Chapter 12
He was lying on the cool ground in the courtyard and his insides were on fire from the repeated pains of the cruciatus curses thrown at him from Voldemort. He was trying to force oxygen into his lungs, but it was less painful not to try and breathe. Then he heard the cold voice in the distance through the sounds of the battle raging on all around him.
"Perhaps I will give Mr. Malfoy the honor of killing you, since he despises your boyfriend so much."
It was Voldemort and he was talking about killing Ginny. He had to stop him, now.
Ignoring the pain shooting through his body, he rose and made his way to his beloved Ginny. He would not allow her to be harmed, not matter what the cost.
His memories then jumped to a dark room. He was lying on the damp floor facing a wall of stone.
He could hear angry voices all around him and as he listened he could make out their words.
"How in the hell did we get here and why can't we get out! We've tried every spell imaginable and still nothing!" said one man, clearly furious with the current situation.
His words though reminded Harry of what happened and how they had come to be in such a terrible place. The battle with Voldemort, the killing curse that had hit him hard in the chest, the dementors being banished back to Azkaban, and himself, the death eaters, and what remained of Voldemort being brought here by his power.
He knew the men thought he was probably unconscious or even dead, and he dreaded what would happen when they discovered otherwise.
His memories ended abruptly as his eyes flew open and he realized he was drenched in a cold sweat and something thicker and sticky. He looked at the blankets that were covering himself and saw spots of rich red spreading out over them. Not surprised by what he saw since he had been experiencing the same thing for too many weeks, he glanced at Sirius and Remus who were standing beside the bed.
"Poppy, what on earth has happened? Why is he bleeding?" asked Sirius urgently.
"I'm afraid it is going to be a rough summer Mr. Black. Apparently the thrashing around caused by his nightmare made his wounds reopen. I wish we could just close them up and be done with it" she mumbled to herself as she drew back the blankets and proceeded to wrap the now bleeding wounds in fresh bandages after removing Harry's pajama shirt.
During the entire time she was doing these things, Harry never protested except for the occasional gasp of pain as she touched a particularly tender spot.
His eyes remained trained to the bed and never once did he answer the numerous questions that the adults were asking of him concerning his condition or dream.
Once she had finished with his chest and stomach, she asked him to sit up so she could do the same to his back, which he did without argument, even though it caused him immense pain, causing him to have black areas begin to cloud the boundaries of his vision.
He refused to let them know just how much pain he was in though, so he just gritted his teeth, clenched his fists. Regardless of his best efforts though, he let out a small audible gasp again even though he tried to prevent it.
He sat like that for a long time while she cleaned and bandaged the areas on his back, still refusing to meet anybody else's eyes.
When she had finished, she gave Harry a new shirt to put on and he was thankful that it was a long sleeved one. Awkwardly, he tried to pull the shirt over his arms, but it just caused him too much pain to fight with it and he was shaking from the effort. He was about to give up when a gentle hand pulled the shirt from his trembling hands and carefully guided his bandaged arm through the sleeve before moving to his next arm. The person helping him took hold of his other arm and guided it toward the other sleeve, successfully exposing the underside of his forearm and the hideous mark that resided there.
Harry looked at the mark for a few short moments remembering the day he had received it far too clearly and remembering just what that symbol represented only served to make him angrier with himself.
Furious about it being seen by anyone but himself, he thrust his arm into the waiting shirt and collapsed back onto the bed headless of the pain it caused.
He starred up at the ceiling of the room and saw Sirius' face as he bent over him and buttoned the shirt he had helped Harry put on.
When he was done, he looked searchingly into Harry's eyes and said something that took him completely by surprise.
"Harry, I am your godfather and I will always be here for you no matter what happens. I love you no matter what. I don't know what has happened to you these past months, but when you are ready to talk about it, I'm willing to listen"
His words startled Harry so much that the boy lost his stony resolve for a fraction of a moment and met Sirius' gaze, looking into his eyes to that his godfather was not exaggerating his words one bit and that he truly meant every word he had said.
Just as quickly as his resolve fell though, it was restored and he diverted his gaze from the concerned eyes of his godfather back to the ceiling.
