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—
Harry had always been different. He had never once in his life felt as if he fit in. He had never once felt a well and true sense of belonging, there was no concrete reason for this.
A very large part of his soul had been so relieved to find the magic inside him revealed as more than just a trick his eyes played on him or a result of a past head trauma.
He was severely disappointed to find he was still an outsider in the wizarding world.
Harry would never say it out loud for fear of offending those around but- how does one manage to be a freak in a sea of freaks?
He blamed it on his past, his parents and their own pasts- he didn’t get on with others because of the natural fame the faint scar on his forehead held. He didn’t get on well with others because they were raised as wizards. He didn’t get on with others because he was a freak.
These excuses both proved and disproved themselves, the idea that Harry didn’t get on with wizard raised children because they simply were that- wizard raised: was a paradoxical concept. Harry never really held a substantial or meaningful conversation with anyone his age- wizard or not.
Nobody ever seemed to know what he was talking about, he tended to ramble on and on- reiterating the same point over and over again until he felt heard to a crowd that was not listening.
Nobody seemed to agree with him on certain textures being unbearably ‘loud’ to his touch. His muggle school grades always came back perfect. Almost perfect.
The notes would say something like: “a pleasure to teach, very observant but needs to participate more.” Or “incredibly bright pupil, but needs to work on his organization skills.”
Harry had discovered at seven years old- if his physical education class had an odd number of attendees nobody would notice if he sat under the risers in gym class, picking at the grass until the hour was up.
Harry seemed to struggle with speech so much more than anyone else did. Holding a proper tone, inflection, conduct, interjection and phrasing while keeping a half-smile was exhausting. People often thought his jokes were serious statements and would correct him on the accuracy of his words.
More often than not when he would raise his hand in class, the other students laughed at his answers and seemed to have no explanation for why his words drew such a response.
Harry hated embarrassment the most, it was by far the worst feeling. Since Hogwarts- he had no reason to feel so mortified by small mistakes every student of his age makes. But he did. Somehow- he feels he is above all of this. The initial ostracization had severed the ties, and at least on a subconscious level: he subsequently thought of himself as older. He inflated the ideas of stupidity and immaturity of peers around him, he acted older than his age. He needed to be the best.
From an outsider perspective, there was no rational explanation for the pressure he applied to himself. Not in isolation.
He felt as if he had very few friends, if he ever vocalized any of the former- it would be met with empty reassurance and silent, internal judgement.
Harry knew from the way they could all laugh the little things off he was different. He knew the way embarrassment bubbled through his intestines and squeezed around his brain wasn’t normal. He would lay awake while others slept, replaying, repeating, analyzing moments of the day and digging his nails into his arm to relieve the burning sensation of mortification.
Noises seemed louder and louder as the day went on, only his close friends seemed to know how quiet he really was.
Late October of his second ever year at Hogwarts- Harry had been practicing Quidditch drills for hours now.
The midweek day had consisted of waking up early to finish an assignment he had stayed up late for, eating toast Hermione smuggled in her bookbag on the way to double potions, nearly failing the lesson’s assessment despite his rigorous studies, showing up late to charms and having to walk to his seat while stared at and reprimanded, eating far too much at lunch leading to a very steep climb of stairs only to listen to Professor Lockhart verbally suck himself off - (Harry only every really thought these things)- for two hours and hiking himself to History of magic- where his near-nap was interrupted by the sudden end of class.
After an hour of respite that was intended for studying (Harry slept in his dorm, dreams polluted with the loud banter from the common rooms), dinner was served- which Harry skipped. He already felt overfull. This was a mistake because not even twenty minutes into a rainy, cold and dark Quidditch practice, Harry was starving.
So here he was- drenched in rain and mud in his Quiddage robes, sitting in the Gryffendor locker rooms twenty minutes past the end of practice with Fred and George, eating over ten of their toffees with utter disregard for the shreds of wax paper still stuck to the chunks of processed sugar.
