The Privilege of Being Known by Hopeless Wanderer

Harry hasn’t vented to anyone in ages.

It’s a bit redundant, in his opinion. Because the sheer effort of opening his mouth and requesting people’s attention, assuming that they will listen or care in the first place is astonishingly difficult to sum up, he’d rather push up a boulder up a mountain with his bare hands, really.

It’s not often that such an act even occurs to him. His lonely childhood has ingrained in him the art of never asking for anything. It’s not that he doesn’t want it, not that he doesn’t need it or doesn’t crave for human touch and affection nearly every second that he is awake… it’s just that he’s never had the privilege of being known.

Being known and cared about, as opposed to beat around and meanly treated. Being known in a way that exempts him from having to make small talk with spiders in the pitch blackness of a cupboard. Harry craves it so fucking much. Just a being, a something, a somebody, to take his face in their hands, look into his eyes and just fucking know him.

That’s not how human interaction usually works in his experience, and without having an ordeal made about him, the tedious act of venting about what is eating at his very flesh becomes childishly immature to him. He doesn’t see the point in it. Well, that’s not true.

He does see the point in it. He just doesn’t think anyone would be interested in parsing him their time and attention in order to make him feel better. And because he is embarrassed of such a notion. How dare he? Just sit someone down and moan about the grievances of the world? About the fact that he is depressed? And that depression isn’t going away? About how his life is endangered by a lunatic, or how everyone, well, almost everyone treats him like garbage? Maybe it's just about how he needs someone to understand why he is the way he is.

It’s ridiculous. The effort of explaining to someone why he was never allowed a warm bath, or why he is so accustomed to eating his meals cold even though they wreck his digestive system every time. The effort that he has to put through into calling people out for the ways they fling their own daily miseries at him. It’s his own fault really.

It’s his fault that he has friends because that means that he is responsible for people now. He has to listen to Hermione go on a tangent about their studies, her assignments, or Ron. He is the one who has to comfort Ron when he is upset about the way his family treats him. And this is not to say that they are selfish in their need for Harry to always be there for them. Harry has to be fair, at least with himself. They ask him things too, ask him how he’s doing, why he eats things cold, they hug him and casually touch him sometimes. If Harry asks, they would surely do it more.

He doesn’t. It requires too much work and too much vulnerability, and it’s not what he wants. He wants something to fill the cavity in his chest, the gaping wound that won’t be solved with his friends sitting around and listening to him spill his insides out in a room, hanging in the air for them to catch, and for them to in return offer some awkward words of comfort and a pat on the back.

Harry is really tired.

It’s bigger than the death threats. Bigger than his dwindling appetite and the way he can’t even bring himself to look in the mirror. He is a skeleton, he can push in his leathery skin with his weird knobby fingers and his ribs would stick out one by one. It’s ghastly. In the same breath, he can’t stop hearing Petunia, in the back of his mind, calling him an ungrateful pig for going through the trash to find food. Like some animal. He fucking hates food.

It’s bigger than Voldemort, the thing stuck in his throat. The words he needs to get out but can’t. He almost wishes it was Voldemort. It would be easier to blame his state on somebody else. Really easier than telling his friends that he screams himself hoarse every day when his eyes open instead of telling them that he’s fine.

The verbal abuse is not just about Malfoy’s daily jabs or the way others mutter things about him. It’s inside his head, it’s himself, screaming and thrashing and hurling insults. Harry’s mind is a battlefield during breakfast. He eats cold eggs and they feel disgusting in his mouth but he chews and chews and swallows each clump with dread. He hates it.

“You left them a bit too much,” Ron mentions in passing, frantically thumbing the pages of their Transfiguration book without looking at Harry, “as usual.”

“I like them cold.” Harry says around his fork with lidded eyes.

It’s not really that. It’s just that he hates them more if they’re hot. Vernon used to love it, forcing Harry to eat the burnt, sizzling stripes of bacon right off the skillet as punishment. Harry hates hot food, Harry hates oily fried things that can bubble and pop and leave welts on his mouth. It’s been years, it happened only twice, but he can’t.

They have a test. He has not studied a single word. He had the book propped up on his knees, sitting on the couch for nearly the entire day on Sunday. He stared at the pages, the drawings, he just didn’t read them. He was thinking about touch. About someone preemptively reaching out and smothering him in an embrace. Something to stop his heart from pulling at his veins.

No one really did. No one even noticed. Harry never asked.

He downs another clump and slowly lowers his fork on the plate. His friends are both engrossed in their notes for the test, Ron frantically trying to cram as much information as he can before their potions class, and Hermione calmly reviewing her scribbles on the margins of the textbook. Harry drops his hands on his lap a bit uselessly and looks at them.