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Sirius and Remus had been sitting beside the boys bed for about an hour when he began toss and turn, apparently having a nightmare. Knowing there was nothing they could do to stop the nightmare without further startling Harry and causing him to use wandless magic again, they had been forced to watch for several agonizing minutes until his eyes snapped open and he looked about wildly until his eyes settled on the blankets covering him which were beginning to absorb blood.
Madame Pomfrey had explained what had happened to cause him to start bleeding before she set to work removing his saturated blankets and pajama shirt.
They were both shocked by what the removal of clothing revealed to their eyes. Neither of them had seen his chest, abdomen, or back without the protective bandages covering them and once Madame Pomfrey removed them, the full impact of just how lucky Harry was to be alive hit them both full force.
It looked as though someone was trying to draw abstract pictures on his body by cutting into the flesh using some sort of crude blade. How somebody could hold a wand and direct it into such elaborate patterns made them both sick to their stomachs, but what was worse was the amount of pain that must have accompanied the artists efforts.
The gashes were so numerous that it was impossible to distinguish where one began and the other one ended, and none of them were small and insignificant, they were all deep and any one looked as though it alone was bad enough to kill a normal man.
Harry was not a normal person though and that is why he was still living.
When Madame Pomfrey asked him to sit up, he obliged without protest, but as he did so, they could all see how much pain it caused him to do so. His teeth were clenched tightly together and his fists were in tight balls gripping the blankets beside his body. He allowed a small nearly inaudible gasp to escape his mouth.
His back was in the same condition as his front, but it contained quite a few more bruises, as though he had been flung unmercifully into a wall repeatedly. Sirius immediately felt guilty for the amount of pain he must have caused the boy as he was carrying him in his arms earlier that day.
They watched in silence as she continued to see to his bandages and they both thought about the long weeks that were ahead of them all. Harry was injured beyond belief physically, but they knew those injuries would heal in time. He was severely thin and desperately needed to gain quite a bit of weight before he would even begin to look like a normal wizard who was approaching his seventeenth birthday, his ribs showed predominantly through his battered skin and his arms looked like they could be snapped with no effort at all, but this too would be rectified as time went on.
The thing they were starting to doubt could be fixed though was his psychological trauma. Even before the events of the past months Harry had suffered more pain and loss that most wizards twice his age would ever face. Weather or not he would be able to overcome this particular barrier was yet to be seen.
Once his injuries were bandaged again, Madame Pomfrey gave him a new shirt before leaving to clean the old one and the blankets where he wouldn't have to see her wand.
Harry had been trying unsuccessfully to put the shirt on over his mangled arm for several moments and he had begun to tremble with the effort when Sirius had seen enough. He knew Harry was ridiculously stubborn but even he must have known he needed help.
Sirius gently took the fabric from his grasp and helped guide the broken arm into a sleeve before he moved to the other arm. He gently grabbed the thin wrist to put it into the sleeve when he noticed Harry's eyes flicker to the dark mark tattooed there. The normally bright eyes that had always been filled with life and energy clouded over with hate as he took in the mark for a moment before violently thrusting his arm into the sleeve and collapsing back onto the bed.
Sirius had carefully buttoned up the shirt over the boys bandages before he looked into those green eyes and spoke quietly and truthfully into the face of his godson.
When he finished his short and impromptu speech, he was startled to see that Harry was looking intently into his eyes, as though he were judging for himself weather or not the words spoken were indeed the truth. He held the gaze for a moment before looking back to the ceiling of the room, leaving Sirius to share a quick glance with Remus, confirming the fact that Harry had actually seemed to notice the words spoken and acknowledged them as truth.
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Albus Dumbledore was dreading the task he was about to perform, knowing it would be a very difficult task indeed.
He was walking up the long walk toward the Weasley's front door to tell them about Harry's condition and to tell his two best friends and a certain red headed girlfriend with a temper akin to fire that they would have to wait until the beginning of the school term to see him again. This was going to be a challenging task indeed and trying to cover up his suspicious surrounding the dark mark would be even more challenging, as he didn't plan to tell anybody else about the boy-who-lived having the mark of one in the service of Lord Voldemort because he knew that even those who considered him family would jump to conclusions.
