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Harry remembers the night Sirius gave him a piece of advice that would change the course of his life.
He had been thirteen, at the time. Thirteen, over summer break, staying up late for no particular reason. He’s dealt with insomnia since he’d been attacked by Voldemort, given the deep, lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, raking over his right eye and down his cheek, and that night it’d been acting up. After tossing and turning in bed for hours, he’d made the decision to sit in the living room, as opposed to tossing his bed.
His dad, James, his mum, Lily, and one of his godfathers, Sirius, had gone out on the town for drinks that night, leaving Harry home alone. The adults never blacked out, made sure to take care of themselves, and the house is covered in wards and locked up tight, so it’s not dangerous in the slightest.
When the group had come home, Mum and Dad had both hugged and kissed Harry goodnight and headed to their room, telling him to try to sleep soon. He’d agreed, and they’d left quickly, tired and wanting to sleep.
Sirius, meanwhile, had been a good deal more drunk than his parents. Why on earth the man had gotten to the point he was walking weirdly, Harry, to this day, hasn’t the slightest clue. The animagus had been so tired, so intoxicated, that he’d dropped himself down on the couch, rolled onto his back, draping his long legs over the armrest and knocking his head against the coffee table. One arm dangled off the couch, one rested over his stomach, and his eyes had slipped closed almost immediately.
“Are you alright, Uncle Padfoot?” Harry remembers asking, curled up on the couch next to his. Sirius had looked up, blinking slowly, and there has been an odd look in his silver eyes.
“Mm… ‘ey, Haz?” Sirius’s speech was slow, slurred. His pale skin was shiny with sweat, face tinted red by the alcohol, and he’d licked his lips to wet them.
“Hm?” Harry responds, unsure of where this could be going. He’s never seen anyone, let alone his godfather, drunk like this. The man is always something of a wild card, it’s difficult to determine what’s going through his head at any given time. While he’s drunk, it’s even more difficult to foresee.
“I got… I’ve got some advice for you,” Sirius tells him, running his hand up his forehead, through his thick, long, black curls, and his eyes close for a moment. “No one is too nice to hurt you, and no one is too mean to help you. Remember that,” Harry is informed, and then Sirius lays down and passes out. It’s not the kind of advice anyone ever expects to hear, nor is it a particularly positive piece, but it’s definitely something.
Little did he know, at the time, that Sirius’ drunken advice would both hurt him worse than he’s ever been hurt, and heal him in the most unexpected ways.
~~~~~
When Harry is 15, he gets close with Anthony Rickett. He’s a Hufflepuff a year older than Harry, he’s kind and caring, and they get along well.
That’s why it’s so unexpected when Harry finds himself shoved over the desk in an abandoned classroom, Anthony behind him, folded over him, inside of him. They’d been talking, one minute, after the Hufflepuff had invited Harry to the empty room, and the next, there had been an intense burning in his arse and he feels like he can’t breathe.
No one is too nice to hurt you.
The words replay in his head over and over, on repeat, while fingers dig into his hips, while filthy words are moaned into his ear, while his body is defiled and stained. As he’s tainted from the inside out, as teeth sink into his neck, and as his clothes are stripped from his body.
When his bronze skin is on display, Anthony licks over it, sucks on it, leaves red, and pink, and purple splotches all over him, every fibre of his being screams at him to fight. He cries, he begs, but there’s bite marks on his thighs, his chest, his neck, and Anthony forces himself into Harry’s shivering body with no preparation, no lubricant, nothing.
Harry shoves at the bigger body in front of him, but he’s barely five-foot-two, maybe seven stone, and Anthony is close to ten inches taller than him, and at least five stone heavier. He digs his nails into Anthony’s chest, tearing out the fine, brown hair, there, and, when he’s forcefully flipped over, he claws at the arms holding him down. Anthony is a beater on the Hufflepuff quidditch team.
No one is too nice to hurt you.
Eventually, Harry gives up. He goes limp against the desk, pillowing his head with his arms and sobbing into his freckled skin. Anthony’s hips never still. When Harry tilts his head down, he sees blood running down the insides and backs of his legs, pooling on the floor under him, splashing against the older boy’s body. It hurts, worse than any curse he’s ever been put under.
Maybe it’s not as much physical pain, but the ache of betrayal is worse by a long shot than anything he’s ever been through. Betrayal, compounded by the violated, filthy feeling being raped drags up burns like the Cruciatus Curse. Harry grips the edge of the desk.
Anthony’s hands hit against his arse cheeks, and the filth he spews about Harry’s body makes the Gryffindor want to skin himself alive. A wand is pressed against Harry’s back, trails up and down his body, and then it lifts off, and Anthony says something the younger boy can’t hear through the ringing in his ears.
