A/N: Hello there! So, this is my first attempt at a multi-chaptered story, so please be patient with me. Also, I'm sorry if this plot line is overused. I really wanted to write this though! Sorry Snape isn't in this chapter- I promise he'll make his debut in the next one. All reviews are welcome! :) And if you didn't read it in the summary, this story is centered around self injury, so if that will negatively affect you, please don't read. Rating may go up in the future.

Chapter 1: Nostophobia

High in the darkened Gryffindor tower, Harry Potter pressed his face further into his pillow. It was the first night of the new term and despite the cheering atmosphere of the annual welcome feast, Harry felt an unwavering weight pressing on him right down to his core. Standing up and slipping noiselessly to the floor, Harry padded over to the window ledge and sat down, leaning against the cool of the window pane. Through the glass he could see the familiar grounds that surrounded the castle. The lake, the Forbidden Forest, Hagrid's hut, and the Quidditch pitch all came together within his view to form a seamless picture of the place he had come to call home over the past five years. It was a beautiful scene under the dim moonlight. But yet… as his eyes glazed over the landscape, Harry could not help but notice that the grounds had a colder, bleaker feel to them, one that he felt had nothing to do with the darkness caused by the late hour. For the first time Harry could ever recall, there was something about the grounds that felt foreign; In fact, it was not only the grounds, but the entire castle that felt strange to Harry. Normally, returning to Hogwarts was the thing Harry looked forward to most every year. Compared to his summers with the Dursleys, coming back to Hogwarts was like Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving all rolled into one. But for some reason, walking back through the school's halls felt…different.

Harry sighed, his breath fogging the glass next to his head. He stood up and slinked back to his four post bed and dropped into it wearily. On either side of him he could hear Ron and Neville's snores, and although he was too lazy to lift his head and look, Harry was sure that Dean and Seamus joined Ron and Neville in slumber. Suddenly overwhelmed by anger, Harry slammed his right fist into one of the posts on his bed. Why couldn't he be asleep like the rest of his classmates? Why on earth could he just turn off his brain like the other boys? Then it came to him, just like it had before he had gotten up.

'Neither can live while the other survives.'

Those were the words that haunted him. Every time that Harry tried to close his eyes and fall into unconsciousness, the words spoken by the prophecy clanged through his head so loudly he swore he could almost hear it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the boy who lived knew that he wouldn't be the boy who lived for much longer. In that moment, it seemed as though all of the nighttime darkness in the boys' sleeping room took physical form and slammed itself into Harry brain.

There was absolutely no way around it, no matter what angle he tried to look at it from. He was going to die. He would never know what it would be like to grow up, have a job, or a family, to experience all the things the boys around him had to look forward to. Voldemort was going to find him and kill him. It was either that or Harry would have to kill Voldemort himself. He shuddered. And he wasn't sure he had the guts to do that.

As he unconsciously rolled over onto his side, Harry became dimly aware of the fact that his hand was tingling- In fact, as the pain brought him out of the swirl of emotions in his head, Harry realized that his hand was throbbing quite painfully. He brushed the fingers of his left hand against his aching knuckles , pulling them away as his skin made contact with something sticky.

'Way to go idiot,' he thought, as he pulled himself upright and, for the second time that night, stood up from his bed. He made his way over to his trunk at the foot of his bed and dug around in it, pulling out one of Dudley's old T-shirts that he had brought with him from the Dursley's house. Deciding it would do as a makeshift bandage, Harry gingerly wrapped the worn article of clothing around his bleeding knuckles and climbed back into bed.

He sighed, berating himself. 'Watch your temper Harry. If you go around punching things every time you get mad, the Daily Prophet will report that you've lost your bonkers again…' He snorted. 'They might actually be right for a change.' Harry lay further back into his pillow. Even though he knew that punching his bed post had been stupid, he couldn't help but notice that the pain in his hand had gotten rid of his inability to snap out of his thoughts. 'Figures,' he thought grimly. 'The thing that stopped me from being in pain was to be in pain.' Flopping dejectedly onto his back, Harry closed his eyes and this time was able to fall into an uneasy sleep.

"HARRY!"