He quickly covered the last bit of ground between himself and the front door and stood collecting his thoughts for a moment before lightly knocking.
The door was thrown open an instant later and the old wizard was met with the hopeful face of the youngest Weasley.
"Good afternoon Miss. Weasley, I was hoping I could have a word with you and your family" he said kindly, not wanting to give the child reason to jump to conclusions about what he wanted to discuss.
"Certainly sir, come on in" she replied politely before asking the desperate question "how is Harry? Will we be able to see him today?"
"We shall discuss both of those questions in a moment, when everyone else is present, now where might I find your parents?" he noticed that his words caused a frustrated flush to creep up the girls face for a moment before she motioned him in and led him into the quaint kitchen where Arthur and Molly were seated.
"Albus, what brings you by?" asked Arthur politely as he stood and shook hands with the headmaster.
"There are a few new developments I wish to inform you about concerning Harry" their reactions were just what he had expected them to be, Arthur set his jaw in firm resolution and Molly visibly paled, both apparently expecting the worst.
"Are Ron and Hermione around, I would like to include them in this as well as you Ginny" he continued, looking at the girl still standing beside him.
"They're out back, I'll go get them" she answered, happy that the three of them were going to be included.
Dumbledore took a seat at the large table and sat in silence for several moments with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley sitting in silence opposite him. Several moments later, the door burst open and Ron, Hermione and Ginny came hurrying in, all flushed from apparently sprinting back to the house.
The three students all to seats next to the Weasley parents and sat in silence, awaiting whatever it was he had to say.
"As you undoubtedly know already, an article appeared in a muggle newspaper this morning about a teenage boy who mysteriously showed up in a muggle hospital a few weeks ago. The description matched that of Harry, so I sent Sirius, Remus, and Severus to see if it was him.
What they found was a mixed blessing though, the boy in the hospital was indeed Mr. Potter, but he has been severely injured and abused these past months."
At this, he looked into the faces of those seated in front of him and noticed unshed tears in the eyes of the three females and identical expressions of stony resolve on the faces of Ron and Arthur.
"The doctor in the hospital informed me of Harry's arrival in the hospital, and apparently he said some very curious things when he arrived. He told the doctor that he was gone, the all were, now these words can mean several things, but we think he was speaking of Voldemort and his followers."
A resounding sigh of relief echoed through the kitchen at these words and all the Weasley's and Hermione looked almost thrilled at this piece of information.
"The doctor also informed me that Harry has not spoken a conscious word since that night, and that he spends the hours he is awake starring straight ahead and appears to be oblivious to the things, people, and events around him.
We then transferred him to Hogwarts where Madame Pomfrey took stock of his injuries, which to say the least are extensive. His right arm has been shattered beyond use and his right leg is broken in several places rendering his knee useless as well. Several of his ribs have been broken as well and they have caused bruising to his heart and lungs, and one of his lungs has been punctured. He has been severely beaten and bruises cover the majority of his body as well as many deep lacerations all over his chest, abdomen, and back. To put it mildly, he's in bad shape."
He paused here to collect his thoughts once again before continuing, not wanting to face the questions that he knew he would be flooded with eventually.
"We believe that Harry will recover from these injuries, but it will take much longer than normal for him to do so. It looks as though he was given a potion to slow the natural healing process, causing it to take at least four times as long for his injuries to heal completely, which means he won't be fully recovered until at least Christmas if not later."
Arthur now decided to interrupt with the main question the old man had been dreading having to answer.
"Why can't Madame Pomfrey just heal him magically? Surely she has dealt with worst and it would be just a matter of days instead of months before he is healed."
"She tried soon after Harry arrived at the castle, but something happened that I can not explain. According to Sirius and Poppy, she had just drawn her wand and poised it over his stomach when they noticed a flip of his wrist and the wand went flying into the far wall of the infirmary."
At their baffled expressions, he elaborated more.