Pain rakes over his lower back, Harry cries out in pain, and then there’s wave after wave of agony digging into his skin, tearing him to shreds. His hands scrabble against the wood of the desk, and he arches away, but the grip on him is much too strong for him to pull back from.
Nobody is too nice to hurt you.
An hour after Anthony leaves, Harry manages to drag himself off of the floor (he’s not even sure when he got there, he must’ve fallen when he was let go of) and pull his shirt and pants back on. He leaves his trousers, his shoes, his belt, cloak, vest— even his wand— on the floor. He has to get out of there, he can’t be in the barren classroom anymore, he’ll fucking die if he has to see these walls, this floor, ever again.
Harry doesn’t know where he’s going, but he’s moving. He’s running. Uncle Moony and Uncle Paddy are here, in the teacher’s dorms. So is Charity, Uncle Wormy’s new wife. Miss Minnie is somewhere down there, too, and she always knows how to help. Ron and Hermione are in the dorms, and they love him. Neville is, too, for that matter, his almost-brother.
Which one is closer? Fuck, his mental map is hard to pull up right now. He’s in the fucking dungeons, for Merlin’s sake. The entries to the staff dorms are closer to the Great Hall, and the Gryffindor dormitory is so far away. Anybody could get him on the way to either location.
Harry trips over his feet before he makes it ten meters and ends up on his hands and knees. The string of profanities that fall from his lips would make a sailor blush, but Harry isn’t focused on anything but how much danger he’s putting himself in.
“Potter?” a very confused voice shatters his spiral, and Harry decides he might die tonight. “What are you— Merlin,” Malfoy sighs, but he doesn’t sound like he’s about to start laughing. He sounds… worried.
Harry doesn’t expect it whatsoever when Malfoy crouches in front of him, suddenly reaching out to grab the younger boy’s shoulders. It’s so surprising that Harry doesn’t even flinch, just allows his face to be inspected. He melts into Malfoy’s arms like he’s some pathetic baby and lets the bite marks on his neck and blood seeping through his trousers be noted, just because this feels like protection.
“I’m gonna take you to my dorm. Blaise is in the Hospital Wing, so you’ll have privacy,” Malfoy decides. Harry doesn’t care where they go as long as it’s away from that fucking classroom.
He leans heavily on the taller boy, hardly aware of anything but the fact that Malfoy is being good, taking care of him, and that’s what he wants. He doesn’t pay any attention to how they get into the dorm or being corralled into laying atop the covers on Malfoy’s bed.
It’s kind of comfortable, actually, especially with Malfoy sitting next to him, fussing over this bitten lower lip and bloody neck and bruised wrists. He curls into a ball, trying to breathe properly, and Malfoy pulls a thin blanket from somewhere to cover Harry.
~~~~~
Sirius shows up a few minutes after Harry is covered and in bed. Harry doesn’t know how Malfoy figured out how to get the man here, but he’s happy for it.
It’s seeing Sirius there, feeling warm, callused hands smoothing over his back, when he remembers the second half of that advice he got years ago.
No one is too mean to help you.
Harry tucks his face into Sirius’s thigh and shuts his eyes. Two seconds later, he’s been scooped up and ends up tucked against Sirius’s chest, where it’s warm and safe and still smells of sleep. It makes him feel good inside to know that the man got here this fast, even though he was asleep before being called.
“Is— is he okay?” Malfoy asks slowly from where he’s lingering by the door, like this isn’t his own dorm.
“Yeah. I can take it from here, Buddy,” Sirius replies simply, standing with Harry cradled in his arms. This is safety. This means he’s not going to get hurt anymore. “Thank you for taking care of him. We’ll talk tomorrow,” he adds, ruffling Malfoy’s hair as he walks by. Malfoy nods, but doesn’t say much more.
Sirius and Remus’ dorm is safe— comfortable and somewhere Harry knows he’s not going to be hurt anymore. The bath he takes is perfect, and Sirius feeds him good food before tucking him under a thick blanket on the surprisingly comfortable couch. Before he can stop himself, Harry wraps his arms around Sirius’s thigh and gets comfortable against the man.
“How are you feeling, Pups?” Sirius asks calmly, carding his fingers through Harry’s mess of fluffy curls. Harry makes an unintelligible noice against the soft fabric pressed against his face and shuts his eyes. “You want me to stick around until you get to bed?” he asks.
“Yes, please,” Harry replies quickly. Sirius lays down next to him, his bicep becoming a pillow for the teen as he’s held. Not for the first time, Harry notices the old scars covering Sirius arms and neck and pretty much every part of his body. He wonders who hurt Sirius and who helped him.