Fred and George were talking about something Harry couldn’t quite discern. He was listening- but he had missed the initial few sentences and was void entirely of the context that likely wouldn’t be helpful to understanding the twin’s collective flow of consciousness being verbally spewed.
Harry could not tell you exactly what happened to land him sitting on the floor up against a locker, eating candy from people he really shouldn’t take food from. But he could tell you that was where he was now.
He stopped after about the twelfth piece, his hands sticky and his stomach aching from sugar content. He could feel the fuzz of plaque forming on his molars and the back of his throat stinging for water.
Harry made a mental note to pay them back for the sweets. He had already totaled their car this year- Harry didn't need to make a worse impression then he already had. You could fry an egg on his face right now.
He reseals the bag’s twist-tie, setting the clear plastic bag halfway filled with toffees down on the bench as he slips out of the room. He tries to thank them, but can’t find a good opportunity to butt in. So he slips out of the locker rooms with a pocket full of wrappers.
On the way back to the common rooms, mosquitos bit at his muddy skin, hot, humid air doing little to help his irritation. He had long realized he had neglected to shower in the locker rooms, he had not planned to. There was very little privacy there when it came to changing and showers. Absolutely not, Harry had enough of people asking him overly personal questions about himself.
Harry took privacy when he could, even if it meant carrying his muddy trainers and walking in wet socks all the way through the castle just to wait half an hour for a shower with a functional lock.
It was half an hour till Percy would come and yell at them to go to sleep, not that Percy ever minded if Harry was out of bed. As long as Harry was being quiet and didn’t leave the common room- Percy would let him read in front of the fireplace or watch the moon. None of the prefects seemed to care if you actually slept as long as you were quiet. Harry is great at being quiet.
He took a long, hot shower. The fact he had eaten nothing but sweets for dinner was not lost on his stomach, which ached greatly in any position except the biologically impossible ones.
In other words. Harry had a shitty day. And he had nobody to talk to about it. And he still had fucking homework. His head is starting to pound from his terrible choices, he sits down on the shower floor. It’s more of a squat actually, the shower floor is disgusting, he’s not touching it more than he has to.
The position isn’t any better, it strains his exhausted back less but his legs are doing three times the work. He sputters the water out of his mouth every few seconds, He’s already washed up. He’s staying here as a means of processing the day’s events, trying to piece together what he could push off and what he needed to do.
Harry needs to borrow Ron’s notes from him for History of Magic- assuming he’s already copied from Hermione, he needs to put his clothes to be washed- especially the ones he was just wearing, he can’t forget to complete the short answer prompts on the book Professor Lockheart wrote… he was missing something..
Fuck.
Harry had detention tonight, more specifically- he had detention with Snape several hours ago. Harry is so fucked. He retracts his nails from where they dig into his palms, hissing softly at the mineral-hardened cold water pours into the purple crescents as the water starts to swirl with the released blood.
Maybe if he faked sick tomorrow some of the responsibilities would sort themselves out. A rationalization passed through his mind, overwhelmed with the logical realization that that plan would never work, has never worked, and will never work.
Harry is so royally fucked.
–
Harry tugs on some pyjama bottoms and a jumper, he brushes his teeth and he wraps his dirty clothes in his used towel. Harry washes his glasses in the sink, normally soap and water were a bad idea for cleaning lenses. Harry could not give less of a shit right now.
He pushes the damp frames onto his face, drops of water impeding his view. He lights a candle and sits down at a table in the common room with his homework, finding an additional worksheet at the bottom of his bag that he had apparently haphazardly crammed in several days ago during Divination.. That was due tomorrow.
Fuck this. Fuck Harry’s life. Fuck everything, actually. Fuck the Sorting Hat- and the Snitch, and Dumbledore and Snape and especially Lockheart- fucking Lockheart. Fuck.
There was really no other option than to sit down and do the work until he was done. His brain felt like it had been soaked in warm water, unraveled and synapses incapable of firing in an order that caused competent thought. His entire body ached now, not just his stomach. He feels shaky and.. Angry. His head pounds and the end of the quill in his mouth was shedding fibres.