"Apparently Harry used some type of wandless magic to disarm her, and when they looked to him for some sort of an explanation, he appeared terrified by the sight of the wand. We can only assume that it was using wands that his injuries were inflicted, which makes it impossible to use a wand to heal his injuries, even when he is sleeping no magic can come into contact with his body and I can't even begin to explain why. Before you ask, the same is true with potions because he was given some pretty powerful ones as well while he was gone."
This new information caused Hermione and all four Weasley's to look completely appalled, all of them furious with whoever had done this to Harry. Ginny was the first to speak up.
"When can we see him sir?" she asked quietly, as she tried to control her emotions.
"I'm afraid I must ask you to wait until at least the beginning of term to visit with Harry. He has just been through a terrible ordeal and I'm worried about him being with too many people right now, until he has recovered a bit and is prepared to see his friends again."
"What do you mean until he is ready to see us? Don't you think we would be the best people to help him out of this?" asked Ron, still thoroughly confused by the headmasters words.
"I believe that Mr. Potter is too ashamed to be around those who care about him right now, judging by his reaction to those of us who were present in the muggle hospital."
"What in heavens name does he have to be ashamed about? He has been beaten and tortured for three months, it's not like he caused it to happen! On the contrary, he saved an entire castle full of students from falling to the dark lord, he has no right to be ashamed of anything!" Ginny was furious, not only was she being forbidden from seeing Harry for another month and a half, but now Dumbledore was telling her that Harry was too ashamed of his condition to see her or his best friends.
"I'm afraid it is not his injuries that he is ashamed of Ginny, but rather, the experience he has been through." said the headmaster in a dejected tone, meeting the eyes of all present in the room before continuing "I must ask you not to jump to any conclusions concerning what I am about to tell you, we have no idea just what has occurred these past months, but sometime while Harry was missing, something happened to him"
"What are you getting at Albus" asked Arthur with a note of impatience in his voice.
"For some reason still unknown to us, Harry has become even more powerful since he disappeared, and I have reason to believe that this new power could carry with it the mark of evil. Harry is not the same boy who disappeared on March fourth, and I am uncertain about weather or not he can be trusted."
He was lying on the cool ground in the courtyard and his insides were on fire from the repeated pains of the cruciatus curses thrown at him from Voldemort. He was trying to force oxygen into his lungs, but it was less painful not to try and breathe. Then he heard the cold voice in the distance through the sounds of the battle raging on all around him.
"Perhaps I will give Mr. Malfoy the honor of killing you, since he despises your boyfriend so much."
It was Voldemort and he was talking about killing Ginny. He had to stop him, now.
Ignoring the pain shooting through his body, he rose and made his way to his beloved Ginny. He would not allow her to be harmed, not matter what the cost.
His memories then jumped to a dark room. He was lying on the damp floor facing a wall of stone.
He could hear angry voices all around him and as he listened he could make out their words.
"How in the hell did we get here and why can't we get out! We've tried every spell imaginable and still nothing!" said one man, clearly furious with the current situation.
His words though reminded Harry of what happened and how they had come to be in such a terrible place. The battle with Voldemort, the killing curse that had hit him hard in the chest, the dementors being banished back to Azkaban, and himself, the death eaters, and what remained of Voldemort being brought here by his power.
He knew the men thought he was probably unconscious or even dead, and he dreaded what would happen when they discovered otherwise.
His memories ended abruptly as his eyes flew open and he realized he was drenched in a cold sweat and something thicker and sticky. He looked at the blankets that were covering himself and saw spots of rich red spreading out over them. Not surprised by what he saw since he had been experiencing the same thing for too many weeks, he glanced at Sirius and Remus who were standing beside the bed.
"Poppy, what on earth has happened? Why is he bleeding?" asked Sirius urgently.
"I'm afraid it is going to be a rough summer Mr. Black. Apparently the thrashing around caused by his nightmare made his wounds reopen. I wish we could just close them up and be done with it" she mumbled to herself as she drew back the blankets and proceeded to wrap the now bleeding wounds in fresh bandages after removing Harry's pajama shirt.
During the entire time she was doing these things, Harry never protested except for the occasional gasp of pain as she touched a particularly tender spot.
