Only through the pain

Disclaimer: **does the I don’t own them dance, a depressing spectacle similar in tear levels to watching the swan lake danced by professionals**

Warning: lots of bad stuff. If you don’t know what it is by now then you’re stupid and deserve to be scarred for life by anything you read in here that you don’t agree with!

A/N: Part two!!

Chapter 5- Black Rose (part 2)


“Jerk-off,” Draco countered.

“Oh yes please,” I had responded, laughing and pretending to unbutton my pants.

“Freak.” Draco laughed…but suddenly it wasn’t Draco sitting there anymore. It was Vernon, and he wasn’t laughing, he was screaming. “FREAK! You FUCKING FREAK!” Vernon shouted, lifting his ham hock fist and bringing it down hard on me again, breaking one of the arm’s I’d raised to try and defend myself. This just made Vernon angrier, “How dare you raise your hand to me you fucking freak!?” he demanded, back handing me across the room where I landed in the pile of glass that had once been Aunt Petunia’s favorite vase. I’d accidentally knocked it over just as Vernon was coming home from work and had instinctively tried to freeze it since I was 16 now and could use magic outside of Hogwarts, but Vernon had seen me using magic and had started screaming so I let it drop, which just made things worse.

Now I could feel the sharp shards of crystal cutting into my back and face and I tried to get up and get away from Vernon before things got any worse, but my uncle was already across the room and picking me up by the back of the neck. “You fucking freak,” Vernon said again, “I paid 300 pounds for that vase for Petunia for our wedding, freak, and now I’ll make you pay for breaking it!” Vernon slammed me face first against the wall and I felt a rib crack dangerously from the force. I was slammed into the wall again and again until I couldn’t struggle against my uncle any more because of a concussion and the lack of oxygen from the broken rib, and when I stopped struggling, Vernon dropped me to the floor and walked away. I thought that was the end of it, that I’d gotten off lightly, but then I was picked up again and carried roughly to my room, Vernon speaking obscenities in my ear that I couldn’t understand anymore. I knew what was going to happen though and began to struggle weakly again until Vernon shook me like a rag doll.

“Please god no, no, no, no, not again, no.” I started pleading with my uncle when I was finally dropped again on the floor of my own room.

“Shut up Freak so I can give you what you deserve!” Vernon shouted back handing me again and pulling out a small pocket knife that he used to shred my clothes and skin, ripping both off forcefully. Mercifully, I blacked out before Vernon had finished and didn’t feel anything else that night.

I woke again with a rather violent jerk that aggravated the re-broken rib and started screaming at the indistinguishable figures crowded at the end of the bed. “Let me go you mother-fuckers before I snap your fucking necks!!” I shouted, struggling against the magical and physical restraints, occasionally threatening the people watching me until I couldn’t breathe anymore and my head started to pound again. I struggled to calm myself down and as I did I saw that the people at the end of the bed were just Pomfrey, Ron, Hermione and Ginny. I stopped pulling against the restraints altogether, now that I had a pretty good idea of where I was and concentrated instead on breathing regularly, which was difficult with the shattered rib poking into my lungs and all. “Madame Pomfrey,” I wheezed, “I think I have a broken rib.”

“Well we can fix that up in a jiffy.” She said, grabbing the bottle of skele-grow and several other vials of various potions. “Can you tell me what else is broken dearie or should I just do a quick scan?”

I flinched away from the thought of the scan. That would show her everything that was wrong with me, and I’d rather not have to talk about some of it. “My left arm is broken, I have seven deep cuts on my back and a few shallow ones on my face as you can probably see. My cheek hurts too, but it’s just a bruise.” I said, naming all the injuries that I’d gotten except one, which would heal fine on its own…it always did.

“Alright then, that’s all easy enough,” Pomfrey smiled at me then turned to Ginny, “Miss Weasley, be a dear and tell the headmaster I need to speak to him immediately. It’s very important.” Her voice had hardened a little on the word ‘headmaster’ but when she turned back to me her face was still happy and smiling. She undid the restraints with a tap of her wand. “Now then, let’s take care of that rib, left side or right?”

“Right.” I said, “The second from the top.” She frowned a little, concentrating, then handed me a vial of something. “Here, drink this, quickly, in one gulp. It will light up the spots I need to fix.” She informed me. I bit my lip and frowned, and she sighed, “Ribs are a tricky business Mr. Potter, I’d rather not do this blindly. And if I don’t fix it quickly, you’re going to start feeling the pain of it again because the medicine we gave you when the bruise appeared is going to wear off fairly soon. So drink that and then take off your shirt or I will dose you again and have Mr. Weasley pour it down your throat!”

