You Broke Him, You Fix Him

By Teacherbev

Disclaimer: If I owned this I wouldn't be living where I am and I most certainly wouldn't be writing fan fiction, now would I?

AN: I have discovered a wonderful new use for those annoying spam people. I am now using the most inventive names from my spam mail for the names of unimportant people in my story. Why should I spend time and effort thinking up unusual names when they are just waiting for me in my mailbox? Feel free to share this idea with anyone else who has difficulty coming up with new and inventive names for fictional characters.

Chapter 21: The Battle for Harry's Mind (Part 2)

Albus wasted no time sending out summons for the wizards and witches that had left Grimmald Place while Severus, Nicholas and he had been occupied with sending Severus to Harry who was still ensconced deep within his own subconscious mind.

Molly was just removing the last of the shrunken packages from her robe pockets as her husband, Arthur stepped through the floo, followed shortly by Charlie, Bill, Fred and George. She dropped her wand to the floor in astonishment, causing the packages she was floating to fall to the floor, as the floo fire flared once more and her missing son, Percy stepped through, nervousness exuding from every pore as he stood, his head bowed looking for all the world like an abused puppy; hoping to be petted and loved, but expecting to be beaten and abused. He hadn't looked up even once before he felt the comforting encircling of his mother's arms as she squeezed the breath out of him, sobbing incoherently onto the chest of his robes, too short now to reach his shoulder.

"Oh, Percy it's so good to have you back…I've…we'll we've…all missed you. How are you doing? What's happened…?" Molly was talking through her sobs, not waiting for any response from her third son as she let go of almost a years worth of heartache.

"Mum, Mum…it's okay…Mum…." Percy looked pleadingly at his father and brothers, who were trying, not very successfully, to stifle snorts at his predicament.

Molly stopped sobbing; pushed Percy away from her and with a roundhouse that any street brawler would be proud of, slapped him right across the face, leaving a fiery red imprint of her hand on his right cheek. She looked at him and explained. "And that's for all those…horrible things…you said about poor Harry and the rest of your family. And for making me worry so all this last year…and for not listening to your father and me…" She broke down in sobs once more and pulled Percy close, forcing him to bend over and put his head on her shoulder, once again squeezing him as she rubbed her hand gently over the mark she had just left on him.

It was too much for the rest of the Weasley family, their stifled snorts of laughter could no longer be held back, and with whoops of joy, their laughter filled the air of the house, causing the three students to desert their studies, as they came racing through the hall skidding into the kitchen.

Ron's face turned as red as his hair in anger as he stomped toward his traitorous, hurtful perfect prat of a brother. "Do you know how much you hurt Harry…hurt me…you…you…bloody prat? He found that letter…and you might as well have stabbed him…you…" Hermione grabbed one arm and held on tightly while Ginny grabbed the other one, both girls afraid of what Ron would do to his brother, he was angry enough to kill him with his bare hands.

Molly let go of Percy and swung on Ron, engulfing him and the two girls into a huge suffocating hug as she cried even harder. "Oh Ron, let it be…let him explain…"

Ron was still steaming but thought he could always kill the git after he explained, and if he waited his other brothers might even help him. So he sat down heavily at the old scarred up kitchen table, folded his hands across his chest, and glared at the tall, gangly wizard, noticing for the first time the flaming red hand print on his cheek.

He looked at his mother whose ears were tinged with red, "I see you waited for an explanation, Mum." He looked smugly at his Mum before her glare made him back down quickly. No one, absolutely no one wanted to stand up to his Mum when she was in a full blown fury.

Arthur, always the mediator of the family, smiled around at his whole family and gestured toward the open kitchen door, "Why don't we move this discussion to the living room, after all, Percy will have to explain and apologize to several of the people there too. He might as well get it over with all at once, right?"

Reluctantly agreeing with his father, Percy led the way out and down the narrow hall, feeling like the condemned man on his last walk to the firing squad. He gulped nervously; very aware of the glowering menace of his younger brother behind him and squared his shoulders before entering the cheerful yet suddenly quiet room.

