Okay . . . here is a little idea that sprung to my mind in a dream (lol?) and I thought I would write it down. This is a couple weeks after his 4th year, so when he was having nightmares about the graveyard and such. Also, I'm pretending that he met Tonks in 4th year, so he knows her well now.

Help is on the Way

Chapter 1

Dudley's dog, Killer, was trained to attack Harry whenever he laid his eyes on him. Harry, 15, already had numerous dog bites and some were even infected; out running a bulldog was harder than it was put out to be. At first he tried to coax the dog with treats, but Dudley had trained it too well (which surprised Harry quite a lot, since Dudley was empty headed); there was not even a chance of duping the dog to forget its master's orders and there was no use trying. The only way he could prevent himself from being bitten was hiding in his room, but that was faulty, because Aunt Petunia yelled for him to come to every meal.

When it happened, it was dinner time and Harry had not seen Killer under the table, so he was acting freer than he would otherwise. He ate his small portion of withering salad as quickly as possible and the pork chop that followed at the same speed. He was just getting up from the table when he heard a low growl. From experience he knew that it was time to start running, but he had suffered an extremely painful bite on his foot that slowed him down; maybe the dog was ordered to bite him in the legs . . . slowing him down was easier than chasing him for sure.

Harry limped as fast as he could to his room, but it was no use. The dog took advantage of his slowness and leapt up, biting his nose. Immediately he was bleeding so ferociously that he could not see, but the dog was chewing on his leg again . . . with the other foot and some sort of finesse he did not know he had, he aimed a kick at the dog. Killer fell without a second difference.

Too much in pain to be pleased, he started limping back to his room to treat his wounds the best he could, with some spello-tape. He barely rounded the corner when an earsplitting yell echoed through the whole number 4.

"HE KILLED KILLER!" shouted Dudley furiously, and it startled Harry that he sounded choked up.

He spun around and faced Dudley. "YOU SHOULD HAVE STOPPED TELLING THE LITTLE BEAST TO ATTACK ME! AND HE'S KNOCKED OUT, NOT DEAD!"

But Dudley would hear nothing than the first part. Catching Harry off guard, he punched him hard in the side of the head. Everything went blank for a minute, but there was no time to regain his focus. Dudley hit his eye, his head again, his ribs (he thought he heard a crunch), and everywhere of Harry he could. Harry would have preferred to be unconscious, but he still felt each blow all the same.

Dudley left when he got bored, when Harry couldn't make a sound of pain anymore because of the growing pain in his ribs. His breathing was uneven because each time he would breathe fully the pain in his ribs became unbearable. He wanted to get out of the house but had no energy left for his trunk, or sadly, for Hedwig. But then he thought of the things they could do to her and decided he would have to at least let her fly. So he limped back into his room and set her free out the window, than inched towards the door and out.

He knew he was beginning to lose unconsciousness, because everything switched in and out of focus and sometimes black would remain all he could see for a while. He walked out the door and was preparing himself for the steps when he felt a push, and he toppled down them, hitting his head on the concrete below. He felt one last blow to his ribcage before everything went black.

HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP

"Dad, stop the car!" yelled Hermione. "There is a dead body on that lawn!" she said.

Evan leaned out the window for a better look. Sure enough, there was a body lying there, definitely unconscious but he didn't think that he was dead. There was a breathing pattern, however scattered it was.

He looked to his wife. "We should take him to the hospital," he said.

She looked for a moment that she was about to decline, but peeked at the body. After a moment's pause she said, "Okay."

The Grangers all stepped out of the van and walked towards the body. Hermione thought for a split second that it was someone she knew, but then decided it couldn't be . . . he couldn't be here . . . no way . . . but . . .

