Disclaimers: The author does not own anything associated with Harry Potter, Gundam Pilots, or Disney's Pinocchio.
Warnings: Mentions, blood, panic attacks, child and animal abuse.
The author is not a doctor and does not condone abuse upon anyone or anything on any level.
Dialogue heavy.
"If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme. When you wish upon a star, as dreamers do, fate is kind. She brings to those who love the sweet fulfillment of their secret longing." - Jiminy Cricket (From Disney's Pinocchio)
Chapter Two
He had thought that it would be a simple job, and they would be done, but he should have known better. Like all things concerning Harry, it wasn't to be that simple.
The woman had tied a tourniquet around his bicep uncomfortably tight and probed his boney arm for a vein while being mindful of the bruises that littered his arm that were in various stages of healing. Although Harry didn't voice any discomfort, he couldn't wait for the woman to untie the stretchy band from around his arm.
"Harry," the doctor said after a couple of minutes of searching she seemed to give up, "When was the last time you had anything to drink?"
Harry frowned, uncertain as to why it mattered as to when he had last drunk something. The Dursley's had said that this was supposed to be a simple required blood test, not a health check-up. So why would it matter what his drinking habits were?
Seeing him frown, Sally softly spoke as not to startle the already skittish boy. Harry noticed that the older boy also seemed to be on edge, but he couldn't fathom why.
"I only ask because I am having difficulty finding a vein. There could be many reasons for this, but dehydration is common this time of year." Harry's good eye, or rather, the one that wasn't swollen almost shut, flew back to the woman as she untied the tourniquet.
"I drank some water yesterday, but I wasn't thirsty this morning," Harry pleaded, trying to convince her to try again. But the truth was, he hadn't been allowed to drink anything this morning or last night, and he was thirsty. Very thirsty.
"I'm sorry, I promise that I'll drink more in the future. I um, I didn't bring anything with me to drink, I mean, maybe you could try my other arm." Harry stammer out, almost cringing at the thought of having to come back and do this all over again. No doubt, his uncle would have some very choice words if this trip was for nothing. Harry was sure that if he left without registering, the only reason why the Dursley's would bring him back was because it was required and against some new law that had been passed at some point while Harry had been at Hogwarts.
"I doubt that you could drink enough at this point to rehydrate yourself, but I will try the other arm." She allowed if only to calm him as he looked to be on the verge of tears. He wasn't the only one, but Sally decided not to draw attention to Quatre.
Harry jerked his other sleeve up as the woman carefully rolled down the other sleeve. She raised an eyebrow at the apparent hand-shaped bruise from where his uncle had grabbed his arm and thrown him down.
"Perhaps some juice or water, as well as something to eat, are in order before we try again," Sally said abruptly, startling Harry while giving Quatre a long and pointed look.
Quatre gave her a slow nod, obviously catching something Harry hadn't and slipped out of the room without a word.
Harry started to fret, anxiously, wondering where the boy was going, but Sally didn't give Harry time to dwell on it. She effortlessly captured his attention again by tapping on his arm and asking, "What happened here, Harry?" While her voice was calm, Harry noticed that it wasn't as chipper as before.
"I, uh," Harry tried to formulate what had happened but felt his mouth go dry. He fiddled at the hem of his shirt for a long moment before whispering. "My uncle grabbed my arm this morning after I got into the fight." Harry refused to meet her eyes as shame flooded him. Here he was supposed to be a hero, someone people looked up to, but he couldn't even fight off his uncle. Granted, his uncle was a lot bigger than he was, but one would think that the boy-who-lived and all wouldn't be afraid of a muggle -not when there was a more serious threat after him.
"And I take it the other bruises I noticed on your arms came from the fight?"
Harry gave a ragged nod, choosing to ignore the flaming red cheeks he was now sporting. Although the woman before him did not call him out on it, it was clear she hadn't bought his lie.
"Did your cousin receive similar treatment from your uncle?"
Shaking his head in negative, Harry knew that his uncle would never touch his son in such a rough handed way.
At that point, the door opened and admitted a new boy, Harry's head snapped up and took in the newcomer. This boy was around the same age as the other, but Harry noticed that he didn't seem to be as openly friendly as the blonde had been.
In his hand he carried a container of water and a sandwich, which he placed on the table and stood back by the door with his arms crossed his chest and gazed cooly at Harry, studying the raven-haired boy carefully.
"Thank you." She said to the boy, before turning back to Harry, "I want you to eat and drink all that, and then we will see if I can't have better results."
Emphatically, the malnourished boy nodded before beginning to devour the food and drink. The sooner the Preventer doctor did what she intended to do, and the sooner he got back to the Dursley's, the better. No doubt, they weren't going to be pleased with being kept waiting.
While he was eating and drinking under the close supervision of Sally Po, she tried to ease the tension in the room a bit by making introductions, "Harry, this is Heero Yuy, he also works for the Preventers and Heero, this is Harry Potter."