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Poppy Pomfrey was busy, very busy. She had just delivered the first of Delpha Leticia's twins but the second one was being stubborn and had presented breech. She deftly and confidently forced the unborn child to turn properly and then instructed Delpha to "Push, push hard now…just once more and…ah…he's a boy!" She swished her wand, clearing the newborn's airway, sealing and cutting the umbilicus, and cleaning him with one well practiced yet intricate wand movement. She wrapped the squirming infant in the warm blanket his father was holding out to her and laid the child into his father's waiting arms. She finished cleaning up the new mom, pulling out the standard instruction packet for new parents that she had developed over the years and began to repack her supplies when she felt the Order of the Phoenix medallion on her chest start to warm up.

She quickly raised the medallion to her face, the miniature image of Albus speaking in a squeaky little voice that was specially charmed so that only she could hear. "You are needed at headquarters as soon as you are able. It is time." She tapped the golden phoenix on the engraved circle twice with her wand tip to tell him the message had been received, waited just a moment and then tapped twice quickly followed by another tap after a brief pause, the response signifying she would follow her instructions.

She accepted a warm hug from Delpha; shook Alphas Leticia's hand in congratulations and left their small Hogsmeade cottage, striding down the street to a deserted alleyway were she could apperate out; only to reappear on a run down muggle street in a poor area of London. She walked forward only to disappear between Number 9 Grimmald Place and Number 13.

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Voldemort was feeling a little stronger, the hearty beef stew that his new personal servant, Michael Cornfort had brought from his parents' house just a half hour ago had renewed his energy a great deal. The dark lord had eaten every bite, soaking up the gravy with the warm, freshly sliced and thickly buttered bread that had also been sent. The loss of his familiar in such a precipitous manner had severed the telepathic connection he had spent years forging with her. He had spent long, lonely years disembodied and the mental communication with Nagini had been the only thing keeping him sane. For long years, the potions that had been based upon her venom had kept him alive, her magic giving him the strength he needed until they were so tightly bonded that he physically needed her strength to maintain his own, just as he had needed her magical bond to keep his own magical core from destabilizing as he regained his own strength after having been without a physical body for so long.

He made sure that the boy was no where near before he let himself sag back into his favorite chair; the torturous effort needed to disguise his weakness at Nagini's death had used up much of the strength he had regained over the last day. He growled in frustration as he thought over the names of his followers that still might be free and of some use to him. He must find and hold Severus Snape, he was certain that the highly skilled potions master would be able to invent and then brew something new to take the place of his beloved Nagini. Surely there would be revitalizing potions and strengthening solutions that could boost his recovery and make him strong again before any of his other followers found out about his weakened state.

'Where could he be? No one has seen or heard from him in at least a week. Perhaps that muggle loving fool has sent him abroad to keep him safe from that blasted investigation at the Ministry.' He could do nothing further without his most trusted death eater, the only one left from his feared inner circle that had not been captured and kissed. His thoughts still whirling in circles of frustration and anger, the dark lord allowed himself to sleep, hoping his magical reserves would rebuild as he slept.

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Percy followed his parents into the living room with all of the enthusiasm of a muggle going for a double root canal… without anesthetic. He stopped when he felt all the eyes on him, he gulped loudly and then forced himself to keep on walking until he was sitting in a straight backed dining room chair, facing the odd group spread out throughout the room. He looked around at the diverse group, mentally cataloging those who might support him and those who definitely would not, like his brother Ron. He smiled grimly at his mother's encouraging nod and began. His voice cracked with nervousness, but as he spoke, he gained more courage and his voice steadied. "I'm sorry about hurting all of you last year, especially you Ron and Harry." He glanced at Harry who was lying very still and white faced while being held by some really, really ancient wizard. He was curious about whom exactly that witch and wizard were that made Dumbledore and McGonagall look young, but he couldn't veer from the task he had set himself. "I was too caught up in my own importance and I didn't really think through what I was saying or how it might hurt you. I'm sorry and I wish I could take it all back, but I can't. All I can do is ask that you might eventually forgive me."

