Chapter 1 – Discoveries and Broken Souls.

They all sat by the fireplace and waited. The nervousness permeating off everyone filled the air. It was so thick you could probably cut it with a knife and serve it up with hot chocolate at your earliest convenience. No one knew what was going on. All they did know was that Albus Dumbledore had shown up looking ready to murder someone. The anger made them all take a step back. The attention was so drawn to him no one noticed that Poppy Pomfrey had come with him. She wore the same confused and nervous expression as everyone else. She had been awakened – rather rudely she must say – by Albus who quite literally dragged her to the fireplace and floo'd to The Burrow. She simply sat and waited in the kitchen, waiting for Albus to come back.

Suddenly their attention was drawn to the fireplace as it flared up. Albus stepped through, followed by Harry Potter. Everyone at first looked at Albus, but at another glance of Harry everyone had varied reactions of horror, ranging from gasps to screams. He was covered; almost head to toe in blood. They could see he was bleeding from several cuts. Ginny cried out and went to run to him but was restrained by her mother as Pomfrey hurriedly rushed Harry into the living room, already casting charms for privacy and transfiguring a chair into a bed. That was the last they saw of the two of them for several minutes.

Finally, Poppy came out, managing to look pale and angry at the same time. This was the first time she had ever wanted to murder someone in cold blood, but she was ready.

"Mr. Potter will not be waking for at least a week. Someone has taken a belt and repeatedly beaten him with it until he was inches from death. Several bones in his face were broken and two ribs have caved in. He also was not responding to any stimulus while he was awake, including pain."

With that, she shot a look of pure loathing at Albus.

"If those damned muggles are the ones responsible for this, there will be hell to pay." With that, she left.

Everyone sat in stunned silence, except for Ginny who was quietly weeping. She walked into the room, and finally got a good look at Harry. He was lying on a hospital bed, and the blood was off him. His face looked like one giant bruise, and from what parts of his face and chest she could see, he was covered in bruises and cuts. Finally she sat down in a chair by his bedside and pulled his hand into hers.

Meanwhile, Albus was trying to quell the storm of rage coming from the rest of the Weasleys, including Ron, Fred and George, Molly, Arthur, and Bill, who happened to be taking a vacation to spend time with his family.

"I got a firecall from Arabella Figg, who was walking by the Dursley house when she heard screams. I got there in time to find an unconscious Harry lying on the ground while Vernon was standing over him, beating him with a belt. Dudley was also kicking Harry viciously. I stunned the entire family, and got Pomfrey over here as soon as possible." He explained.

To say the family was in an uproar would be like saying a tidal wave is a ripple of water. Ron looked like he was trying his best to apparate to the Dursleys, Bill was actually starting to, and Fred and George were already in a corner, talking quietly to themselves and nodding their heads, no doubt plotting the revenge that would happen soon. Dumbledore managed to cast an Anti-Apparition spell just in time to stop Bill.

"We must proceed cautiously. Our enemies will no doubt use this to stage an attack on Harry. Arthur, please get Ms. Tonks, Mr. Shacklebolt, Mr. Moody, Mr. Lupin, Mr. Snape, and go to Hogwarts. There you will find a house elf by the name of Dobby in the kitchens. Bring him at once. I will be casting wards to prepare this place for the next coming week. I am assuming no one has any objections to Harry staying here for the foreseeable future?"

No one said anything. Arthur had already gone. With a sigh, Albus stepped outside and began working on making the house as impregnable as possible.

Everyone stood there, shocked. Finally, Molly was the one to break the silence.

"How could we have missed it?" She asked no one in particular. "We all knew he didn't enjoy his time with the Dursleys. When I heard Ron, Fred and George had taken Harry and had had to rip iron bars off the window to get him, I thought they were lying. He's always been so small, but who could have thought…" She left the thought fade off.

She went into the living room, and everyone else followed, trying to crowd themselves into the room to see him. They all gasped as they saw how badly he had been beaten. Again, Bill tried to apparate to the house to retaliate, but the Anti-Apparation wards were still in effect. Ginny just sat there, staring at him and ignoring everything that was occurring.

A thud was heard. Bill went out to find Tonks standing there, confusion etched plainly on her face.

He just looked at her, and immediately she knew something was wrong. The joking, cheerful face she had seen Bill wear was gone, in its place was a mixture of sadness and anger. He said nothing, just pointed at the doorway leading to the living room as the other Weasleys filled out, excluding Ginny. Tonks was visibly scared, fearing the worse as she stepped in the room. The worse was better than what she saw. She saw Harry, lying there, obviously beaten. He wasn't moving, and barely looked to be breathing. Ginny sat beside him, tears still in her eyes. Without a word Tonks walked over and pulled her into a hug. She knew Ginny loved Harry. She pulled the covers off Harry and pulled his clothes off, leaving only a tiny bit to cover his privates. She was no healer, but she had to see the extent of what he had suffered.

