Disclaimer: I'm not JK Rowling and I make no money off of this

Warnings: minor swearing possibly, a trip to Angstville

Thank you all for reading, reviewing, following, favorite-ing, etc. It makes me so very happy. :D

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It was raining outside. Well, it wasn't really rain, it was just November snow in denial, he supposed. The past few days had been wet or, more aptly, just sort of damp and strangely humid. It soaked the air and chilled the skin faster than dry snow could.

From this distance, if he were to look out the window, the ground would be covered in a translucent slushy substance that not even the first years seemed keen to enjoy. Everyone had been staying inside, huddled around common room fires and trying to dry themselves from the tangy pseudo sweat on the walls. It was a gross type of weather- a lazy Winter, or a Spring that was five months too early.

The smoke from the incense wafting through the air did nothing to alleviate this inherent grossness, either, which was a shame, seeing as how the smell would cling to his skin like feathers on tar.

The smell was acrid, like throwing bits of thick plastic into a campfire, but Professor Trelawney didn't seem to mind, "Now, class, I can't stress the importance of looking at the crystal ball from a forty-five degree angle enough..."

Harry sat back with a sigh which Ron mimicked, eyes wandering over the ceiling above his head when he got bored of the ball. It didn't show him anything anyways.

Trewlaney meandered through the class, weaving through seats tucked into small circular tables and eyeing the students, "Clear your Mind's Eye, see?", she paused, stopping by Parvati's desk, "Yes, yes, very good, Ms. Patil. Each day your eye is a little clearer- it's a shame that not all of the students in this class can possess such clarity into the nuances of future times."

Harry rolled his eyes, elbowing Ron when he started to snicker too loudly, and watched the rapid rush of pride on Parvati's cheeks.

He concealed a yawn, propelling himself forward to rest his elbows on the table and wipe at his eyes crusty with tiredness. Finding a lack of anything of any particular interest to stare at, he looked into the ball on the table.

The professor's bony hand rested abruptly on his shoulder, and he flinched slightly. "Having a little trouble, are we?"

She leaned closer to the crystal ball, bringing it an inch closer to him, and her skeletal fingers dug even more tightly into his shoulder. Harry turned his head slightly to watch her when she didn't say anything and didn't move for a few moments, and he felt his gut stir in apprehension.

Her hazel eyes were deeper, darker, somehow, and it was only now that the boy had realized after three years in her class that her skin stretched taut over her bones went past her frail hands- it was like she was a puppet, not able to support herself, and the striking angularity of her face suggested that she lived a life of deprivation. Her cheeks were shallow concave regions, flesh grotesquely pulled so tight that her lips were a thin, wrinkly line. It was like she was a flower wilting before his very eyes; like a decayed corpse on strings.

Her skin seemed to get almost imperceptibly darker too, just like her eyes, not as though she was changing color but as if... as if... what was the word? He couldn't come up with it, but he could tell something was happening, something was stilling her so much that it was like a shadow was passing over her.

Something wasn't right, he realized, something was very, very off about all of this. But he couldn't place his finger on it, on the singular thing that made him try and twist out of the surprisingly strong grip of Mrs. Trelawney.

When he looked around, the students were conversing in hushed tones as they usually did, giving the occasional animated gesture to get a point across about some trivial topic. But no one saw what he saw.

He glanced over at Ron, jabbing at his elbow and glancing quickly up towards the professor before down back at the boy again, as if to look for confirmation that his friend was just as creeped out as he was.

Ron blinked, not at all perturbed, "Something wrong, mate?"

Harry settled back in his seat, waiting for the woman to get her hand off of his shoulder. If only the grip weren't so tight, he could wrench himself loose.

He turned back to look at her again, mouth opening in question, before he almost screamed at her appearance- her large eyes, which were perpetually magnified by her round, red glasses, were now inhumanly large, the black depth of them seeming to rummage through the contents of his soul. "Mrs..."

Suddenly her eyelids stretched halfway over the glassy bulbs in her sockets, looking very demeaning, "How pitiful."

Harry shuddered visibly at the sickening, shrill sound. "Excuse me, professor?"

Her tone was a roguish whisper, "Weak. worthless. I know what you are, you can't hide it from me," she stopped, and waved at the class to gather their attention. More loudly, she added, "You can't hide what you are from them, either!"

The woman jabbed her wand at his arms, causing the glamour to tremble like a dilapidated building in an earthquake, and then finally crumble. He choked on his own spit, shocked, as everyone stared, eyes bulging as if trying to escape from their sockets.

