Summary: The war is over for everyone but Harry. He is still fighting just to survive, but he won't make it on his own. Just when he's given up, help comes along.

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, but I do own my imagination which takes me on wonderful adventures.

Chapter 10: Explanations

"I have been thinking and researching quite a bit regarding your casting issues. In particular, I have been comparing the magical relay system with the central nervous system since they are similarly constructed. I have come up with a working theory that I would like to run past the two of you," Severus commented following breakfast at their next weekend meeting.

Having procured their undivided attention, Severus launched into his thought processes. "A wizard who is subjected to the cruciatus curse regularly, as many of the Death Eaters were, will suffer irreversible nerve damage over time. At first, the glial cells in the brain which are responsible for repairing the damaged myelin coating of the neurons will carry out their function quickly and efficiently. Over prolonged exposure, however, that repair process will begin to break down. These special cells become used up, die and are not replaced so the neurons do not get repaired well or often enough. This causes the nerves to function erratically and poorly at first and then, eventually, to die off as well. This is partly what happened to your friend, Dustin.

"For a long time, we have known that this phenomenon appears among wizards who have been subjected to repeated torture, myself included. I developed the nerve regeneration potion for myself, originally, to gain back that function. It has gone a long way in aiding the glial cells towards their own rehabilitation so they may continue their task of restoring the damaged myelin sheathing of the nerves in the nervous system. Eventually, following the war, I submitted the formula for publication so it could be used with all victims of the curse. In any case, I surmised that since the two systems, nervous and magical, have parallel structure, a similar degeneration of the magical filament sheathing may be occurring in your magical relay system.

"I believe, that your particular circumstances may have exacerbated the situation. Firstly, you suffered severe, prolonged abuse as a child. Your magic at such a young age was forced to mature quite early and was taxed just to keep you alive and provide your body with relatively good function. Your lack of a nutritious diet also impacted the healing process because your body did not have the vitamins and minerals needed to maintain your health properly. For example, your body needs calcium to help the neurons carry the messages, but since your diet was deficient in Vitamin D, your body could not properly absorb even the insufficient calcium you did consume – a need you discovered when you did your research. Thus, your systems were in a continual state of 'high alert', if not outright 'emergency'. Your magic must have been working overtime to provide as much aid as it did. That is probably why you had such a large amount of magic at your disposal while in school – it was developed much earlier than in most wizards."

"That's an interesting concept," Poppy commented. "I wonder if all abused magical children tend to have a larger than average capacity for magic?"

"Dumbledore once told me that Voldemort, Severus and I are among the strongest wizards he has ever known," Harry noted. "As all three of us experienced heavy abuse as children, maybe this can be a new diagnostic for discovering child abuse among wizards?"

"That is something we should definitely revisit once this mystery is solved," Severus contemplated. "To continue, however: Once you reached Hogwarts, your diet improved and you enjoyed a respite from the continual abuse you experienced at your relatives. This allowed you to regain some of your nerve health, but not fully. There was still quite a bit of damage that was irreparable due to your early and frequent exposure. I particularly noted it during potions through the slight trembling of your limbs, though I never associated it with anything of import – I just assumed it was the same fear of me that most of my students experienced. In any case, your return to full health was also somewhat hindered by the sheer amount of times you ended up in the hospital wing with critical injuries – whether through run-ins with some manifestation of the Dark Lord, quidditch accidents, potion explosions or even getting hexed in the hallway – and your return each summer to an unhealthy environment.

"While you were probably exposed to enough sun-based Vitamin D just from being outdoors often – gardening chores in your childhood, quidditch at Hogwarts and through your current wanderings – you have not been able to absorb enough for actual use by your body because your diet intake lacked the necessary minerals, calcium in particular, for their optimisation.

"I have reason to believe that the turning point occurred when Voldemort held you under the cruciatus at the graveyard. The Dark Lord was always a very strong wizard and he wanted you to suffer as much as possible. You were held under the curse for a long time leading to heavier damage than you normally experienced in a single event. You may remember that you suffered constant trembling for a few weeks following that episode, despite the nerve regenerative potion you took. It was then, along with the bits of memories I saw during Occlumency, that began to change my view of your home life. I realised that your slight shakiness in my class may not have been fear-induced, but actually, the result of earlier, severe nerve damage.

My current research leads me to believe, in retrospect, that your magical relay system was also damaged by that episode, but went undetected because it evidently repaired itself – at least, on the surface. Your magic was still strong enough, that a slight decrease in function was not noted by any of the professors."

"I did have trouble casting after that. But when I mentioned it to Dumbledore, he just assured me that my classmates' abilities had finally caught up to mine, so it only appeared that casting didn't come as easily to me. As no one else seemed to notice, I just assumed he was correct and let it drop," Harry commented.

Poppy nodded. "It is a logical conclusion. We will never know if that was another one of his manipulations or not."

"You continued to experience the curse numerous times over the next few years," Severus continued, "but I think the permanent damage occurred during the Final Battle when Voldemort hit you once again with his incredibly strong version of the cruciatus curse while you were in the midst of performing a draining curse of your own. Since your magical relay system was 'open', so to speak, it allowed the curse to enter directly into the system and cause debilitating injury to the sheathing. For most wizards, such an episode would be followed by magiglial (A/N: the magical form of neuroglia, or glial cell, responsible for repairing myelin) repair, but since yours were already not functioning as well as they should due to the graveyard incident, the damage was not entirely corrected.

