Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, I am just borrowing the characters for a bit.

Author Notes: Okay, well this is in response to a challenge and it will be Harry/Draco slash, but it might be a while until I can get to that part. I have many years of Harry's life to cover, after all!

BTW: Due to something that Katlyn told me, I decided to repost this chapter. She was right... spelling 'mommy' with an 'o' instead of a 'u' was a big mistake. Harry is British after all.

Blah is thoughts

BTW: THANKS TO EVERYONE THAT REVIEWED!

Chapter One:

A tiny boy lay crying on a small cot in the cramped up place that he called his bedroom. He could feel bugs (something he was terrified of) crawling all over his bruised bloodied skin. Ever though he wanted to scream in fear of the small critters, he knew better. His aunt and uncle surely wouldn't like that, and after the beating he just took, he didn't want to make them mad at him for making noise.

He was a pale child because he never got to go outside and his bright green eyes shined with tears. His body was so thin that you could count his ribs and he had long black hair that hung limply on his head. Because of how long the abuse had been going on, you would think that he would have scars all over his frail body, but this was not the case. The only scar he had was the one on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning.

He didn't understand why he was treated so different from his cousin or why they never gave him a name; they always called him boy. At first he thought it was because he was smaller then his overweight cousin and thought that maybe if he was bigger, they would love him.

That was why he snuck into the kitchen when they were asleep, hoping to gain enough weight to where they wouldn't hurt him anymore. Unfortunately he stepped on the remote, causing the TV to come on at an extremely loud volume and wake Dudley. This caused him to get one of the most severe beatings of his five-year-old life.

After they'd shoved him in the cupboard, he heard them talking in low voices about when they were going to kill him. The boy didn't know exactly what that was, but he knew it happened to his parents and they never came back. That's when he realized that he had to leave.

With as small whimper, the boy slowly lifted himself up so that he could see if the door to his 'bedroom' was locked. The boy sighed in relief when it opened with a small click. His uncle must have been so mad that he forgot to lock it.

Careful not to step on anything that might alert the Dursleys of his escape, the boy painfully made his way to the door that would insure his freedom. As he stepped out the door, he took one more look at the place that had caused him so much torment before closing the door silently behind him.

The little boy walked as fast as he could with his injuries, afraid that his uncle might do that killing thing to him if he was found. The shadows made by the trees and houses almost made him want to go back to his cupboard but he kept walking, jumping every time he heard an unfamiliar sound.

After nearly an hour of walking, he felt himself fall to the ground. Unable to move from all the pain shooting through his small body, Harry Potter, The- Boy-Who-Lived, cried to himself until he fell unconscious on the side of the highway.

When the boy awoke he found himself in an unfamiliar place. It smelled clean, but not like his aunt's kitchen. He could here people talking and moving around. His eyes snapped open, and he looked at his surroundings.

Fear filled him as he realized what the place was. A hospital. Dudley always used to tell him that when you went to hospitals that they stuck stuff in your skin and took little children away from their mummies and daddies.

Hearing the door in the room he was in close, he whimpered and pressed himself against the bed.

"Oh, it's okay sweetie. I won't hurt you; I just came to see if you were awake so that we could feed you. Why you're all skin and bones!" Standing there was a slim woman who looked a few years younger than his aunt. She had long black hair that hung in a braid down her back, warm blue eyes, and a tan complexion. She was very beautiful and the small boy looked up at her with innocence that only a child could have.

"Who are you?"

She walked over to the bed and smiled down at him. "Just call me Contessa, I'm the doctor that that will be taking care of you. I was the one that found you on my way to work. But enough about me, what's your name?"

"I don't have a n-name." Harry said innocently to the woman that he'd only met a few moments ago.

Contessa was still smiling at him, but it seemed more forced than before. "Well, a cutie like you has to have a name!"

"B-But my uncle… he calls me boy. Is that my name?"

The smile completely disappeared from Contessa's face, and fearing he's said something wrong, Harry curled himself into a ball. He'd learned long ago that there was less of you to hit when you were smaller.

Seeing this, Contessa quickly put a smile on her face. " I don't think that's your name. Would you like me to pick one for you?"

The small boy looked at her wide eyed, "You mean I get to have a name?"

"Of course, everyone deserves name! Who on earth told you otherwise?"

She looked at the tiny boy and was surprised to see tears falling down the child's rosy cheeks. "M-My uncle, he saided that I was a bad boy but I didn't mean to be a b-bad boy."

Slowly, as to not startle the boy, she lifted him into her arms, careful not to aggravate his wounds or the IV in his arm. Contessa rocked the crying boy until she felt the tears stopped. Then he looked up at her with the most beautiful green eyes she had ever seen, and she felt rage at anyone who had hurt such an innocent child.

"Oh, kiddo, you're not bad. It's the people that did this to you that are bad." She began to stroke his thick black hair. "You've got the most beautiful coal black hair, has anyone ever told you that?" He shook his head mutely and laid his head on her chest so that he could fill her beating heart. He's so trusting for someone that has been hurt the way he was, she thought.

Suddenly an idea popped into Contessa's mind. "I know what your name could be; Mikael! Do you like that?"

The boy lifted his head and a tiny smiled graced his lips as he nodded. Feeling happier than he had ever felt in his short life, Mikael curled up against Contessa and let himself be rocked to sleep. Contessa put him back in the bed, freezing when she saw the scar on his forehead.