His eyes remained trained to the bed and never once did he answer the numerous questions that the adults were asking of him concerning his condition or dream.
Once she had finished with his chest and stomach, she asked him to sit up so she could do the same to his back, which he did without argument, even though it caused him immense pain, causing him to have black areas begin to cloud the boundaries of his vision.
He refused to let them know just how much pain he was in though, so he just gritted his teeth, clenched his fists. Regardless of his best efforts though, he let out a small audible gasp again even though he tried to prevent it.
He sat like that for a long time while she cleaned and bandaged the areas on his back, still refusing to meet anybody else's eyes.
When she had finished, she gave Harry a new shirt to put on and he was thankful that it was a long sleeved one. Awkwardly, he tried to pull the shirt over his arms, but it just caused him too much pain to fight with it and he was shaking from the effort. He was about to give up when a gentle hand pulled the shirt from his trembling hands and carefully guided his bandaged arm through the sleeve before moving to his next arm. The person helping him took hold of his other arm and guided it toward the other sleeve, successfully exposing the underside of his forearm and the hideous mark that resided there.
Harry looked at the mark for a few short moments remembering the day he had received it far too clearly and remembering just what that symbol represented only served to make him angrier with himself.
Furious about it being seen by anyone but himself, he thrust his arm into the waiting shirt and collapsed back onto the bed headless of the pain it caused.
He starred up at the ceiling of the room and saw Sirius' face as he bent over him and buttoned the shirt he had helped Harry put on.
When he was done, he looked searchingly into Harry's eyes and said something that took him completely by surprise.
"Harry, I am your godfather and I will always be here for you no matter what happens. I love you no matter what. I don't know what has happened to you these past months, but when you are ready to talk about it, I'm willing to listen"
His words startled Harry so much that the boy lost his stony resolve for a fraction of a moment and met Sirius' gaze, looking into his eyes to that his godfather was not exaggerating his words one bit and that he truly meant every word he had said.
Just as quickly as his resolve fell though, it was restored and he diverted his gaze from the concerned eyes of his godfather back to the ceiling.
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Sirius and Remus had been sitting beside the boys bed for about an hour when he began toss and turn, apparently having a nightmare. Knowing there was nothing they could do to stop the nightmare without further startling Harry and causing him to use wandless magic again, they had been forced to watch for several agonizing minutes until his eyes snapped open and he looked about wildly until his eyes settled on the blankets covering him which were beginning to absorb blood.
Madame Pomfrey had explained what had happened to cause him to start bleeding before she set to work removing his saturated blankets and pajama shirt.
They were both shocked by what the removal of clothing revealed to their eyes. Neither of them had seen his chest, abdomen, or back without the protective bandages covering them and once Madame Pomfrey removed them, the full impact of just how lucky Harry was to be alive hit them both full force.
It looked as though someone was trying to draw abstract pictures on his body by cutting into the flesh using some sort of crude blade. How somebody could hold a wand and direct it into such elaborate patterns made them both sick to their stomachs, but what was worse was the amount of pain that must have accompanied the artists efforts.
The gashes were so numerous that it was impossible to distinguish where one began and the other one ended, and none of them were small and insignificant, they were all deep and any one looked as though it alone was bad enough to kill a normal man.
Harry was not a normal person though and that is why he was still living.
When Madame Pomfrey asked him to sit up, he obliged without protest, but as he did so, they could all see how much pain it caused him to do so. His teeth were clenched tightly together and his fists were in tight balls gripping the blankets beside his body. He allowed a small nearly inaudible gasp to escape his mouth.
His back was in the same condition as his front, but it contained quite a few more bruises, as though he had been flung unmercifully into a wall repeatedly. Sirius immediately felt guilty for the amount of pain he must have caused the boy as he was carrying him in his arms earlier that day.
They watched in silence as she continued to see to his bandages and they both thought about the long weeks that were ahead of them all. Harry was injured beyond belief physically, but they knew those injuries would heal in time. He was severely thin and desperately needed to gain quite a bit of weight before he would even begin to look like a normal wizard who was approaching his seventeenth birthday, his ribs showed predominantly through his battered skin and his arms looked like they could be snapped with no effort at all, but this too would be rectified as time went on.
