Changing Ideals

Body



Disclaimer: I don\'t own anything! Well, maybe the plot, so yea. Anyway, don\'t sue me, you\'ll get nothing. Well, maybe a headache and lawyer bills.

Warnings: Contains more than hints of abuse and non/con with a minor. Will contain slash of the HP/SS variety. If this offends you, hit the back button and don\'t read. If it doesn\'t, well then by all means, continue.

Chapter 12: More Serious Discussions

Awakening refreshed was definitely something Harry enjoyed doing. A night without nightmares, visions, or memories was truly something he had to marvel at. He began to wonder if he could take something every night to help him sleep, but then remembered from, his readings, that sleep aides, whether they be potions or charms, could become addictive. Some could even poison his system if he didn\'t allow himself to be purged. Sighing mentally, Harry awaited the mediwitch to come in and tell him whether he was to be released today or not. If she said no, then Harry would have to create some havoc to get out of here. He was pretty sure he\'d end up in here again, so he didn\'t feel like spending much time here if he could avoid it.

\"Ah, awake I see Mr. Potter. Well let me just check you over.\" Humming and hawing over Harry, Madame Pomfrey continued her careful explorations of his injuries, needing to see if they had finished healing. Satisfied, she said, \"All right, you\'re free to leave. But I don\'t want to see you in here again for at least another month, if you can manage that. If you\'re in here sooner than that, I may just have to keep you all year.\"

Smiling at her antics, Harry got out of bed atarttarted to dress for the day. Thinking over everything he had to do today, he both cringed and rejoiced at the fact he had someone to talk to tonight. Keeping this all to himself was hard, ha som someone to help would help relieve some of his stress. He just didn\'t want Draco to pity him, or for him to go and tell other people what he said. Gathering the last of his supplies, Harry headed to the Great Hall to start his day.

Sitting down, Harry ignored the food in front of him. Madame Pomfrey had made sure he ate every meal while in the infirmary, and he felt so stuffed that he could explode. He was not use to eating that much food and began to wonder if Madame Pomfrey and Mrs. Weasley were corresponding. It seemed as though both were trying to fatten him up each time they saw him. Grabbing his schedule, Harry noticed that they had Advanced Potions first and then Advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts. Getting his books out for that subject, Harry started skimming over what they were doing that day and checking over his homework, making sure he hadn\'t left anything out.

\"Morning, Harry...HARRY! Shouldn\'t you still be in the infirmary?\" Millicent asked the boy. Explaining that he had been released, Harry asked her how she did on her DADA homework. Going red from embarrassment, she replied that it wasn\'t even adequately done because she didn\'t understand it. This was one of things she was going to ask Harry to help her with. Smiling, Harry grabbed his notes on the Patronus Charm and began to help Millie out with her problem. Before breakfast was over, she was smiling like Harry and thanking him for explaining it to her. She had a very definite grasp t not now, and was feeling very confident that she would be able to get some silvery smoke out of her wand like the others. Proud with her progress, Harry looked down at his watch, shot out of his seat, yelling Potions was going to start in five minutes, and bolted from the room.

\"Well, well. What do we have here? If it isn\'t the little traitor, all alone. No little Slytherin buddies to help him \" t\" two burly, seventh year Gryffindors, and a few others from Hufflepuff, stopped Harry on his way to Potions. \"Without them, it\'s open season on you. No one to protect you,\" they sneered.

Narrowing his eyes, Harry said, \"I don\'t need anyone\'s protection.\" Stressing the wordd, Hd, Harry drew his wand from his pocket, pointing it at the closest student to him.

\"And if he did, he\'d have ours.\" Turning towards the voice, the students noticed Ron, Hermione, Neville, Lavender, and Seamus had their wands trained at them. They also noticed that the Slytherins were starting to advance upon them as well.

