Scars Unseen

The Great Hall buzzed with the usual midday clamour of students enjoying their lunch, but Fred Weasley’s attention was fixed firmly on the Gryffindor table where his younger brother Ron sat next to Harry Potter. Fred nudged George with an elbow, a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Look at them, all serious and brooding,” Fred whispered, nodding towards the pair. “Reckon it’s time for a bit of cheer, don’t you? A classic tickle attack. Boy Who Lived could do with a laugh.”

George grinned. “You’re reading my mind, brother mine. On three?”

They sidled up behind the unsuspecting duo, wands pocketed for once in favour of a more hands-on approach. Harry was murmuring something to Ron about Lockhart’s latest idiocy, his shoulders hunched forward. With a synchronized movement born of years of prankster partnership, Fred and George pounced. Fred aimed for Harry’s waist, fingers wiggling as he found the soft spot just above the hip.

Harry’s reaction was instantaneous and horrifying. Instead of the expected yelp or stifled giggle, a ragged scream tore from his throat. He convulsed backwards, knocking his goblet to the floor with a clatter that echoed in the sudden silence. Tears streamed down his face, hot and immediate, and a sound Fred would never forget—a blend of pure agony and terror—filled the air.

“Get off! STOP!” Harry shrieked, thrashing. His hands clawed at his own sides as if to protect an unseen wound. Fred recoiled, his own heart hammering as Harry staggered to his feet, eyes wild and unseeing for a moment before he fled, robes billowing, towards the entrance hall. In his wake, a few drops of something dark splattered the stone floor. Fred could have sworn it was blood.

The hall erupted in whispers. Ron looked stricken, Hermione was on her feet, but Harry was already gone. Fred stood frozen, George’s hand on his shoulder.

“What in Merlin’s name was that?” George breathed.

Fred couldn’t answer. The image of Harry’s anguished face, the raw scream, kept replaying. That hadn’t been just surprise. That had been pain—deep, visceral pain. And why blood? No one else seemed to have noticed the small crimson stains on the bench where Harry had been sitting.

That evening in the common room, the talk was all about Potter’s bizarre outburst. Some speculated a hex, others a fit of madness. But the prevailing question, unspoken yet palpable, was: if the Boy Who Lived was so hurt, why didn’t he go to Madam Pomfrey? Fred sat in a corner with George, both uncharacteristically quiet.

“His waist,” Fred muttered. “When I touched it, he screamed like I’d used Cruciatus.”

George frowned. “Maybe he’s got an injury from Quidditch. But then, why hide it?”

Fred didn’t know. The questions gnawed at him for days. He found himself watching Harry more carefully. The boy was paler, thinner. He flinched at sudden noises and seemed to fold in on himself whenever anyone got too close. He wore his robes even in the heat of the common room, sleeves always pulled down.

Then, a fortnight later, Fred’s curiosity became something darker, something urgent. He’d been wandering the corridors after curfew, partly to avoid Percy’s nagging and partly because sleep eluded him. Near the second-floor girls’ lavatory—the one out of order, haunted by Moaning Myrtle—he heard a sound that made his blood run cold.

It was crying. Not the dramatic wails of Myrtle, but the desperate, broken sobs of someone trying to muffle themselves.

Fred’s feet carried him forward before his brain could catch up. He pushed open the door slowly, the creak swallowed by the weeping. The scene inside stopped him dead.

Harry Potter knelt on the cold tiles, his robes discarded in a heap, his shirt rucked up to his ribs. In the dim light of a few hovering candles, Fred could see the boy’s torso clearly—and what he saw made his stomach lurch. Angry red lines crisscrossed Harry’s waist and lower ribs, some fresh and glistening, others older, scabbed, or turned to white scars. The cuts formed a grotesque latticework of self-inflicted violence. In Harry’s trembling hand was his wand, its tip still glowing faintly with residual dark magic.

Fred understood in a horrifying flash. Harry wasn’t just cutting himself. He was using the Cruciatus Curse on himself.

Harry’s face was a ruin: eyes swollen, lips red and puffy as if bruised from kissing or biting, mascara—or something like it—smudged in dark streaks down his cheeks. His hair was a wild tangle, as if someone had yanked it viciously. But it was the look in those green eyes when they suddenly lifted and met Fred’s that struck the deepest. It was sheer, unadulterated terror.

“No—please, don’t—” Harry scrambled back, wand raised in a shaking hand, before his vision seemed to clear. Recognition flickered, then the terror shifted to something more complex: shame, and a desperate, silent pleading.

“Mate,” Fred breathed, stepping forward with hands up. “Harry, it’s me. It’s Fred. I’m not going to hurt you.”

The words felt pathetically inadequate. Harry’s wand clattered to the floor as he dissolved into fresh sobs, curling in on himself. Fred caught a glimpse of other marks—bruises on his arms, fingerprints around his wrists. The pieces clicked together in a sickening cascade: the screams when he was touched, the flinching, the hiding. The freshness of the injuries mingled with evidence of a recent violation. Harry had been raped, and the self-harm was a long-standing companion to his agony.

Fred knelt slowly, keeping his distance. “Harry… how long?”

Harry shook his head, face buried in his knees. “You can’t—you can’t tell anyone. Please, Fred. They’ll say I’m mad. Or weak. The Chosen One can’t be…” he choked on the words.

“Screw what they think,” Fred said with a fierceness that surprised even himself. “You’re bleeding, Harry. You’re hurting yourself. And someone… someone hurt you, didn’t they? Recently.”

Harry’s silence was answer enough. A violent shudder went through him. “I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t talk about it. I just need it to stop. The pain inside—I have to let it out.”