Trelawney cackled, "See, class? Do you see? He's just a freak! A worthless freak!"

The students laughed, pointing, faces twisted into insane grins.

His eyes went from the writhing silver bands on his arms to Mrs. Trelawney and he gasped, face turning a shade of pastel. The first thing he felt was her fingers thicken into rolled, meaty sausages over his shoulder, then her eyes shrunk into black soulless beads. Her face thickened with fat and her belly expanded so far that it tugged at her flowery, loose tunic. The bushy hair on her head fell out onto her shoulders and onto the ground, a meaty sneer on her face- and then standing right in front of him was none other than Uncle Vernon.

He writhed under the man's grip, confused and horrified as the laughs grew louder and louder like ritualistic chants.

Vernon grabbed at both of his shoulders, shaking him like a limp rag dolls, "Freak! Everyone knows it, freak! Worthless! You're nothing, boy, you got that?" he jeered, laughing, and jabbed a finger at him, "And look, it's branded on you too!"

Harry tore his eyes away from his uncle's staring in abject horror at his arms- the silver bands slithered like serpentine creatures under his skin, making him whimper in pain, as suddenly they spelled out a word: FREAK.

Abruptly there was a burning sensation and the word was burned underneath his flesh, puffing up and swelling with pus like a fresh wound- the silver bands crawled out from his arms again, onto his back, stopping and forming another word- WORTHLESS, and burning into him again. He twitched, screaming until his lungs shriveled like dry raisins, as the silver moved all across his body, branding him with such extreme pain that the laughter in the background was only white noise.

A leery voice whispered in his ear, "Now everyone knows."

He stared back at Vernon's eyes that gleamed with something sickening- and the blackness in them expanded over his vision, drawing him in, until it was the only thing he could see. It was the Lake, he was in the Lake again and nothing but black surrounded him.

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From blackness to blackness again.

A helpless gasp tore from his throat, the sole sound bringing him back to reality and his torso wrenching from the sweaty sheets until he sat fully upright. His breaths were heavy and panicked, hands groping in the air blindly. He was sure that if he could see himself, he would've looked like a rabid animal- pupils dilated unnaturally, eclipsing his green irises, a sheen of glistening sweat coating his body and the musky scent of hostile fear wafting off of his shivering frame.

For a moment he wondered if he had been down in the Lake, tangled in seaweeds and coated in silt- like he had never left at all, like he had never been saved by Fawkes. He dismissed this idea entirely when he heard the harsh patter of snow on the pane of glass near his bedside and a soft snore from Ron.

A dream. It was only a dream. He was awake now. Nothing could hurt him- absolutely nothing, because he was safe. He was at Hogwarts. Hogwarts was home.

Despite this reassurance, he still jerked uncontrollably like a seizure victim, body twitching exaggeratedly whenever he felt even the faintest touch of wind travel over his back- it reminded him too much of Trelawney's hands on his shoulder, holding him in place, firm and unforgiving...

He shouldn't of told Snape. No, no, no he shouldn't have. What had he been thinking? Did he truly believe that the man would do anything other than expose him for what he was? Too many people knew because he was too careless- besides Snape, there was Luna and, well, Draco had a hunch.

What had he done- why? Too many mistakes. He couldn't have that, not anymore, and he'd be lucky if nothing happened because of this. You can't start believing that people won't treat you differently, Harry.

He shuddered even more, pulling the comforter around his shoulders damp with sweat, and tried to forget the vivid imagery of the dream. It had been a warning to him, most likely. He was a freak in the other world, he didn't know what he'd do if he were a freak in this world too...

'Are you okay, child?' Even in the darkness, the boy could distinctly see two pairs of bright eyes drawn over towards him.

He frowned, closing the space between his calves and his thighs, "Bad dream."

A soft moon light radiated from the window and shone through the gap in the curtains around his four poster beds, allowing him to see that the-yellow?- bird was hopping from the headboard onto his shoulder, nuzzling up to him in a way that was reminiscent of Fawkes. The phoenix said nothing, providing him a silent comfort that almost made him tear up, before a darker shaded bird- perhaps green- hopped onto his other shoulder.

Peaking through the curtains, he realized that none of the other boys were roused from sleep, and he cast a Silencing charm over the perimeter of his bed so that they couldn't hear. "Do you think it was a good idea to tell Snape... about my hands, I mean?"

