Harry wiped some sweat off his brow so he could see to continue weeding. His aunt, unfortunately for him, didn't approve, and smacked him on the head-not lightly.

"Stop being so lazy, you ungrateful freak," his Uncle Vernon said.

Harry responded with a simple, "Yes, Uncle Vernon." Apparently, they were in a good mood, as they decided not to take that as cheek. The confrontation at the train station had made them angrier than usual this summer. Harry didn't care. As far as he was concerned, he deserved it for causing his godfather's death, Hermione's injuries, and all the rest of their injuries.

He was smacked by Petunia again, and he realized his thoughts had made him stop working. As this one was a longer pause than last time, Vernon felt the need to do something, as well, and whipped Harry with his belt. Harry took without any type of protest. He did continue weeding, though.

After that was done, he was told to make lunch, and then sent up to his room while they ate. He picked up some of the broken pieces of glass from the mirror that Sirius had given him and rolled up his sleeves. He knew he needed to live to make the world safe from Voldemort, but he needed some way to relieve his emotional pain. Having grown up in the muggle world, he knew about cutting. He thought that it was only fitting that the thing he could have used to save Sirius was used to hurt him. He then went and ran the fresh cuts under water. He had found out from the Dursleys a long time ago that fresh cuts with water can cause quite a bit of pain.

It had only been a week since he had come back from Hogwarts, but he had already amassed as many cuts on his arms as he had collected from the Dursleys in all his previous years. He was grateful that Hermione wasn't here; her reaction to his cuts would have been to cry, hug him, heal them, hug him again, then give him an hour long lecture about how he had friends now. At least, that would have been her reaction before. He knew that after the incident in the ministry, she would be keeping her distance. He couldn't even open her letters; he didn't want to see the angry words he was sure were written there.

A shout from his aunt to get downstairs made him jump while he was in the middle of what must have been his twentieth cut since he had visited the bathroom. It went deeper than usual, and for the first time, he actually had to fight a cry of pain. He rolled down his sleeves, some part of him enjoying the pain he received from them roughly chafing his cuts.

He was downstairs quickly and doing the dishes before his relatives could say anything. He had down this often enough that he knew what they wanted. What he hadn't considered was that the deeper cut he had made would mean more blood. It was dripping through the sleeves. Dudley was the one to notice. This was surprising, as he was usually as observant as a deaf bat. He waited until Harry finished the dishes, then gleefully punched him the stomach.

"What do you think you're doin', freak?" He yelled. "How dare you make a mess!" This was accompanied by another punch. "Clean it up! And clean that shirt, too, you freak!" A final punch, then Dudley let Harry collapse to the floor. He walked away laughing.

Harry picked himself up off the floor and began cleaning. Fortunately, he was a fast healer, so he had stopped bleeding by this time and wasn't making a mess while cleaning.

Meanwhile, at the Granger house, Hermione was gnawing on her lower lip. Harry hadn't responded to any of her letters. It had only been a week, but she knew of Harry's turtle-like tendencies, and had tried to head them off by sending a letter every day. Unfortunately, there was still no response, and she was getting worried. He was living with those horrid relatives of his, and probably blaming himself for everything that had gone wrong at the Ministry. Her blood was boiling at just the thought of them. Gathering her courage, she went downstairs to talk to her parents.

"Mum, Dad," Hermione began, "you know about Harry, right?"

Dan and Emma Granger shared a glance; they had probably heard more about him than anyone else at her school. They figured that if they met him, they'd know exactly what he would do in given circumstances. Being loving parents, they also knew their daughter. They thought they knew where this was going.

"Of course we can go visit Harry, Hermione," Emma said.

"Well, I'm kind of worried, and-wait-what?" Hermione stood for a second, stunned that they knew what she was going to ask. She didn't bother questioning it, and gave a sigh of relief before running to her parents and treating them to her famous bone-crushing hugs. She immediately requested going to his house tomorrow, and treated them to more of her hugs when she received a yes. She immediately rushed up the stairs to plan tomorrow (it was Saturday), before turning around, going back down the stairs, saying an excited thank you, and rushing back up the stairs.