Fred’s heart ached with a compassion he didn’t know he had. The joker, the prankster, wanted nothing more than to gather this broken boy into his arms and shield him from the world. But he knew touch was likely a trigger. So he stayed still.

“Okay,” he said gently. “We won’t talk about the… the attack tonight. But the self-harming, the curse—that’s got to stop, Harry. It’s killing you.”

A bitter laugh escaped Harry. “Maybe that’s the point.”

“No.” Fred’s voice was hard. “No, it’s not. You’re not going anywhere. You’re going to let me help you. We’ll get you to Madam Pomfrey—”

Harry’s head shot up, panic flaring. “No! She’ll ask questions. Dumbledore will know. Everyone will know. I can’t have their pity or their judgment. Please, Fred.”

“Then let me help you here. You need those cuts cleaned and dressed. And then we’re going to talk, if not about the attack, then about why you think you deserve this. Because you don’t, Harry. Whatever happened, you don’t.”

For a long moment, Harry just stared at him, searching for deception. Finding none, he sagged in defeat. “Fine,” he said, the word barely audible. “But you can’t tell anyone. Not even George. Not Ron. Swear it.”

Fred swore, and meant it, even though it felt like a betrayal of his family. He conjured a cloth and some water from his wand—simple charms he’d learned for prank clean-up—and began to gently dab at the wounds. Harry winced but stayed still, his breathing ragged.

“The Cruciatus on yourself,” Fred said quietly after a while. “That’s… that’s dark magic, Harry. How long?”

“Since last summer,” Harry admitted, voice hollow. “After the Chamber of Secrets, after Tom Riddle, I felt so… worthless. Like I was just a vessel for disaster. The Dursleys, they made it clear enough. And then this year, it got worse. The whispers, the accusations. I started thinking maybe I deserved pain. Maybe it would balance things out.”

“The attack tonight… was that someone in the school?” Fred’s hands stilled.

Harry’s silence was damning. Finally, he whispered, “I can’t say.”

Fred’s jaw clenched. “Malfoy?”

No answer. But a single tear traced down Harry’s cheek, and Fred knew. His blood boiled, but he forced it down. Revenge could come later. Right now, Harry needed compassion, not violence.

“Listen to me,” Fred said, finishing the bandaging with a strip of cloth torn from his own shirt. “You are not worthless. You are not to blame for what was done to you. And you’re not alone. I know I’m not your first choice—the fool who tickled you and made you scream—but I’m here, and I’m not leaving. We’ll figure this out together.”

Harry looked at him with red-rimmed eyes, a fragile hope flickering in their depths. “Why would you help me? You barely know me.”

“Because no one should suffer like this alone. And because,” Fred added with a small, sad smile, “you’re Ron’s best mate. You’re family, whether you like it or not.”

For the first time that night, something like a real breath escaped Harry. “I don’t know how to stop. The urge is like a thirst.”

“Then we’ll find ways. I’ll distract you with pranks—the harmless kind, I promise. And when it gets bad, you come find me. No matter the hour. We’ll talk, or just sit. You don’t have to do this alone.”

Harry’s hand, still tremulous, reached out and gripped Fred’s. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

They stayed in that cold bathroom for another hour, Fred helping Harry into his robes, wiping away the traces of tears and mascara with a damp cloth. When Harry was as presentable as possible, Fred walked him back to the Gryffindor common room, keeping a careful distance but a watchful eye.

In the days that followed, Fred became Harry’s unexpected shadow. He covered for him when nightmares left him too exhausted to function, invented excuses for his zoned-out spells in class, and learned to read the subtle signs of a bad day. George noticed the change and, after a quiet explanation stripped of details, became an ally in distraction. Together, the twins orchestrated pranks that made Harry smile—genuine, surprised smiles that lit up his too-pale face.

The self-harm didn’t vanish overnight. There were relapses, moments when Harry locked himself in the bathroom and Fred had to coax him out with soft words and promises of no judgment. But slowly, the grip of the curse loosened. Fred taught Harry a few simple jinxes for self-defence, and when they practiced, Harry’s laughter sometimes replaced the flinches.

One evening, weeks later, they sat by the fire in the empty common room. Harry’s head rested on Fred’s shoulder, a daring intimacy born of trust. “I still feel dirty,” Harry confessed. “Like I’m ruined.”

Fred wrapped an arm around him, careful and gentle. “You’re not ruined. You’re the strongest person I know. And you’re beautiful—not just your face, but your heart. You survived things that would break anyone, and you’re still here, still fighting. That’s not weakness, that’s courage.”

Harry looked up, eyes glistening. “You really think so?”

“I know so.” Fred leaned down, and with a tenderness that surprised them both, pressed his lips to Harry’s forehead. “And I’m going to keep telling you until you believe it.”

The kiss on the forehead became a cheek, and one night, after Harry’s nightmares had Fred climbing into his bed to hold him through the tremors, it became a gentle, questioning kiss on the lips. Harry responded with a hunger that spoke of need more than desire, but Fred matched it with care, never pushing, always letting Harry set the pace.

Their relationship unfolded quietly, a secret treasure in the chaos of Hogwarts. Fred’s clownish persona melted away in private, revealing a depth of emotion and protectiveness that Harry clung to. When the summer came, Fred went with Harry to King’s Cross and made him promise to send a Patronus if the Dursleys hurt him. Harry did, once, and Fred and George roared up on their brooms to extract him.

Years later, when the war was over and the losses weighed heavy, Fred’s survival was partly thanks to Harry’s desperate shield charm in the final battle. They stood together, scarred but whole, and Fred knew that their bond had been forged in that bathroom, amidst tears and blood and whispered confessions. They had been remade through pain into something unbreakable.

And every night, when the shadows threatened to return, Fred held Harry close and whispered, “You are loved. You are enough. And you’re never alone.”