AN: Hello! Thank for the response everyone!

Anyone who wants to be a Beta, please give me a PM. I'd like to avoid grammatical errors, so if someone would like to beta this story, it'd be great.

I've done some slight changes to the previous chapters, but they don't affect the story.

This chapter will try and show some of Harry's thought about these changes he's going through and that Hermione and Ron are still Harry's friends even if the friendship is troubled at the moment.

Chapter four

Unfortunately for Harry the examination did include professor Snape. After a series of incantations and quill dictation, Madame Pomfrey had a lengthy list of things that had happened to Harry as well as what was still broken or in need of repair according to the nurse.

Harry had most of the time healed his injuries via his magic apparently. But all bodies need a bit of help when you've had all you ribs broken at least three times, your right arm broken four times on different bones, multiple broken fingers and toes as well as bones in his hands. He had had over ten concussions. He'd had multiple abdominal bleeding. His nose had been broken, his teeth should have been so badly injured that he should have had to replace them. His growth was stunted. His eyesight was affected by his malnutrition. He had been dehydrated more times that it was practical to count. He'd broken both his collarbones. He'd dislocated his shoulders. He'd never received his muggle vaccination, but he had been given the two first out of four magical vaccinations before his parent's death. All in all he was a typical case of domestic abuse.

Madame Pomfrey had given him a bed and pyjamas, sent up a Gryffindor prefect to bring Harry his books and homework as well as sent a note to Oliver. It was after this note bringing that Professor Snape made his entrance. He looked a bit annoyed before Madame Pomfrey gave him the list and glared him into submission. Huffing, Snape began to read the list. He froze after the first lines and closed his eyes. Harry, whose sight had now returned to normal with his glasses on, thought the man looked almost pained. He sat the list down and turned around so that Harry couldn't see his face. Head bowed the Professor stood stock still. Madame Pomfrey sighed and turned to Harry.

"Your glasses don't really fit your prescription, but magic as well as the muscles around your eyes adapt. It's not good to do that, because it takes a lot of your magic to constantly try and heal something, uncontrolled and subconscious magic cannot fix all things and this needs focus. It also causes you headaches and damages your eyesight even more. However that shall soon be taken care of. A more pressing matter is the fact that you miss some of your vaccinations, are malnourished as well as in need of some treatments for you past injuries. Your magic reacted by instinct, but didn't get everything right. So you'll need to stay overnight and then take nutrition potions. I'll expect you to come here every week to do a check up until I'm happy. Than after Christmas I'll give you your last magical vaccination. Now do you understand everything?" Harry nodded.

"Yes Madame Pomfrey." Harry was more concerned about what role Snape would have in all of this. While the man hadn't behaved as usual around Harry, he still didn't want this professor to know about this. He didn't want anyone to know about this.

Snape gave Madame Pomfrey several potions who she started to administrate to Harry. Most of them actually tasted good. At Harry's surprised look she chuckled.

"Most kids don't like potions so the vaccinations were modified long ago to taste better. Easier for everybody involved when you're administrating potions to two year olds." Snape snorted as Harry smiled when he gulped down the last potion. He looked at Madame Pomfrey who looked a little troubled.

"Harry what they did to you is illegal. I swear to you I will not let you be placed there again, they will have to go through me first. However we need some memories from you. The times you received broken bones or that horrible bite marks on you left leg or your concussions. You don't have to give us all, but the more the better. This is confidential, the only ones who would be allowed to see them is the three of us, your head of house as well as child care investigators. None of us are allowed to speak about it other then in our profession amongst us, bound by a magical oath. Do you understand?" Looking down at his blanket Harry nodded as he fiddled with his sleeves. This would not be fun.

"Snape will help you retrieve the memories." Harry's head snapped up as he stared wide eyed at Madame Pomfrey. He did not want Snape in his head. The man looked at him without his usual sneer.

"I will only tech you how to retrieve your memory and store it into this." He held up a stone basin with runes alongside the rim. It was filled with some curious substance, neither gaseous nor fluid. Snape hesitated.

"Believe it or not Potter, but I like to form opinions on people that are correct. I like to think that I'm not foolish enough to hold onto an opinion that has been supported by flawed evidence. This doesn't mean I like you however." Harry looked at Snape thoughtfully.

