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Everyone knows Harry Potter has a temper.
After so many years living with him - in the same dorms, the same House, the same castle - it's impossible not to know about Potter's infamous temper. No one - not even his friends - is safe from that angry fire in his green eyes or the venom in his words when he's angry.
What everyone doesn't know is why he has that temper.
Some might assume he takes after one or both of his parents - those who knew James and Lily Potter can remember, with a frightened shudder, how volcanic James could get when truly angered, or how hot Lily burned when irked. Others, who know the Dursleys, would chalk it up to a bad family situation and internalizing what Harry grew up with. After all, if you live with people whose only response to bad things is hitting, yelling and spitting insults all over the place long enough, you start to externalize your emotions in the same way. Nurture over nature.
Harry, though, knows that it very well could be a combination of both. And he's the only one - aside from Ron and Hermione most likely - who knows that his anger isn't the only emotion he feels too deeply, too intensely, too much-ly.
Harry's always had anger issues. He might have been normal once, but he doesn't remember a time before his first response to something going wrong was to punch and kick and scream. He drops a plate while drying dishes and it breaks? He wants to take the whole rack and send it crashing to the ground while he yells his frustrations and cuts his hands open. He can't get a spell right on the first ten tries? He's this close to breaking his wand in two and punching a wall.
Not very healthy at all.
But at some point - probably around the time he got locked in the cupboard for a week after he punched Dudley back in anger and frustration at his cousin always driving the school kids away from him - he's learned to, let's say, manage that anger. Bite his lip, chew on his tongue, clench his fists, crumple a sheet of paper into a ball and squeeze it - anything that can keep his attention until he calms down or force him to keep his mouth shut.
Harry doesn't really know when the problems started. Not really. All he knows is that, at some point, his anger issues turned into every-emotion-issues. Suddenly, he realizes that it's not just his anger that's too much - it's everything else too.
Harry is well used to depression - after Cedric (and if he's being honest, he wasn't doing too well before that either) it was basically impossible not to sink into depression, no matter how hard he tried - and its knack for stealing his enjoyment from anything he likes, but it's rather unusual for his high from winning the match against Slytherin to not even last an evening. He finds himself sitting on a sofa with his friends and classmates all around him, the music blasting throughout the Common Room and the voices of people laughing and singing and talking washing over him, and he doesn't feel anything.
The smile he wore for a few hours after the match is nowhere to be seen. The pure, unadulterated joy coursing through his veins, so potent that he felt like he could fly without a broom, that made him want to sing and dance and take Ron and Hermione by the hand and spin them around - it's gone. He doesn't feel sad, or angry, or depressed, or bored, or or or. He simply. feels. nothing.
It's disconcerting, to say the least.
And when Ron nudges him with his foot and raises a silent eyebrow at Harry's blank face, Harry is full of so much apathy, so much nothingness that he can't even will himself to fake a smile. He just mouths, 'it's nothing', ignores Ron's dubious look, and hangs around for 20 more minutes to avoid looking suspicious before he retreats to his dorm and slides under the covers of his soft bed.
The weirdness doesn't stop there.
Whereas before, he could get into a spat with Malfoy, get angry for a bit, and then move on with his day, now those interactions play in his head for hours, even days, and they refuse to leave . Malfoy insults his parents one day - a usual occurrence, nothing Harry hasn't heard before - and suddenly Harry goes cold all over, a lump of grief and anger and loss forms in his stomach, and it's like a door has been pulled shut on his emotions. All he can feel is that awful cocktail of darkness and all he wants to do is go up to Gryffindor Tower and curl up in his bed for the rest of the day.
Usually, that feeling sticks with him for some time, though he never knows how long it will be. Sometimes it's a few hours. Other times it's a few days. And sometimes it's more than a week or two.
What scares Harry the most, though, and what makes him hate himself the hardest, is how, sometimes, he hates his friends so much that he can't even stand being in the same room as them.