Ron stood up, his face furrowed in anger, "Yeah you prat, now that everyone you thought was so wonderful is in Azkaban or kissed, you come crawling back here and want us to just forget and forgive you like nothing has happened. Well, it's not going to happen…" Hermione reached up and pulled him to her by simply grabbing the nearest ear and pulling down on it. She whispered something into his ear. He looked startled and then embarrassed before he sat down, white lipped but silent.

Hermione looked at Percy with pity as she rounded on the arrogant git. "I wasn't your target very often, Percy but I saw what you did and how you acted. I hope you figure out someday that family is more important than rules and that sometimes the rules are wrong." She sat down, her arms folded across her chest, her face closed, her emotions unreadable as she glared at him.

Percy looked at his other brothers, making eye contact with them each, one by one. "Charlie, Bill I have always looked up to you, I'm sorry I didn't listen to you when you tried to tell me that family was much more important than any ministry job. I just let…all that…prestige and power…go to my head. Forgive me?" Charlie and Bill looked at each other before reluctantly nodding, Bill speaking for them both. "You went against your family and everything that we were raised to believe. You broke Mum's heart, rubbed Dad's happiness in his 'unglamorous department' in his face and devastated both Ron and Harry. But as we tried to tell you, family is the most important thing. We haven't forgotten what you did and you will need to prove to us that you have really changed, but for now we will forgive you." Percy looked relieved as he turned further, his face blanching as he next faced the twins who had identical glares upon their faces.

"Percy…"

"You were a big"

"git when you were just"

"a little kid and that didn't"

"change. You just kept getting a"

"bigger and bigger head."

"We tried to get you to"

"lighten up and have some fun"

"but you never did. You just"

"got worse. We saw Harry"

"crying after he found your letter."

"And we never saw Harry cry"

"Not after broken bones"

"not after concussions"

"not even after Voldemort"

"killed Cedric and battled him"

"in that graveyard. But your"

"letter… made him cry."

"We won't forget easily"

"nor quickly. But you are"

"our brother. Welcome home." The last was said together and sincerely heartfelt by both twins.

Molly and Arthur both beamed at the maturity their boys were showing. Everyone turned to the last Weasley, Ginny. She simply stood up and walked calmly over to her brother, swung back one foot and kicked him in the shin, hard. "Don't do it again, Perce. And you better apologize to Harry as soon as he wakes up."

Percy reached down with both hands and rubbed his aching shin, afraid to say anything that might set off his spitfire of a sister further. He looked around the room, puzzled. "What's going on? Why is Professor Snape in a bed? And why isn't Harry awake?"

Molly and Arthur pulled their third son back out into the hall and spent the next ten minutes telling him the basics of what had happened over the last few weeks to him. While they were gone, Ginny leaned over to Hermione and whispered conspiratorially, "What did you whisper to Ron that made him back down? I've never seen him stopped so abruptly once he gets really wound up in true Weasley temper mode. He's like Mum, a full blown terror when he loses his temper." Hermione smiled and whispered back, "I just reminded him of when he didn't believe Harry about not putting his name into the Goblet of Fire and how Harry had treated him when he came back asking for Harry's forgiveness. It hit too close to home for his own comfort." Hermione looked over to where Ron and the twins had their heads together plotting something and gave him a smug smile when he turned to glance at the two girls, feeling their eyes upon him. The two groups continued to talk softly amongst themselves until Molly led Percy back into the room, followed closely by Arthur.

When they led Percy back into the room, his eyes were slightly glazed over with all the information he had just heard, too overwhelmed to really make sense of it yet. He had returned not only because his conscience had been bothering him for a long time, but because this morning Amelia Bones and Kingsley Shacklebolt had dragged him into an empty office and reamed him royally about what he was doing to his family. He had almost lost his job; he had barely been able to talk the Head of Magical Law Enforcement into believing that he really had been as clueless about what was going on all around him as he had seemed. He felt entirely lucky that he had been reassigned to the pool of available clerks rather than fired or even imprisoned as Madame Bones had first planned on doing.