"If I may say so professor, the feeling is mutual." Snape smirked a little before they began the process.

The process took some time, but in the end Harry had pulled out quite a lot of memories. The prefect had returned with Harry's books as well as his homework. In the middle of pulling out memories for the others to view Harry heard doors slam as Oliver entered the hospital wing in his quidditch robes. He looked quite distraught and Harry could imagine that he was here to get Harry.

"Professor, why is Harry here, it was only supposed to be an eye exam we need him on the pitch. We need practise, surely professor McGonagall you agree with me?" Oliver pleadingly said, directing the last bit to professor McGonagall who was walking out of Madame Pomfrey's office with Madame Pomfrey. Both scowled at Oliver.

"Mr Wood while I am an avid fan, Mr Potter is in the hospital wing. Until he is released from Madame Pomfrey's care I expect you to leave him to his rest." Before Oliver could protest Madame Pomfrey cut in.

"And he will not be released today. Unless you need my attention I suggest you leave before you disrupt our work." Oliver spluttered.

"But…" Snape had up until that point been focused in transferring the memory, but know he looked Oliver straight into his eyes. You could see Oliver shrink away from the glare.

"Mr Wood I have no intention to spend all of my Saturday here, so leave now." With no back up from professor McGonagall, Oliver slunk away muttering about the importance of practice. Professor McGonagall looked at Harry.

"Mr Potter, we have contacted protective child services, they will arrive soon. They will greet you shortly but then we will need to examine your memories. They will talk to you later. Now are you done with the memories?"

"I have a couple more, but I'm nearly done." Harry said quietly. Professor McGonagall nodded at him and smiled slightly.

"You're a good lad, Potter. Never forget that." Soon after that the officials had arrived and greeted him, thankfully with none of the boy-who-lived gawking, but a simple "Hello Mr Potter, we're officers Blake and McAllister." After that they had all converged in Madame Pomfrey's office had had been there for over an hour.

Now Harry looked up into the ceiling. He had his lenses installed so to speak on his eyes and could already feel the difference. He felt lighter somehow, probably a headache he hadn't even thought about. He knew that in Madame Pomfrey's office right now his memories were being reviewed by the two professors, the nurse and the two protective child service workers who had greeted him. Harry's stomach churned at the thought. He sighed.

Finally Harry couldn't stand it anymore. He knew that if the tried to leave, Madame Pomfrey would not let him get away with it. He was pretty sure she had in some former life (if one believed in reincarnation) been a prison guard. Therefore he used his only other option of escape. Homework.

The next day Harry was released. As it was the weekend, he at least hadn't missed much. While he had missed training, with the broom he was using at the moment he didn't get much out of it anyways. Harry was sure that Oliver would give him a play-by-play of the training even if Harry wouldn't want him to. Harry chuckled a little at the thought of his obsessive captain. While he did care a lot about quidditch, he liked flying more than he liked the game. However, telling Oliver that would be like kicking a puppy so Harry decided to just avoid him.

Yesterday Harry had been stuck for hours with nothing but his books to distract him. He had then finished what little homework he had left and done some reading ahead. He had been told by the child protective service people that he would under no circumstances go back to the Dursley's. He remembered the conversation.

"Mr Potter we have reviewed you medical records and your memories. Due to your special circumstances it would be dangerous to simply make you a ward of the ministry. So officially the Dursley's will still have custody. However you will not be allowed to return to them. We will consult with you before we reach a final placement. In the meantime Professor McGonagall will act as your guardian. By law since you have no close relatives, this is the appropriate response. As professor Dumbledore was responsible for placing you at the Dursley's he will not have any insight or say in this investigation." Harry nodded and felt relieved at the last comment, since Dumbledore had refused Harry's previous pleads about the Dursley's.

"I'll admit that I don't know much about custody proceedings in the muggle world, but I promise you that you will not be action off to the highest bidder, like in that story, what's it called? Oliver Twist." Harry felt relieved and managed to smile at the woman, as he had been thinking about that story. The Dursley's had encouraged Harry to read that book to appreciate his place with them.

"I promise you that you will have full confidentiality. No one apart from us will know about this investigation. Do you have any questions?" Harry had too many questions. He shook his head but received their owling address. Harry had felt relieved, but still anxious by not knowing what would happen.

