The cost of keeping Secrets

Spin off chapter 2

Descriptive violence, emotional turmoil, and potentially triggering writing. You have been warned. 

First day of being home was uneventful. Harrison found a bit of spare money around the house after he silenced his footsteps to avoid waking his dad from his slumber. It was so much easier now to sneak around with being able to cast spells. Not that he didn't trust his spell work, but out of habit he still avoided the creaky stairs and parts of the floor.

He hadn't had time to go take his apparition test yet so it was the long way into town to buy some groceries. He picked things he could hid in his room or things that required some assemblance to avoid his dad just downing it in one go. He also bought a few water and soda bottles to have on hand in hopes of indirectly encouraging his dad to drink something else. Harrison may have given up on his dad coming around and caring about him again like when he was little, but it didn't stop him for wanting to see his dad get better.

By noon there was food in the house, he ate some animal crackers and peanut butter [a bit of a staple food for him when he was home], he had sent a letter to Dolan, and he was well into the first stage of his potion. By 22:46 he should have his first batch done. Harrison was really nervous about it working. He needed it to work. He had no doubt that being home, away from his friends, and being around his dad was going to in any way help him stop having nightmares. If last night was anything to go by.

As much as he tried not to think about it the sight of EE Puck releasing an emerald green curse at him...it was hard to shake. He knew that it wasn't real. No one had reported any killing curses being used around the students. That didn't stop his mind from coming up with the imagery. Though...I wonder why they didn't go in for the kill with the students? They took out professors. And they didn't just disarm the kids either. They went for...

Harrison twitches as his muscles remember the cruciatus curse. He should have listened to Dolan and got checked out right away. He found out after that by leaving it the curse lingered in his system and it would now take time to work it's way out. He was past the time mark for the potion to help. It was supposed to be out by now but he wasn't sure. He doesn't know if he was having phantom pains or real aftershocks.

On the plus side, without the crowded halls of Hogwarts and the reminders everywhere he went, he wasn't seeing as many things while he was awake. So that's a bonus.

It was time to try his potion. The color looked right. He thinks the constancy matches the description. It says to do one mouth full for every 4 hours you want to sleep. No more than 3 nights in a week, no more then 2 weeks in a row. So, if an average person should have 8 hours of sleep, that would be two doses a night. But Harrison needed it to last longer than that. A good nights sleep, 3 times every other week or so isn't going to be enough.

So he comes up with his own plan. Sure there are things people say about those who self-diagnosis and medicate. But when needs must. And Harrison really had a need. He would do only one dose every other night. 4 hours of sleep every other day. It wasn't enough but it was better than his broken maybe two hours a night currently. And this should keep him from overdosing. Hopefully also from becoming addicted.

For the first night he debated. Low dose in case I did something wrong or full dose to start off on a good nights sleep? He really wasn't sure. Stepping over to his desk he read the letter that came around dinner from Dolan.