In no time, Harry had finished his first meal in days and was looking expectantly at the woman, even going as far as to hold his arm out, inviting her to tie the tourniquet back around it and try it again.
Taking his arm gently, she tied the band around it and instructed him to make a fist. Although it still took a few minutes, she had better luck the second time and found a vein. Harry sighed in relief; that was until she began inserting the needle. He probably would have pulled away from her, if she hadn't been expecting it.
Harry decided then and there that he was so glad that needles weren't necessary in his world. He hated them. Hated the way they pinched going in. Hated the tug as they pulled out, and hated the sting that they left behind in their wake. He was also glad that wizards and witches had learned how to spell potions and the likes into each other without ever having to use something so ominous as a needle. He had no way of knowing how much blood the test required, but surely, it did not take that much. Harry felt like she must have depleted his body of nearly half of his blood before pulling out the needle and plastering the wound.
Smiling at Harry, Sally moved over to the desk and wrote something down while pocketing the vials of blood. Harry was kind of glad too. He wasn't squeamish around blood, couldn't be, with his uncle's temper, but just seeing his blood so soon after having eaten made Harry feel a little sick.
"Let me go ahead and see if I cannot get this run-through. I won't have the results back today, but it will at least get the process started. And then, when we get back, I want to discuss this fight you had with your cousin in greater detail." Sally Po said briskly while Heero moved aside just enough to let her pass.
Harry seemed to deflate while looking longingly after the doctor, wishing he could follow as the brunette moved back over to stand in front of the door, denying him the chance of doing the same.
Neither the boy nor Harry said a word, and for just a brief second, Harry wished that Agent Winner was the one in the room. At least the other Preventer Agent would have engaged in small talk instead of staring at him, making him more uncomfortable than he already was.
But Harry knew that these people didn't care about his comfort. If they had, then they wouldn't continually try to get him to explain the bruising or the "fight" he had with his cousin.
The longer the doctor was gone, the more the tension in the room grew, and by the time she finally came back, with a clipboard in hand, Harry felt his stomach was doing flip-flops.
She was going to try and take his statement concerning his injuries, and Harry was at a loss. On the one hand, Harry had been told not to say a word to anyone about his home life, but the Dursley had also said that he needed to cooperate with the Preventer Agents and not cause any trouble.
He had already said too much. Harry suspected that the doctor didn't completely buy the story about his supposed fight with his cousin, mainly since the hand-shaped bruise on his arm looked to be the same size as a rather large full-grown man. But Harry was going to stick to that story, for as long as possible. There wasn't anything Harry knew they could do if it were between two cousins, but Harry was smart enough to know that if he spoke about his Aunt and Uncle, then he would be sent to an orphanage, and he couldn't have that.
Logically, Harry knew that he shouldn't be trying to protect the Dursley's, and a year ago, he wouldn't have even tried, but a year at Hogwarts had changed that.
Harry knew more about his parents, and their sacrifice now, and knew that he had to stay with the Dursley's, no matter how he might personally feel about it- unless there was another equally close family member that he didn't know about.
Harry knew that the blood test would either verify what everyone knew to be true or by some twist of fate give him the family member he so desperately wanted.
But what if he did have another family member? Would they decide that Harry wasn't good enough for them? What if they decided, like the Dursley's, that he was nothing more than a freak? Harry knew he was getting ahead of himself, as there was no such family member at the moment, but what if-
"Breathe!" A voice said roughly while picking Harry up and pinning him in a lap, the sudden movement breaking his train of thought. As he became aware of his surroundings, Harry began to struggle, but the arms pinning him down effortlessly stilled his movements.
"Breath, kid, you're safe! No one's going to hurt you. Whatever's got you in this state of panic is probably not true. Follow my breathing kid and calm down."
As the haze lifted, Harry slowly was able to match his breathing with whoever was trying to help him. Harry hazard it was Heero, as the voice wasn't soft like Quatre's was.
Too exhausted to care that he was sitting in someone's lap, let alone a Preventer's Agent's lap, Harry sagged forward and took another deep, reassuring breath.
At Sally's cue, Heero slowly eased his hold on the still trembling boy, although he did not make any move to remove the boy in his lap.
"Do you have panic attacks often?" Sally asked with mild concern.
"N-no." Harry had only recalled feeling this way once before. It had been after his uncle had threatened to kill Hedwig because she was being too noisy for his liking in the days following his return home from Hogwarts. He had been unusually irritable during those days, and Harry remembered sitting on his bed, struggling to breathe before eventually passing out.
"Have you ever had one before?"
"No, ma'am," Harry said but both Preventer Agents caught the hesitancy.
"Sally, Harry, if you will. Remember Heero, Quatre and I are all your friends here, so first name basis please." The woman gently reminded the boy, before continuing to question him about the panic attack.
"Do you know what brought it on?" But again, Harry denied knowing anything.
"If it happens again, or you feel like you are having trouble breathing, you need to alert your guardians or another trusted adult." She said while waiting for confirmation.
