A/n: Hello everyone you'll finally get to see what's under that glamour in this chapter. I hope you enjoy! Also there's a little bit of out favourite potions master in here also.

Chapter 21

Harry was laying flat on his back surrounded by purple rocks as Madame Pomfrey, Healer Iain Powell and Auror Goldstein stood over him. To say that the experience was intimidating and just a little bit scary was putting it very lightly. It felt like he was lying on an operating table, like he had seen in one of the soap operas his aunt obsessed over, waiting for them to bring out the knives, or scalpels as they called them, and begin to cut into his skin. Harry shivered violently, his hair moving to cover his eyes once more. He had refused the calming potion that she had kindly offered him a few moments before, there was no way that he was taking something like that again without being forced. This was a situation in which he wanted to be completely alert and ready for whatever was going to happen. That last calming draught that he had been given had made him feel very weird. Now, he supposed he knew why some people chose to do drugs despite the dangers that came along with them.

Both of the healers were chanting some sort incantation over him in Latin. Exactly the same one as Pomfrey had done before, it tickled somewhat as it probed through the many layers of spells, gently worming its way down to his magical core. The exact same moment that they had begun the chant, the quill and scroll the aurors had brought with them began writing away on its own, rather like the quick quotes quill that Rita Skeeter had used to write with. It was furiously scratching away, the blue feather almost a blur.

Auror Goldstein was chanting something completely different and as Harry could feel the magic of the Healers slipping between the spells, the magic of the auror was causing them to become visible. All over his body there were spells tightly entwined with one another a mismatch of vibrant colours ranging in hue from pale green to the darkest black that he had ever seen. Harry thought that he must have looked an awful lot like a Christmas tree, strung with lights. He giggled slightly hysterically, despite the fact, that the sheer amount of foreign magic covering his body was making him feel sick to the stomach. How could he not have noticed any of this being done to him and how had he walked around with it on for so long? Madame Pomfrey looked grim, steadfastly continuing her chanting the healer looked slightly sick and the auror looked incensed, his cheeks bright red. From where Harry was lying it looked as if he was biting his lip savagely to prevent himself from saying something.

After a solid fifteen minutes of chanting, they had finally made their way through hundreds of spells to the glamour, there would be no way of breaking that until they had broken the myriad of complex spells that lay above it. It really was going to be a long day and Harry really wished that his friends could be there with him. Especially Luna there was nothing that they could keep from one another. He was sure that she would have something to say about everything that had gone on over the past week and a bit. Maybe just maybe, he would have liked her to hold his hand and tell him that everything was going to be alright. That was what family did for one another after all.

All the adults in the room began to get more and more troubled as each new spell made its self known by lighting up. Every spell had its own unique colour, the same as it had when cast normally, making it possible to identify the spell used. The chant that Gareth had been using was one that the aurors used to see who had cast a spell on another (sometimes even an object), what it was and when this had occurred. Such a spell was vital in law enforcement as it showed without doubt the facts of a case. No matter what the people involved said, the spells never lied! He also took the chance to snap a picture of the boy on the magical camera that they had brought with him in order to show the level of spell work encasing the teenager, sapping his magical strength and the nature of the glamour. All the evidence that they could gather would be vital during the trial.

Much of the foreign magic covering Harry was considered to be 'light' spells which varied in colour greatly from red to blue to orange purple and green. Intermixed with these was also a great deal of darker spells many of which were highly illegal and a few which were even black in colour. Such spells were highly dangerous and had been outlawed in every member state of the I.C.W (International. Community of Wizards). This was beginning to spiral out of their hands and those of the ministry at this rate the trial would be an international incident.

It was going to be a long drawn out complicated process to untangle each of the spells individually, what they had was hundreds of individual strands that were tightly woven together. Somehow they would have to unpick each one individually, whilst being careful not to trigger it, nor to set of any booby traps that had been laid down among them. Once it came to actually removing them, it was vital that they ensured that everyone understood the repercussions, removing each one was going to have on the boy. A calculated risk assessment would have to be made. For example there were a few spells that if they were to remove them without any planning could cause other spells to become active. They would therefore need to know what each and every one involved was. Essentially Dumbledore had booby trapped the boy.

The dictating quill was scribbling madly away, documenting each and every spell encasing the boy, where before it had been blurring slightly now its speed was so fast that the feather looked stationary. Kingsley had put way his wand and was reading them out to the others, as he was the only one not currently highly involved in the healing process it made a great deal of sense.

