A/N: As I've said before, and will say again, thanks to all my reviewers. I appreciate you taking the time to give me feedback. Now, here's hoping to third in a day again.

Here is how I figure the money situation. School tuition is 1.5k a year, for everyone, payable either in installments monthly, per term, or all at once. Harry's guardians, whoever they were to be would get 2k a year. Harry himself gets 2.6k a year (hey, when I come up with the figures for the Potter Family Accounts in book 5's time frame, you'll see the reason for this). That's a total of 6.1k a year. That leaves 3.9k each year for whatever emergencies come up, and that is accessible by whoever Harry's financial guardian is.

I have yet to make any choices on what the average wizardly income is, but I am sure that these amounts combined with whatever income whoever would have gotten Harry would make for a comfy childhood.

And I can't believe that NONE of my reviewers have yet to even mention Healer Andromeda Tonks, the mother of everyone's favorite metamorphmagus. :( I ripped that role from the fact that she patches Hagrid up after the escape from the Dursleys' in DH.

Oh and anyone who wonders what the castle meant by 'short while' back in chapter 3. Well it is a thousand plus year old castle. Her definition of time is not the same as a human's.

(8/20/10) Third in a day.

Chapter 10: St. Mungo's and the Unthinkable

The rest of the day went rather uneventfully, with the group grabbing lunch in the Alley and then apparating back to the house. Though on the plus side, Harry finally got a tour. The house wasn't what most people would call large, but it was indeed, full. The kitchen was neat and organized, and also served as the dining room, albeit an extremely informal one. There was a sitting room with a number of plush chairs and couches, and a very large fireplace. There was a rather massive library when compared to the other rooms seen so far, and they had even set Harry up with his own potions lab. It was kinda like they were trying to tell him something.

When he was shown outside, it became apparent that the house was much larger on the inside than it was on the outside. From without it appeared to only be a three or so room fieldstone cottage. It sat in the middle of a clearing at least one hundred yards from the forest that surrounded it. There was a moderately sized greenhouse in sight, and some gardens. He was also shown the broomshed, and told that he could use any of the brooms in there. He was told that none of them were out of repair, though none of them were racing brooms.

With that said, he was left to his own devices. He spent most of the afternoon flying, enjoying the freedom of being in the sky, before landing after a couple of hours to go do some detail work on his defenses. Sitting cross legged on his bed, Harry pulled Alistair from where he left the hat that morning and dropped the headwear on his noggin.

"You weren't too bored today, were you Al?"

"Not at all, Harry. Nicolas was kind enough to give me access to the library here, so I was able to keep myself busy. Which was it today, St. Mungo's or Gringotts?"

They had a short conversation about what had happened that day, and Alistair got slightly peeved off that the headmaster had been stealing from Harry. Taking the hat back off his head, Harry started his meditation and entered his mindscape, and so got to work. He was gotten for dinner half an hour later. After a rather nice meal (definitely nicer and more filling than any with his old 'family'), he decided to poke around the library until he wanted to go to sleep. He found that they had a mix of magical and mundane fiction, along with countless magical theory texts, the vast majority of which he was sure were well above his skill level. Curling up with the children's version of 'The Tales of Beedle the Bard', Harry got a look at what stories he would have been told if his parents will had been executed. He viciously killed the nascent end of the rest of that thought...

'or if his parents had lived...'

He also got the more mature versions of the tales. Kinda like the tales of the Brothers Grimm, there were separate watered down stories, but then there were the older versions that weren't so nice.

The morning the next day was basically a repeat of the previous day, with the only difference was Alistair's insistence of tagging along to St. Mungo's, however the conversation at the breakfast table centered on the apparent innocence of Sirius Black.

Harry had started the talk, "Nicolas, why were you so sure that if the DMLE got my parent's will, that you could free the man who is apparently my godfather?"

"Well Harry, it involves a specific set of rather old and little used laws involving war-time wills and what they left to Pettigrew. The gist of it is, if a will, made during a recognized time of war, is brought into effect within a year of the writer's death, a set of phrases and bequeathments can be used to name who would have betrayed them to their deaths. Given your father's station as the Head of the Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Potter, the sentence would be death by an artifact called the Death Veil. What your parents actually left Peter Pettigrew was a death sentence."

"Oh."

After finishing breakfast, they left for St. Mungo's for a ten thirty appointment for a full physical with Healer Tonks. Getting there, and spending half an hour waiting and filling out forms, they were then led to an examination room. Which bore absolutely no resemblance to a muggle examination room. There were a few plush chairs, a tall stool, and a padded table.

After about five minutes of waiting, Healer Tonks walked in, and seeing Harry, the Hat, and his new guardians, smiled. "Well I must say Alistair, you worked quite quickly in getting Mr. Potter new guardians. And ones that take the initiative at that."

