The healing of Muggle injuries, Poppy Pomfrey thought, was easy enough in itself. True, there were bruises on top of bruises, the malnutrition was a complication and would probably delay the healing process, some injuries would probably take a while to heal and cause quite a bit of pain, and young Potter would probably bear some pretty unpleasant scars for the rest of his life, but all in all, a full recovery was practically assured.
Still, there was an aspect of the injuries that disturbed Poppy. Although Muggles, she'd heard from her long-ago Muggle Studies professor, tended not to be aware of the emotional power that underlay the physical aspects of their bodies, that power was there and effective nonetheless. Injuries inflicted accidentally were neutral, and healed cleanly and quickly; injuries inflicted out of malice, on the other hand, were the Muggle equivalent of Dark wounds. Though nowhere remotely near as powerfully damaging as truly Dark curse-wounds – not even on the same scale, Poppy thought – they took longer to heal, and more importantly, deposited a residue of pain inside the bearer. It took a skilled Healer to sense it, but young Potter seemed to have more of this residue in him than most. Poppy had sensed it the first time she had examined him, but had put it down to the lingering aftereffects of his unique reaction to the Killing Curse. Now, though, she was forced to consider another reason for the heaviness – the sadness, the world-weariness – inside the boy: long-term abuse and neglect.
There was a cure for the residue, of course. Over the short term, certain charms could banish it, but Poppy put more trust in natural methods than mood-altering spells. Laughter and genuine affection seemed to be the most potent antidotes. She had seen them drive the darkness right out of the bloodstream. Lost in thought, she reached out to turn the boy onto his side.
Molly Weasley held out a hand. Poppy, snapped out of her brown study, looked at her inquiringly. "What is it, Molly?"
"If it's all right with you, Poppy, I think the children might like to help. It would probably make them feel better to make themselves useful." Molly looked slightly shamefaced, but Poppy was delighted.
"What a good idea," she said immediately. How had she not thought of it before?
And so it was that she was watching the beneficial energy almost visibly flowing out of young Weasley and Granger into her patient, doing more good than a dozen Healing Charms. It did her heart a power of good to see the alacrity with which they moved to obey her every word. As she issued instructions – "Hold onto his arms and lift him slowly," she revelled in the gentleness with which the two children's hands touched Harry. They held him lovingly, carefully, not with the reverence of sycophants for a hero but the reverence of those who love someone dear and precious to them and don't want to cause him the least bit of pain if they can possibly help it. She saw the way their faces moved closer to the unconscious boy, the way the girl unembarrassedly kissed the top of his head when it fell against her, and the way the boy nestled his head against Harry as though only masculine pride was holding him back from doing the same thing. She knew a shadow flitted across her face then, as she remembered young men, beyond pride and past caring, kissing their dead and mortally wounded male friends on the battlefield, and hastily pushed the thought away. This one was going to live.
As they got him into a sitting position, Poppy saw them look in ill-concealed fear at his back, and saw the fear melt into cautious relief. She had done a good job, if she did say so herself. The Derma-Gro would take a day or so regrow his skin, of course, but she'd healed the damaged muscle and tissue beneath, except for a few stubborn bruises too close to the bone. She had covered his entire back, including the welts on his bottom and thighs, with a healing paste and sealed the whole thing with a charm so that it wouldn't be wiped off until she came to do so. With a minimum of pain, it would be as good as new by tomorrow. Normally she wouldn't be all that sure about this, but with the nurturing flux around Harry that she could feel, Poppy knew it would be all right.
She showed young Weasley and Granger how to prop their unconscious friend up in a sitting position. They sat facing him, on either side of him; she leaned him forward against them, his chin resting on Weasley's right shoulder and Granger's left one, their upper bodies supporting his chest. She needed him upright to deal with the overspill of blows onto his sides, shoulders and – now that she was assessing the secondary damage – even his face. Come to think of it, young Weasley had one of those marks, too. Better heal it later.
Tut-tutting at the deep bruises on the protruding ribs, Poppy healed and sealed, applying pastes and salves, and did not fail to notice how each move on her part was accompanied by a wince of sympathy from the boy or a small sound from the girl. Her trained eye could detect each of these as a golden pulse of sympathetic, healing energy, going directly into the wounds, and she smiled despite the severity of the injuries. What with Granger and Weasley's protective concern, Potter's grateful acceptance, and his unspoken willingness to walk through fire for either one of them if necessary, the love the three friends shared was so strong in this moment that it manifested itself as a warm gold-amber glow linking and enveloping the trio, the very antithesis of Dark Magic. Yes, young Potter was going to be all right. She wondered if these children knew how lucky they were in their nurturing web. Probably not, she mused, though they performed the healing acts instinctively. Such a shame that there was an unspoken taboo on speaking of these things to laywitchards.
Finally, she was done. The boy's two friends lowered him gently back into the bed, the residual energy of their love shimmering around them.