“Yes ma’am.” I said and gulped the potion as directed. It tingled a little going down, sort of like pins and needles and when I pulled off my shirt I saw that little pricks of light were outlining the exact break and various other minor bruises.

“Thank you.” Pomfrey said, and waved her wand over the lit up portion, frowning again, “Brace yourself Potter, this is going to hurt a bit.” She said and gently tapped the various spots sending the pricks of light directly into the problem areas

“Argh!!” I groaned, my chest was on fire and my bones were melting, but then it was over and all that was left was a slight dull ache that I was sure would hurt more once the pain killers wore off. “Just a bit huh?” I grimaced.

“Well, what do you expect when you have to bond bones together again hmm?” Pomfrey laughed, “Now give me your arm and I’ll heal it for you.” I gingerly extended the broken arm towards her and saw all the little bits of light on it. She tutted, “Well, it looks like this one won’t like healing either since it seems to be broken in three different places. You’ll have to have some skelegrow for this one I think, and your arm will have to be in a sling for a few days just to be safe.” She created a magical splint for my arm with a wave of her wand, helped me put it in a sling and then poured a small portion of skelegrow into the measuring cup and held it out for me, “here you are then, drink up.”

I took a deep breath and held my breath as best I could as I downed the small measure of the nasty substance, but I could still taste it after swallowing several times. Pomfrey rolled her eyes and poured me a glass of water which only helped get rid of the taste a little. “Now then, let’s see to the cuts on your back, shall we?” She helped me lean forward and sighed in relief, “These aren’t too bad dear, they aren’t even bleeding anymore. Miss Granger,” she turned towards Hermione. She was speaking quietly with Dumbledore who had come in sometime before Pomfrey fixed my ribs, “warm, wet rags please, and the salve on the second shelf as well as some bandages.”

“Yes ma’am!” Hermione said and ran to get the items, even though they were just on the other side of the room.

“Thank you dear, now, if you could rinse some of the blood off his back while I apply this salve to his face?” she said, already dabbing bits of the sweet smelling sticky stuff on the cuts on my face and liberally over the bruise. Hermione just kind of stood still and looked pale; she had a problem with blood and pus, but she really wanted to be a nurse. It was usually pretty funny, but I was starting to feel the skelegrow and wasn’t really in the mood to laugh at her ironic phobia. “Come now dear, it’s just a little blood,” Pomfrey sighed, then spotted Ginny. “Ah, Ginny, just the person we needed, come here and take over for Miss Granger, she seems to be feeling a bit ill herself. Miss Granger, if you’re going to throw up, then do it somewhere where there aren’t open wounds being treated please.”

Ginny grinned at me and winked as she took the cloth and bowl from Hermione who promptly ran to the bathroom and slammed the door. “What a big baby,” Ginny sighed, gently rubbing the drying blood off my back. I winced as she went over a cut, “Whoops, sorry,” she said, rinsing the cloth. It seemed to me like she was going deliberately slowly, and if I didn’t already know better, I would think she was trying to be seductive. I saw Pomfrey look at her impatiently and felt Ginny shrug, “Sorry Poppy…you know, I could take care of the rest of this. I’ve done it before, remember?” She must have looked pointedly over at Dumbledore, who was know talking to Ron because I saw Pomfrey look that way as well.

“Yes, I suppose you can. I do have some things to say to the headmaster.” Pomfrey said, screwing the lid back on the salve. “Here, put this on once the area is clean and then wrap the entire area in bandages. You know the right charms to do.” She said, handing the jar to Ginny and standing up. “Albus, if I could speak to you in my office?”

“Of course Poppy.” Dumbledore said gravely and patted Ron on the shoulder as he passed. “Harry my boy, we’ll talk after you’ve rested a bit.” He added before closing the door to Pomfrey’s office.

“Is there anything I can do?” asked Ron from the foot of the bed. He also had a bit of a problem with blood, though his was mostly because of everything that had happened at the end of the last school year with the department and all.

“Well Ron, you could probably go hold your girlfriend’s hair while she pukes.” Ginny said, dabbing on more water and making me wince again. She smacked my shoulder lightly, “Stop wincing! You’ll make the cuts break open again and then there will be blood everywhere!” Which effectively sent Ron running. “Geez, I thought they’d never leave. It’s so hard to get you alone.” She muttered.