If they notice him staring, if they look up and ask him if he’s okay, Harry will lie. He will tell them that he’s just fine, and why are they even asking him in the first place?

He will even smile and hate himself for it.

“Better head to the dungeons now, Ron. We don’t want Professor Snape deducting points already.”

Hermione snaps the book shot and rises from the bench, and Ron makes a face at her before quickly doing the same. Harry’s hands grip the handle of his bag, he can feel his stomach cramping already, as it does.

“Harry?”

“Coming,” he says. He stands, and he ignores the noises Malfoy and his butlers make as he passes them. He just needs someone, anyone to see him for a moment. He needs them to pause and rush at him, take him by the shoulders and usher him right back to bed. He wants them to run their fingers through the messy locks of his hair and tell him that it will be fine. That he isn’t a grotesque monster, that he isn’t fat or a skeleton. That it’s okay for him to exist.

His hands remain cold.

The dungeons are a good place for Harry in the sense that they are damp, and cold already, so it’s easier to ignore the lack of warmth he constantly feels down there. It’s darker too since the charmed torches don’t quite emulate the cheery lights of the upper levels. Hermione and Ron are a step ahead of him, their shoulders almost touching, bickering amongst themselves. They find it easier to talk like that a lot. They do things even when Harry isn’t around, and it’s not even because they’re mean.

It just never occurs to them that Harry is an immature little bug and that he gets upset when people hang out and have a life outside of his line of vision.

Harry grips his bag harder, and closes his eyes for a moment before they step inside the potions classroom. It’s fine, he can handle it. All he needs to think about is getting back into his bed at night to meaninglessly stare at his canopy again. At least he’s somewhat warmed by the covers that way. Even if he doesn’t sleep.

Snape is already there when the trio arrives, but it’s fine. Some students are still lagging behind them, and the man is the one who’s early. Harry lets Ron and Hermione take a station without even making an argument about it. Ron looks at Harry for permission and Harry gives him a reassuring nod. He hates it inside. He doesn’t want them… it’s ridiculous. He doesn’t even finish the thought.

He stands behind a station and just waits for some miserable soul to come and join him. It’s not that he particularly cares, Snape doesn’t even bother screaming at him anymore, though his potions are still getting the lowest grades in the class, almost head-to-head with Neville’s.

It’s not that he’s abysmal at it. It’s not even the notion of Snape’s bitter and unfair bias. Harry just sincerely cannot care about academics. He drops his bag and settles on the bench, feeling the roughness of the wood sharply press into the back of his hips. It’s good, the small tang, the pain. It joins the stomach cramps in a chorus and freshens him up. He notices Snape looking at him over his shoulder and he looks back at the man.

Snape has a piece of chalk in his hand, he is in charge of the writing instead of charming the chalk to do the same. It’s not an abnormal sight, Snape doesn’t really allow wand usage in his classroom. Too hazardous, he claimed.

Harry holds the man’s blank gaze with his own stoic stare. Almost a dare, if one cares to call it that. Harry thinks to himself, is this the day that Snape starts with his verbal assaults again? Comment on how shitty Harry looks? Bark at him about responsibility and attention-seeking behaviour?

But no, Snape turns eventually, mutely, and resumes scribbling away on the board. Harry drops his head into his arms, a bag slumps down next to him on the bench and he peeks to see who’s the unfortunate soul joining him today. It’s Dean, bless his soul. He throws Harry a tight-lipped smile and cranes his neck over at Seamus who’s happily chatting with Lavender.

“It’s okay if we partner up today?” Dean asks though it’s a bit late for that. Harry nods with the fake smile he’s gotten so well-versed in dishing out.

“Seamus found a new friend?” he asks, even though he hates making conversation. He just doesn’t like forming trivial words in general. Dean looks like he needs a talk though. And isn't that ironic. Harry has the power he so desperately wants someone else to have and use on him.

“More like a new fancy,” Dean rolls his eyes, relieved that Harry is opening up the subject, “It’ll blow over after a week.”

“Aren’t you going to tell him?” Harry asks distantly, his eyes tracking Snape as the man peers down at a leather-bound journal and back to the board again. The script is so small that Harry already gives up on following any set of instructions. Even with glasses, he’s basically blind.

“Tell him what?” Dean fiddles with their cauldron.

Harry abandons Snape and turns his head, “That he’s being an idiot and that you fancy him?”

Dean doesn't startle or hush him or anything. He's a really chill person in that regard, he never overreacts to anything. He smiles at Harry, looking a bit embarrassed.

"You're really good at that." He comments as Snape's scribble on the board stops.

"Good at what?"

"Reading people? No one else knows that… you know. I'm just waiting to see if he feels the same way. I know I'm not being obvious about it."