Hermione scolds Harry about his homework at some point - again, something she's done a million times over, and which Harry knows is done out of love - and Harry can feel that shutter going down in his chest, can feel how his stomach flips and he's filled with such intense loathing that he surprises even himself. He scrambles to his feet, knocking his chair down and sending his books crashing to the ground in the process, and rushes out of the library, leaving a wide eyed and confused Hermione behind, only so that he doesn't destroy his friendship with the girl.
As he runs, taking twists and turns blindly in search of a place to be alone with his fucked up emotions, Harry can't believe that this is who he is. It feels so foreign yet so familiar - that hatred, that urge to yell at Hermione every bad thought he's ever had about her, to let all of his anger out on her and then never speak to her again.
When he finds an empty and remote classroom, he punches the stone wall so much that his hands are nearly mangled by the time he's done. Madam Pomfrey doesn't even bother to ask how he ended up in that state, knowing she won't receive an answer, and simply fixes him up.
After that, Harry is so fearful of his abnormal reactions, so scared that he'll one day snap and say the wrong thing and drive everyone who cares about him away, that he self-isolates. He stops talking to his friends, stops hanging out with them, always makes excuses and dashes away before anyone can press for answers. He hates himself so much, especially when he sees the hurt and confused looks in Ron and Hermione's eyes, but he tells himself that it really is for the best. They'd be better off without him anyway.
It's not enough that they have a target painted on their backs for associating with the Boy-Who-Lived - they have to put up with Harry's volatile feelings on top of that too.
But Harry is weak. As much as he hates the idea of hurting his friends, he hates being alone even more. It reminds him too much of the Dursleys, of Privet Drive and nights spent curled up in the cupboard with nothing but the spiders to keep him company.
His self-imposed exile doesn't last long. About a week or so later, he comes crawling back to his two best friends, feeling rotten and wanting to crawl out of his skin because of the shame flooding his veins, but he goes back and apologizes.
But Ron and Hermione, who Harry should really give more credit to, are observant too, and they don't accept the apology without an explanation. They've noticed the change in Harry's behavior of late, and they're concerned, and really they have the right to know why their friend pushed them away out of the blue for a week.
Harry would much rather boil his head in one of Snape's poisons than talk about his feelings, though. Feelings he doesn't understand. How is he meant to explain to anybody else?
But Ron's open expression and Hermione's encouraging eyes are hard to resist and say no to. So Harry sinks into the space left between them - a perfect fit for Harry to slot between the redhead and the brunette - and, while avoiding eye contact and picking at his nails, he explains, haltingly, what he's been going through.
After he's done, he feels like he's just run a marathon. His mouth feels dry and like he's swallowed cotton, and his palms are sweaty. But Ron and Hermione are still there, warm and solid on either side of him, touching his thigh or knee or shoulder or bicep, letting him know that they don't love him any less and that they're not going anywhere. It's more than he deserves. And somehow, less than he desires.
After that, there is no more time to dwell on feelings, to try and figure them out and sort them or name them, because Voldemort starts getting ballsy and a war breaks out - a war whose figurehead ends up being none other than Harry himself.
It isn't until the dust has settled over the graves of those they lost, that Harry starts looking into it. With Hermione's help, and Ron's support, Harry goes through muggle psychology books because the wizarding world doesn't have therapists and Harry can't very well talk to a muggle about any of his problems, now can he? And that's where he finds his answer. A name for everything he's been going through. Proof that he's not abnormal, he's not even unique. He's simply a bit damaged.
Harry has Borderline Personality Disorder.
It's not a magical cure. It's not the end of his problems. He can't even get the treatment he needs, not unless he wants to censor 90% of his life. But he has something to identify with. And two friends turned life partners who are willing to deal with his awful mood swings and hold his hand while he struggles through life. So it's easier to live after that, when he's not a lonely, scared teenager dealing with the weight of the world on his own.
Harry knows that he's too much. He knows that his irrational, moody reactions are off putting and exhausting to deal with. But Ron and Hermione never get tired of him, never chase him away, never tell him how worthless he is. They just hold him tighter while they sleep and tell him how much they love him a bit more often than they usually would the next day.
And Harry knows that he's loved in those moments. Because his partners' love is louder than the bitter voice inside his head.