\"Don\'t worry, Potter. We\'ll get you soon.\" Not waiting around to be cursed, the student left. Turning towards the others, Harry didn\'t know if he should feel grateful that they wanted to help him, or annoyed that they were proving him wrong. When he said he didn\'t need help, he didn\'t expect so many other people to jump into his fight.

Deciding on grateful, Harry gave a relieved smile to those who had come to his aid. Thanking them profusely, he then informed them that they were all late to Potions. Hurtling along, the unlikely group finally arrived to their class, three minutes after the class started. When they entered, they noticed a peeved Potions Master stalking around the front of the classroom.

\"And just where have you all been? This had better be good, or it will be a massive deduction of points and detention for the lot! I thought you knew by now not to be late to my class!?\" Enraged, Severus awaited an answer from the panting students. He couldn\'t believe that his Slytherins were late! The Gryffindors he expected it from, but not his own House. Waiting expectantly, Severus nearly fell over when he heard the explanation. \"So, Harry was accosted, you Gryffindors decided to help your friend, and the Slytherins also came to your aid? You expect me to believe this?\" Incredulously, Severus listened as the story was confirmed by his Slytherins. Inwardly, he beamed that they had decided to allow House rivalries to lie, why they helped out a common friend in need. It also made him proud that the Gryffindors were coming to their senses.

\"Well then, Gryffindors, that\'s 15 points each...awarded to Gryffindor for standing up for what you know is right and helping a friend in need. That is also 15 points awarded to each Slytherin for setting aside House rivalries to help a fellow Slytherin in need. Now, I suggest if you don\'t want to loose those newly acquired points, you take your seats, so we may start the lesson!\" Hurriedly sitting down, they all beamed at the fact they got the most biased teacher to award real points to Gryffindor.

Working through Potions, Harry was able to distract his mind from what would occur later tonight. When Potions was over, he headed to DADA, still not thinking of the inevitable chat he and Draco were going to have. Making his way into the classroom, Harry took a seat up front, hoping to have a good class. Once everyone was there, Professor Lupin had them work on the Patronus Charm again. Harry went around and helped everyone with the Professor and the lesson went rather smoothly.

After DADA, the Slytherins made their way to lunch. Although he was still not hungry, Harry ate a little. He didn\'t want unnecessary questions over his eating habits. Chatting with his class mates, Harry really enjoyed lunch. Talking with Blaise was a blast. He always seemed to have hidden innuendoes in about everything he said. Greg and Vince were both excellent conversationalists that Harry enjoyed holding debates over the merits of charms that made you fly over flying on a broomstick. Harry stuck to flying on a broomstick, while they tried to convince him that it was better to use a charm. Millie, as he now called Millicent, and Pansy both supplied him with what was going on around the castle, without sounding like gossip queens.

Leaving lunch, they headed to Charms. Unfortunately, this class was shared with Hufflepuffs. That wasn\'t something they were particularly looking forward to. Seething inwardly about how unjust they were being, Harry and the other Slytherins managed to not hex the daylights out of the Hufflepuffs, leaving them in the condition they came in at. Sighing in malcontent, Harry made his way to the dormitories to put his books away. These were things he would not need for his and Draco\'s little chat. After making sure every thing was in its proper place, Harry made the long haul to Fluffy\'s old room for their talk.

Entering, Harry sat on the floor, thinking about how he wanted to go about this with Draco. When the door opened, Harry tensed up, afraid that Draco would tell him he didn\'t actually want to listen to any of this, and he\'d be better off pushing his problems off onto someone else. These fears were alleviated when Draco sat down across from Harry.

\"Well, I think you should be relaxed for this sort of chat, so I\'m going to ask you a few simple questions to relax you first. Number one, what\'s your favorite color?\" Draco asked.

Looking at him as though he\'d gone mental, Harry replied, \"Red. I see so much of that color, that it has just stuck on me.\"

\"Okay. Number two, do you own any animals besides your owl? Oh, and what\'s her name?\"

\"No, just my owl, Hedwig.\" The questions went on and on like this for about five more minutes. Then the serious ones started.