“You know I like you Ginny, but I’m not really in the mood for anything.” I informed her, frowning. Ginny and I did have the occasional tryst, just for fun, but usually only when we were really stoned and it never meant anything.

“What the hell are you talking about Harry?” She asked, working at a more normal speed. “I’m not trying to hit on you right now. I just wanted to ask you about Malfoy. Is he alright to trust or should I continue to hex him in the hallways?”

I frowned, “He’s alright to trust Gin, but I guess I kinda freaked him out a little huh? Since he’s not here.”

“Nah, that’s not it. Dumbledore cornered him when he tried to follow everybody here and pulled him up to his office for a lecture. He’s convinced that Malfoy did this to you, so is everybody else as a matter of fact, ‘cept maybe ‘Mione.” She said, moving on to the salve.

“What about you Gin? Do you think he did this to me?” I asked, trying to see over my shoulder.

“Not really….but then again, I did pass by the compartment you two were toking up in and saw you guys having a good time. I would have joined you, but then you started throwing pumpkin pasties at each other and I saved up my allowance all summer to get this robe dry cleaned so I opted out.” She peeked around my shoulder, “You don’t mind right? It looked like you were having fun.”

“No, I don’t mind Ginny, and I was having fun. Draco’s actually pretty cool; at least, he is when he’s stoned.” I said with a slight frown.

“I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t fun when they’re stoned.” Ginny said knowingly. And she would know, since she was the one who had started me on the path of the green spiky leaf. Well, her and the twins. She flicked her wand and the bandages quickly and neatly wrapped themselves around me. Usually, Pomfrey got mad when she caught Ginny doing something like that, but only because the old mediwitch couldn’t do it nearly as neatly as her young protégé. “Well, if my opinion means anything, and I should hope it does, I don’t mind you hanging out with Draco, and I certainly wouldn’t mind you…” she came around to face me and waggled her eyebrows suggestively, “As long as I get all the details later.”

“Ginny, shut up.” I groaned, “You know I don’t want to do anything like that with guys again for a long, long, long time, even though I do prefer them. Until I get these damned flashbacks under control I’m just going to have to ignore the other half of my sexual preferences. You remember what happened that one time with Fred…..”

“Oh I know, Harry, I know.” Ginny sighed, “But, if you would stop listening to that angsty bullshit about dying and roses wilting without being saved, then I think you might shorten that long, long, long time to just a long time. Mind you, I’m not saying anytime soon, note the emphasis. I rather like having you all to myself, when you’re not listening to that silly emo band anyway.”

“I like Trapt, Gin, it’s soothing.” I protested while she propped up some pillows stolen from other beds and helped me lay back carefully. I chose to ignore the rest of what she’d said. She always told me stuff like that and she only meant half of it, just like me.

“Yeah, yeah. But some of it is downright depressing, Harry, and you know it. But hey, if you wanna be the dying black rose in that song, then at least open yourself up to the possibility of being replanted, unlike the chick in the song, alright?”

I snickered, “Replanted? Really Gin? That just sounds so wrong.”

She rolled her eyes and handed me a vial of pain killers. “Shut up and drink this before Dumbledore comes out. You know how he feels about you taking stuff, and I don’t want you to be in pain all night.”

“I’m always in pain, Ginny.” I pointed out sadly, but took the vial and swallowed it anyway. The effect was almost immediate and I settled back a little more against the pillows. “There really is no way to save me.”

“There you go with that angsty emo bullshit again. Keep it up and I’m gonna get the twins down here to straighten you out.” Ginny threatened, but she was smiling. Then she saw her brother and Hermione come out of the bathroom and said in a loud obvious voice, “I’ll let you sleep for now, but you and me are gonna have to have a long talk about you abandoning us for Malfoy tomorrow. I feel so betrayed.” She winked and stood, walking out and waving to her brother without talking to him and looking suitably put out.

“Wow, Harry, I think you made Ginny angry. You know that’s never a good idea.” Hermione said, sitting gingerly on the edge of the bed.

“Yeah I know.” I yawned. “Sorry about earlier Hermione, I guess I was just a little on edge…”

“It’s alright Harry mate, we understand.” Ron said sagely. I saw Hermione roll her eyes and I tried not to do the same. Ron had slept through the whole thing; he probably didn’t even know what we were talking about. “So, tell us, what did Malfoy do to you? Really?”

“Nothing Ron,” I sighed then yawned again, “We just talked. He’s not the total ass we always thought he was either, but I can’t really tell you why I know that.”

“Why not?” Hermione asked, frowning.