Now in the Sunday morning, Harry had finally been released from the tender clutches of Madame Pomfrey. He had no idea how many people knew he had spent the evening in the hospital wing, but between a prefect getting his things and missing a practise, Harry figured that most of Gryffindor tower had heard about it. Since Harry didn't feel up to being interrogated Harry decided to try and find the kitchens instead. Penny, Luna and Cedric had mentioned that the kitchen was down in the basement. They were down the staircase that didn't lead to the dungeons and were apparently behind a painting of a fruit bowl and you were supposed to tickle a fruit. Feeling that he could always blame his visit to the hospital wing if he embarrassed himself Harry decided to try and find the kitchen.

He did find it, but not before Harry had tickled four of the different fruits until he found the right one. He had felt more than a little silly. He slunk into the kitchen to be greeted by a bunch of house elves. Harry looked around and was happy to see that they seemed to be much happier than Dobby and cleaner to with no injuries. Several of them approached him. They brought with them porridge, pumpkin juice and his nutrition potion.

"Thank you! How did you know about the potion? And what are your names?" They smiled pleased with his praise.

"Madame Pomfrey told us, now eat up sir. My name's Mimsy." Harry did eat and was given several parcels with food and snacks for the day. Before he left he turned to the one who had answered Harry earlier.

"Are you happy here?" They all nodded and thanked him for his concern. Mimsy tilted her head seemingly to silently ask him a question.

"It's just that I met a house elf last year and he was definitely not treated well."

"Some masters are bad. We tell about them so that no other house elf ends up there. Most masters are good and we're family." They shooed Harry out and he almost collided with Susan who smirked at him.

"Nice, tripping over people now, Potter. Perhaps Madame Pomfrey let you out to soon?" Harry grimaced. Did the entire school know? When he vocalised that thought Susan grins.

"Of course everybody knows. When you weren't at breakfast Terry, Luna and I decided to look for you, they went to the library and I went to the kitchen. Come on let's meet up with them and then we can go outside. It's actually decent weather today. It might be the last decent autumn day." With that she dragged Harry away while Harry smiled at her.

Once outside they spent their time bouncing rocks onto the lake from the far side, with the small forest between the gates from the train station and the lake. It was a long walk but the weather was nice, just as Susan had said. The giant squid apparently thought the bouncing rocks were funny and seemed to try and play some form of baseball with them. After some time playing squirt baseball one of the rocks suddenly hurled right back at Terry. He quickly dived out of the way as the rest first stood a bit shocked then laughed at Terry's dismay when he realised that he had managed to land in a puddle.

"It looks like I had an accident. Merlin, why does this always happen to me?" Susan snickered as she waved her wand. A drying charm later all was well.

"Thanks Susan. Why don't we head back, it's nearly eleven."

"Sure, I don't want to end up in the hospital wing again." Harry quipped. They decided to slowly walk back to the castle, jumping down from stones and giggling as they raced each other over the flat part before the came to a rockier patch.

"Do you want to talk about it Harry? I hope it wasn't prolonged exposure to Heliwasps." Luna was the first to bring up why Harry had been in the hospital wing but did so a bit timidly. Harry smiled at her.

"No it wasn't exposure to Heliwasps, but thank you for your concern. I was fitted for my lenses and theydiscoverthatIhadneverbeentothedoctor." They all blinked at him.

"Come again?" Terry was the first to recover.

"Since I went to the Dursley's I've never been to a doctor, a muggle healer to get vaccinations and stuff." They nodded and left the matter. While it was obvious that there was more to it, none of them forced Harry to talk more about it. Harry was very thankful for that. He didn't really want to talk about it, not yet anyway. Unfortunately all didn't respect this. When Harry finally returned to the common room he met Ron and Hermione who both looked worried and upset.

"Harry, are you alright! Madame Pomfrey said you left hours ago!" Harry smiled and hugged Hermione and did the man shake with Ron.

"No I'm fine, they just needed to fix my eyes and then they discovered I hadn't gotten all my vaccinations." Ron seemed to accept that and sat down before a chess set.

"It's not good that you missed the practice, Wood was really annoyed. Couldn't you get them some other time?" Sighing, but knowing that he hadn't told them everything, so Ron couldn't really understand exactly why Harry had to miss practise.

