Chapter 4
Sounds swirled around him. He tried to shut them out. The softest noise seemed to make every nerve in his body throb. A bright light filtered through his eyelids. Pain shot through his brain and he moaned. Harry wanted to scream but he knew it would hurt too much. The light went out and the haze around him grew quiet again. He sighed with relief. He just wanted to stay like this, not to feel or hear or see anything. Drifting with the fog in his mind, Harry slipped in and out of consciousness.
A voice sifted into his mind. He knew that voice. It sounded very worried, almost tearful. Struggling to open his eyes to see if he could help, Harry saw a blurry shape near his bed. Another blur stood at the foot. A different voice, one he didn't know, came from that blur.
"Mum?" Harry croaked. A gasp came from the blur by his bed.
"Harry? Oh Harry, Thank goodness." The figure had leaned over him with soft hands on both sides of his face. "Harry? Please wake up!"
Her face and voice drifted away. Harry felt exhausted from the effort. The cool hands on his face felt soothing though. He tried to open his eyes again. A face was nose to nose with his. A drop of something hit his cheek. With great effort he focused on the eyes and voice begging him to speak again. A familiar face came into sharper relief.
"Mrs. Weasley?" He whispered. Her face was wet with tears.
"Yes, Oh, Harry, Thank God. You'll be okay." She kissed his cheek. "You can rest now. The others will be so glad to hear you are awake." Mrs. Weasley pressed her cheek against his and kissed him again. Harry had dropped off to sleep before she gave him a second kiss.
Over the next three days Harry began to connect with the voices around his bed. Different shadowy blurs sat at the bed side chair at different times of the day. The chair never stood empty. Each blur seemed to have an urgent need to speak to him for some reason. Forcing Harry to open his eyes and pull him away from the confusion in his mind.
On the fourth night, Harry opened his eyes. He felt completely awake. The room was dark. No light came from the narrow window high in the brick wall. Shifting in his bed, Harry felt his whole body protest at being asked to move. In the chair next to his bed, a red-haired, slightly balding man sat sleeping. His feet propped up on the bed and his cloak wrapped around him.
"Mr. Weasley?" Harry's throat hurt but his voice sounded stronger.
The man started and dropped his feet to the floor with thud. "Harry, How do you feel?" Mr. Weasley looked intently into his face.
"Uh, weak. Where am I?" Harry gingerly looked around.
"St. Mungo's. We've been so worried. But you are going to be just fine now." Mr. Weasley patted him on his shoulder.
"I feel like I've fallen off my broom at fifty feet." Harry sighed.
"It's a wonder you feel that good." Mr. Weasley sounded serious.
"I'm thirsty." Harry whispered. He felt a straw pressed against his lips and he sucked a cool liquid into his parched mouth. It tasted fruity but not too sweet to irritate his dry mouth. He nodded that he had enough.
"How long have I been here?" Harry looked around at all the blurry flowers and boxes of candy on every free horizontal space in the room. He didn't have his glasses on.
Mr. Weasley hesitated. "You've been very ill. Harry."
"Please, Mr. Weasley, don't hide things. Not like last year." Harry sighed tiredly.
"You're right, Harry." Mr. Weasley nodded. "You've been here at St. Mungos for three weeks."
"Three weeks?" Harry gasped. "What was wrong with me? What did I have?"
"It seems your mother's old letters harbored a nasty strain of scrofungulus. Most wizards get some form of scrofungulus as babies so when they come across the more lethal kind it does very little harm to them." Mr. Weasley said.
Harry sat bold up right in alarm. "My Mom's letters? You didn't have to…" He couldn't say it.
"Calm down, Harry," Mr. Weasley put his hand on Harry's shoulder to get him to lie back down. "The letters are fine. They have been decontaminated." Harry eased back to the bed and sighed with relief. He yawned loudly.
"Time to rest some more, Harry." Mr. Weasley held up a goblet. "I promised Healer Davis I would make sure you drank this." He helped hold the goblet steady as Harry drank the potion. "Well done. That wasn't too bad was it?" The man smiled fondly at the boy drifting off to sleep. He reached out and brushed the fringe of black hair out of Harry's eyes and whispered. "Welcome back Harry."