“It’s personal and it’s up to him to tell you.” I said with a shrug that hurt everything that had just been fixed. I winced and yawned again. Damn Ginny must have mixed a sleeping potion into that pain killer. “I’m really tired guys, I think I’m gonna go to sleep, ok? We can talk about it later when my eyelids aren’t covered with ten ton weights.”

“Sure,” Ron shrugged, “Oh,” he leaned forward, “Dumbledore’s pissed mate, if you’re not asleep when he comes out, pretend to be.” I nodded, I had figured he wouldn’t be too happy about my hanging out with Draco. “Night then, sleep tight.”

“Night Harry,” Hermione kissed my cheek, “I’ll see if I can talk to Ginny tonight after I patrol and calm her down a bit. Get some rest.”

“Night guys.” I yawned once more and watched them walk out before leaning farther back and closing my eyes. Just in time too, because Dumbledore chose that minute to walk out of Pomfrey’s office and neither of them sounded happy.

“Is he sleeping?” Dumbledore asked Pomfrey.

“It would be good if he is, Headmaster, since you so blatantly refuse to let me send for…”

“That will be enough, Poppy, we’ve had this discussion before and we will not have it again.” Dumbledore cut her off. “Send him to my office the minute he wakes up tomorrow morning. Harry and I have many things to discuss. For now though, I must speak to Professor Snape, so if he wakes up, give him a glass of warm milk and send him back to the tower.”

“Yes, Headmaster.” Pomfrey said. I heard the door swing open and shut and then heard Pomfrey muttering angrily to herself as she walked back to her office, “Pompous old git. Thinks he knows everything. Warm milk indeed. Well I’m a healer and I know what my patients need, and this boy needs a hell of a lot more then warm milk. I am simply not equipped to handle this by myself….” She slammed the door a little too loudly and I jumped, once again jostling my injured back. With a deep sigh I let the pain killers work their magic and stopped fighting the sleeping potion and soon fell asleep.

I woke up about an hour or two later from a vicious bad nightmare and from the pain in my regrowing bones and decided to take a walk. I didn’t want to wake up Pomfrey because she’d probably just ‘dose’ me again and I really didn’t feel like sleeping, so I held my shoes and walked in my socks to the ward door, praying that Filch had actually remembered to grease the hinges for once. Thankfully, he had, and I was able to slip out undetected.

My destination was this tiny flower garden that an herbology professor turned headmaster had made about three hundred years ago. No one tried to go there because someone (me) had started spreading a rumor that the garden was filled with all sorts of dangerous plants. In reality it was just a bunch of roses and jasmine and some other muggle flowers that the headmaster had thought smelled nice. Gardeners hadn’t set foot there in years though because when the headmaster died the door had been locked and no one could find the key because there hadn’t ever been one. Basic ‘Alohomora’ didn’t work either, but the headmaster had also been a Slytherin and there was a little snake carved into the door post that would open the door if you asked nicely enough, or if it just felt like being helpful. I told Hermione about it when she became a prefect because it distressed her that she couldn’t patrol all of the grounds, but I made her promise to always lock the door again when she was done. I didn’t want the other students to turn this place into another secret make-out spot.

“Hello, could you open the door please?” I asked the snake quietly, “I’d really like to see the garden tonight.”

“sssssure.” The snake hissed and the door creaked open, “Welcome back.”

“Thanks.” I whispered and slipped through the crack, closing and locking it behind me. Hermione always checked this place first, so I was sure I wouldn’t be interrupted. I wound my way through the overgrown path slowly and carefully; some of the rose bushes had a tendency to reach out and grab you if they thought you needed to slow down to smell them better.

When I made it to the old stone bench in the middle I relaxed entirely, took off the sling and rolled up the sleeve of my good arm. Skelegrow only took an hour to work on something like the breaks in my arm, so the bones were perfectly set and healed. Pomfrey just worried too much. With a sigh, I took a fallen branch and transfigured it into an exacta blade and removed the glamour on my arm, turning it into a crazy pattern of scars and almost healed cuts. I knew Ginny and the twins meant well by trying to get me to stop, and I knew I should, but after an episode I couldn’t calm down unless I did it, and I would have nightmares for days if I didn’t.

About a year into having the episodes all the time I discovered the trick and after I made it part of my normal routine, the episodes stopped almost altogether. I’d promised Ginny I would try to stop, but it was a hard habit to break. It calmed me down, it relaxed me better then music did, and it gave me something else to think about, which I desperately needed. The pot helped too, usually, so I was trying to replace the cutting with the smoking, but I saw how well that worked today.