Harry puts his head on the table. Nobody would care if he cried, as long as he was quiet. He was alone. Alone in his studies, alone in his classes, alone in conversations and parties. Alone. Nobody would mind if he put his head down and just- cried for a little while.
Tears, overtired, warm tears sting his eyes. His lower lip wobbles and his chin wrinkles. He starts to hiccup. He jams the excess of his sleeve in his mouth, resting his head on the table as he cries, his nails dig into his palms and wet themselves with blood.
He had only intended to whine and pout enough to relive the tense emotion inside him, then return to his work. But the actions had opened the floodgates, choked sobs wrenching themselves from his chest as he cried. He’s not being remotely quiet, he’s aware. But he’s quite confident nobody would care enough to interrupt him.
Apparently not. The dark room floods with the light of a second candle dish. Percy appears at the end of the Boy’s dormitory's staircase.
“Harry.” He deadpans- He’s not mad, Percy is consistently monotone. Something Harry appreciates. He’ll clarify if he’s joking, he speaks so methodically- it’s easier to hold conversation with people.. Like him. People like Harry. Weird people.
Harry looks up at the elder teen with a blotchy, blubbering expression, rubbing his face with his sleeves. “..sorry.” He mumbles, hiccuping.
Percy huffs, striding over- he sits down next to Harry and starts to organize his papers.. And then he starts to fill them out, using his left hand to mimic Harry’s scrawled writing. Harry looks at him in awe. Percy. Percy Weasley. Plagiarizing for him.
Percy gives him an indignant look. “If you ever tell anyone I did this for you, I’ll throw you into the Whomping Willow.” He scratches out a sentence Harry previously wrote. “Why is the end of your quill wet?” Percy sighs, writing at four times the speed Harry ever could.
“..thanks.” Harry mumbles, pulling his glasses off to rub his palms into his eyes. He could feel the burning embarrassment in his face. It was well known that Harry was a crybaby. He did little to deny it.
In his opinion, crying is an incredibly effective form of emotional respite. Obviously he didn’t like to cry in front of people, and he didn’t want to be known as some sensitive, delicate thing.
Crying was for anger and frustration, being cold and distant was for sadness and pinching his skin was for embarrassment. Not that he would say it out loud though.
Regardless, he did prefer to have his breakdowns in solitude. Not while sitting next to the most eclectic of the Weasley children, in the dead of night, watching his homework be completed for him as he sat there like a lump with a wet mop of hair and wet cheeks.
Percy looks over at him, raising an eyebrow. “…go to bed.” He sounds confused on why the boy isn’t already in bed.
Harry swallows thickly, wiping his face on his sleeves before he replaces his glasses and stands.
—
Harry had received a consistent grading for Percy’s work. Exceeds Expectations from everyone but Professor Snape, from whom he had earned a low ‘Acceptable’.
Speaking of the devil, Harry was currently doing double detention, it was eight at night and freezing in the office from the open window. Snape had assigned him only one night of detention initially, it was for something stupid in the first place. Harry had come in on time, but the professor insisted that on time was late, even though Malfoy strolled into the class twenty minutes later.
Harry was in the classroom with the professor, cleaning cauldrons by hand as he graded. For most students, this would be a terrible punishment: cleaning by hand. But Harry was better at cleaning the manual way than any spell he could have used.
Harry thought about scraping up Malfoy’s cauldron with the steel wool sponge he was using. But the noise was so horrid he decided against it.
The harsh chemical he was using to neutralize and magical residue in the cauldron stung the cuts in his hands terribly. Harry bit his nails, usually in a sharp, jagged pattern because of the terrible misalignment of his teeth (Hermione had made it very clear he needed braces). This fact had the simple side effect that when, not if- Harry dug his nails in until his palms filled with blood, the cuts didn’t heal evenly. Or quickly.
