Let's Do It Right This Time, Chapter 5: Healing

In a few minutes, a surprisingly young female goblin bustled in. Harry had never actually seen a female goblin, and thought she was rather pretty (sharp teeth aside) but he quickly looked away before he could be caught staring.

"What seems to be the matter?" she asked.

Sculdig grimly told her what Harry had told him, and her face darkened with every word. Then she snapped her long fingers, casting a goblin diagnostic, and gasped.

"Well?" Asked Sculdig.

"Multiple poorly-healed broken bones, a ruptured spinal disc numbed by internal magics, bad malnutrition, scarring, an infected wound, an infected spleen, and scarred internal organs. And- oh good Thorbald!"

"What?" asked the Potter account manager, rather shakily.

"He has five magical blocks, one of which is on his healing magic. He's lucky to be alive."

Sculdig looked sick, and Harry was little better, as he was wondering how on earth had he survived the last time. "Five?" he echoed at length.

"Ye-yes." Murdock responded. "One on natural healing magic, one on any ability you might have for mind magics,"

Harry choked as he remembered the brutal occlumency lessons and realized that Dumbledore had never had any intention of teaching him to close his mind to Voldemort.

"-One block on accidental magic, specifically of the wish variety, one on quasi-metamorphagous and self-transfigurative abilities, and the last on your core." She frowned, thinking. "And I'm getting a very dark reading on your aura, but you yourself aren't dark. I- oh good, gracious Thorbald! I can't believe it! You really are a soul ves..." she trailed off, unable to bring herself to say even the euphemism for horcrux. "I've never seen anything like it! And you've never had treatment?"

"My guardians took me to a muggle hospital for a broken arm once," Harry responded, remembering that day. Dudley had broken his arm on the playground in preschool, and Mrs. Donahue had happened to have been walking by. She'd called the Dursleys to a parent-teacher conference and kicked up a fuss, and the Dursleys took him to the hospital so as not to seem uncaring. Mrs. Donahue had been fired by her boss, who played golf with Vernon Dursley on weekends, shortly after, and Harry had been locked in his cupboard for a week.

Murdock was evidently scandalized. "You'll need a month's regamin of potions, and you're very lucky you came to me before it got worse. I can fix your eyes right now, if you like, with medical transfiguration. Your magical blocks will need to be taken off during the course of a week, and I ought to warn you, your magic will be very hard to control for a while. As for the...you-know-what, there are rituals to remove one from an object, but it will take a great number of arithmetical equations before I can be sure they will be safe to use on you."

"And the cost?" Harry was almost afraid to ask.

"I..." Murdock looked at Sculdig, "If you will only let me experiment on your scar, I will waive the cost. An opportunity like this...it's once in a lifetime."

Harry stared at her. "Um, of course."

She smiled. "I'm so sorry you have to go through this," she continued, shaking her head. "I'm just glad I can help. Will you be pressing charges?"

"Maybe." Harry's plans hadn't fully percolated, as some of them would depend on the goblins, but he was definitely going to make their lives hard one way or another. "I might not have to- the Wizarding world will go spare when they find out how they've treated 'The Savior of the Wizarding World'."

Sculdig chuckled. "You could almost be a goblin yourself."

Murdock had been busy casting diagnostics from different angles. Now she straightened up. "If you like, I can fix your eyesight now,"

Harry grinned. "Absolutely!"

"I have to warn you that it'll hurt badly," Murdock told him. "It won't be for long though."

It couldn't be worse than a crucitus. Harry nodded. "Ok, when you're ready." That was when he looked up and saw both goblins staring at him, and realized that he'd spoken the first part out loud.

"When have you been exposed to the crucitus?" Sculdig asked.

"I...well..." Harry glanced at all three of them. "May I have an honor vow to be discrete? Not because I doubt you," he added hastily, "but so that no one can force it out of you."

The goblins glanced at each other and then at him. "On the Phlegathon I swear," said Sculdig at last, echoed by the others, "not to share the next thing Harry Potter shares with us except to my king or on Potter's permission."

Harry stared at them, not believing it. Goblins had given him, a wizard, a binding honor vow. He was touched by their sincerity. "I'm a time traveler," he told them finally. "It was my fourth year, during a duel."

Utter silence. And then at last Sculdig burst out laughing. "You are a truly remarkable human. You do know that time travel is only outlawed under Wizarding law? I could...perhaps...fix a few documents for you..."

Harry had never actually known any wizard who had helped him so much in his lifetime, and said so. Sculdig was pragmatic. "Well, the Potters are extraordinary customers. I would be a fool not to help."

Harry grinned. "So now maybe about my eyes?"

Murdock emobilized him with a flick of her wrist, and made a few odd gestures. Harry's eyes exploded into pain, and when at last he blinked away the tears..."I can see!" Harry gazed around the room, grinning widely as he picked out each suddenly-sharp detail. He goblins smiled at his jubilation.