Harry knows all this. And it's painful that he knows. He knows that he's good at reading people. Because reading people isn't a shiny trophy or a personality trait for him. It was a survival tool that stuck around.

He knows Dean is patient. He knows even if Dean's heart breaks he won't tell Seamus anything. He knows that the boy, unlike Harry, has reached an inner calm with himself. He's at peace. He's normal and healthy.

"You should tell him." Harry says and sits up properly. Snape throws him some more looks as the students scramble to prepare their stations.

"No more gossiping, if you would, Mister Thomas," he drawls right on cue. Harry feels the tips of his fingers freeze and his stomach cramp again.

He's tired already.

Dean ducks his head as Snape turns and starts his brief lecture. He doesn't really need to do much teaching. The instructions are right on the board, and though Harry can't read a single fucking word, it looks straightforward enough.

Draco already has his sleeves pushed up to his elbows, eyes squinting in a parallel as Hermione also does the exact same thing.

"Today's Potion is a variation of the crimson cleanser, a potion we already covered in previous sessions. This variation can be used for…?"

Hermione's hand darts up as usual. Harry looks down at his hands. His book lays beside the cauldron untouched, though he can hear some students shuffling through the pages to find the answer. He can't really bother.

"Fine. Granger?"

"To disinfect internal wounds and tearing, sir. It doesn't have any healing merits on its own but can easily ward off internal infections. The crushed hyacinth bulbs also—"

"That's fine, Granger." Snape interrupts. Walking between the rows, he calls on Malfoy. "Finish her sentence, Draco."

"Um, sure. The hyacinth bulbs imitate the effects of a calming draught. So it's a soother as well."

Snape nods and turns, Harry also turns to Dean, "I'm sorry you lucked out. I have no idea how to even make—"

"It's fine, Harry. No worries." Dean quickly hushes him as Snape turns and looks at them again.

"Ten points to Slytherin." The man says, weaving his way between rows of frantic students who want to rush at the ingredients cabinet, "the instructions are clear on the board. You will have an hour and a half to brew this variation. Any possible questions that you have already has an answer in your textbooks."

Harry watches as Dean turns on the heat under their cauldron for the base. He wants to ask whether he should bother getting the ingredients before a shadow drops on their station. Harry raises his head.

"Thomas," Snape snaps at the boy.

"Sir."

"Join Patil and Longbottom. You will work in a group of three."

Dean blanches, "But sir, what about—"

"Potter will come with me." Snape raises an eyebrow at Harry, as if to dare him to refute this. Harry really doesn't. He doesn't even want to know what sick game the man has up his sleeve for him.

He nods silently, drops his book inside his bag and watches as Dean walks off with an apologetic grimace thrown at Harry over his shoulder.

Harry shrinks under Snape's shadow. The man is surveying the nearby station and repeating instructions to Pansy Parkinson and Lola Evergreen. Harry just sits, waiting for the man to finish up wherever he's doing.

"—if you need any help I advise you to refer to the notes on the board again or consult with Draco."

"Yes, Professor, thank you."

Snape nods. He turns to Harry. Looking at him, for a second, Harry can feel his breakfast turn into stone. He really doesn't want to deal with this today. He doesn't want to deal with Snape on a bad day, not even on a good day. This goes for any human interaction really.

"Come with me." Is all he says and turns to walk off. Harry reluctantly stands, ignoring Ron and Hermione's concerned glances. He feels the urge to cry bubble up in his chest and has a hard time pushing it down as he follows the man.

Snape opens the door that leads straight to his office and steps aside for Harry to walk in. Harry's feet feel like wading through sludge. He's sick of feeling this useless anxiety. Snape can't do shit to him. The worst he's capable of is a detention or some cruel insults.

Harry has seen the man's office a lot, last year especially, he spent a good long while being assigned detention there. He settles in the chair without being asked.

Snape doesn't sit behind his desk. He shifts some jars around, moves the stack of graded essays from the desk to a nearby bench. He lets Harry stew in his miserable stress. Maybe he's waiting for Harry to ask what's going on. Harry won't ask. He doesn't even want to fathom the idea of existing in the moment.

"Potter." Snape finally says, standing behind his desk as he surveys Harry, "You can drop your bag, I'm not going to steal it."

Harry's clenched fingers ease on the bag and he presses his legs together. He wants his bed. He wants blissful oblivion. Ugh.

"I didn't do anything." He mutters and honestly it's the best he can do. Anything he's gonna be accused of can easily dispel this meagre defence.

"It's fine. You're fine," Snape waves him off at and finally settles behind his desk, "I pulled you out of class because you looked like a danger to yourself and others."

Huh?

Harry blinks at the man, then looks over his shoulder at the door that leads back to the classroom. He's pretty sure he can hear at least one cauldron blowing up. He looks back at Snape. The man has his eyes narrowed at him.