"There's a confundus, anti-disapperition..." His smooth voice was vital in stopping them from panicking as the list went on and on without seeming as if it would ever come to an end, the scroll extending as each new spell was detected. Eventually he had to stop reading them out, his throat becoming dry and painful yet the scroll was now reaching the floor and beging to curl in on itself. At this rate the small space that they were working in would be filled with the parchment. They all breathed a sigh of relief as its progress slowed. The large amethyst crystals were doing a great job of keeping Harry calm and boosting the amount of magic that was getting though the layers of spells. Each amythyst was acting like a megaphone to their magic, aplifying it. It had meant that it had taken much less time to get to this point that anyone had expected and a lot less energy. Now it was just a matter of carefully removing every spell before they could even think about making a start on the glamour lying beneath them.

The least tangled spell and obviously the newest was a compulsion charm, working together they neutralized it in a matter of seconds. Once it had been removed they had begun to feel Harry's magic responding to the weight that was being lifted off of his magical core. By the time they were half way through, the latent magic within harry was responding to them and in some of the weaker spells was breaking them itself, without the boys conscious input. That was something they had definitely not expected to happen, but it was welcome. Despite the stones help in healing Harry they could feel themselves begin to lag a little. Even so they were determined to see this through to the end.

Harry looked a little uncomfortable and Madame Pomfrey offered him the pain relief potion that was in her uniform apron but he refused it like he had the calming potion. As long as the boy wasn't in any real pain they wouldn't force the issue, it might make his magic, which during the procedure and for some time after would be unstable enough to lash out at them. Forcing the boy to do something against his will might make this unstable magic see them as an aggressor that was putting Harry at risk, this was not something that they could afford to happen. Especially due to how magically powerful he was.

The spells that they were now encountering were rarer and harder to remove as they needed specific counters in order to dissolve them, they were also the more tightly woven of the entire series of spells. So tightly woven in fact that they looked like one spell, the colours blurring into one another. This meant that they needed to be picked apart delicately in order to stop them from collapsing inwards potentially harming Harry. Poppy had begun to sweat her wand hand shaking slightly; she wasn't as young as she had once been and out of the three of them she was suffering the most. The older that a person got, the larger their magical core expanded to be, but it refilled itself much, much slower than a younger person's did. She wiped a heavily wrinkled hand across her brow, her sleeve soaking up the sweat. A short breather would probably be needed by then all before the final and hardest piece of magic was to be performed. She would have used a handkerchief but the one that usually used, had been left somewhere during the general kerfuffle the day had brought with it and she didn't have the luxury of time in which to retrieve it.

Iain was pale and drawn; no doubt the emotions flying round the room were affecting him badly. The muscle over his left eye was twitching involuntarily. 'Benign Fasculation!' Poppy thought to herself as she looked at the boy, glad to have remembered the term. It wasn't uncommon for people in times of great stress to develop a Benign Fasculation (a twitch) in a small muscle. A twitch like this was benign because it wouldn't develop into a serious muscular disease or condition.

Once though this thick layer and greatly surprised by the lack of booby traps there were (Albus had obviously never thought that he would be caught, or that he had done a much better job on the glamour ) they were able to take a seat for a while. Taking the weight off was one of the best ideas that the matron thought that she had ever had. Iain was carding his hands through the teenagers sweat soaked back hair, calming him as his magic hummed around them. As they sat there, everyone could feel the raw power that Harry was capable of floating around them for a few minutes as they caught their breath. The vast majorit of it was now no longer trapped up in retaining the strusture of all those different spells and was free to move around. As his body had never held the full might of his power it was struggling to absorb it. The small pile of books of the bedside cabinet levitated three feet into the air and hung there, the sheets of the bed changing colour at an eye watering speed. He was trying to use some of it up so that it could better fit inside of him. Eventually the boy began to summon the power towards him, pushing it inward and the various acts of accidental magic ended.

To begin with no-one noticed the slow changes that were starting to take place as Harry subconsciously began to break down the glamour himself.

The pictures that had been taken at the start of the medical procedure, showed a teenage boy, a little underweight for his age and a little pale surrounded by brightly coloured spell lights. That had been hard enough for them to deal with as it was, but what actually lay beneath the glamour was the face of someone dangerously even it could be said scarily underweight. His cheekbones stood out starkly from his face, the skin stretched tightly over it and blood vessels easily seen. The hair that had seemed so bouncy and full of life lay listless, dry and almost brittle looking. Madame Pomfrey sobbed and was led to a chair (having stood up and come over to the bed once they had noticed what was going on)that Kingsley had conjured for her. The boy's magic was running out of power quickly as it fought to pull down the glamour, and Iain was quick to help the boy, by placing a small highly polished quartz stone on the bare chest of the teenager. It was a stone which was well known for its ability to amplify and transmit power and was his last ditch attempt to end this. Iain placed his wand gently against it pushing a continuous stream of magic through it. They needed to finish this today.