"The only reason you can still do magic at all, I believe, is that you have such a huge magical energy reserve from which to draw on for healing. Your body is still trying to fix itself, but is not succeeding due to the amount of damage done to the sheathing and to the decreasing number of healthy magical glial cells. Even if you were to cease all magical activities, I do not believe your system, in its current state, will ever return to optimal health. Assuming that I have correctly diagnosed this situation, I have no doubt that I can rework the nerve regenerative to create a magiglia restorative. It should be able to re-establish enough function to repair the damaged sheathing, however, it cannot bring back to 'life' those cells, nor the sections of your magical core, which have died. Therefore, your magic will never regain its original level. You will have to settle for being 'average'," he added wryly.

"How soon do you think you can create the potion?"

"I plan to base it on the nerve regenerative formula, as I mentioned earlier, so there should be minimal experimentation involved. I estimate, maybe… a week – two at the most?"

"Really? I might have my magic back in just a couple of weeks?"

"No. I hope to have a restorative ready to test within a couple of weeks. At worst, it will have no effect. I will need to adjust it as needed until it works. Then, your body will still need to 'fix' itself. That might take a number of months, if not longer. It all depends on how quickly the magiglia can replicate and do their job."

"Oh," Harry said with slightly dampened hopes. "Well, I guess a few more months won't make much of a difference."

"That's the spirit, Harry. In any case, I think it's time we took a break."

"I will go set up for lunch."

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"Okay, Harry. What have you got to report regarding your research?" Poppy asked following the meal.

"I, too, changed my focus and have been working on the muggle repellent issue."

"Muggle repellent?" Severus raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like something you might find in the pest department at the local nursery centre."

"Well, it's as good a name as any," Harry grinned impishly. "Please bear with me for this explanation. I realise it is rather technical and you both probably have a better understanding than I do due to your professions. Regardless, I am reviewing it so you can see the connections I made.

"Anyway, as Severus mentioned while we were in your clinic, certain hormones, specifically pheromones, are associated with inducing positive or negative emotions. They are spread through body odour and transmit either alluring or fear-inducing chemo-signals into the surrounding atmosphere. Odour receptors in the perceiver determine whether the scent is deemed as aggressive or attractive. Exposure to the fear-inducing signals would then trigger a natural survival instinct in the receiver.

"In a normal person, a part of the brain known as the amygdala is responsible for regulating and tempering our perception of and reaction to aggression. This is monitored by the pre-frontal cortex of the brain and the more engaged it is, the better it is at controlling the aggressive response.

"I believe this fear-inducing chemo-signal that I am emitting is preventing communication between the perceiver's pre-frontal cortex and their amygdala. I agree with Severus that the receptor gene for the type of chemo-signal I am secreting, probably through my sweat, is most likely present only in muggles or else magic negates or filters its effects. That is why muggles react to me with aggression, but not magicals.

"While this might explain why muggles see me as a threat, it doesn't explain why my body is sending signals of that type. So, I also looked at the different dispersion possibilities, in particular, at sweat, since we already discussed a possible connection with scent. Glands that emit an odour are mostly located in the scalp, armpits and groin and are called apocrine glands. The sweat becomes smelly when it reacts to bacteria on the skin. A possible theory is that whatever spell was sent at me mutated the bacteria."

"Why would someone want to target your skin bacteria, Harry?" Poppy interjected. "That seems rather a long-term effect to use during a war. I would imagine whoever it was would want a more immediate response."

"I agree. I thought about that, too. I imagine that aiming a spell at my apocrine glands would take a bit more finesse than either the caster or situation could provide. It seems more likely that the spell, since it would have been based on dark magic, would have been designed to 'eat' away at my skin, but something modified the outcome – possibly my magic itself working towards self-preservation or even the spell my mother cast. Dumbledore once told me that her protection is in my very skin which was why Voldemort couldn't bear to touch me. Despite the fact that he took some of my blood to use for his resurrection, he did not take any of the skin."

"That's a sound theory and it would have the effects we've seen. Maybe we can either invent a spell or potion that would restore the original bacteria or possibly a sweat blocker for those areas if that doesn't work," Poppy suggested.

"Hmm," Severus contemplated. "I think we would need to examine the bacteria first to verify that theory, but it rings true to me as well. If we can't find a potion or spell, we could base a treatment on current muggle sweat therapies. If they work, we will try the magical equivalent."

"I'll take a small skin sample and a sweat sample now to investigate the bacteria," Poppy added. "In any case, I promised to tell you the results of the blood tests I carried out. You were correct in surmising that you have extremely low levels of vitamins and minerals, especially Vitamin D and calcium. While we can adjust your diet for proper intake now and prevent future damage, it cannot repair that which was caused already. We will have to hope that Severus' formulation for a magiglial restorative will do what is needed."

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A/N: I have had no medical training. All my information comes from various internet sites that I have summarized and streamlined for the average reader. I apologize for any mistakes I may have made and would appreciate being notified about anything that needs to be fixed.

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