Harry jolted awake to find Ron's freckled face hovering over his own. "Bloody hell Ron," he muttered, sitting up. He ran a hand through his hair, which after having slept on, was untidier than usual. As Harry's blurry vision began to come into focus, he noticed that an unusual amount of sunshine was pouring in through the window next to his bed. He looked up and saw that Ron, who had moved over towards his own bed, was already in his school robes and was brushing haphazardly at his teeth. When Ron noticed his best friend staring at him, he waved for him to get up.

Still scrubbing vigorously at his teeth, Ron managed to spit out, "Eff ou don urry up ere gon be ate fur otions!"

Harry scrubbed at his face. His head was pounding already, and he sometimes didn't understand why Ron even bothered to talk when his mouth was so full. "What did you say Ron?"

Striding across the room, Ron opened the window next to Harry's bed and with a tremendous effort, spat out a large quantity of tooth paste and spit.

"That's better. I said, if you don't hurry up, we're going to be late for Potions! You slept through breakfast mate- I thought about waking you up, but Hermione said it was probably best to let you sleep if you were tired enough to have slept through all the commotion Seamus and Dean caused when they were getting ready this morning…"

Harry's thoughts tuned out Ron's ramblings about Seamus and Dean setting off an entire pack of Weasley's Wizard Weezes' fireworks in the common room. Had he really managed to sleep through all of that noise? Typically he was an extremely light sleeper- It had always been beneficial to wake up as soon as Uncle Vernon or Dudley opened his bedroom door to shut up his screaming at night, or to hear Aunt Petunia coming up the stairs before she started pounding on his door to get up and get breakfast started. 'As if they'd leave me alone to sleep anyway,' Harry thought bitterly. But even if no one interrupted his sleep, Harry usually did not get more than a few light hours a night. No matter how tired he was, his sleep was always troubled by nightmares about Cedric, the graveyard, and images of Sirius' face. 'And of course the prophecy…' So why had he slept so well last night?

As if his body was answering his mind, Harry's right hand gave a painful throb.

'That's right, I bashed open my knuckles on my bed post last night.' Examining his hand further, Harry noticed that some blood had managed to soak through his makeshift bandage and was smeared on his bed sheets. 'Terrific. I'll have to ask Hermione for a good cleansing charm later, and of course she'll want to know why I need it.' As much as Harry loved his friend, he couldn't help but be a tad exasperated by her nosiness.

"Oi, Harry, are you coming or not?"

Harry looked up to see that Ron was standing by the door to the dorm with his bag slung over his shoulder. They must be running late if Ron was anxious to get a move on…

"You go on ahead Ron, I'll be there soon," Harry said, swinging his legs over the side of his bed. "Tell Slughorn I'll be there as fast as I can, okay?"

"Sure thing mate." And with that, Ron started down the stairs, calling back, "I hope he isn't as much of a git as Snape!"

"Yeah," Harry said softly, not really caring if Ron could hear him or not. The thought of Slughorn being as impatient as Snape had crossed Harry's mind, but at that moment he didn't particularly care. He knew that he was going to be late for Potions- and at the rate he was going he might miss it entirely- but for some reason Harry simply couldn't bear the thought of having to go down and join his classmates. Like the feeling of abnormality he had received last night, Harry felt awkward and nervous around the other Hogwarts students. Sure, he was used to receiving stares and had grown accustomed to hearing people whisper things as he passed, but upon his return this year it was all different. Harry felt paranoid. He knew that most of the students now knew about Sirius and what had happened at the Ministry in May. Would they try pressing him for information? What if they still thought he was a liar? The thought of his fellow students ostracizing him further was almost unbearable to him. Just thinking of the rest of his Potions class looking at him as he entered the room was enough to make Harry feel sick to his stomach. How different would things be this year?

As he was getting dressed, Harry began to absent mindedly rub at his bandaged hand, at first lightly, but then hard, as he became more focused on the pain it had started to cause him. As blood started to soak through the old T-shirt again, Harry noticed that the knot in his chest loosed just a little bit.

'I don't know if I can do this,' thought Harry, as he swung his school bag over his shoulder and headed down the stairs off to Potions.

A/N: Please review and let me know if it sucked or not!