"I'm fine." Harry says even though it's weird. He never imagined himself repeating this hated dialogue to Snape of all people. What turned him into some magnanimous butterfly?

Harry doesn't care. He'll just get it over with. It's not like Snape needs an excuse to make him miserable. He wrings his hands on his lap as the man observes him.

"Have you been eating?"

Harry huffs, "I'm fine, sir. I can go back and start on my potion." He really doesn't want to. He wants to sleep. No, that doesn't really capture the emotion he's feeling. He wants a rest from existence. Even if it's for a while.

"You look like a dead man, Potter. And I will be damned before I let you make some foolish error, looking like that."

"If you want to give me a failing grade—" Harry starts, because he needs these mind games to be over with already. His stomach hurts and his temples are throbbing with tension.

"You have several options." Snape interrupts him. "Either I will call on Matron Pomfrey to officially have you checked in, in the infirmary, or I will notify your head of house to do it for you."

"I'm just…" he stops short. What is he? Is he sleep deprived? Is he in pain? Is he surprised and frustrated that Snape is the person who finally noticed how Harry is on the verge of collapse?

"Sir, I don't know why are you even bothering—"

"Potter, I presented your options."

Harry closes his eyes and tips his head back. Even with his eyes closed he can feel his head swimming. He wants to be taken away. He wants… he knows what he wants, he just doesn't know who can give him what he wants.

"I'm seeking attention. That's what I'm doing. I'm a snub." He says. He can deal with angry Snape. He can scrub cauldrons on the verge of passing out. He's had enough practice cleaning the Dursleys' house after a thrashing.

Snape just looks at him. "Pomfrey, or Minerva—"

"Neither."

Snape links his fingers together on the desk, "Or you will tell me what's wrong."

Harry realises how easier it is for people to hate him and not give a fuck than to hate him and still be up his ass about his well-being. He feels like throwing up. He's so hungry. And tried. And he wants to cry.

"I'm fine—"

Snape rolls his eyes, "Potter."

"Why do you care." Harry says. Not as a question, but as a fact, "You're the last person who would care. Why can't you just antagonise me like you always do and call it a day?"

Snape regards him with a blank look, "Is that what you need?"

Harry clicks his tongue with a groan, "No, it's what you do."

Snape moves his quills in love with his thumb and then sighs, "The staff, each professor and others included, are required to stop a student from endangering themselves regardless of our feelings toward that student."

Harry groans again. He should have been better. That's his fault. He should've put up a show of being fine like he always does. That way Snape of all people wouldn't be on his case.

"I assure you, professor—"

"I don't need your reassurance."Snape cuts in and stands up, "you can lie down and rest your head on the couch in the corner."

"Sir, please."

"Please what? Let you waltz out of my classroom and collapse elsewhere?"

He takes out his wand and waves it over Harry's head, at the red couch begrudgingly set up in the corner. The couch freshens up and Harry drops his head.

"I'm not tired."

"Perhaps not physically. Though, even that is a lie."

Snape stands with his arms crossed, waiting for Harry to muster up enough strength to stand. Harry locks his jaw and closes his eyes again.

"Sir, please, I have a test. Professor Mcgonagall—"

"Will be notified immediately." Snape finishes for him and reaches in his pocket for a lilac vial, "this will help you calm down and sleep."

"Professor."

"That's not a request, Potter. Make this easy for us both. It's either this or Poppy's intervention."

Well Harry's really not keen on that. He sighs and opens his eyes. He violently grabs at his bag and stomps to Snape. He takes the vial and uncorks it as he settles on the couch. It's fine. He'll go with it. He shouldn't be protesting this in the first place. He's getting a free pass right? He's getting a rest.

He's getting… he's getting a rest.

Oh.

Harry lets the gentle taste of the calming draught roll over his tongue as Snape conjures a thick blanket for him and motions Harry to lie down on the couch.

He's being taken care of. Oh. Harry groggily drops on the cushion and the blanket is lowered on him. He's being tucked in. This is the first time that anyone is doing such a thing for him.

Harry prunes his nose and tries not to cry. Snape bends over to grab Harry's glasses and ease them off his face.

"You just rest, Potter. Minerva will be by, shortly."

Harry's heart flutters. The weight of the blanket and the warmth calm his stomach, somewhat. His head is swimming. Snape waves his wand again and the torches are dimmed.

Harry tries to raise his head and protest, though he's not quite sure why or what he's protesting against. He can rest. He can just exist in this office and pretend he's not real for a while. He can just lie on the couch and not brew the stupid potion like everybody else.

Snape gently pushes him down on the couch, and Harry stays down this time, his vision blurry with his glasses missing.

"Just making a firecall with Minerva. Stay down, Potter."

Harry finally closes his eyes.