He had swallowed his pride and gone to his father, arriving in his office only moments before his father had been summoned to Grimmald Place for an emergency. Percy had begged his father to allow him to accompany him so that he could ask his family for forgiveness and had been drawn once again into the bizarre events that always seemed to revolve around Harry Potter. But this time he wouldn't shirk his duty, he would support his family in any way that he could, and that family now included both Harry and Hermione.

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Arabella Figg was beside herself. She had sent Severus Snape on with Poppy Pomfrey days ago and no one had contacted her since to let her know if the poor man had even survived the journey. She wrung her hands as she paced back and forth, until she finally made up her mind. Stuffing a few belongings into a carpetbag, she took out her mother's old beloved wand from her dresser drawer, and walked down one block, turned left into the alleyway behind Wisteria Walk and flung her right hand with her mother's wand grasped tightly, hoping it would be enough. With a squeal of tires and a booming cloud of exhaust, the huge purple double decker Night bus appeared, the pimple faced conductor pushed to one side in her haste to board. "Take me to Grimmald Place, London, and it's an emergency!" She thrust a golden galleon into his hand, ignored his gobsmacked expression and settled herself into the nearest empty armchair, wrapping one surprisingly strong arm around the brass post and braced herself for the bus' abrupt entry back into motion.

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Draco studied all day, stopping only to wash down a tasteless and very dry sandwich with a glass of pumpkin juice at lunch. He made himself read and study an entire chapter before stopping to look out the window for any owls approaching, even though he knew it was too soon to expect any responses, he felt a surge of anticipation before looking out the grimy little window, each look was followed with his heart dropping in disappointment as the sky remained clear. He lost count of the times he repeated his fruitless search as each chapter was finished before he began doggedly studying the next one.

When his mother called him down for supper, he took a few minutes to clean up in the tiny bathroom, grimacing at the reddish iron stains on the small enameled sink and the years old grime around the pipes as they disappeared into the warped linoleum, wondering how his father could have been so arrogant as to make no accommodations for the comfort, nay even the continued survival of his family. He wiped his face dry on the scratchy, but thankfully clean towel and shrugged his shoulders in acceptance. Like a true Slytherin, he would put what he could not change behind him and try to use what he still had to his best advantage. Feeling slightly more optimistic than he had in days, he re-hung the towel and carefully trudged down the narrow worn steps, determined to rebuild the Malfoy name no matter how hard a job or how long it took.

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The living room was getting rather crowed with everyone nervously speaking in small groups while they waited for Poppy to finish delivering twins to the clerk from Honeydukes Candy Shop in Hogsmeade. Albus had reported she was just finishing up and would be there as soon as she could, when everyone froze at the sound of the front door being opened. The excited talking began again as everyone expected the entrance of Poppy would finally set things into motion.

Minerva was the first to realize that the newest visitor to Grimmald Place wasn't the mediwitch but the old and very odd squib that Albus had set to watching the Dursleys so many years ago. Arabella took only a single step into the room before dropping her overstuffed carpet bag and rushing to the bed to scoop up the still limp and lifeless form of Harry Potter. "Oh child, what have they done to you now?" She looked wildly around and found the taciturn potions master as he lay still in the next bed, his expression sour and frustrated as he stared up at the remarkably clean white ceiling. Arabella laid Harry down on his pillow very gently and then rushed over to Severus Snape and scooped the startled man up into an identical hug, squeezing him tightly as tears of relief flowed unchecked down the age withered cheeks. "Oh you poor boy, no one told me how you were and I was just so worried…I saw the aurors take away those miserable… beasts… but no one came back and told me how you were. I'm sorry, it's just that you looked so…terrible…the last time I saw you…and I was afraid that you hadn't…." her voice seized up as her emotions overwhelmed her. Snape looked around wildly for someone to rescue him from the sobbing woman who had him in a death grip as she shook with emotion. His normal mask was completely gone and he looked ready to leap out of bed and flee in total panic.