Harry breaks the silence of the room as a metal strand of the scrub catches on a water-swollen cut. He inhaled sharply, hissing in pain as blood started to drool into the cauldron.
The other thing about palms, they have lots of pressure points- making them great for grounding. They also have plenty of nerves to communicate to Harry’s brain that the cut has been forced open and the chemical is burning and stinging and foaming up.
Harry staggers over to the sink, turning on the water and holding the wound under the running flow, he bites his lip at the water pressure.
“Potter.”
If Harry had a sickle for every time a terribly serious person called his name while he was crying, he’d have two sickles. Which isn’t a lot- but it’s weird that it happened twice.
Harry nearly jumps out of his skin. Professor Snape has appeared behind him without so much as a whisper of noise. He turns the water off, shoving wet hands into his robe pockets before he turns to face the man.
“Professor.” He tries to mimic his tone, not wanting to show his weakness.
Professor Snape sighs, rubbing his temples. “Show me your hands.” Harry opens his mouth to respond. “Now, Potter.”
Harry pulls out his damp hands, now coated with a fine layer of pocket fuzz and lint. He points his palms to the floor.
“I haven’t got all day.” His Professor sneers, taking his wrists and flipping them over. His grip is much more gentle then Harry would have characterized him as.
There’s no gasp or shocked expression that Harry can discern, Professor Snape just simply.. examines. Harry can watch his eyes as they trace over every wound. The marks are deep purple crescents that have split open with a yellow ooze in reaction to the chemical.
It’s almost a minute of silence before the professor drops his hands from his grasp. “Get over here.” He strides away, expecting Harry to follow him- which he does after a few seconds.
Professor Snape pulls a chair up to his desk, giving a sharp point at it, intending for Harry to sit down. Harry does not sit.
Professor Snape sits down in his own chair, opening a locked drawer. “Did I not tell you to sit?” He asks sarcastically. Harry bites his tongue to stop himself from mentioning that no, actually he didn’t.
Harry sits down, sitting with his feet on the chair and his knees to his chest. Snape is.. bandaging him. He cleans the wounds and rubs some sort of paste onto his hands before wrapping the wounds.
The gauze and tape are neat, not pulled too tight and the adhesive has no irritating itch. Snape throws a pair of disposable gloves at Harry’s chest. When he stares blankly at them- he elaborates in a condescending tone.
“Put them on. Clean. Take them off. Keep the tape on. Do you also need to be told to not use chemicals when you have open wounds?” He rolls his eyes, pointing at the cauldrons that still need to be cleaned. “Shoo.”
Harry gladly follows the last order. He tugs on the gloves and finishes up the cauldron. By the time he’s done it’s nearly 9:30 and he has missed dinner. He would have to return on the following Friday to complete his sentence.
He drags himself to the common rooms, finding the room surprisingly empty for this time of night, he crumples onto a vacant couch with his bag of incomplete scrolls on the floor. Lying on his stomach, he kicks his trainers off and instantly falls asleep.
—
Harry woke up in his bed. The moon was nearly full outside the window. He was under the covers. Someone had carried him up.
“How do you feel?” Ron scares the shit out of him, apparently standing in the doorframe.. Watching him sleep.
Harry gives a high pitched yelp, falling onto his stomach as he rolls off the bed. He groans as he feels his body collide with the hardwood floor. He knows it’s Ron because literally anyone else would have known to use a cushioning charm.
Harry rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “Spectacular.” Ron is in stitches laughing, the kind of laugh only your best mate can really do. One that’s at your expense, but belongs to someone who’s still going to help you up.
Harry forces himself back onto his feet, taking Ron’s hand. “Who carried me up?” He groans, fumbling for his glasses.
“I did, you’re really light. What happened to your hands?” Their usual flow of conversation started up, a series of interrogative questions aimed at the other over the enormous stash of non-perishable treats in Ron’s trunk. At the beginning of the year, Ron had overbought on treats after ‘finding’ a Galleon on the floor under his bed. Listen, Harry had to repay him for the Howler somehow. And it’s not like he would outright take it.