Even though Harry had been told he was out of the woods, the bed side chair was never empty. At first he wondered about this but then he remembered he was Voldemort next target. He was being guarded, again. As if confirming this, he had gotten a glimpse of Kingsley Shacklebolt standing outside the room when the healer opened the door once. To his own surprise, Harry found he liked the company. Tonks, Remus, all the adult Weasleys and even Mundungus were all fun to talk to. Although he missed Ron and Hermione, they couldn't visit until the healers gave the okay.
Slowly Harry felt his strength coming back to him. With time to reflect on many things Harry realized he had missed his own birthday, his sixteenth birthday. No big deal he thought. His birthdays never were. Some of his thinking found him dwelling on many of the memories Snape had brought to the surface of his mind with the occlumency lessons. Severus Snape the potion teacher at Hogwarts was Harry's least favorite teach. Each held the other with much contempt, increasing in intensity with each passing year. At night when his watcher was sleeping, Harry found himself brooding more and more on his years with the Dursleys.
After a nap one afternoon, Harry woke to find Mr. Weasley at his bedside and sitting beside him was Hogwarts's headmaster Albus Dumbledore. "Good afternoon Harry." Dumbledore cheery voice didn't match Harry present feelings toward his headmaster.
"What are you doing here, Professor?" Harry reached for his glasses on the table next to his bed. "Is something wrong?"
"No, no. Harry." Dumbledore assured him. "In actuality I have been here quite often. Evidently this is the first you have been fully awake to notice."
Harry nodded and stared at the frayed edge of the blanket pulled across his waist. So many things he had planned to say to Dumbledore the next time he saw him but now he felt overwhelmed by the wizard's strength. He rubbed his forehead.
"Does your scar hurt?" Mr. Weasley asked softly.
"No, it's my head own this time." Harry sighed and leaned back looking at the ceiling. "I wondered what life would be like without pain." He looked at Mr. Weasley. "Even before I went to Hogwarts my life was filled with it. I don't think there was a single day I wasn't punched, kicked or pinched by Dudley. Or grabbed by the arm or hair and forced into the cupboard under the stairs by my aunt or uncle." He felt his anger rising. He continued to look only at Mr. Weasley. "Thanks to occlumency I remember a lot of those wonderful times." Harry snorted. "Like when I was five, I tripped over a toy of Dudley's on the front step. I cut my lip, skinned my hands and knees. The Dursleys screamed at me for breaking Dudley's toy and locked me in the cupboard." Mr. Weasley face had gone white. "I was scared to death what they would say about the blood on my clothes. Sometimes I wonder how I learned to care about anything growing up with no inkling what comfort or caring felt like."
"Harry, I explained why…why I had to leave you there. For your own protection." Dumbledore said softly.
"No, sir, it was more for the world's protection don't you think?" Harry voice was hard. "It had nothing to do with me."
"I suppose that is true." Dumbledore admitted.
"At least you are being honest with me. A refreshing change." Mr. Weasley sat frozen in shock. Harry still hadn't looked at the headmaster.
"Harry, I was hoping our friendship was strong enough to allow for mistakes." Dumbledore said tentatively.
"Friend? What makes you think you're my friend?" Harry snorted and finally gave Dumbledore a scathing look. "Ron and Hermione are my friends. Fred and George are my friends. They risked everything after my first year to come rescue me from starvation at the Dursleys. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are my friends. They've given me a place to stay, a place to belong." He glared at Dumbledore stunned face.
"But I have yet to find anything the qualifies you as my friend." The heat in Harry's face only made his anger feel right. He didn't care about the tears streaming down his face. He didn't care about the tears spilling down Dumbledore's cheeks into his beard. All his years of suffering alone were due to this man.
Dumbledore had dropped his head with Harry's fury. Harry stared at him waiting. Waiting for that appalling calm manner to answer his anger. But an old man raised his gaze slightly and answered in a shaky voice. "I'm sorry, Harry. I'm sorry." He rose slowly and left the room.
"Harry?" Mr. Weasley said softly. "He really did think…"
"He was doing the right thing." Harry snorted. "Yeah, I know. That doesn't change what I went through, with his knowledge." He sank back down into his bed and closed his eyes, his jaw clenched. He heard Mr. Weasley clear his throat and shift around in his seat then the man rose and left the room.