Harry promised, albeit reluctantly, knowing full and well that the Dursley's would never do anything to help him if he suffered from another one. Harry also knew that there wasn't a trusted adult in his life right now, or at least one that he could communicate freely with. He supposed that he could send a letter to his professors- providing that he could function enough to write- but then what was he supposed to do? What were they supposed to do?
"Now, I want you to tell me how you really managed to get that hand-shaped bruise on your arm as well as those cuts and other bruises on your arms."
"I got them in the fight, honest! I called Dudley a name and he got mad at me and he tackled me. That's also how I got the black eye and busted lip and broken glasses. Then Uncle Vernon broke it up and pulled me up; he didn't mean to be so rough he was just mad and was worried we'd be late."
"Perhaps you got some of them in the shuffle, but there are other, less recent, bruises that have yet to fade on your arms. How did you get them?"
"Dudley and I don't get along well…" Harry mumbled, looking down internally, cringing at the thought of everything he was telling these agents somehow getting back to the Dursley's. If so, it wasn't Dudley he'd need to be worried about.
"So you have said multiple times," The brunette said cooly, "but Sally asked how you got them, not who, or who you claim, gave them to you. For which I would like to say that unless your cousin is the size of a full-grown hippo, then I would say that it was someone older and a lot bigger than yourself is responsible."
When Harry felt the boy, Heero's eyes bore into him- almost like he was seeing inside his very soul- he knew that this Preventer Agent would sniff out every lie and probably call him out on it.
"Um, my- my cousin will pinch me sometimes, or he likes to go, Harry Hunt-, I mean chase, he likes to chase me around the neighborhood."
Harry licked his lips nervously, hoping that they hadn't caught his little slip-up. It would be mortifying explaining the in's and out's of that particular game.
"And what, does this "little game of chase" consist of that would cause you to become so heavily bruised?" It appeared that Sally had decided to let the other boy lead in the questioning. Harry kind of wished that she would take over again, as he could deflect her questions easily enough. Or at least, she didn't seem to demand an answer to every question.
The things he was telling this boy, he hadn't told anyone since that disastrous time he had tried telling his second-year teacher back in Primary.
"It is a bit between hide-and-seek, and tag, where Dudley's "it" and I have to try to find somewhere to hide so that he can't get, catch me."
"And where do you usually hide?" The boy pressed on, clearly not satisfied with Harry's half-answers.
"Um, anywhere he can't reach me. Dudley's not the fittest, so I can easily outrun him. Sometimes I'll hide in a tree, but I mainly did that when I was younger to get away from Ripper-" Harry cut his wandering thoughts off as he slapped his hand over his mouth and stared in mortification at what he had just admitted.
The door opened during Harry's attempt to explain Harry-Hunting and Quatre entered. Harry supposed he was glad to see the blonde boy. He had been nice at least and had not demanded Harry answer question upon question while the doctor sat quietly upon her stool taking more notes than Hermione did in Transfiguring.
"What kind of name is Ripper? What is a Ripper?" Quatre said, although he sounded to be in pain, which confused Harry. Had he somehow managed to get hurt in the few minutes he was away?
"Ripper is a dog. My Aunt Marge, although she's really not my aunt, she's Uncle Vernon's sister, but I have to call her that. Anyway, she breeds bulldogs, and he would always chase me when she came for a visit."
"And your aunt just let him? Didn't she do something about it before you had to climb a tree?" Quatre questioned softly.
Harry shook his head and shrugged before hastily trying to backpedal, "No, sorry, No, sir. She thought it was funny. Kind of like Dudley does when he chases me." Harry gave a humorless laugh.
"She thought it was funny that a dog was chasing around a child?" Quatre said, but his voice came out flat. Harry quickly peeked at him through his lashes and noticed that he was the only one laughing. No one else found it even remotely amusing.
"And how old were you when this Ripper was chasing you up trees?"
"Five or six, maybe. I don't know. I was young."
"Did your aunt and uncle ever say anything?"
This time Heero let out something close to a snort, "Doubtful;" while shooting Harry an expecting look.
Quatre frowned but looked encouragingly at Harry.
"No. They just laughed." Harry hung his head, dejectedly.
"I'm sorry?" And while it was said perfectly polite, Harry heard something dangerous in those two words.
"They, my aunts and uncle, thought it was funny."
"What is so funny about a dog chasing a child up a tree?"
"I guess you just kind of, you know, had to be there."
"What?"
"I don't know. They thought it was hilarious." Harry said, almost pleading them just to let the subject drop. Luckily Sally jumped in, although the humor seemed to be lost on her as well.
"Did the dog ever bite you?"
"Once or twice," Seeing the dark looks being passed around the room, Harry quickly tacked on, "but that was when I was too little to outrun him! He hasn't bitten me in years- now that we are both older, and I am faster."
"I don't care how long ago it was; I do not like the idea of adults just sitting around letting things like this happen. Did anyone ever notice or report it?"