The thing they were starting to doubt could be fixed though was his psychological trauma. Even before the events of the past months Harry had suffered more pain and loss that most wizards twice his age would ever face. Weather or not he would be able to overcome this particular barrier was yet to be seen.
Once his injuries were bandaged again, Madame Pomfrey gave him a new shirt before leaving to clean the old one and the blankets where he wouldn't have to see her wand.
Harry had been trying unsuccessfully to put the shirt on over his mangled arm for several moments and he had begun to tremble with the effort when Sirius had seen enough. He knew Harry was ridiculously stubborn but even he must have known he needed help.
Sirius gently took the fabric from his grasp and helped guide the broken arm into a sleeve before he moved to the other arm. He gently grabbed the thin wrist to put it into the sleeve when he noticed Harry's eyes flicker to the dark mark tattooed there. The normally bright eyes that had always been filled with life and energy clouded over with hate as he took in the mark for a moment before violently thrusting his arm into the sleeve and collapsing back onto the bed.
Sirius had carefully buttoned up the shirt over the boys bandages before he looked into those green eyes and spoke quietly and truthfully into the face of his godson.
When he finished his short and impromptu speech, he was startled to see that Harry was looking intently into his eyes, as though he were judging for himself weather or not the words spoken were indeed the truth. He held the gaze for a moment before looking back to the ceiling of the room, leaving Sirius to share a quick glance with Remus, confirming the fact that Harry had actually seemed to notice the words spoken and acknowledged them as truth.
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Albus Dumbledore was dreading the task he was about to perform, knowing it would be a very difficult task indeed.
He was walking up the long walk toward the Weasley's front door to tell them about Harry's condition and to tell his two best friends and a certain red headed girlfriend with a temper akin to fire that they would have to wait until the beginning of the school term to see him again. This was going to be a challenging task indeed and trying to cover up his suspicious surrounding the dark mark would be even more challenging, as he didn't plan to tell anybody else about the boy-who-lived having the mark of one in the service of Lord Voldemort because he knew that even those who considered him family would jump to conclusions.
He quickly covered the last bit of ground between himself and the front door and stood collecting his thoughts for a moment before lightly knocking.
The door was thrown open an instant later and the old wizard was met with the hopeful face of the youngest Weasley.
"Good afternoon Miss. Weasley, I was hoping I could have a word with you and your family" he said kindly, not wanting to give the child reason to jump to conclusions about what he wanted to discuss.
"Certainly sir, come on in" she replied politely before asking the desperate question "how is Harry? Will we be able to see him today?"
"We shall discuss both of those questions in a moment, when everyone else is present, now where might I find your parents?" he noticed that his words caused a frustrated flush to creep up the girls face for a moment before she motioned him in and led him into the quaint kitchen where Arthur and Molly were seated.
"Albus, what brings you by?" asked Arthur politely as he stood and shook hands with the headmaster.
"There are a few new developments I wish to inform you about concerning Harry" their reactions were just what he had expected them to be, Arthur set his jaw in firm resolution and Molly visibly paled, both apparently expecting the worst.
"Are Ron and Hermione around, I would like to include them in this as well as you Ginny" he continued, looking at the girl still standing beside him.
"They're out back, I'll go get them" she answered, happy that the three of them were going to be included.
Dumbledore took a seat at the large table and sat in silence for several moments with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley sitting in silence opposite him. Several moments later, the door burst open and Ron, Hermione and Ginny came hurrying in, all flushed from apparently sprinting back to the house.
The three students all to seats next to the Weasley parents and sat in silence, awaiting whatever it was he had to say.
"As you undoubtedly know already, an article appeared in a muggle newspaper this morning about a teenage boy who mysteriously showed up in a muggle hospital a few weeks ago. The description matched that of Harry, so I sent Sirius, Remus, and Severus to see if it was him.
What they found was a mixed blessing though, the boy in the hospital was indeed Mr. Potter, but he has been severely injured and abused these past months."
