Pain only comes freely to those who aren’t looking for it. The bee sting to the dozing child in his carriage,
because he still has some purple syrup from his popsicle staining his chin. The skinned knee to the little girl
minding her own business, skipping on the side walk, humming some rhyming tune that doesn’t come
anywhere close to rational sense. The teenager being rejected for the upteenth time, in public no less,
because that what some of the dumbest people in the world think teenage romance is- a melodrama, a race
to who gets to hurt the other one first. And the real stuff. The adult in the car crash. Killed in a car crash.
The two adults killed in a car crash. Parents. The orphaned son, still too young to talk, being poked and
prodded at by the stubby fingers of his bigger cousin, and when he cried, ‘was being a troublesome brat
again’, in the word’s of his aunt that even then he had somehow been able to understand.
For the rest of us, we need to work for the pain- and there are always consequences. Always. You always
need to pay the piper in the end, no matter how careful you are. Harry knew this. He’d known it for an
incredibly long time. He hadn’t cared for just as long. Consequences were meaningless when they just came
as the result of more consequences. Harry had started the chain reaction, maybe, had gotten himself
addicted, but that didn’t mean there was anything he could do to change that now.
After all, what else did he have to fight the darkness? The loneliness? The claustrophobia that wanted to
force him to kick the door of his cupboard until it shattered outward, screaming all the while. It was more
than crushing, it was controlling, and he only knew of one way to get the control back. Ironically, the
solution involved less control than the problem, even if it was only for a few free falling moments. But thats
the way the world spun- crooked. You need to do horrile things for a few minutes to stop weeks of bad
things. Not from happening, but from plaguing your dreams.
The scant times Uncle Vernon poked his head in to see if he was keeping his room clean he probably
thought the red specks on the under side edge of the stairs was just flecks of rust from the copper pipes that
led up the interior of the staircase to the upstairs bathroom. That’s because Uncle Vernon was an idiot.
Because rust doesn’t smear. And rust doesn’t drip. But the few scattered spots of red on the bed sheets
below indicated that this, whatever it was, did.
It was a release valve, a sanity tool. A corkscrew unwinding, a rubber band flying across the room instead of
snapping under the strain, a spring launching its burden into the air to stop from having to bare it for another
moment. It was like all the pressure, all the fears, all the raging hatred towards his family could build itself
up in his forearm, somehow exactly a quarter inch to the side of the last time he had done this. And the only
way to get rid of it was to scrape it out, using the wooden edge he’d sharpened as much he could to a razor
point to slowly grind the anger out of him. And whatever was left of his anger... dripped.
But pain only comes freely to those who aren’t looking for it. There is always a price for those who go after
it willingly, and in Harry’s case that price was a tiny strip of white. Twelve. One a month, a full year, and
this was the result. But they were out of sight, hidden beneath saggy hand me down sleeves or school robes,
the least the universe could give him granted their complete and total worthlessness. He was still in the exact
same place, and there was nothing he could do about it. But that’s the way things were. After all, didn’t the
saying go that if you failed at something you should try, try again? This failed to make things better. Last
month. But Harry Potter was no quitter. And he tried. Again. And again. Slowly he worked his sleeve back
down around his wrist, trying not to disturb the new wound he had added to himself -Aunt Petunia would
throw a fit if she found a stain on his shirt, even though they were all already stained when he got them-,
going by the only light he had- the dull glow of his electric clock, a blue light that eerily illuminated his face.
He read the numbers, and whispered hoarsely, to no one at all, and to anyone who wanted to hear it, “Happy
Birthday, Harry.”
*****
“Harry?”
The seventeen year old boy glanced up from his perch on the stone castle stair way, looking around through
his golden rimmed glasses. It was Draco. It was *always* Draco at times like this. The blonde boy leaned
against the stone wall in an act of fake detachment, but Harry could read the look in his eyes. Concern. And
it wasn’t getting any better as Harry gave him a look like he didn’t even recognize him. But Harry was
simply catching up. His parent’s hadn’t died in a car crash. He’d been freed from that damned prison... and
the cupboard it had under it’s stairs. And his sleeve was only needed to hide his wand, these days.
“What’re you staring at the stairs for?” Draco asked slowly.
Harry stood up. And shrugged.
“No reason.” He said simply. “Let’s get going. You owe me dinner,”
Draco smiled at him. “That’s right,” he said, pretending like he hadn’t been thinking about it all day. “Happy
Birthday.”