The Scorpion Always Stings

ϟ September 1998

September 1998

Harry Potter's scar was hurting again.

He woke up with a startling jolt. The first thing he saw was the familiar shock of red hair coiled in front of his face. Taking a deep breath, he pulled Ginny's sleeping form closer to his, pressing his face against her hair. It seemed almost a dream that just five short months ago, he'd have given anything to be here, with her, smelling the strawberry shampoo in her hair and the mingling scent of girlish perfume. Now, it felt unnatural.

After a few minutes, when it became apparent that he would not get any more sleep despite the inviting warmth of Ginny's body, Harry swung himself out of bed. His scar prickled again.

Hermione had assured him that it was entirely - what was that word again? Psychosomatic. In Ron's words, 'all in your head, mate'.

"It's post-traumatic stress," Hermione had said the first time he had woken up, screaming the entire Weasley household awake, convinced that Voldemort had returned. Why else could it be hurting like this?  "You've gotten so used to it hurting that your mind's convinced you it still does."

That first incident led to much insisting from Mrs Weasley that Harry should see a mind Healer. He did, for a while, until he discovered that the Healer was secretly sharing deeply personal snippets of Harry's life to The Daily Prophet.

Sharing might be a generous term, for much of the information passed on was highly embellished or just wildly untrue. For weeks, Harry had to dodge rumours that he had secretly been the love child of Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange, that he, Hermione and Ron were in a complicated, polyamorous relationship and - his personal favourite - that he was obsessed with, to the point of stalking, the famous singing witch Celestina Warbeck. The dubious connection between Harry and the celebrity witch was conflated with his apparent need for a mother figure.

It'd been a lesson learned. No more weepy therapy sessions with strangers.

Not that any of it had been weepy. Or useful.

Now all Harry could do was wait for the initial shock to subside. The wizarding world had transformed in just four short months since his defeat of Voldemort. Kingsley Shacklebolt was now Interim Minister of Magic, a position Harry doubted would change for a long time.

Harry crept quietly into the unusually quiet kitchen of The Burrow. The sun had only just started peeking through the closed windows, so Harry knew it was only a matter of time before Mrs Weasley would come clattering noisily down the stairs, a large basket of Sunday laundry floating right behind her.

He flicked his wand towards a chipped Chudley Cannons coffee mug, and it filled up with some coffee. He'd always found it so unnecessary before, the act of using magic for such mundane things. Perhaps it was the Muggle side of him that urged him against complacency in such things. Or perhaps it was the years of chores he'd been expected to do at the Dursleys without using his wand. It was these things, these tiny quirks and habits he'd never stopped to think twice about before, that seemed to be magnified now. He had to use magic - Harry didn't know why, but it felt necessary. To remind himself, he supposed, that he was alive and whole. And, most importantly, that he was a wizard.

He took a sip of coffee and gazed out of the little kitchen window. A tiny little breeze had started to flutter in, reminding Harry that summer was over. This time last year, he had been camping in the middle of nowhere with Ron and Hermione. Freezing, hungry, scared teenagers. How had they done it? Harry shut his eyes, heard Hermione's screams in the distance, Ron's splinched arm, and opened them again quickly, shuddering.