The hat chuckled, and responded, "I like to think that it is luck that had the basis in grinding all of Dumbledore's finely laid plans into finely spread dust."

Harry's response to this was a vicious, victorious smile.

"Well then, up on the stool, Mr. Potter, and let us get started."

Over the next half an hour, Healer Tonks cast countless detection and diagnostic spells, and was constantly taking notes. When she said she was finished and was about to leave to review her notes, Perenelle asked, "Have you checked for any blocks or seals on him?"

Healer Tonks blinked, worked her mouth for a moment, and then replied, "No, it isn't standard for a physical. Usually families keep track..." She trailed off in mid-sentence and hit herself in the forehead with the palm of her hand. "I've never studied the more complex detection spells for those kind of things, but I do know how to tell if they are there on the upper reaches of his being. If I get any sort of positive, I'll call in a consult."

Before she started, Nicolas added his own two knuts, "Could you also have him checked for monitoring and tracking charms, and mail interdictions?"

"Of course."

Six quick detection spells and swears later, Healer Tonks had a rather irate look on her face. Forcing a grin, Harry said, "I am guessing they all came up positive?"

Healer Tonks shot her patient a dirty look that shut him right up. "I am going to go get the best we have at this, I'll be back. And while they are doing their thing, I'll go over my notes from his physical."

She left the room, and Harry just sat on the stool, kicking his feet. He asked the hat, 'What did she mean by "upper reaches"?'

'Do you remember on conversation Monday on wizard physiology?'

'Of course...'

'This goes quite a ways beyond that basic chat we had. In essence, every witch or wizard is made up of five things. The first three, the three that lay closest to the surface and that are easiest to effect, are often referred to as the upper reaches or simply the surface. They are comprised of the body, the mind, and the magics of a person and how they interact with each other as individual pieces and as a whole.'

'Okay, that seems basic enough, and makes what generally resembles a logic shaped object.'

'Then there are the two deeper elements, the two things which are the deeper source of the energies of a person, and these are often called either the lower reaches or the depths. These are comprised of the Soul and the Blood. But when referring the Blood, we don't simply mean the red stuff that runs through your veins. What is meant is the life energy of the person.'

'Have to take that one a little more on belief, but once again, a vaguely logic shaped object.'

'And that is it in essence. And here comes Healer Tonks.'

'And she brought company. Quite a bit of it, in fact.'

Healer Tonks reentered the room, and Harry seemed to have a distant look on his face while he was wearing the Sorting Hat. He was possibly conversing with the artifact. What kind of person prefers to talk to a centuries old ratty hat, sure it was probably perfect companion for the types of people who became Headmaster, but an eleven year old? That being thought, she had come with the most experienced Healers who were trained in this sort of situation, three of them in fact. One, a rather short red headed man, specialized in blocks and seals on the upper reaches, while the other two, a tall black man with an Afro and a woman with blond hair, each worked in a different aspect of the depths.

"These are the absolute best St. Mungo's has to offer on dealing with various methods of blocking, sealing, and shackling of the various aspects of a witch or wizard. When they heard who they would be treating, they cleared the golf appointments."

The blond was the first of the three to speak, "If that is what I think it is, its presence on the patient is going to interfere with the diagnostics. "

Alistair responded with, "If you think that I am Alistair, the Sorting Hat of Hogwarts, then you are in fact correct. I just wish to say one thing before you start though. If my suspicions are correct, then the one who laid these bindings was Albus Dumbledore, so make sure you check for even the most esoteric of spells."

Harry then took him off his head and looked around for a place to set Alistair down, when Nicolas came over and set him on his head.

The trio then started their own series of detection and diagnostic spells. It was just a bit over forty-five minutes later before they had all finished. Each had gone off to go over the notes they took, and to confer with each other.

When they had finished, Healer Tonks came over and suggested they go get something to eat and then return to the hospital and meet her in her office. By that time, say an hour later, she and the Healers she had called in should have at least begun to get a handle on things.

All that said, it was an hour and a quarter later that saw the seven witches and wizards, plus one enchanted hat, sitting down in a conference room. Healer Tonks began the meeting, "Well as to the results of your physical, the only good news I have, is that apart from what already has been diagnosed, you are as healthy as an ox. I have had the potions you are talking altered slightly and blended together so that you only need to take a potion before each meal, instead of six before breakfast. We should be able to get those to you by Wednesday at the latest.

"However to the rather... numerous..."

The Healer with the Afro made an inarticulate sound of rage at this understatement.

The blond picked it up from there, "There are two ways which we can deal with the problem from here. First and foremost, no matter which course of action is chosen, we cannot remove the bindings in the depths without first clearing the upper reaches. "

Now the redhead broke in, "The first way is that we have almost daily examinations of you for about a year, carefully mapping and plotting just what was done to you. While we do this, we start planning on just how we are going disspell each individual enchantment. The soonest the upper reaches will be cleared on this course will be eighteen months."

