The truth finally dawning on him, Draco reared back in shock. "You wanted to? Why, for Merlin's sake?"
Harry thought of what he'd just gone through to get Snape to understand. "It's hard to explain," he said, sighing deeply as he yanked the jumper's sleeves back down.
Draco stared at him, just stared.
"I'm not a flobberworm on display," Harry finally snapped.
The statement seemed to snap Draco out of his thoughts. "No, you're not. You're a textbook case right out of The Road to Recovery."
Harry couldn't help it; he gaped. "What?"
"Lucius Malfoy deserved what you did to him!" Draco cried, raising his voice in what sounded like frustration. "He was going to kill me, you know, and torture you, and hand you over to the Dark Lord! It looks to me like you feel you need to be punished, but that's like the Ministry feeling guilty because they convicted a guilty man! You have nothing, nothing to fault yourself for. And if I can say that, you know it must be true!"
"That's not the problem," Harry said fiercely. "I don't fault myself, all right? Is everybody listening? Because I'm getting pretty sick of people thinking they know how I feel when they don't. Lucius Malfoy was a sack of shite and I'm glad he's dead, got it? Glad! And I'm glad I was the one who killed him! And I don't feel guilty, not one bit! Are we all goddamned good and clear on that now?"
Draco's eyes were huge in his face. "Clear as Lubaantum."
"And as long as we're clearing things up, I don't look at you and see Lucius! I was avoiding you because I thought you knew about this--" Harry gestured towards his forearms, "and I didn't want to talk about it, all right?"
"Oh, this is what you didn't want to talk about," murmured Draco, nodding. For a moment, something shined in his eyes, but then the moment was gone, and the boy was demanding, "If you don't feel guilty then why are you hexing yourself? And please don't tell me you did something as daft as use a wanded spell."
Trust Draco to think like a wizard no matter the circumstances. "I didn't use a spell at all," Harry said baldly. "I stuck myself with a needle over and over."
When Draco blanched, Harry wished he'd thought of another way to break the news.
Then again, Draco didn't blanch for long. His gaze flicked to the bloodied pyjama top. "Brandish the other wand, Harry. A needle wouldn't cause a mess like that."
"A big enough one would."
Then, Draco really blanched, his skin going pasty. "But you hate needles!"
Harry gave him a look as if to say, yes, I do seem to recall that . . .
Draco's nostrils flared. "Well, forgive me for being a bit out of my depth, Harry. Do you think you could answer my question now? What would make you want to torture yourself, Muggle-style, no less?"
Strange. He hadn't been able to tell his father, not in words, but now he could say it. Part of it, at least. Maybe the Occlumency had really helped. "I felt guilty that I couldn't feel guilty."
Draco crossed his arms, his voice emerging even more scornfully than before. "Oh, that makes perfect sense, Harry. Do you feel sad when you can't feel sad? Or happy when you can't feel happy? Or hungry when you can't feel hungry?"
Harry felt his fist clenching. "Thanks! It really helps loads to have you making fun!"
Snape moved so that he could look into Harry's eyes. And then he spoke, his voice insistent. "Your brother isn't ridiculing you. He simply doesn't understand, yet. But I do, and I must tell you: a sense of satisfaction, or even joy, at Lucius' death does not make you a terrible person. No less a great wizard of the Light than Albus Dumbledore himself feels the same. And I dare say you'd never call him dark."
"Dark?" gasped Draco. "You can't possibly think you're turning dark, Harry! Just because you don't feel guilty? You don't have anything to feel guilty for!"
Ignoring his brother, Harry focussed his gaze on his father's face. "How do you know how the headmaster feels? I mean, has he actually said he's happy?"
"Oh, he has more decorum than that." Snape's lips curled up slightly. "I do believe, however, that I can deduce his thoughts on the matter from the way he chuckled while we were dealing with Lucius' body. Chortled, even. He was in most excellent spirits. Will you now condemn him as evil?"
Harry swallowed. "No, but he's not the one who did anything, is he?"
"He killed Grindelwald, you twit!"
No ignoring that jibe. Harry ground his teeth together in irritation. "Listen, you aren't me, Draco. You don't know what it's like inside my head, so don't you dare call me names--"
"Gentlemen," interrupted Snape. "I think perhaps any further analysis of the situation can wait until morning."
"Easy for you to say," muttered Draco. "You were in his head, so you know exactly what's going on with him. Well, some of us can't perform feats of wonders with our mental powers. Some of us have to rely on speech--"
"Some of us are dead tired and don't want to blather on for another hour," interrupted Harry. "We can talk in the morning. Ha, if I feel like it. And that's that."
Draco abruptly nodded, though he couldn't quite bring himself to drop it entirely. All annoyance was gone from his voice, however, when he ventured, "You . . . you aren't going to do it again, are you?"
Harry opened his mouth to say he wouldn't, but the word wouldn't quite emerge. The truth was, he didn't know for sure if he wouldn't. He could see himself wanting the needle again. It wasn't even difficult to imagine that, though at the moment his arms weren't itching.
"No, he isn't," Snape answered for him. "But based on your hesitation, Harry, I think you'd better move back to the dungeons for the rest of term." He held up a hand when Harry would have protested. "It's only another couple of weeks before you'd move back in any case."
True, so Harry let it go. "But aren't we going to Devon for the summer?"
"Not straight away." Snape moved to a vantage point where he could look Harry in the eye. "We'll decide tomorrow how best to handle the final weeks of classes. But I must make one thing clear at the outset. If you feel at any point that you're in danger of succumbing to an urge to stick yourself, you must contact me at once. At once, Harry. I don't care if I'm in a meeting with Salazar Slytherin himself, you're to interrupt. Yes?"
Harry nodded.
"Now, to particulars," said Snape. "Where is the needle you've been using?"
Harry blushed, feeling like he was about five years old. "You saw, I think. I've been keeping it in the seam of whatever shirt I had on. I don't have it with me. And the yarn needle is upstairs in the common room. I think I dropped it. On the table where I left my books? Well, somewhere, anyway."
"I'll go and fetch your wand as well as return your common room to rights," said Snape. "And to avoid the inevitable hue and cry in the morning, I'll inform Mr Weasley that you've come home for the night."
"Don't tell him why," Harry pleaded. "I . . . well, I know I can trust Ron and Hermione, but this is just . . . no, all right? I'd rather just get over this, somehow, and not ever let them know what I was doing."
"I shall inform him your vision took a turn for the worse and I am treating you with a new, nocturnal Elixir which requires you be monitored while you sleep," said Snape.
Harry wasn't exactly happy about any of this, but he still felt his lips curling into a smile. "You really can think up stuff fast, can't you?"
Snape didn't answer that. "You should reconsider the matter of telling your friends, however. It goes back to what we discussed earlier tonight. But you needn't think about it now. Later, when you feel more able to . . . cope. All right?"