'Yes. He cares for you quite a lot,' the yellow feathered phoenix answered.

The greener bird lifted her head, 'Such a thing is obvious.'

Harry stiffened, anxious, "So you don't think he'll tell anyone?"

'Was this what your nightmare was about?'

"Yeah, well, partly."

The yellow phoenix perked up, 'You should tell us.'

The boy found himself unable to lie as the words bubbled past his lips, "I was in Divination and Trelawney- that's my professor- came by and removed the glamour on my arms and called me..." he paused, "called me a freak. Then everyone was laughing at me, and she..."

The two picked up on the hesitancy with which the boy spoke, 'And she...?'

"She turned into my uncle," the boy whispered it so low as to be nearly inaudible.

The phoenixes felt apprehensive, 'I do not understand; why does this cause so much fear in you?'

Vague memories stirred in Harry's head, catapulting into the deep recesses of his own mind. He twisted his neck slightly as if trying to scare away a pesky fly and he focused his eyes towards a singular point in space right above his line of sight. "I lived with him after my parents died," he admitted, voice raspy, "he wasn't the nicest man."

Harry felt two pairs of talons dig into his shoulder, and felt anxious at the much darker, more threatening tone that lingered in the affable yellow phoenixes' voice, 'Did he hurt you, Child?'

He couldn't believe that after all this time his eyes still stung with tears whenever he thought about it, "Yes."

He jolted up with a gasp when, immediately after his admission, a sorrowful sound echoed in his ears. It borrowed through his skin and muscle, latching onto his bones and resonated with something inside of him. Suddenly a sadness so deep and so unimaginable bloomed in his chest, weighing it down with leaden weights, making his limp form sink lower into the bed. Only a minute or so later, the sound cut off, letting the feeling evaporate just as soon as it had come, like how the roots of trees forcibly drag water out from the soil. It left him empty and then he realized, with a dimmed sensation of gratefulness, that it had only been a phoenix's lament. Thank Merlin he put a silencing charm over his bed.

'How? How did he hurt you?' the yellow one griped, voice calm yet underlining his sadness.

Harry flinched slightly when he felt wings waver over his back, and he could tell the two birds were preparing to heal him, 'Are you still hurt? Does anyone know of your injuries?'

"No! No! Snape healed me a while back, over the summer, when I got to Hogwarts. I'm okay, really," the boy stressed, "It's not like he did much either, just slapped me around and left the occasional bruise."

The phoenixes squawked loudly in his ear, riled up, 'Slapped you around? He dares to slap you around? It is a crime against nature Herself, and it mustn't go unpunished!'

Harry twisted, annoyed, "Can we just stop talking about this? Pretend I didn't say anything, alright?"

'No, we must speak of this, we can't just dismiss it.'

The boy clamped his hands to his ears, looking distinctly childish. "Yeah, well, I'm not saying anything! 'Cause nothing happened, absolutely nothing, got that? My uncle adores me, buys me everything I could ever need, sends me letters to say how much he misses me when I'm at school, and thinks I'm absolutely normal!" he yelled in response, "Okay? He'd have never laid a finger on a precious hair on my precious little head. He would tell me how great I am. How smart I am. He'd put my drawings up on the fridge. He'd tell all the neighbors that I was his kid, that he loved me as much as his son. He never kicked, slapped, or belted me. He never broke one of my bones. He never made me scrub the floors until my hands bled. He never stuffed me in a cupboard or... or..."

It was by this time that Harry realized he was crying and wiped viciously at his eyes, "I need Fawkes. Where is Fawkes?"

Neither answered him, looking sadly at the boy, and he waved them off of his shoulder. 'Where are you going?' they asked in unison as he ripped off his comforter.

"I need air. I'm going to the common room. Please just, just, leave this for later?"

They realized that he wouldn't be saying anything anymore, and decided to give him some time to think.

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The next few days passed in a haze for Harry, his emotions fluctuated from great relief to a deep anxiety, and it was hard to keep track of just what was going on.

Every few minutes, his mind would wander off, and he'd find himself wondering if it were the right think to do by telling Snape. With each passing hour he thought someone, somewhere, would come out of a hallway and confront him, or that Dumbledore would whisk him away to his office to "have a chat". When this didn't happen, Harry was left feeling simultaneous confusion, relief, and wariness for some great misfortune that would arrive soon.

Just as how he had avoided Snape, he had stayed clear of Luna too, not to hurt the girls feelings, but because he needed to figure this all out. He was trapped in a whirl of mixed emotions and a few times he had caught his own magic stirring anxiously in his arms, wanting to be released.