"Harry?" she said as she inched forward and leaned by his side. "No!" she screamed. The face was so distorted with purple and blood it was hardly recognizable, but she could tell it was her best friend . . . he was dead . . . no . . . Tears were bursting out of her eyes and panic filled her lungs. Harry couldn't be dead . . . no . . . but she felt his pulse, and there was a heartbeat. A desire to help strongly overtook the terror and she glanced at her dad. "Help him!" she said hysterically, "put him in the van! I know who this is!"

Evan looked at his hysterical daughter to the young boy about her age on the ground and nodded. Very gingerly he leaned down and scooped the teenager off the grass. It was frightening to see how little he breathed. He put the boy into the back of the van and turned to his wife, who was just climbing back into the car.

"Should we take him to the hospital?" he asked. For some reason, he felt he would get quite a lot of questions he would not know how to answer, and that would probably be suspicious to the doctors and nurses.

"We can't," intervened Hermione, "he has to stay with his Aunt and Uncle for . . . magical reasons . . . and the muggle, I mean, non-magical people will take him away from them. We'll just have to treat him ourselves," she added uncertainly, with a glance at her best friend. Tears welled in her eyes as she looked at him and she was no longer uncertain. "We need to treat him ourselves."

Evan and Jean exchanged looks, and then nodded. Evan started the car back up and they drove for a while. Hermione kept feeling Harry's pulse, to make sure she would not lose him.

Evan grabbed Harry as gingerly as he had done before, and carried him into the sitting room and down the hallway to the guest room, where he placed Harry on the bed that was in the corner of the room. Jean and Hermione were at his side. Hermione took off his glasses and placed them on the table next to the bed.

"He looks like he was in some kind of fight," said Evan as he started to remove Harry's shirt, looking for further injuries. Everyone gasped when it was off. There were bites all over his torso and his ribs were obviously cracked; there was purple around them and he was so underfed that you could actually see them sticking out at the wrong angles.

"These bites will need to be treated immediately. Jean, if you will get the cream, please . . . Hermione, get a wet cloth so we can clean him up, please . . ."

They returned with the supplies needed only seconds later, and Evan told them to smear the cream on the bites and clean them up so he could bandage them.

"Oh Harry," mumbled Hermione as she dabbed around his face, removing the blood. One of his eyes was so swollen there was no chance of him seeing out of it, and his nose resembled Dumbledore's, except it was purple, yellow, and bloody. Once his face was finished, she moved to his chest and did the same thing there.

Evan entered the room and started bandaging the bites first, and when he did so Harry's face turned paler than it was before. But when he tried to do the bite by his ribs, his eyebrows shot up and he groaned.

"I know, I know," said Evan, and he continued to bandage him. "Hermione, step out so I can do his legs."

"No! He's my best friend dad, nothing more . . ."

He argued with her, but Jean finally shut the two of them up and allowed Hermione to stay. Evan removed his torn jeans delicately and threw them to the corner of the room. There was a very nasty bite around his ankle andh wen he dabbed it, trying to clean it, he groaned loudly and whimpered.

"It's infected," said Jean, "let me do it . . ."

Evan gave her the cloth and she started tending to the wound, finally bandaging it and doing the rest. She got him pajamas and Evan dressed him in them and put him under the blankets. They took one final look at him before they left the room. Hermione sat on the edge of the bed. It was surreal, how they had found him like this . . . they had passed that house so many times on the way home before and she never knew that was where he was abused. She started stroking his hair and he groaned again. On further inspection, she saw that someone had obviously given him a few blows to the head. A single tear streamed down her face.

She got up from the bed and went to go get icepacks. She placed one between his eye and nose, so it would help both; she placed two more on the lumps on his head and one on his ribs.

There was silence before Harry started stirring, mumbling in his sleep. At first it was completely undistinguishable, but then she could make out things like, "Cedric . . . no . . . don't killem, he didn't do anything . . . stop . . ." She grabbed his wrist gently and cried silently. He was obviously reliving the end of last term again, when Voldemort had returned.

