Parchment Letter

Chapter 4

Harry opened his bleary eyes the next day to an unfamiliar sensation of warmth and clarity. Fumbling beside the bed for his glasses, he sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. After replacing the glasses on his face, Harry remembered where he was. He was in Hogwarts. He was a wizard. And his parent's had been murdered. A nasty thrill of terror and sadness went through Harry's body at that thought, and he fought back his tears. It was as though it had only just happened. To find out how your parents died wasn't a very nice thing to have dropped on you so suddenly.

"Oh, good, you're awake," a female's voice said brusquely. Harry looked over to see a nurse, maybe in her early seventies, bustling over to where he sat. "Professor Dumbledore told me the situation. You'll need a proper physical examination before I let you leave."

"Um..." Harry faltered. But he couldn't see a way around it.

Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, brought Harry into a white room with various charts on the walls, and an examination table with many drawers and cabinets underneath labelled with strange headings, like 'Skelegrow', 'examiscope', and 'defect detector'.

"Just sit yourself up here," Madam Pomfrey said in her no-nonsense voice, patting the examination table with her hand, "and we'll just do a routine check-up."

The examination went fairly well, Harry obliging to the reflex test, eye test and flexibility test without complaint - until the breathing test.

"Okay, now I'm going to have to ask you to take off your jumper Harry," Madam Pomfrey said. "It's too thick to hear your breathing through, even with the stethoscope."

Harry was reluctant. He really didn't want her to see. But Madam Pomfrey was adamant, and Harry couldn't find a good enough argument against such a simple thing. Closing his eyes and bracing himself, he took off his warm, knit sweater. He heard Pomfrey's gasp. "What in the name of Merlin happened to you, dear?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Harry dodged. He opened his eyes and saw the expression of shock on the old nurse's face.

"Take a look in the mirror, Harry."

"Okay."

Standing there, Harry saw himself as he did every day. Half-turning, he looked himself over. There was nothing different, and Harry said so.

"But...the scars, Harry," Madam Pomfrey said.

And they were there, as they had been for so many years. Thick, white lines crisscrossed Harry's shoulder blades and back, making a grotesque kind of pattern. None of them were red as his lightning bolt scar on his head was, but they were there, nonetheless.

"Oh, yeah," Harry said calmly. "Those."

A/N: I'm sorry I haven't updated in so long, and that this chapter is so short! I just felt like writing this fic today. I wasn't sure I'd write again, but I found a kind of twist I could put in. This is a bit of a weird chapter for me. I'm not in a particularly dark mood, but I threw in the scars anyway. I hope it's not too dark...

Oct. 19th: I added a few words and fixed a grammar error.

By the way, there's a poll on my profile about what I should write next. Take it! Take the poll!