Pointing to Harry, the ghostly form of Sirius said disgustedly, "I thought Wormtail was the only fool who would get his friends hurt and killed."

All Harry could do was beg for forgiveness. "I'm sorry, Sirius, I didn't mean to. Please, let me fix this," he pleaded with his nightmare.

"Fix this?" Sirius sneered. "How do you plan on fixing death?"

"I don't know," Harry wailed, "I just wish I could."

Sirius shifted to Hermione, and she said, "Not this time, Potter," with such a sneer on the word Potter that Snape would have been envious. "I've followed you since first year, how could you do this to me?"

Harry was sobbing by this time, muttering, "I know, I'm sorry," over and over, unable to face the girl who had done so much for, and who he had failed so miserably.

"You should be sorry," she screeched. "And we thought you could be the one to teach us Defense," she sneered. "We won't be making the same mistake of trusting you again."

Harry could only think to himself that he already knew that, and that he deserved that and more. He didn't even realize that he was still muttering his mantra.

He woke up to his tear-soaked pillow covered in sweat and shaking. He glanced at the clock, and found that he had been able to sleep for an hour, a new record since the fiasco at the Ministry. Not wanting to face Sirius or Hermione again, he decided he would stay awake. He automatically rolled up his sleeves and reached for the broken pieces of glass. He then spent the next seven hours finding new places to creatively torment himself. He stayed away from any place visible, such as his face or hands, but the knife went everywhere except for his package and rear end. He found out that the most painful place to cut was on his shins, but that he would bleed more if he cut his inner thighs or wrists.

At eight, he put the glass in his top drawer, knowing his uncle would probably be up soon. It didn't matter that it was Saturday; his uncle would make sure he worked. True to predictions, Harry heard his uncle's door open and the floor creak as he made his way to Harry's room. Harry decided to pretend to be asleep today, knowing that if his uncle believed he was asleep, he would punish him for being lazy.

Vernon pushed Harry's door open, turned the light on, and gasped in fury that the freak was still sleeping. He went back to his room, grabbed a belt, marched back to Harry's room, and woke him with a whipping. Harry never screamed, or tried to avoid the whip. The part of his mind that thought he deserved it reveled in the treatment.

"Get your lazy ass up, freak!" Uncle Vernon said, trying not to shout; he didn't want to wake Petunia or Dudley. "I expect to see the kitchen cleaned before I come downstairs. I don't know why we took you in, you're so ungrateful!"

Harry merely said, "Yes, Uncle Vernon." Unfortunately, his uncle was not in a good mood today.

His face became purple, and he barely stopped himself from screaming the words, "I don't want any cheek from you, you insolent little freak!" as he put more into the whipping. Harry was amazed that the fat man was still going, but there was still the guilty part of his mind that reveled in the treatment.

As soon as Vernon finished the whipping, gasping for air, Harry went down the stairs and cleaned the little bit of the kitchen that wasn't already clean. After all, he'd had to clean it the night before. All he had to clean was the mess Dudley and Vernon had made when they had eaten their midnight snack that was the size of a large meal.

It didn't take long, since he'd done it most of his life. When Vernon came downstairs a few minutes later, he was disappointed that he couldn't find anything to complain about. So he had Harry clean the bathroom. When that was done to his satisfaction, he had him clean the living room.

He was quickly running out of things to do, when Petunia and Dudley woke up. It was 11 o'clock, surprisingly early for Dudley. Now he had to make breakfast. He made the eggs, bacon, and sausage perfectly, but he purposely burnt the last piece of toast so he would be punished. He expected to be sent to his room, where Vernon would whip him. That was exactly what happened. At least, that was exactly what happened until Vernon got tired, and decided Dudley needed to learn how to whip. Dudley, unfortunately, took a liking to it, and had much better stamina than his father. It took him nearly half an hour to tire of the whipping. The shirt Harry was wearing was basically tatters, but he had managed to not scream. Even when Dudley decided he was going to slap the marks he had left, he didn't scream.

A few hours later, there was the sound of the doorbell ringing, the door opening, and a voice that cheerfully asked Vernon to see Harry Potter.