Don't you just hate it when you make changes to things, go to save it and fanfic decides it has a problem with that and you lose everything you just changed? multiple times?
Anyway, here's chapter two. Hopefully it's not too confusing!
Disclaimer: You would know if I owned HP, things would go very differently...
Chapter Two - Red Eye
One of Harry's first implicit memories was his first days of school. The teacher had been all smiles and each of them had stood up to say their part. The teacher he remembered with tender, if strained, memories. She had been the first person to give him any form of positive attention, even if it was divided between a class of twenty three more exuberant four or five year olds.
He wasn't completely sure anymore, but the probability was that he had introduced himself, and told everyone he liked spiders - they had been his only companions then. He remembered the terrified feeling of so many eyes upon him, and that he shook as he spoke and quickly sank back into his seat. The teacher, Miss Collins, had smiled kindly and the next child had taken their turn.
The next day the teacher had smiled at them all as they came in, giving Harry a cheerful wink, "Do you like playing pirate, Harry?"
His face had shown confusion, "what's a pirate miss Collins?"
She had looked slightly confused then but let it slide, "A pirate sails the seas. They wear a patch on one eye like you, have a wooden leg and a parrot. sometimes they even have a hook instead of a hand!"
He could only imagine the awed look that must have crossed his face as he smiled cautiously, one hand going to his right eye, covered by the toy patch.
Miss Collins had reached out a hand and led him towards the clear space, announcing to the class, "Why don't we start with a story today? Has anyone heard of Peter Pan?"
The next day Miss Collins had smiled when he appeared, for the third time, with a patch on his eye, "I guess you like pirates even more now Harry?"
He had shaken his head, "The pirate in the story was scary... he reminds me of my uncle."
She frowned as he walked past her quietly and took his seat. She had easily picked him out as the most quiet in the class: heck, he was the most quiet four year old she'd come across in her years of teaching, but his comparison between Captain Hook and his uncle had her concerned.
During their break time that day, she took him aside to talk about 'pirates'.
"Have you thought anymore about pirates Harry?"
He shook his head, not speaking yet as his eyes darted to the door in what he had thought a discrete manner. "I didn't want to think about them anymore, they're scary."
"If you don't want to think about them anymore, why don't you take that patch off? Surely it must remind you of the pirates?"
He shook his head furiously, "I'm not allowed to take the patch off! Aunt Petunia put it on when I was little, she doesn't like to see my eye."
Miss Collins managed to smile instead of the frown that wanted to cross her face, "But doesn't it hurt, that's only a toy and it shouldn't be warn for too long!" she asked, the concern in her voice clear.
He had sat there silently for a minute, taking several glances around to make sure no one else was listening. After confirming the room was, in fact, empty apart from themselves, he had turned back to stare at Miss Collins' feet. "It itches and stings, and my skin gets really sore. Sometimes if it moves too much it makes it bloody..."
She leaned forwards, placing one hand on his knee, making a mental note of the flinch this provoked. "Can I see your eye Harry?"
He had been extremely hesitant, his aunt always assuring him no one wanted to see his freaking eye, that she was doing everyone a favour in hiding it.
"It's really ugly," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the whirring of the office fan.
"I think I'll be the judge of that. You understand that, as a teacher, I need to know if there's something wrong with one of my class? If something happened Harry, then I might not be able to do anything, and things would get worse!"
He looked away and bit his lip, worrying the flesh between his teeth. "I- I guess you can see it, just don't tell Aunt Petunia!"
Slowly he reached behind his head to the strap, watching her all the while as if waiting for her to stop him. When she didn't he looked away as he pulled the patch away.
Gently grasping his chin, she pulled his eyes up to meet hers and gasped, her hand falling away at the sight of two eyes staring at her; one pure emerald green, the other slitted red.
Harry quickly looked away again at her gasp, fumbling with the straps of the patch as he quickly placed it back over his eye.
Her hands grasped his wrist before he could tie it, unintentionally exerting more pressure than necessary, though he didn't flinch.
"I'm sorry Harry, I was just shocked. There's nothing wrong so would you let me have a proper look?"
He hesitantly removed the patch again and looked back at her.
She was shocked to see the lightning bolt scar on his forehead - which had been explained away by his aunt as a souvenir of his parents' drunken car crash - actually extended across his eyebrow and right down to his eye. There was no sign of a laceration on the eye itself, but something had definitely caused the change, his eye was not natural.
Another thing that stood out to her was that, whilst his green eye fixed on her, waiting for her response, the red eye constantly flickered back and forward, as if examining his surroundings.
"Can you see out of this eye?" she asked, waving one finger in front of the boy.
There was no need for him to answer really, as his left eye continued to follow as her finger began to make circles, whilst the other stared left, then quickly looked up then right.
However what he did say shocked her, "I can see a forest but I'm very small, like I'm lying down while looking around. I'm always moving around as well, and looking in case things jump out at me. It's always been like that."
She smiled, not quite sure what to think about that.
"Has anyone, a doctor or optician, ever looked at your eye Harry?"
"I don't know what an optikan is, but Aunt Petunia doesn't let anyone see my eye, she says it's freaky and she doesn't like freakish things in her house..."
"Well Harry, I think it would be a really good idea if we let the school nurse have a look at this, just in case something really bad could happen!"
He looked reluctant again, "But Aunt Petunia said I'm not allowed to show anyone, otherwise I won't get food for a day!"
She wanted to say he was just being silly, but from the signs so far she doubted it. Instead she puffed up and smiled at him, "And is your Aunt Petunia a teacher?" he shook his head, "And who do you think knows better, me or your Aunt Petunia?"
His reluctance faded slightly as he smiled, "You!" though she noticed he still looked around himself cautiously.
"Well then, let's go see Mrs Mitchell then, shall we?"
That day the school nurse had given him a general check over and soon after that Social Services were brought in. While the nurse's preliminary findings, along with Miss Collins' evidence from her gentle questionings, was enough to have him taken from the Dursley's care and a thorough review of their child handling capabilities authorized, Harry was taken to the hospital for a proper check up with a doctor, especially focussing on his eye.
He explained to the doctor that he had got it when his parents had died in the car crash, which was also the reason he was staying with his aunt and uncle. The police called them back later on to explain that there hadn't been any traffic accidents within the last ten years involving anyone named Potter, and that, other than Harry's birth certificate, there were no files mentioning him at all: how he had reached the Dursley's was anyone's guess.
He had spent his first night in the orphanage then, and was brought back to the hospital to find out the results of his tests the next day by a man who was called Mr Brown, which Harry had found funny as he had blond hair and blue eyes. The doctor explained that nothing like this had ever been seen before: the eye didn't respond to any motion or light stimuli yet, from the level of neural signals being transmitted from it, it appeared as if it really was seeing images. He said that, with enough money, an eye specialist may be able to shed more light on the subject, but otherwise it didn't seem to be doing any damage, other than the occasional pains Harry admitted to feeling. He concluded with the regret that, if a doctor had looked at the damage as soon as it had happened, maybe something could have been done to save the original vision of the eye, or at least stop the pains from occurring.
And today, he had met one of the men responsible for not receiving that medical treatment when necessary, and the other, it would appear, is his new headmaster.
If this was confusing, let me know! Hopefully things will get clearer in the next chapter - which is already written! I'm trying to have the next chapter written before I publish the chapters, let's hope it works!
Also, I don't actually know what it would take to have a child removed from the custody of someone, so sorry if that's unrealistic. It seemed good enough to me, but I could be vastly wrong.