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twenty-three | anorexia

idontwannabeyouanymore

perfect song for this chapter

btw this entire chapter is about anorexia, so if that could trigger you, skip it.

~no pov

Harry felt ready to talk about his eating struggles because, despite anorexia and bulimia being quite different, the two felt the same.

Pulling away from the boy he'd hugged for what felt like forever, he took a deep breath and prepared himself to talk.

"I feel the way you feel, a bit." Harry began. He wasn't quite sure how to explain it all. "Erm, basically, I, I guess I'm quite used to eating little. I've never really had quite a big appetite. But things changed halfway through year nine.

I used to enjoy food, sort of. But then the mirror, like you, started to change for me. I've always been skinny, I think, but because I took self-defence classes and used to play football, I was kinda muscly? Maybe?

I'm unsure.

But the mirror made me look different. I hated how pale my skin was, and how chubby my thighs were. I hated the way my arms were too flabby, as well as my stomach. I didn't remember gaining weight but I was mad that I did.

See, when I started getting bullied a lot, I used to eat to cope with it all.

as well as other things

I ate junk food constantly, at parties and with friends, or at home. I would sneak food into my room and just eat to feel okay. That's how I gained weight.

So, realising that and seeing myself distort made me want to cry. I wanted to scream, because I wasn't the only one noticing it. The bullies would call me fat, disgusting and picked on me because they thought I was gay."

We never did that. Malfoy thought to himself. Does Potter have other bullies?

"I started eating less again, which became easy for me. I skipped meals more, until I skipped them fully. After a few days of starving, I would eat a meal. It had to be healthy, like a salad. And when I did, I counted the calories.

My friends noticed how I usually refrained from eating at lunch. Whenever they asked why, I would say I didn't like the canteen food, or that I already ate. Sometimes they would give me food, and I would pick at it.

When they looked away, I would drop whatever they gave me and kick it away. I realised it was incredibly wasteful, but I couldn't fathom the calories.

One time, Ron and Hermione forced me to go to a restaurant after New Year's in year ten. I had stuff going on already, and thinking about food made me want to drink or- I don't know." Harry cut himself off there. He didn't want to talk about the other way he coped.

"We were in the restaurant choosing food, and I looked for a salad. Ron laughed and asked me why I would get a salad at such a nice place. I just lied and said I liked salads, but I would've preferred a steak or something.

But the thought of the fats and grease in the meat made me feel like throwing up. It made me envision my body being a chunky, whale-like mess. I didn't even have the money for a steak anyway.

When I got my salad, it looked more filling than I expected. I thought to myself, let's let this be our only meal for the rest of the week. But I couldn't even let myself have that. I got my phone out and looked at the calories.

And I didn't like how many a simple chicken Caesar salad had. Over five hundred, in a fucking salad. And it looked like the healthiest thing to have.

I ended up wrapping the chicken up in a napkin and binning it. Even so, I couldn't bear the fact that I had eaten so much, despite Ron saying it was so little.