The skin beneath the glamour coloured a little more than it had before. All over Harry sometimes little, but mostly large changes were occurring. By now sweat was pouring off the small Gryffindor and his eyes had closed in agony. Despite repeated attempts by both Poppy and himself Harry would not take the medication that would remove some if not all of the pain. At one point they had tried to force it, but the natural magic, taking part in the procedure had created was desperate to remove all threats to him and they had had to back off in fear of its wroth. As a healer it was hard to watch someone in that much pain and not be able to do anything about it.

"I can't do this anymore." Poppy moaned from her seat as millimeter by millimeter Harry's actual appearance was revealed to them all. Each vertebra of his spine stood out clearly. They were all shocked no one had been expecting the poor thing to look quite like this. Especially this far into the school year a school year when he had, had access to a large amount of food. There was no way the old man was getting away with endangering the boys life. It was likely that if this violation of magic hadnt been removed, they would have been dealing with a dead Harry Potter before long.

There would have to be a lot of tests carried out, to work out how ill the boy actually was. Being so underweight there were many different illnesses and conditions that he was at risk of. Low blood pressure, muscle atrophy, dehydration and brain damage were just the start of it.

Thursday night

In his life Severus had played many roles, in some circles he was seen as an actor extraordinaire, having both sides believe that he was working for them, whilst sowing seeds of doubt within their heads. Both Voldermort and Dumbledore had believed that he was working for them solely, but there had been a little niggling doubt as to the strength of his allegiance. That had meant that he had been involved in the inner circles of both men and had been party to a lot of their plans though sadly not all of them... Despite the problems this lack of information had often called, it also meant that he hadn't been involved in some of their most evil acts and that was fine with him. With Voldermort finally gone there was only one more evil overlord left to over throw.

The work that Severus was currently doing was vital if they wanted Harry to be able to live as ordinary a life as the boy was ever going to have. One of the duties of the school was to inform the relevant creature council when a child went through a creature inheritance. Over the years they hadn't had to do this very often as usually the child's parents were more than willing to do it themselves before parading them around in society. Those they had to inform on were generally muggleborns or those children who had the unfortunate position of being from Pureblood extremist families. In most cases a family was proud that they had produced a child with creature blood these days.

Usually the process was very simple and quick to do, despite the ever increasing laws restricting the actions, rights and movements of various groups of creatures made by the last government, many of the ancient councils had still been meeting openly. It had been a way of showing that they weren't less than human and that even the werewolves were in fact civilized. As more and more exotic creature inheritances were occurring within the school the older councils would take someone who was not necessarily part of their group under their wing. The Veela had a specialized incubus and succubus department and the werewolf council of elders was supplying support to any were creature, even felines who the notoriously didn't get on with.

Harry as usual had to be one of the most awkward people in the world. His inheritance couldn't be something common and easy to sort around. No he had to belong to a group of people that were known as the most elusive and wary of wizarding kind. Severus knew that this task he had given himself (he didn't trust anyone else to do it) would be difficult and probably highly stressful, but at least now he was making some headway. After several false leads that had taken him up and down the country on a wild goose chase He now stood on a lonely stretch of beach, buffeted by the wind. The tiny Island of Eriskay, south of the island of Uist in the Outer Hebrides was the end of a trail that he had followed. Howling the wind whipped his hair around his face obstructing the view. No doubt this would be a place that would be beautiful in summer but winter was now quickly approaching and the promise of snow lingered in the air.

Harry was someone that the now, for a time at least, former headmaster had deemed an important piece in his chess set. Severus knew that he was highly unlikely to have let him go so easily as it the last few weeks had seemed. If the Dursleys were as bad as many of the staff had feared them to be it would be highly inappropriate for him to be sent back there. If Albus' trial went the way that they hoped he could need a new magical guardian.

"Hell he'll need a new magical guardian either way!" Snape cursed shuffling his left foot in the dry sand. There were many things that the old man had a power over if he was named as magical guardian to Harry, no matter where he was, even in the deepest darkest cell in Azkaban.

It was dark, the sun having fully set just a few moments ago, and apart from the gentle lapping of the sea as the tide turned drawing further and further away from the shore there was no noise. To say that it was eerie would be an understatement. He should be back at the school by now, but there was something that was telling him that this was the place to be tonight. All around him, the somewhat dour potions master could feel magic. It was the natural magic of unspoiled places. Time slowly ticked by unnoticed by any of the muggles here, all tucked up in their beds waiting the morning without any indication that they lived in such a magically charged place. Severus rubbed his hands together, the warming charm on his gloves doing little to actually keep them warm out here in the below freezing temperatures.

Suddenly the sharp snapping noise of a twig being stood on echoed out through the night. His head snapped to the left, the direction in which the noise ad come from, years of being a double agent honing his sense of hearing. Squinting slightly he could see the dark shape of a person making their way out of a cluster of trees in the mid distance, they were carrying a small blue lantern and they were making their way towards him.