At that moment, Lupin, Tonks, Mrs. Weasley, a black dog, Ron, and Ginny entered. There were many gasps. The black dog immediately checked that the curtains were closed all the way, and then transformed into Sirius. He sat next to Hermione and stared at Harry.

"Jesus," he mumbled. "What happened to him?"

Hermione gave him a meaningful look and he nodded at once. Remus and Tonks stood beside each other next to the bed, looking at Harry with a mixture of sadness and incredulity. Mrs. Weasley put a hand on his cheek and cried silently, whereas Ron and Ginny motioned for Hermione to come over to them.

"Yeah?" she asked as she entered their side.

"His aunt, uncle, and cousin did this, then?" asked Ron with disgust.

"And some kind of animal . . ."

"What are his injuries?" asked Ginny.

"Well, what you can see, and then he's got broken ribs . . . and just so many bites . . ."

Ron shook his head. "Bloody bastards . . ."

They all looked as Harry began to fidget feebly, and he was murmuring more things about the graveyard. "Mum . . . don't let him kill me, Mum, you've got to help me . . . he wants to kill me dad, please . . . please . . ."

Unexpectedly he reached out and grasped Tonks's wrist, and although his eyes were closed he had an expression of utter panic. Tonks stared down at him sadly, though she was obviously a bit alarmed. "Don't kill Cedric, please . . ." he mumbled to her.

"Enough of this," said Sirius, and he began to gently shake Harry awake. His eyes opened feebly and he could barely see, because his broken nose was making causing his eyes to water so much everything was a blur. "Episkey," said Sirius, and Harry looked blearily from Sirius to Mrs. Weasley, and because he didn't have his glasses, they were still just a blur.

"Mum?" he asked Mrs. Weasley.

Mrs. Weasley reached out and touched his face. "I'm not your mum, Harry . . ."

"Here," said Lupin, and he gave the glasses to Harry, who put them on with shaking hands.

"Oh . . . m' sorry Mrs. Weasle . . ." His eyes began to close again, but Hermione prodded him to keep him awake.

"He's got to stay awake," Hermione mumbled, "he could fall into a coma if he doesn't."

Everyone exchanged glances; they weren't aware of that because it was most likely muggle knowledge, therefore in a muggle book.

"Can someone . . . fix m' ribs . . ." he murmured, and Tonks said, "I can!"

Remus stopped her with a hand. "I'll do it," he said to a crestfallen Tonks. "Brackium Emendo," he said, and a jet of light shot from his wand onto Harry's ribs.

"How is that?" asked Mrs. Weasley.

"Much better, thanks," said Harry feebly. He smiled, but it came out as more of a grimace.

"Can you tell us what happened, Harry?" Lupin asked.

Harry looked at Lupin sadly; he closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them, breathing, "I can't."

"Why not?"

"Don't feel sorry for me, then," said Harry, and he tried to prop himself up higher, but his hands shook so much it was impossible. "My cousin Dudley has a dog . . . and he trained it to . . . bite me all the time, but it's okay," he added, seeing their looks of repulsion, ". . . the dog bit my nose and started to reopen the bite on my leg, but I kicked it . . . Dudley came in . . ."

They all waited for him to continue, but he didn't. "And then?" asked Ron.

"He . . . he . . . he punched me, and I was barely conscious enough to fight back, 'cause he punched me in the head, see . . . he just beat me for a while, and I went outside, and then someone pushed me down the stairs and . . . kicked me . . . and I don't know what happened after that."

"After that I saw a body lying on the grass in front of a house, and I asked my dad to stop the car . . . I walked forward to Harry and saw that it was him, and I told my parents to take him home instead of the hospital, because they would have to take him away from his aunt and uncles' . . . and we treated his wounds," said Hermione.

"He cannot go back to those Muggles," said Sirius angrily.

"Dumbledore explained that he has too . . . for his own safety."

"Do you really think he is safe there, Molly? Is this safe to you?" he gestured towards Harry.