Harry threw his father a pleading look.
"Draco," said Snape, his robes rustling as he stood up. "I do believe you wanted to go to London to investigate what might be playing in the theatres, there. Shall we?"
Draco's mouth dropped open, like he'd forgotten all about that. Probably he had. Once he'd caught sight of that Rhiannon girl, he hadn't had thought for much else. He glanced around the room, obviously weighing whether he'd rather continue to poke at Ron's insecurities, or enjoy an outing with his father.
His need to feel important in his own family evidently won out. "I'll just go change into something more appropriate."
Since the other boy wasn't wearing robes, Harry didn't know what that meant. But perhaps it was just Draco's way of hinting that Snape needed to take off his own robes. Sure enough, Snape went into his bedroom for a moment and then emerged wearing Muggle clothing. Well, what he considered to be Muggle clothing, at any rate. It was a bit odd-looking in Harry's view, but not so much so that it would cause much notice.
Snape paused on the way to the door, his gaze sweeping over Ron, who was standing with his arms crossed, and Hermione, still working on her letter. "Have a good visit with Harry."
Ron's eyes just about bugged out; Hermione actually dropped the quill. And the look on her face was priceless. Harry had to admit, the whole thing was rather funny. Snape, stopping to say something like that? To Gryffindors, no less? But Harry knew why he'd done it.
"They will," he said, knowing that his father would understand. Harry wasn't going to back out. He'd made his decision, and he would tell his friends, hard as it might be. He'd thought about it a lot the night before, and what had helped him feel good about his decision was something that Marsha had said. She'd said it about Snape, but Harry thought the principle would apply equally well to anybody he trusted.
Loved ones can help hold you accountable, she'd explained. They can watch out for signs that you might be reverting to destructive behaviour, and help you steer clear before it gets out of hand. That's one reason you should never regret having told your father and brother about the needles.
Yeah, Ron and Hermione could help hold him accountable, too... but only if they knew what to look for. In fact, his needle problem might never have got so serious if they'd been able to tell what he'd been up to, back near the end of term. Going off by himself all the time... hiding... keeping his arms covered in case anybody should see...
Hermione would never have let clues like that pass her by, not if she'd known more about how Harry was really doing.
As soon as he saw Snape and Draco Disapparate, Harry started feeling itchy all over. Nerves, he told himself. Anxiety. He'd talked about that a lot with Marsha. He tried not to notice how the antsy feeling was concentrated in his arms.
Best to just get it over with, he thought. Tell them everything, now, and put it behind him. That would be the mature thing to do, right? Dithering about it wasn't going to help.
"I've just finished," said Hermione, almost as if on cue. She took a moment to cast a spell that showered sand over the wet ink. Sand that vanished on its own, the moment it had soaked up all the excess ink from the parchment. Huh. Harry usually just let his writings sit until they dried on their own. Once in a while he used a drying spell, but not one like that.
"Old-fashioned magic," explained Hermione, smiling. "They had some lovely spells in ages past. I've set myself a goal of learning a new one every day during the summer."
"You picked up a book in Hogsmeade before term ended?"
"Oh, no." Her smile grew even wider. "Gregory sent me one. As thanks for helping him. The really nice surprise, though, was the fact that the note he wrote showed so much improvement. Hardly any backwards letters. He must be practicing like I told him to."
Her mood seemed to darken as soon as she picked up her letter. She made as though to fold it, but sent Ron a scathing glance instead. "Do you want to read it before I send it along?"
"Yeah, I--" Ron must have caught Harry's warning look, since he dropped his voice. "No, I guess not."
"Good." Hermione rolled the letter up and secured it with a bit of twine, then handed it to Harry, who put it in the wooden box they used to transfer mail.
"So, how about some flying?" asked Ron, clearly trying to distract himself. "Snape must have an old broom I can borrow, eh?"
Harry was sorely tempted to go along with that idea, but he knew he'd better not. Or at least, not yet. "Actually, I wanted to talk to the two of you. Snape taking Draco to London was sort of my idea. We set it up so the three of us could have some time alone."
Hermione instantly began to look concerned. "What is it, Harry?"
He waved them both over to the couch before he answered, and pulled up a chair so he could sit facing them. "Er... well, the thing is..." This was even harder than he'd expected. "You know, I'm not even sure you're going to believe me."
"Believe what, mate?" Ron gave him a serious look. "You know there's nothing you can't tell us."
Well, that was an opening if Harry'd ever heard one. "Um, well... the truth is, there is something I didn't tell you."
"What?" Ron again. Hermione seemed to realise that she ought to wait for Harry to say it in his own good time.
"I... I..." Harry swallowed and tried again. "Maybe I need to lead up to it. Um, you know how I killed Lucius Malfoy?"
"Accidentally killed," corrected Hermione quietly. "In self-defence."
"Yeah, I know. But after that, I started feeling... er..."
Hermione tensed as she sat there, like she wanted to run to Harry's chair and hug him, and was holding herself back only with great effort. "You've nothing to feel bad about, Harry, absolutely nothing," she said fiercely. "Maybe it's a natural reaction but in this case it's not warranted. At all."
Not you, too, thought Harry. "That's just it," he exclaimed, beginning to rub his hands up and down over his bare arms. "I don't feel bad. And right after it happened, everybody kept saying that I shouldn't, like they were expecting that any normal person would, and I started thinking that only somebody truly evil would be able to kill without it bothering him at all, and--"
"Evil!" Ron clenched his fists, so hard that his knuckles gleamed a stark white. "That's rubbish, Harry, rubbish! You aren't evil!"
Harry smiled a little ruefully. "Yeah, I know. It wasn't quite like that. It was more like, I was afraid I might end up evil if I didn't do something about it, and--"
"You could never end up evil."
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, Ron, let him finish what he's trying to say!"
By then, Harry was desperate for it all to be over. "I started sticking myself," he blurted, wincing a little when he heard how baldly that had come out.
They didn't understand, Harry saw with dismay. Probably, they couldn't understand.
"With a needle," he added, sighing. "Over and over in my arms." He held them out as if to show them, but of course there was nothing to show at the moment. Hmm, though his forearms did look a bit red. He must have rubbed them more than he'd realised. But at least he hadn't scratched. Well, that's progress, he told himself.
"You stuck yourself. With a needle." Ron sounded dumbfounded. "Um... how come?"
"Because I felt bad that I couldn't feel bad. Over, you know, Malfoy."
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "But apparently you did feel bad, Harry. Bad enough to punish yourself?"
That was actually a pretty good point, Harry thought. He hadn't looked at it quite like that, before.
"But you're afraid of needles!" exclaimed Ron.
Funny how he sounded just like Draco, sometimes. "Yeah, I am. That was the whole point. I mean, somewhere in there I had this mixed-up idea that being afraid was the real problem and if I could just get used to them everything would be all right. Or... something like that. It's hard to explain."