Mikael held on tightly to Contessa's hand as they traveled out of the children's ward and into the elevator. After staying at Surrey's Medical Center for a week to recover from his wounds, he was off to the orphanage. He still didn't completely understand why he couldn't staying the hospital with Contessa forever, but she told him that he would go there with other children so that he could get a new mommy and daddy.

They walked out into the parking lot and stopped by a red sports car. Contessa opened the door and buckled Mikael's seat belt, giving the boy a small smile as she closed the door and walked to the other side of the car. The truth was that she was saddened to see him go. Somehow the small, shy boy had managed to worm his way into her cold heart.

Contessa wasn't exactly what you would call kind, or popular with her colleagues. She once heard the term frigid bitch used to describe her and she couldn't deny that she did come off a bit… cold to most people.

She'd always been a bit bitter.

Looking back, she would have to say that she started to become bitter when she was six. Her mother asked her to watch her ten-month year old sister for a moment while she prepared the baby formula.

A moment was all it took for her little sister to pick up a button lying forgotten on her couch and put it into her mouth. Contessa didn't realize that anything was wrong until it was to late. By the time she had called her mother, Miranda was already dead.

Her parents never said that they blamed her, no, the silence was much worse. She could feel their contempt for her, their gazes of disgust, and the way their voices seemed to drop ten degrees when they talked to her.

At school things weren't much better. The other children would call her a weirdo because of her dark complexion and icy blue eyes. Even the teachers were a bit wary of her because of the way she never talked to anyone in school and managed to get perfect grades.

Her mother Angela walked around like the living dead, becoming a mere shadow of herself. She couldn't get over the fact that her healthy baby girl had been taken away from her by a cruel twist of fate. Every time she walked into a room with her mother, Contessa would feel the stares of her mothers' dead black eyes until she could handle it no longer and practically run out of the room, whispering an excuse about doing homework.

She felt those stares until she was ten and her mother overdosed on painkillers. Her father, Joseph, once a respected doctor, fell into despair when he heard about Miranda. When his wife committed suicide, he hit rock bottom, loosing both his job and the house that they lived in.

On the eve of her eleventh birthday, Contessa got two letters that changed her life. One was a letter that invited her to go to Salem School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the second was a letter of invitation to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Although Hogwarts was closer, she chose Salem because she would be able to spend the summer holidays away from her drunken father.

The next few years were the happiest of her life. In her sixth year she met the someone she believed to be the love of her life, Richard. To make a long story short, they broke up when she discover that he was a Death Eater.

The only reason he'd been with her was because Voldemort ordered him to because she was one of the most powerful witches of her time. Richard was there to sway her to the dark side and if he couldn't, kill her. Even though Contessa was a muggleborn, the Dark lord was willing to overlook her 'dirty blood' because of the power she possessed. After all, his father was a muggle too.

Contessa broke it off with Richard and he was sent to Azkaban. A few years later, she heard about Harry Potter defeating the Voldemort and she couldn't have been happier. As far as Contessa was concerned the bastard got what he deserved for ruining her life. When she heard of the Dark Lord's defeat, she decided to take a break from the Wizarding World and became a muggle doctor.

She remembered smoothing back Mikael's hair and seeing the scar on his forehead. When he fell asleep she put an illusion charm on it. She vowed that she would protect him from anyone or anything that would want to hurt him. Whoever left Mikael with those people obviously didn't care enough about him to see if he would be safe there. He was destined to be a pawn between good and evil and she wasn't going to let that happen.

I wish I could- no don't think that. Honesty, she was thinking about adopting him but he could find a better family than a bitter twenty-four year old. And besides, adoption was a long progress and she doubted that they would let her adopt him because she would be a single parent.

She was pulled out of her musing someone pulling at her wrist. "Contessa, why can't I stay with you, I don't want to go to that place."

She glanced into his pretty green eyes and said, "Mikael, they are going to put you with a nice family that can take care of you."

"B-But you're the nicest person ever! Don't you like me?" They pulled into the driveway of the orphanage.

"Of course I like you! I wish you could stay with me, but I don't think they would let me keep you."

Mikael stared at her for a moment and then smiled. "All you have to do is tell them that I want to live with you and you can take me home!"

Contessa parked the car and said, "Sorry kiddo, it doesn't work that way."

Mikael began to cry silently. "Why not?"

Contessa stared at him for a long time and thought, Yeah, why not?

Suddenly a wicked idea popped into her head. It's not as if they have a birth certificate or anything. All I would have to do would be erase a few memories, destroy the papers that said he checked into the hospital as a John Doe, and get out of the country. It would be as if he never existed.

"Mikael, how would you like if you could live with me forever?"

Mikael blinked and stared at her for a moment before giving her a huge grin. "I would like that a lot!"

"Good." She smiled at him and quickly left the parking lot before heading in the opposite direction. "I'm going to my house, and I am going go to my work for a few minutes, do you think that you can manage while I am gone?"

"Yes, my aunt and uncle never took me nowhere."

She clenched the steering wheel at the mention of those monsters and said, "It will only be for a few minutes."

"Contessa, does this mean you are my new mummy?"

TBC So was it good? Bad? Review!