At this, he looked into the faces of those seated in front of him and noticed unshed tears in the eyes of the three females and identical expressions of stony resolve on the faces of Ron and Arthur.
"The doctor in the hospital informed me of Harry's arrival in the hospital, and apparently he said some very curious things when he arrived. He told the doctor that he was gone, the all were, now these words can mean several things, but we think he was speaking of Voldemort and his followers."
A resounding sigh of relief echoed through the kitchen at these words and all the Weasley's and Hermione looked almost thrilled at this piece of information.
"The doctor also informed me that Harry has not spoken a conscious word since that night, and that he spends the hours he is awake starring straight ahead and appears to be oblivious to the things, people, and events around him.
We then transferred him to Hogwarts where Madame Pomfrey took stock of his injuries, which to say the least are extensive. His right arm has been shattered beyond use and his right leg is broken in several places rendering his knee useless as well. Several of his ribs have been broken as well and they have caused bruising to his heart and lungs, and one of his lungs has been punctured. He has been severely beaten and bruises cover the majority of his body as well as many deep lacerations all over his chest, abdomen, and back. To put it mildly, he's in bad shape."
He paused here to collect his thoughts once again before continuing, not wanting to face the questions that he knew he would be flooded with eventually.
"We believe that Harry will recover from these injuries, but it will take much longer than normal for him to do so. It looks as though he was given a potion to slow the natural healing process, causing it to take at least four times as long for his injuries to heal completely, which means he won't be fully recovered until at least Christmas if not later."
Arthur now decided to interrupt with the main question the old man had been dreading having to answer.
"Why can't Madame Pomfrey just heal him magically? Surely she has dealt with worst and it would be just a matter of days instead of months before he is healed."
"She tried soon after Harry arrived at the castle, but something happened that I can not explain. According to Sirius and Poppy, she had just drawn her wand and poised it over his stomach when they noticed a flip of his wrist and the wand went flying into the far wall of the infirmary."
At their baffled expressions, he elaborated more.
"Apparently Harry used some type of wandless magic to disarm her, and when they looked to him for some sort of an explanation, he appeared terrified by the sight of the wand. We can only assume that it was using wands that his injuries were inflicted, which makes it impossible to use a wand to heal his injuries, even when he is sleeping no magic can come into contact with his body and I can't even begin to explain why. Before you ask, the same is true with potions because he was given some pretty powerful ones as well while he was gone."
This new information caused Hermione and all four Weasley's to look completely appalled, all of them furious with whoever had done this to Harry. Ginny was the first to speak up.
"When can we see him sir?" she asked quietly, as she tried to control her emotions.
"I'm afraid I must ask you to wait until at least the beginning of term to visit with Harry. He has just been through a terrible ordeal and I'm worried about him being with too many people right now, until he has recovered a bit and is prepared to see his friends again."
"What do you mean until he is ready to see us? Don't you think we would be the best people to help him out of this?" asked Ron, still thoroughly confused by the headmasters words.
"I believe that Mr. Potter is too ashamed to be around those who care about him right now, judging by his reaction to those of us who were present in the muggle hospital."
"What in heavens name does he have to be ashamed about? He has been beaten and tortured for three months, it's not like he caused it to happen! On the contrary, he saved an entire castle full of students from falling to the dark lord, he has no right to be ashamed of anything!" Ginny was furious, not only was she being forbidden from seeing Harry for another month and a half, but now Dumbledore was telling her that Harry was too ashamed of his condition to see her or his best friends.
"I'm afraid it is not his injuries that he is ashamed of Ginny, but rather, the experience he has been through." said the headmaster in a dejected tone, meeting the eyes of all present in the room before continuing "I must ask you not to jump to any conclusions concerning what I am about to tell you, we have no idea just what has occurred these past months, but sometime while Harry was missing, something happened to him"
"What are you getting at Albus" asked Arthur with a note of impatience in his voice.
"For some reason still unknown to us, Harry has become even more powerful since he disappeared, and I have reason to believe that this new power could carry with it the mark of evil. Harry is not the same boy who disappeared on March fourth, and I am uncertain about weather or not he can be trusted."