby, fall in love, learn a new language, fuck someone, or do any of the things he sees people around him doing. Only he can't quite bring himself to it.

Diane adjusts her glasses. Harry grits his teeth.

"I wanna get better."