A/n: Hello everyone i hope that your weekend was nice. I hope that you enjoy the chapter and forgive me for my poor skill at writing dialogue. At least this is a new chapter and it has fluff in it for you as well. ^^
Chapter 44
Harry sat there looking at a rather boring tapestry of three women picking flowers that was hung on the far wall. Although the style that it was created in looked medieval the fabric looked to be new, as there had been no fading in its colours. But this was to be expected, after all there were many things that magic could do.
The chair that he was sat on was comfortable and the potted Flutterby bush on a glass table to his left was fluttering its purple and blue petals gently causing the perfume to waft its way around the room. Despite such tranquil surroundings Harry could still feel himself breaking out in a cold sweat. It was so uncomfortable to be sitting here without a shirt on, he hoped that he wouldn't have to have his appointment with Iain like this. The blanket was still wrapped as best as he could get it around his torso. The waiting area wasn't cold, but he had broken out in Goosebumps all the way down his arms.
The area where his wings joined onto his back was sore, and he couldn't bring himself to touch it. Harry concentrated his thoughts into getting his wings to withdraw back into wherever it was that they went. In the beginning it seemed that nothing was happening, but millimeter by millimeter they slid backwards with a strange tickling sensation. It took three or four minutes before they were all the way in and Harry was able to put his shirt back on. Panting a little at all the effort that it had taken, the teenager sat back in the chair and waited for Iain to come.
Luckily he wasn't waiting long before Iain made his appearance. He was wearing his official robes and had his children's tabard folded over one of his arms. On the tabard there were the smiling faces of cartoon animals, which were just a little disturbing. Just like anything or anyone that looked overly happy. The older man looked a little harried, but that was to be expected due to the events that had happened today and the fact that they were late for their appointment.
"It's just through here." Iain stated, a little out of breath, opening a door that Harry hadn't even noticed before. It was exactly the same colour as the walls on either side of it. Harry stood a little hesitantly at the entrance to the room popping his head in first in order to scout it out. There was a desk in one corner some filing cabinets various comfy looking chairs a whiteboard and a box filled with various toys. He looked at it warily before sitting down in the chair nearest the door. Iain followed him in and closed the door behind him. The sound of the door closing felt ominous.
"I'm sorry that our appointment was pushed back because of events in school. It has obviously given you more time to think about it."Harry nodded twisting his fingers in his lap. It was true that the extra time had given him more chance to panic about what was to come. Fortunately he hadn't had a full blown panic attack, like he had had in the infirmary after his creature inheritance. But the Gryffindor thought that that was most likely due to the healer explaining to him what was going to happen in their session. "Let's get this over and done with as soon as possible. Luckily Madame Pomfrey has filled in a lot of the sections for us in advance."
He nodded, mainly because Iain was looking at him and there was this massively uncomfortable silence hanging in the air between them. It felt like the older man's eyes were boring into him, it greatly resembled the feeling that he had around Professor Snape. Legimency was the first thought that popped into his head, but Harry pushed it away. Iain had told him before that Mind Healers weren't allowed to use legimency except in the case of an emergency and he trusted him. How wise that was he couldn't really say at the moment.
Iain opened the top drawer of one of the filing cabinets. It made a dull clunking noise as the metal of the drawer banged off of the front of the cabinet. He then pulled out the thickest wad of paper that Harry had ever seen. At least as thick as one of the largest essays that he had seen Hermione do. When the healer turned round he caught the look that Harry was giving him he laughed. "Don't worry were not going through the whole thing."
He sighed n relief if they had had to do the whole thing it would have taken them hours and hours he would have been lucky to get out of the room before tomorrow morning.
"Right here we go!" It was said so energetically Harry couldn't help but smile a little at it. "Have you ever smoked?"
"No I don't want lung cancer."
"Do you drink?"
"I've never really seen the point in it really."
"Have you ever taken any illegal drugs?"
"No I'd be the person that dies the first time." And so the questions went on and on. In the beginning it seemed that the questions would be easy to answer, but as time went on, he was proved wrong.
"Have you ever thought about harming yourself?" Here he didn't know what to say and the silence between them just kept drawing out as Iain sat their looking at him. His skin started to crawl and it became harder and harder to say the words that were in his mouth. "Would you lie to write it down it might be easier that way?" Iain handed him a piece of paper and a self inking quill.
His hands shock as he took it the knowledge that once the words were out there was no way that he could take them back. The quill left a big ink blotch were it had been resting on the paper as he tried to compose himself. Eventually he managed to get the words down and he'd handed the paper over to Iain reluctantly. He had expected the revelation that he had divulges to cause a stir, but Iain didn't react in the way that he had expected him to. He just nodded and wrote something in the book of questions. Harry didn't know how to feel. Part of him felt relieved that there hadn't been a big fuss made out of it, but another part was feeling that something that was so private to him deserved a bit more of a one.
"Where did you bite yourself?"
"On the hand like this." And he demonstrated biting the fleshy part of his right hand where his thumb joined to his wrist.
"Do you still do it?"