Regardless, Harry had offered Ron to simply store his clothes alongside Harry’s- as he really only had the basics in there. So now Ron’s clothes reside smushed up against Harry’s. The boys both sit on Ron’s bed over a bag of crisps. Harry was fucking starving. He had eaten pretty much fuck all nutritionally over the past week. The chips are only really contributing to the problem that Harry has eaten solely empty calories, but he’s hungry. And they are here.
“Where is everyone?” Harry roughly swallows a mouthful, dodging the question. “Were you watching me sleep?’
Ron shrugs “Filch is out of the Castle for the night.” He brushes the salt off his hands onto his shirt “What happened to your hands?”
Fuck. He wasn’t dropping it. Harry made up a fairly believable lie. “I had to de-thorn dried roses for detention.”
—
“Potter. You’re late.” Professor Snape mentions the moment Harry enters the room, not waiting even a moment. Harry wonders how long he’s been waiting to say it, he’s probably the type to rehearse these things in his head.
“Sorry sir.” Harry grits out, sitting in the chair he’s motioned at across the Professor’s desk. He expects to be writing lines or something stupid like that.
“Hands.” Snape asserts like it makes any sense at all, barely bothering to look at Harry over the stack of essays he’s assigning grades to.
“Er.. What?” Harry pushes up his glasses.
“Merlin..” The Professor rubs his temples. “Your hands, Potter. Show me them.”
Harry holds back the urge to roll his eyes, extending his hands to the man- still adorned with the bandages. He had tried to remove them the previous night and found them magically bound and incredibly strong. The professor loosens them with a simple spell, revealing the wounds entirely healed. “Whoa..” Harry astonishes, flexing his healed palms.
“Good to know my reputation as a competent Potions’ Professor does not proceed me.” Snape retorts sarcastically.
“What do you want me to do?” Harry questions, adding on a ‘sir’ as an afterthought.
The man scowls, opening up a desk drawer and rummaging around. He pulls out a thin, long sort of flat stick.. It’s rough and curved at the edges. “What’s that?” Harry questions, feeling his feet swing under the table- he was bored.
“A nail file. It makes sense you’ve never seen one with the state of you.” Snape grits, even Harry can tell he’s trying very hard to act colder then he is. “Hold still.”
The rough, sandpaper-y side scrapes against the edge of his nail, smoothing it down with the heated smell of friction. Harry feels his nose scrunch at the sensation. The dust that came from it made him exceptionally uncomfortable- but the touch was gentle. He liked the personal attention- even if it really made no sense for Snape to be doing this.
At the end, Harry’s nails were… very short. Like- they stopped before his fingers did. He couldn’t pick up a playing card off the table.
“Potter. I find you arrogant and insufferable. But I will not allow you to injure yourself out of stress. You are a student and I hold responsibility to ensure you do not perish from sepsis. Are we clear?” He deadpans, glaring.
“Uh-huh.” Harry nods, chewing on his lip absentmindedly.
Professor Snape slumps over his desk, sighing with exasperation. “Merlin’s beard. Potter! We are actively talking about not causing self injury. Stop that this instant!”
“Right.” Harry wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his jumper. “Sorry.”
“Just-” The professor digs through a different drawer, pulling out a small rubber bouncy ball, likely confiscated years ago by the way whatever charm it had has worn off. He transfigures it into a long sort of cylinder, and raises spikes on the edges, looping around the shape. About a hundred tiny little blunt rubber spikes. “Take that. And for the love of god, don’t let a wound get infected.”
“What do I do with it?” Harry questions, tilting his head to the side.
The professor stares at him like he’s an idiot. “...You squeeze it instead of slicing your palms open with those talons of yours.”
“Oh.” Harry responds dumbly, pocketing the object.
“Get out. I’m done with you- detention served.” Snape shoos- the palm of his pale hands flashing towards Harry. He has.. The same marks. The same crescent shaped scars, they’re raised and pinkish.
Harry leaves before the man can change his mind.