Wearing Memories

AN: I've had a lot going on lately and for everyone that's wondering... don't worry, I'm working on Forgotten Boundaries! I apologise immensly for the delay in the next chapter of that one. I will finish that story before I post anymore, so I can just post one chapter a night so no one yells at me to continue cause I feel so terrible when I can't.

Anyway, this story was necessary for a bit of closure in my life and I couldn't get the idea out of my head.

Please read and review... it is a hard subject, but it's a common one. If this hits anyone close to home, I want to apologise. And if it's triggering to anyone, I want to apologise even more. Thank you for reading this if you do.

---


He certainly didn't count on it happening. No, it all started with a misake. This wasn't supposed to happen. Especially not this.

"Harry..."

The way she had said his name, and she was looking at him... not at his face, but at his arm.

No, the tear on his sleeve was not supposed to be there.

No, this wasn't right.

And as she stared at it, he was frozen. He saw her eyes water, and he didn't know what to do.

Yeah... he remembered how it had started.


---


No underage wizardry was allowed outside of Hogwarts. Even if he could make the wounds heal quickly or the scars disappear, he probably wouldn't. Finally, he was feeling something... something that wasn't just emotional. No, this was pain.

Being locked in his bedroom at the Dursleys' was not a shock to him. He had expected it, and if they hadn't locked him in there, he would have done it voluntarily. He didn't want to see anyone.

No, he had enough on his mind.

It all started with the mirror.

Sirius' mirror.

He felt lucky that he could at least keep his posessions in his room. But when he was emptying his pack, the pieces of the mirror landed all over the floor.

Like a jigsaw puzzle, Harry would spend every day trying to piece it together, constantly whispering Sirius' name.

Memories of Sirius would flood his head, and he wanted to cry, but he couldn't. He couldn't cry over his dead godfather. Dead. Gone forever. He would never see Sirius again.

And he had to keep reminding himself of that fact, that Sirius was gone. Just to try to get himself to cry, but it never worked... he was numb.

Jagged bits of mirror pieced together, reflecting Harry's face as if it was destroyed as well.

'May as well be,' he thought bitterly.

A loud CRASH! in the next room made Harry jump, a piece of the mirror dug itself into his left hand.

Dudley had slammed his door.

It was that simple, really. Dudley slammed his door. It made Harry jump. When Harry jumped, a sharp object he was holding cuts into his hand.

Something that simple could really change Harry's life.


---


He found himself frozen, watching her as tears started falling.

She was crying, Harry had made her cry again.

He didn't know what to do.


---


Blood was pooling on his hand. He stared at it.

It didn't hurt, really.

Well, it did. It wasn't that kind of pain, though.

He tried not to think about it.

Instead he laid down on his bed, and slept.

He hated sleeping. Sleeping led him to dreams that led him to thinking about Sirius and his friends, which led him to remember that he had not gotten a single letter since he had arrived at the Dursley's.

Not one. He didn't expect much, the war had started, he knew things were going on. But not even a 'hello'. Just... nothing.

He was barely eating now. Food would get shoved through that shitty little hole in the door. Not much, but enough to survive on. And it stopped looking appetising long ago.

That mirror.

Whenever he couldn't think of something to do, he would drift towards the mirror. His last little bit of hope of contacting someone. He wasn't sure why he felt so compelled to put it back together. In a part of his mind he hoped that if he could, maybe Sirius would return.

It was a stupid notion. But it kept him going, and if it kept him going, then good. That's all he could hope for, a reason.

He couldn't let himself die knowing there was a small bit of hope that Sirius was alive.

But somehow, whenever he'd look at the mirror, his thoughts would drift away from Sirius to his hand. The wound had begun to heal a bit, mostly becoming a strange yellowish color, with dried blood surrounding it.

And what compelled him to grab the sharpest shard of the mirror he could find and drag it across his arm, he didn't know.

All he knew was that the pain felt so relieving and seeing the blood, seeing something so real, was euphoria.

He stared at it for a little while.