"…Yes." He whispered curling into himself a little more, bringing his feet up onto the chair and wrapping his arms around them.
"Don't worry too much Harry. I'm not suddenly going to tell you to stop it. Biting yourself is a coping strategy that you have, that helps you to deal with things. Hopefully when we meet I can teach you more positive ways of coping and eventually you won't want to anymore. Do you know what emotions you were feeling at the time?"
"Sad…angry."
There was a few minutes on silence as Iain added more to what he had previously written before trying to find the start of the next questions. His chest was feeling a little tight and his heart was pounding uncomfortably fast within it. Hopefully this wasn't going to take much longer.
"These questions may seem a little weird to you, but I'd like for you to answer them." Harry nodded bracing himself for whatever it was going to be asked. At this point he felt rather shaken and couldn't imagine what else there was to be asked."Apart from the obvious do you ever feel like someone or something is out to get you?"
"Well Voldermort and the Death Eaters were and to some extent still are, but apart from that that no."
"Have you ever heard a noise or a sound that no one else could?"
"Yes.."Harry replied. The healer seemed to be a little shocked at this, his eyebrows rising and his eyes opening wider before his face became serious.
"But it turned out to be a basilisk so in the end it wasn't that big of a deal!" A sudden coughing sound made him look up from his hands to see the healer slightly red in the face.
"You don't consider a basilisk to be a big deal?"
"No not really considering everything that has happened." There was silence again whilst Iain wrote something Harry stared at the box full of toys wondering to himself why they were there. It's not like any of the kids in the school were babies that would play with them. The remaining questions passed quickly with Iain asking now and again for him to clarify something or explain it in more detail. Sometimes Harry found that he didn't have the words to explain what he was thinking and the Healer encouraged him to draw it instead. Drawing the answer made him feel that he could organize his thoughts better than before. By the end of the session, his head felt like he had hundreds of dwarves mining for gold in his brain and his knees were unconsciously knocking together.
"One last thing Harry, there is something I need to tell you before you can go off to your next lesson." The healer turned once again putting the paper work back into the exact same drawer that he had taken it out from. An uneasy expression was on his face, when he turned back and he moved his chair closer to Harry. "When you went through your creature inheritance Professor Snape went to see the Faerie Court because the school has to legally inform them if any of the students go through a Faerie inheritance."
"Why?" Harry could feel his heart pounding even harder it felt like something big was going to be revealed to him and he didn't know if he could cope with it. Hopefully whatever it was wouldn't be something bad enough bad things had gone on this year already.
"It's to do with your safety mainly. Because of your situation with your Aunt and Uncle the queen decided to petition the Ministry of Magic for your guardianship to change. They made their decision last week. This means that you won't have to live with your relatives anymore."
This was certainly something big. It was life changing,. He didn't know what to feel like. It was amazing to him that a group of strangers wanted him to be part of their group, part of their family. There being other Faeries out there, was something that he hadn't really thought about before, though it made sense that there were. "The court has sent a couple to the school to help guide you through the inheritance and answer any questions that you might have about being a Faerie."
Harry was torn between feeling amazed that two people had come all the way from their home, wherever that was to be here at the school and worried. On one hand he would finally be able to as the questions that he had wanted answering (the books that he had been given seemed to give answers that conflicted with each other) and on the other he didn't know whether they would get on or not.
What age were they? Had they been forced to do this by the queen or had they wanted to do it? To what extent was his guardianship? This information would take some time to digest and more and more questions kept popping into his head.
The Auror department was in uproar. Today was supposed to be the day that they were to review all of the testimonies that had been given by the children at Hogwarts, but something had happened up at the school. It was unusual for them to be called up to Hogwarts to deal with something especially something that required so many people to go. Those who were left gossiped among themselves whilst they filled in reports examined evidence and stole biscuits from the office communal biscuit tin.
After an hour or two the teams began filtering back into the office with the news that one of the students had been poisoned by another one. Luckily she hadn't died, though apparently it had been a close call. If it hadn't have been for Madame Pomfrey and Severus Snape, it wasn't worth thinking about what could have happened to her. The teams had captured the main suspect who was her boyfriend and he was being questioned under Veritasium as they spoke. It surely had livened things up in the department.
Until now they had been working solely on the Albus Dumbledore case and it was tiring trying to work out how much of his life was real and how much was a lie. They had been interviewing people that had known him well over the years and many of them had been found to be under various charms and spells. The most serious of all being a number of individuals who had had their memories altered via Obliviate. It was going to take some time to recover the memories that had been tampered with.
Albus' brother Aberforth had been more than happy to provide them with what information he could. What he had told them had been a revelation for some. From the fact that his beliefs had been so different as a teenager from the ones he apparently held now to who he had been in a relationship with in the past. Aberforth had stated when they interviewed him, "its bout time someone reined him in." and had gone on to talk about their sister and her tragic early death.
Once everyone had returned, the reports had been written and they had all been debriefed by Rufus Scrimgeour they began work on what they had origionally planned to do today. The testimonies that the children had provided had been written on pieces of paper. They had only expected a few of the students to come forward with information bt the sheer amount of responses was shocking. By the look of it the vast majority of the students had sent something on to them. There seemed to be more response from the Slytherins than any of the other houses and a disproportionate number from those with creature inheritances.
