Cicatrices- Marks That Remain

Trauma and Recovery

Happy... Saturday? It just so happens that I am extremely busy tomorrow, so you all get your chapter a day early! Because honestly, y'all deserve an early chapter anyway. The burst of inspiration has hit me like a truck.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I have added new tags. Please heed the warnings within the new tags. It Not present in this chapter, and will not be present for several chapters, but I want you all to be aware sooner rather than later. I will put appropriate warnings over any relevant individual chapters when the time comes. (If you want to see what these tags are, I will write them at the bottom of this chapter. Wattpad's tagging system is like Ao3's sad younger cousin that nobody talks about...) 

Also, it's canon, but just in case. We are also talking (and have been talking) a lot about past child abuse because of Harry. Those discussions are going to become more present from here forward.

Another, less urgent note: Both books mentioned in this chapter (and previous) are very real and existing books that can be found in our real actual life, and any quotes are 100% accurate quotes. Anyway... Please let me know what y'all think, and, as always... Enjoy!!!!

Harry began the other book.

He didn't entirely know why, really. After his middle-of-the-night tea with Draco, they stayed up until the earliest hints of sunlight began to filter through his flat. Then, Harry offered him some breakfast, all too aware that Draco had gone the majority of yesterday sleeping and with no food- and since Harry hadn't truly stocked up the fridge for himself, they ate bowls of Teddy's O-shaped cereal with apple chunks and milk. Harry told himself that he would go to the market soon and stock up properly.

Then, Draco fell asleep to the nature channel again. This time Harry was sure to cover him in a blanket and tuck a proper pillow below his head. When Harry finally went back to his own room to retrieve the Penzel book and learn about other things that can accompany OCD, he read about depression. Feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and a loss of enjoyment of life, lack of energy and drive... unwellness, insomnia or excessive sleep, decreased or increased appetite, fatigue... And Harry ignored the way that his something started to stir and wriggle in his chest. He was able to get through most of that part fine, and he did learn a bit more about Draco in the process. Harry kept reading, then, to the section Causes and contributing Factors of OCD. And buried between brain diagrams and tumors and perfectionism and heredity, Harry read about Trauma, and that made him place the book down and begin eyeing the other book Hermione had lent him.

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence- From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. Judith L. Herman, MD

The title alone made Harry hesitant to pick it up for reasons he couldn't properly articulate. This book looked a lot more like a typical book than a textbook or even a tome, like the other two books. And something about the cover had still made Harry feel more inclined to pick up those larger books- specifically about OCD.

But then stupid ruddy Penzel talked about trauma, and Harry knew he wouldn't really be able to put off beginning the other book much longer. So, knowing that Draco was still fast asleep, he picked it up.

The first two pages alone were enough to make Harry need to slam it down onto his nightstand as he fought back a terribly unexpected bout of crying.

"The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable"

Harry stared at the ceiling, chest tight and rapidly overheating, grappling with his racing heart, forcing it to quiet down. It's two pages of a bloody book, he told himself. There was absolutely no reason for him to be reacting this way. But even so, the words were bouncing around in his head, rattling something loose in him- something that he'd worked hard to keep under control for years.