"Escaping Madame Pomfrey is no easy feat, mate. I've spent enough time there to know that." Ron grunted in response and seemed annoyed that no one seemed inclined to play with him. Hermione didn't seem to be satisfied with Harry's answers though.

"Well, why haven't you had your vaccinations? That shouldn't have taken all night so why did you have to stay? We were really worried Harry and then you didn't even come to find us when you got out!" Harry closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath. He knew Hermione reacted like this when she was worried. He didn't really like it but he knew it was her way of showing she cared, just as Ron just couldn't understand why Harry had to stay instead of playing.

"I met Susan Bones and took a walk with her, Terry Boot and Luna Lovegood from Ravenclaw. It was nice to stretch my legs after being stuck in the hospital wing. I didn't think you'd worry, since I was there for the eye thing and a prefect came with a note. I'm sorry if I worried you." Hermione flung her arms around him and sighed.

"Of course we worried mate. But you seem alright to me now. If your hungry, lunch's soon and I'm starving." Laughing at the very Ron comment, Harry agreed with him and the friends went down to lunch. Even if Harry found several things with Ron and Hermione annoying they were still his friends and after two years Harry still wasn't really accustomed to someone worrying over his wellbeing.

During lunch Harry found his nutrition potion next to his plate as he sat down. He smiled thinking about Mimsy. He'd need to go down and thank the house elves. Harry didn't have time to go down to the kitchen that day as the Gryffindor's threw a party due to Harry's lack of glasses, the twins had as with every party smuggled a lot of food and snacks up from the kitchen. Well Harry becoming glassless was the excuse anyway. He thought it might have more to do with the uppers years desire to party a bit before the gruelling years of OWLs and NEWTs continued. No matter the reason the party was fun as butterbear, pumpkin juice and various snacks were put up and consumed. In one corner there was an impromptu gobstones tournament as well as an exploding snap competition. Other talked and laughed in groups as most tried to relax. Harry spent most of the party relaxing and listening to others. Oliver had cornered him and given him the play by play of the practise, but Harry had sort of tuned him out after the first quarter of an hour.

"… and then the twins shot the bludger at me so I had to talk with them a bit, but than we practised the girl's new formation and I think it works really well but they need to adjust the distance between them…" The party continued until the prefects realised it was a school night and shooed the students back to bed.

"Come on Perce, there's still time! Come on have a butterbear!" Harry smirked as he heard the twins as they tried to cajole their head boy brother to let the party continue.

"Absolutely not! Tomorrow's Monday and it's already late. The younger years should have been in bed ages ago!" Amidst some muttering all went back to bed, but most seemed to be too tired to complain.

As he went to bed that evening Harry thought about the changes during the past months. For the first time since he was seven or eight he felt that he could do well in school. He had almost forgotten the feeling. He remembered vividly when uncle Vernon had looked at one of his report cards one day, instead of just ignoring him. Uncle Vernon had turned purple and given Harry a thrashing for cheating and sabotaging Dudley. Harry had gotten really high scores and a note from the teacher complimenting his hard work. Harry liked school. He liked reading. He could escape from reality with stories and other things. The Dursley's couldn't kill Harry's curiosity or his desire to escape. He still did the assignments, he just made sure the thing he handed in wasn't great just passable. He berated himself for not going back to his previous hard work when he came to Hogwarts. Why had he made sure to perform just as Ron?

Harry realised with a heavy feeling, that he had been afraid that if he was different from Ron, Ron would stop being Harry's friend. It was not a nice thought. Harry guessed he still didn't really trust others to care for him or like him for who he was. The whole boy-who-lived thing hadn't helped with the whole trust issue.

Harry didn't want to continue like that. He liked getting praise from the teacher and the feeling when he understood the runes or solved an arithmancy problem. He liked being good at defence, getting things quicker in charms and having less potion mishaps. What Harry liked most of all however was getting to know new people during his new lessons and the language groups. Cedric, Luna, Penny, Susan and Terry were the persons he was the closest to but there were also others who he knew by name and what they liked and could talk to. Perhaps, Harry thought, change isn't so bad. He had much to do already, but perhaps he could check if there was some other group he could join. If it was some form of physical training he could even get Wood to agree with the idea. A thought struck Harry just as he started to relax enough to fall asleep; perhaps he could learn to swim properly. Now he just managed to stay afloat. With a smile Harry finally went to sleep.