The one positive side of all of the things which had occurred, was that he had finally dealt with one pressing issue in his daily life: how to spend time with all the phoenixes so he does not feel that negative effects of distance in the bond. Each class period, he'd have a different bird perched on his shoulder and, while this obviously was accompanied by whispered questions and harsh stares from the other students, Harry felt distinctly more calmed and happy with them nearby. The questions were something he'd have to get used to and, speaking of questions...

It was during one rowdy lunch in the Great Hall that Hermione approached him, making his spoon of soppy oatmeal plop into the bowl as he looked at her, waiting.

Immediately he launched into an apology, "I'm sorry that I-"

But she quickly interjected, "Can you tell me more about those phoenixes? Where did they come from? Do you know why they are around you? I've looked through every book I could find on the subject of magical creatures but..."

The boy laughed and looked at her with mirth, and she looked back at him too, rolling her eyes. "Oh, and I forgive you of course, just don't be so stupid next time. Exploring the Forbidden Forest, I mean, honestly?"

Harry nodded eagerly, grinning, and waved her into a seat parallel from his. "You'll never let this go, will you?"

She sat down, "Nope."

He chuckled again and she leaned closer, asking more fervent questions about the phoenixes in hushed tones. He answered them as best he could, obviously leaving a lot of things out, but was too happy to be annoyed by the interrogation. He had missed Hermione, after all.

The most positive thing about all the phoenixes around him was going to Umbridge's class and watching her grumble in defeat and irritation; Dumbledore had given a sort of "pass" to all his teachers for the birds to be allowed to be with him even during class time, and as such he had been excused from his early morning detention given by the DADA professor. He stifled mischievous grins into his textbook whenever she got close, getting the impression that he had won this small battle.

It was one cold evening when he was curled up by the fireplace in the common room and, not able to sleep, had been the last one to be there after all of the stragglers left. Fawkes was resting on his shoulder, staring at the the lively flames that crackled in the air.

'Are you well, Harry?'

The boy frowned in thought, he didn't quite know what to make of the question, "As well as can be expected."

Fawkes nipped at his ear, 'That was rather vague. Does that mean good? Bad?'

"Why wouldn't I be okay in the first place?" He tousled the bird's feathers reluctantly.

The phoenix stilled, 'A lot of things have happened over the summer as well as this school year, it would not be an erroneous conclusion to make to say that you would be feeling saddened or stressed, perhaps grieving.'

"I adjust quickly."

Fawkes bowed his head, 'That is not an answer.'

"First the others and now you? Why does everyone want to know how I'm doing? I'm not going to off myself or something."

The bird pinched into his shoulders, 'I never said you were, child, I'm merely saying you have been through many harrowing events, even before your magic started changing...'

Harry stilled, sighing, "Are you talking about my relatives?"

'Yes.'

The boy smiled mirthlessly, "What about them?"

'I think you have not properly grieved over what they've done to you.'

"So, some of the others have you told you about it? About my nightmare?"

'Yes.'

"Well, don't get any ideas. I've had enough therapy sessions for a life time and I don't feel like talking about it."

'You barely talk about it at all, and when you do, you break down. You haven't told anyone besides a professor, if I have guessed right, and you never prompt a discussion about them yourself,' the bird said, 'It is a bad sign when you won't even tell those that share a portion of your own soul that you have been abused this way.'

The boy leaned back, eyes more focused on the fire. "They didn't hurt me that bad and it's not like I didn't deserve..."

Fawkes harshly tugged on his hair, forcing him to wince and stop, 'If you dare end that sentence by implying that you deserved to be treated that way, I will not be able to ever forgive you for thinking something so horribly backward. Those beasts had the gall to hurt a child, an innocent child, and not just any child- the child that has been granted the Magic of the Soul. Mother Earth would tear herself in two if she ever heard you speak such words, so deep Her grief would be.'

Harry stopped, feeling a pang of guilt. "I don't want to hurt Her," he replied sadly, before even realizing he had said it; why did it seem that everyone was talking of some sort of "Mother Earth"? Was it just a way to describe nature itself, or was it a personification that existed within reality? Nevertheless, he couldn't help but feel bad for hurting something even though he perceived it to be nonexistent anyways.

'I want to help you, child, I do. But you've got to help yourself. It hurts me more than you can ever know that you think of yourself so harshly.'

The boy nodded noncommittally.