The more they read of the transcriptions the bigger the revelations became. Reading them had upset a number of the members of staff. It was through these complaints that they found out what exactly had been going on in the school over the years. The former headmaster had been in a position of trust and responsible for the lives of so many young people over the years.
There were accusations of him encouraging bullying among the students treating the houses very differently from one another refusing to let a seventh year Hufflepuff student go home when her grandfather was deathly ill or to go to his funeral. The list of problems went on and on not to mention the Harry Potter incident. There was also the fact that they hadn't been informed of at least twelve incidents where the lives of students had been put in danger and that was terrifying. How many other children had been put at risk or even harmed during the former headmaster's tenure at the school.
Sure they, the vast majority of the department having attended the school themselves had noticed things during their time there, but time and distance had made them forget.
Harry walked to his next class in somewhat of a daze. It was a long way down to the Herbology greenhouses and that gave him plenty of time to think about the last hour and a half. To some degree it was hard to believe what was going to happen. He had spent the vast majority of his childhood surrounded by people that despised him.
At times it felt like there were gaps in his memories growing up. Hearing the list of injuries that he had sustained whilst living with the Dursleys it wouldn't surprise him, if his brain hadn't stepped in to hide things from him, that it thought were too much for then both to handle.
Hearing that two total strangers had come to teach him things, was partly a relief in that he would be able to ask them for advice and information that wasn't available elsewhere but they were still strangers and that set him somewhat on edge. There wasn't much point in worrying about it though at least until tomorrow. He just had to get through this last lesson and dinner before he could go back to the dorm and have to process this properly.
The lights inside of the greenhouses helped guide him through the dark grounds. Although Halloween had already passed and with it the longest night, it was still dark enough now that it was difficult to make out much and he couldn't find the mental energy to perform a lumos spell.
Harry's back felt a little sore from where his wings had retreated. How long they would stay there he didn't now but he hoped that they would last at least till the end of the lesson. There was no way that he was spending it topless and he had left the blanket that Neville had given him in the hospital wing. As he got closer he was able to see that there wasn't anybody waiting outside of greenhouse ten the one that they were currently working in. It was obvious then that he was late and he was grateful to Iain who had given him a note explaining where he had been. The greenhouse was filled with various dangerous and difficult to grow plants, because they were in their Newt years the plants were hard to deal with. As he walked through the door he could hear the sound of the other students potting up snarling marigolds.
Neville was at the farthest end and seemed to be the only one without a partner. Professor Sprout took the note form him smiled and shooed him off to start potting up his own marigolds. Neville jumped when he tapped him on the shoulder and dropped the terracotta pot that he was holding and it smashed on the floor.
"Reparo." Harry fixed the pot placing it back on the bench tenderly.
"Don't do that Harry you nearly scared the life out of me!" Neville exclaimed holding a hand to his chest spreading soil across his jumper. Harry smiled elbowing him once again as put on his dragonhide gloves. It was important if he didn't want to lose a finger to one of the plants. They worked together in silence for a few minutes before Neville started up the conversation again.
"I see you managed to get your wings to go back in." Said Neville delicately removing the snarling marigold from its pot. If you pulled too hard the plant snapped from the roots and would die plus Professor Sprout would kill you the plants were her babies.
"Yeah." Sighed Harry, pulling his finger as gently as possible from one of the blooms of his own plant. "I don't know how much longer I'll be able to do it for though."
"Why not just walk around with them out?"
"I would be half naked!"
"Surely something could be made or something, in any case you can do it at the dorm, it not like you have anything that we haven't seen before." They turned to look at each other and their eyes met, before the pair blushed at exactly the same time. Their faces were so red that they looked like a pair of tomatoes.
A/n: Here are my responses to your reviews.
Stormshadow13: I'm glad that you like the story! Ah someone like me who loves rare pairs. :) hint hint nudge nudge. I think it's pretty obvious now who is going to end up together.
Don't worry too much about Hermione, i wont make her suffer, well much more anyway.
I think that i know what i'm going to do with Ron now but you'll have to wait to find out what that is.
.yourself: Here is the update that you wanted so much i hope that you enjoyed it.
Dragon's Flame of Life: I'm glad that you like the story. Well Mariposa is influenced by a lot of different things. But the biggest one would be Starlight Massacre's Rise of the Drakens, which made me believe that it was possible to write a good creature fic. Her work is amazing though and i don't think this even holds a candle to it. Other influences are a book that i was reading on butterflies and the sheer amount of Korean dramas that I've been watching lately.
Timberstar: Yes it is lucky that she knew about it otherwise Ron would probably be in there for ages before he was ever found. Don't worry he will get what's coming to him in the end just like Dumbledore will. Ah tomato Harry and Neville i hope that you like their reappearance in this chapter as well.
twilightreaderaddict: Yeah the twins and Ginny are finding it hard to believe that their brother could be capable of such a thing. Fluffiness is an amazing thing.