Then dragged it again.


---


She continued to stare at the purple scars on his arm, and reached her arm out.

He instinctively pulled back.

Her eyes met his.

Neither of them said a word.


---


It only took a few weeks for his arm to become etched with marks of every terrible thought he's had since being at the Dursleys. Every horrible memory that would say hello to him were now not only in his mind, but literally written on his body.

It was like a horrible fashion accessory that no one else can see. He would never let anyone see.

His arm scared him. He would look at it, just being reminded, constantly reminded that his life was pure shit. Nothing was going right. This wasn't supposed to happen to him, was it? Had his life really been planned since he was a baby?

Everything was against him.

'And now I have this,' he would realise. 'No one planned this.'

And then a letter came.

--
Dear Harry,

We will be coming to get you soon. Be ready. Sorry we can't tell you more.

Love,

Hermione and Ron
--

He didn't cut for two days.

He let himself go downstairs. Uncle Vernon was at work, Dudley was off with his friends, Aunt Petunia was somewhere in the house where Harry could not see.

He had no idea what he was looking for. He just felt compelled to do something.

He was torn between being extremely angry that they had not gotten him yet, and somewhat content that he had gotten some form of contact from his friends. It hurt him that they go through these times of not really caring.

"I'm not just this guy that you have to preserve so I can fight Voldemort," he wanted to yell at them, "I'm a FUCKING PERSON!"

He found a lighter.

Just lying there, on the counter.

He picked it up and stared at it for a moment, before he lit it. He held his thumb down, staring at the small fire.

There was something powerful about holding this, knowing what damage something so small could cause.

He started counting.

'10, 11, 12...'

Staring at the lighter...

'19, 20, 21...'

Continuing to stare...

'28, 29, 30.'

He rolled up his sleeve and quickly pressed it down on his arm.

"Shit," he muttered, but quickly the pain stopped. Something else kicked in. It felt amazing. He forgot all about the pain.

He pulled off the lighter from his skin, and stared down. There was a white mark where the hot metal had been pressed.

A few hours later the burn emerged.


---


"Why?" she asked timidly, her voice small but the silence in the room made it seem deafening.

He couldn't respond. He didn't want to tell her.

Why the fuck did this sleeve have to rip, he thought. Why did she have to find out?


---


It was an entire week later when the Order had come to "rescue" Harry from the Dursleys'.

Earlier that day he was staring at his arm, now littered with bloody smiley faces. 'Ironic,' he had thought when he realised that a lighter burn would create a design like that. He picked at the scabs constantly. The burns took much longer to heal, and at this point he was convinced that they would never heal. And he really didn't mind.

"Harry!" Hermione had squealed when she had seen him.

"Hi," he barely said back, not returning her hug.

And finally, at the Weasleys', she had found him alone in a room, and there they were.

And the first thing she noticed was the rip in his sleeve.


---


He looked at her, tears streaming down her face, and he felt something fall on his cheek. He realised he was crying too.

She reached her hand forward and brushed away his tear, and he didn't move away from her.

Her hand tentatively went down and covered his.

She wasn't looking down anymore, but she was pleading with him.

Her hand lightly brushed his sleeve, their stare never breaking, and he gave her a reluctant, almost nonexistent nod. He wasn't even sure he had done it, but she knew. She'd always somehow known.

She pulled his sleeve up slowly, and he watched her look down, her mouth dropping and her watery eyes widening.

She lightly ran her hand over the scars, then ran her hand up his arm, then quickly leaned in and pressed her lips to his cheek.

"It's alright," she said softly, pulling him into a hug. "I love you."

He didn't say it back, just hugged her as tight as he could. No declarations of love were necessary, and Hermione knew this. But she had never said it to him before, and he knew how much it meant.

"Thank you," he whispered, her shirt quickly becoming soaked with his tears of the first time he'd truly cried in a long time,and it felt better than any faux-fix that he'd done this summer.

"Don't worry," she whispered back, "I need you too."

FIN