Alistair decided now was as good a time to interrupt as any other, "And plan B is the brute force method I am guessing."

Harry chimed in, "Probably the more painful of the two too."

"Yes, about that. Your pain tolerances are fairly good from what I've seen from your memories... fairly good for a retired veteran Auror. For an eleven year old they are ridiculous."

"And that was before I had these, 'fairly impressive brute force mental protections' as you put it, to hide behind."

"True. I vote for plan B."

"I agree with the headwear, plan B it is."

All of the adults stared at the pair slightly slack-jawed, the healers especially. Those two had just managed to figure out the details of what was going to be said next, on next to no details.

Perenelle decided to break the rather unsettling silence brought on by the strange adolescent and smug hat. "Are you sure about this Harry, Nicolas and I don't know how bad it was at your previous home..."

"It was never home."

This struck the conversation dead again, until the Afro haired healer said, "If it has been decided we can get to performing the ritual immediately, the sooner we get this done, the better."

A half an hour later, laying on a bed in the middle of a circle, the healers told Harry that if he was going to hide behind whatever Occlumency shields he had, he should get going. Dropping into his mediation, and following a minute later into his mindscape, Harry started sealing everything shut, while using a recently taught method by the hat to allow him to be aware in real time.

He had been waiting for five minutes before something struck his outer walls from all directions all at once. He shifted quickly to his front gate, which had taken a solid it. A minute later it was struck again. Between strikes, Harry let go of his hold on real time, as he needed a bit more time to work.

The metal that made up the doors was something the hat had called mythril, a bright blue-silver metal, and it was one of the most resilient metals known to magic. He focused on the structure of the metal, seeing the alignment of the crystals and strands in it, and then he mentally twisted them, made them tighter and denser. Now it was nearly as reflective as a mirror, and was a vivid electric blue.

The wood, a lusterless gray colored material, that comprised the massive gates and doors was called ironwood, and took centuries to grow to any useable size in the real world. Once more he visualized the structure of the material, focusing on it until he could almost reach out and manipulate the fibers of it with his bare hands. And then he did, he tightened the weave of the threads, and packed the layers more densely. Now the wood had become as white as new driven snow, and almost seemed to glow.

He then demolished the simple set of doors he had, and created a complex monstrosity in their wake. The outer most gate was like a draw bridge, and when closed, it lay flat against the wall for more than a yard in all directs, and protruded into the gate house for at least two feet. It locked into the walls themselves in thirteen separate places. The second gate was a pair of outward opening doors, each of which locked into the walls seven times each, and then into each other a total of seven times. When shut three massive bars, wood with metal reinforcing bands, would seal it further. The last gate was identical to the first, only it opened down onto the inside of the walls.

For when they were sealed, Harry created a liquid that would cause any force that worked to move the gates to be more efficiently forced upon the next gate in line, and upon the walls of the gate house. He was fairly certain he had made the gates even stronger than the walls were.

He sped things back up to real time. For another three minutes, the pain kept ramming into his defenses, coming back more quickly, and staying longer. He then started to notice that the dome had a few stress markers, and a few of the stones of the wall had shifted. He was hit one more time as he slowed it down, so instead of speeding his perception of time back to normal, he tripled the thickness of the dome, making the stress points less of an issue for the moment, and pushed it outwards, clearing the walls by four yards in all directions.

He repaired the wall with a thought, having already increased the thickness of the curtain wall to twenty-one feet to accommodate the new gates. He then broke it down into thirteen separate walls, one against another, each wall forty-nine bricks tall. He then took the obdurite of the bricks and tripled its density with a thought, packing more of it into each square inch. The flat gray stones turned instantly into a light devouring black. While recreating the wall, he feathered it out in six places, forcing it into the appearance of the how the new gate would appear when disguised as wall, each one equidistant from it to the next, starting and ending at the gate.

In the place of the dome, he started creating a series of geodesic domes. Each comprised solely of triangles, each rotated one seventh of the way to lining up with the next triangle in the pattern. Between each layer he filled the space with energy, energy to both separate the layers, and bind them together, to transfer the energy from one to the next, but also disperse it. Seven layered domes he created, and when finished, no longer was it mostly transparent. It pulsed with what could only be called a prismatic energy.

He willed his perception of time back into lock-step with the outside world, and watched as the last remnant of his first defenses were sacrificed, and when the pain fell back upon his new walls, it ground to a screeching halt. It could find no purchase, make no headway. It threw itself upon his mind and could do nothing.

He sat down with the library of his memories and waited. He waited until sleep claimed him.

A/N2: Yes, I am being anvilicious with the fact that things that are not human, are not human. And nor should they be TREATED as human.

And anyone who does not like the term 'logic shaped object' can go copulate with themselves. Vigorously.