\"When did the abuse start?\"

Cringing, Harry replied, \"The actual hitting started when I was four. The verbal abuse has been going on since I can remember, and the sexual abuse only started when I was six. Now, that was only inappropriate touching and forcing me to touch, lick, or suck a section of his body. The only one who ever did this was Vernon. Petunia and Dudley preferred to inflict physical damage by beatings. Anything they could get their hands on they used. Everyone thinks that Dudley broke his TV shortly after his eighth birthday with his foot. In reality, he slammed my head through the screen. I\'m lucky he didn\'t leave scars on my face from that one.\" Stopping, Harry dared to look at Draco\'s face to gauge his reaction. When his eyes met Draco\'s, he saw that he was wearing a carefully guarded expression. Urging Harry on, he continued.

\"The physical and verbal abuse outweighed the sexual abuse by quite a lot. My family really didn\'t like to touch me in any way. Most of the abuse wasn\'t done by their hands, but by something they could grab. My uncle only did things with me when he was drunk. That\'s when my aunt would turn him away from the bed, saying that he was too violent and rough during sex when he was drunk. He became so frustrated that he started using me as an outlet. What first started out as simply rubbing me and touching, progressed to worse things. Blow jobs, hand jobs, and full out sex. The sex didn\'t start until I turned eight, still that is a very young age to become sexually active. It\'s not that my uncle was particularly long, but he was thick. He was so fat that even his dick got fatter with him. It tore through me violently and he never failed to make me bleed, even if he prepared me first. Not that he often prepared me, but sometimes he was coherent enough to.\"

\"Now, my aunt\'s favorite form of punishment was to beat me with my uncle\'s belt. The majority of my scars on my torso, back or front, came from her. I believe she was a sadist and enjoyed inflicting pain upon me. She always had this wicked glint in her eyes when she was abusing me. She is also the reason I have rope burn scars, she was a skinny woman and I might have been able to over power her. To prevent this, she would either tie me to my bed on my back or my stomach, depending on the area she wanted to inflict damage on. She also liked to hold my hands to the hot stove. Eventually I became numb to what she did, it really didn\'t bother me.\"

\"My cousin favored his Smelting\'s stick. He loved to hit me where ever he thought it would do the most damage. He knew to aim for the areas he knew were tender due to other punishments. He would just give those areas \"special\" care when he chose to deal out what he thought I deserved. He was never as bad as his parents though.\"

\"My entire family enjoyed telling me how worthless I was. What a freak I was and how nobody would ever care for me. When I was younger, I believed them. I mean, your family was suppose to tell you the truth. I never knew that there were people out there who did care for me. After I received my invitation to Hogwarts, things seemed to get better. I should have known better though, they started right back up after my first year ended. That\'s all I really can tell you for now, I think I might break down if I continue,\" Harry finished.

\"That\'s all right. You can cry if you need to, Hell, I would be. I just have one more question, why didn\'t you ever tell anyone?\" Draco asked.

\"I tried, you know, when I was younger. I told a teacher at my school. He said he\'d help. Turned out that he knew Petunia, my aunt. He had a crush on her and was hoping to get in her good graces if he got me in trouble. After that, I never could bring myself to trust anyone again. I still don\'t. I mean, I trust to a certain extent, but not passed. Besides, I\'ve had it ingrained into my head, my whole life, to never tell anyone. It was very hard telling you this, or writing my letter to Severus. All that I ask of you is that you never repeat this to anyone. If you do, well, it won\'t be pretty what I do to you.\"

Receiving an affirmative from Draco, they both headed to dinner. Draco was quite shaken by everything Harry had told him, while Harry felt as though he had just removed a great weight from his chest that had made it hard to breath. Smiling at everyone, Harry sat down, Draco following suit, to have a quiet, relaxing dinner.

TBC

Well, there you go. The extremely serious discussion about Harry\'s home life. I had to stop there because I simply couldn\'t write any more. Hopefully I haven\'t offended anyone.

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