I started with just a few light scratches, things I could do with my fingernails or the edge of a wooden desk during class, but as it started to work I cut deeper and it worked better. The deeper the cut, the longer I could keep the nightmares and flashbacks at bay. It wasn’t a great coping skill, and despite what Ginny teased me about, I really did want someone to ‘replant’ me into a better situation where I wouldn’t have to do this anymore, but I’d learned to do whatever helped, and cutting, as horrible as it was, did.

Tonight though, as I was drawing the blade back and forth across my arm, I couldn’t stand it anymore, I found myself wishing that it could be easy enough for me to just die and let the whole damned Wizarding world figure out how to get rid of Voldemort on its own. “It would be so easy to stab the blade into my arm and drag it down,” I whispered and then I dropped the blade into the grass where it turned back into a twig and put my head in my hands. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want Voldemort to win, but I didn’t want to be a part of the fight either. “I wish someone could help me,” I whispered, crying just a little. “I need someone to help me.” I’m not really sure how long I sat like that, hunched over and crying while the little cuts I’d made stopped bleeding and scabbed over, but it can’t have been very long. Taking a deep breath I lifted my face and slid my arm back into the sling, but I wasn’t ready to leave yet. I was still too shaken up by my dangerous thoughts, and the only thing that ever erased all thought from my mind was music. I’d left my mp3 player back in the ward, but no one was around, so I could sing, if I wanted to.

My throat was too hoarse to actually get the words out, so I just hummed. Black Rose, the song Ginny had been teasing me about earlier. So what if it was depressing to everyone else? I thought it was beautiful, and I really wanted someone to be there for me like the guy in the song was there for his rose, even if it didn’t work. I spoke the words in my head as I hummed the melody.

“I saw you in the garden,
I wanted you so much,
I really thought that you were different,
Oh I couldn’t get enough.
I tried to save you from yourself,
I felt every high and low,
But the lows have drowned the highs away
And there’s nowhere else to go.
Black rose your thorns are cutting into me,
For the last time,
Black rose I watched your petals wilt away,
I couldn’t bring you back to life”

My thoughts turned again to Ginny and what she’d said about Draco as I hummed and I shook my head sadly. As if.

“You were always where the sun could never go,
I never wanted you to have to be alone,
But I couldn’t find a way to help you to grow,
Black rose,
You never tell me how you feel
And your moods they always change
I always tried to make it real,
But you never had the faith
I tried to give you something good
To take the pain away,
I tried to make you understand, you don’t have to be this way,”

I heard the voice and stopped singing, looking around as Draco stepped out of the bushes and smiled, still singing.

“Black rose
Your thorns are cutting into me
For the last time
Black rose
I watched your petals wilt away,
Couldn’t bring you back to life.
You were always where the sun could never go
I never wanted you to have to be alone
But I couldn’t find a way to help you to grow
Black rose
I’m not the one who hurt you,
So why are you so scared
All that you’ve been put through
Couldn’t be repaired
I’m not the one who hurt you,
I’m the only one who cares
You’ll need someone to turn to
And I will not be there
Every time I held you
I knew that it would hurt
Only through the pain
I could find a way to learn.”

He grinned, “Hey Harry, what’s up?”

“Draco?” I frowned, “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in bed?” He pointed at his prefect badge and said some silly jibe about giving me detention and I rolled my eyes. Yeah, as if he really could ever feel like that about me, though it did give my self esteem a little boost to know that the Slytherin Sex God found me attractive. We traded a little more banter and he offered to walk me back to the Hospital wing. I accepted, since I was feeling pretty tired…the loss of blood didn’t help much either. He told me about Dumbledore cornering him and I made him turn green so in all it was another successful friendly conversation, and neither of us was overly high. I saw that as a good sign and smiled as I fell back asleep for a few more hours and I didn’t have any more nightmares that night at least.


A/N: Part 2, complete and uploaded! Well, duh, I mean, you guys ARE reading it after all >.<. Once again, a heart felt **uber attack glomp huggle** to all those who reviewed!!!!! And of course what uber attack glomp huggle is complete without massive amounts of yummy chocolate? **throws chocolate and marshmallows** woot for the candy!!! I miss candy....**sigh** those kids of mine better grow up fast or I'm going to have some major withrdawls from chocolate and coffee....oh well, Anyway, next chapter up tomorrow, same time, same place. Be there, or be square!! muwahahahaha.....and now I must say that this is the most random author's note i've ever typed.....review!!!!!!!!!