Almost every inch of Harry was either cut, bruised, or broken. She would spare Harry the loss of dignity by checking his privates for wounds, but she knew that no inch of him had been spared. She had seen acts of torture, murders, and gore beyond belief but to think that someone could do this to a boy, not even of age yet was reprehensible. At that moment, murder was the one thing on her mind. She had not known Harry closely, but she respected him immensely. He was forced into a war that left him an orphan, attempts had been made on his life, and he had seen more death than the average wizard saw in a lifetime, and he kept a relatively care-free attitude towards life. The fact that anyone could do this to such a remarkable person was enough to make her want to kill, but add to the fact he was just a boy and she was ready of murder. But she knew that would help nothing, so she strode purposefully outside, found an empty lot and cast every curse she could possibly think of, screaming her anger out and pouring every ounce of magic she had into them. The entire tirade of spells took almost 30 minutes, and she could barely blink at the end of it, but it helped.

She went back to see Kingsley, Remus, and Snape all sitting in the kitchen. Even Snape's normally cool attitude was gone, replaced by a paleness of anger, disgust, and sadness. He looked as if he had just emptied his stomach, and her thoughts were confirmed when he proceeded to do so again into a bucket in front of him. She said nothing, just walked to Remus and held him.

He didn't even react, he stood there. Like Severus, he had a pale skin color. She knew what he was thinking, and she pulled them outside.

"Listen to me; this is not your fault!" She said forcefully. Finally, he reacted.

"How can it not be?" He asked. "I am his godfather's best friend. Sirius hinted that something may have been happening and asked me to check, but I thought it was him just being a parent. I was going to go sometime next week. I barely stopped by to check the first time. All I did was look at the bloody house, and inside, he was being beaten!" By this point, he was screaming his words out.

Tonks did not take it personally. She knew he was beyond angry, just like she had been a few minutes earlier. She pointed at the spot where she had unleashed her rage, and pushed him towards it.

"Take a walk, go cool off. Do what you need to do, but Harry needs you the calm and collected man he has known for the past two years."

Remus recognized the truth in her words, and started walking in that direction. Tonks went back inside and found Moody sitting there. She could never read her mentor, but even he looked a little shocked.

They all sat around, not doing anything, listening to the occasional bangs coming from upstairs. Since Molly did not react, no one freaked out but Tonks decided to investigate. She found the source of the sound, and went into a room completely filled with laboratory equipment. Fred and George stood there, furiously stirring a potion while one another was dumping ingredients into the cauldron. Another explosion occurred, and she watched as neither reacted to the explosion that lit the ends of their hair on fire. She finally understood why where almost all of the male Weasleys had longer hair, theirs was cropped closer.

After watching this spectacle for 10 minutes and three explosions later, they finally stopped stirring. Tonks respected the rate at which they had kept stirring; their muscles were probably cramped beyond belief. She watched as they slowly took a box full of soft rubber balls and dropped them all into the cauldron. For once, the cheery expressions of the twins were gone, replaced with dual expressions of hardness. They ignored her, except to conjure a chair for her, which she took. After another 10 minutes of silence, the cauldron started bubbling. The twins donned protective gloves, and reached their hands into the cauldron. They conjured another box, this one made of steel, and starting dumping the balls in there, putting 20 of them in there.

Finally they sealed the box and set it down, getting rid of the gloves.

Both of them looked extremely tired, and she pushes them over to a bed, concerned for their safety.

She was right, as soon as she got them there, their legs gave out and they landed on the bed, both snoring softly.

She left the room and went back downstairs. It seemed everyone was having a bit of an argument as to what to do to the muggles.

"We can't just let them go for this!" Bill shouted "There has to be punishment."

"Well we can't just kill them either" Remus countered.

Tonks suddenly came up with an idea that would give the twins their chance to use whatever they made without getting them in trouble.

"Why don't we let the twins take care of it? We can have them make something powerful, maybe even permanent and have them set it on the bastards who did this."

Everyone agreed, including Molly which surprised Tonks. She had expected an argument from her.

A couple of hours pass by in relative silence. The twins had gone back into their room as soon as they got their orders. She looked around the house, and felt someone was missing. Finally she remembered as someone mentioned it.

"Who's going to tell Hermione?"

Tonks volunteered to go and pick her up.

She got Hermione's address and apparated to a wizard's inn close to it. She walked the rest of the way, quickly coming to a conclusion just as she arrived at the house.

She knocked on the door and noticed her hands were shaking. She was not looking forward to this conversation.

A small, bushy haired Hermione opened the door, rubbing tiredness and fatigue out of her eyes. It occurred to Tonks that it was only 7 in the morning.

"Hermione, its Tonks. We need to talk."

Hermione allowed her to step inside.

Hermione just waited.

"It's Harry. He's been hurt badly, and it's not good. Everyone is contemplating what to do, but he needs friends there."

No sooner were the words out of her mouth that Hermione had ran up stairs, Tonks could here muffled words being spoken, and then the witch came down with a trunk in hand. It occurred to Tonks that her trunk had already been packed, despite being months away from Hogwarts.

They stepped out and Tonks brought them around to a dark alleyway, and she Side-Along Apparated Hermione with her back to the burrow.

Hermione quickly dropped her trunk in a corner and Tonks pointed her to which door.

Hermione disappeared in there, and nothing could be heard for several minutes. Tonks went in to find both Ginny and Hermione curled up on either side of Harry, sandwiching him in place. If he had not been so hurt, she would have made jokes, but she knew that their magic could help him heal.

Tonks sighed and closed the door, wondering what was going to happen over the next couple of days.