Molly took pity on the poor man and came over to grasp the sobbing woman by the shoulders and lead her over to sit down. Ginny, understanding her mother's unspoken look ran to the kitchen and came back only a minute or two later with a steaming mug of hot, sweet tea. Minerva must have had a similar idea, for she came back into the room right after Ginny with a familiar bright, clear blue vial of calming potion. Between the tea and the potion, Arabella had soon calmed down. She sat still, only an occasional expression of horror would show fleetingly across her face as the events of the past few days and what was now planned were carefully explained to her. She immediately demanded to take part in the ritual to free Harry from the curse scar, after all she had been looking out for that poor boy a lot longer than anyone else in that room!

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Narcissa Malfoy sat in her small study, the accounts book open on the small, well worn desk in front of her. She let her perfect posture slump into a position of defeat as she tried once more to find a solution from the skimpy figures written so painstakingly into the ledger. She sighed, hoping against hope that her cousin Sirius would find it in his heart to forgive her all the things she had done and said over the years. Without his support and the annulment of her disastrous marriage to Lucius she would have to throw herself on the mercy of her third cousins by marriage that still lived in France; the ones that Lucius had always looked down his long aristocratic nose at, because they worked in the muggle world. She remembered him ranting about how they had sullied and disgraced the Malfoy name by participating in dirty muggle commerce. She hoped that wherever his soul was now, that it was in eternal torment.

She carefully added the figures in the long columns again, but the meager totals didn't change, as they hadn't changed the last five or six times she had added them together. She could just manage to survive for two years, but only two years, if she could convince Draco not to get into any trouble. She despaired of what would occur without the small support she would receive from his school trust account each month and what would happen to them once Draco graduated. She knew that she had never been trained for any type of job, in fact without her old nanny house elf; she would be helpless to even feed the two of them.

Hearing the sound of Draco's feet coming carefully down the old stairs she put the ledger into the middle drawer of the desk and locked it. She shut her eyes for just a moment, sending a silent prayer that her once tormented and despised cousin might feel more for her son than his own father had.

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The tension in the living room had escalated to the point that even the house elves were subdued as they waited and waited for the arrival of Poppy Pomfrey so that the ritual could at long last begin. Everyone had been couched and tested on their roles until everyone had no questions left and could recite the long and complex Latin incantation without hesitation or flaws.

Severus Snape was snapping at anyone who came within earshot, unwilling to admit that he was feeling anxious about how long he had left Harry alone after telling the boy he would be back as soon as he could. He knew the boy had expended a great deal of energy in expelling him and he had not yet fully recovered from the dual attacks through his cursed scar. He pulled at the thick bandage that still covered his dark mark, the scabs now itching and pulling as he picked at it in frustration.

Snape startled slightly as he felt his mentor's hand on his shoulder, silently cursing himself for showing that he had not been paying attention to his surroundings, he snarled. "What can I do for you, Albus?"

"Ah, child, it does you no good to fret and worry about the boy…"

"I am not worrying about that brat!" He hastened to correct the old wizard, but Albus just threw back his head and laughed.

"You may have convinced yourself of that, Severus but you will never convince me. I know you much too well for you to lie to me now." Albus pushed on his side gently until Severus scooted over on the bed, making room for Albus to sit down beside him.

Albus reached down and patted his hand, the gesture oddly comforting to Severus as he lost some of his impatience with Poppy over her delay in arriving. "She will be here shortly, child. One cannot hurry along a birthing, particularly twins. They will come when they are ready, and not a moment sooner."

Severus was ready with a harsh and sarcastic retort but he never got to say it as Poppy swept into the room, her uniform disheveled; several strands of grey hair had escaped from her matron's hat, and she was short of breath. "Sorry, folks but those twins were stubborn." At Molly's sharp look she continued, "They're both just fine, stubborn… but fine. Now let's get this ritual started so I can wake Harry up!"

A short cheer erupted from the room as everyone gathered around, looking expectantly at Albus and Severus on one bed and Nicholas and Harry on the other. Nicholas lifted Harry's shoulders up once more as Albus scooted behind Severus. Perenelle opened Harry's eyes gently and Severus once more intoned, "Legilimens!"

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AN: Sorry for this people, but the chapter was over 7,500 words just to get to the point that Harry is blinking his eyes, so I will split this into two chapters and promise to post again by the weekend. Please don't kill me or I won't finish.