A lot of things happened to Harry even before he even had time to come to Hogwarts. First a strange house elf, then a flying car, a Weasley house and an enchanted platform. Now Potter was sitting on the windowsill in the closed ladies' room and staring at the beautiful night sky. He was incredibly glad that he was back in the school of wizardry and magic, away from the Dursley and beatings.

"How I would like to fly now," the boy sighed, the sky was clear, and the moon was shining brightly like the sun.

"Yes, the weather is just right for a night walk," Ron commented. He stood next to the window and looked in his bag for ointment for wounds and scars.

"I don't understand why you like flying so much, especially at night?" Hermione sat on the windowsill, leaning against the window and peering into the void of the night.

"You don't understand, you have to feel it."

"That's right, to feel this boundless freedom of flight, adrenaline when you do some dangerous stunt. When I am on a broomstick, I seem to find myself in another world, a world without limits, a world where I am free as a bird."

"What nonsense," the girl snorted a little annoyed, "you'd better learn the way you talk about brooms."

"Oh no," Ron began arguing, but Harry decided to prevent further wrangling.

"Let's get down to business?" he offered, and his friends willingly agreed.

"Let me check your hand first, and Ron will take care of your back?" Potter nodded and cautiously turned his back to the Weasleys and Granger, and began unbuttoning his shirt. When the shirt finally flew to the side, there were two shocked gasps.

"For what?" this is the only thing Hermione could ask, the wounds were really frightening, and the scars under them are even worse. True, through the efforts of Ron and Hermione, most of them were almost invisible.

"A parting gift," Potter grunted and told him everything that happened to him during the holidays, including a strange house elf named Dobby.

"This is damn suspicious," Ron sighed, carefully treating the wounds of the boy who survived with a potion of various medicinal herbs.

"Give me your hand," Granger asked, as Harry obeyed, she gently ran her wand over the brunet's arm and the disguise spell disintegrated and bandages appeared on his arm. Apparently, the spell was adjusted by Ron, it was rather loose, since Ron's parents were not very attentive due to their constant employment. After the girl took off the bandages, she saw several bruises, as if someone had grabbed him hard, some were smaller, some more, and there was a severe bruise in the area of the wrist.

"You seem a little better," Ron commented when he saw that some of the bruises had faded from the time he treated them with the cooling potion in the Burrow.

"Yeah, the bruises are almost gone, and the hand isn't hurting that much anymore," Potter sometimes moaned softly as Hermione changed the bandages and the Weasley began to handle the horrific beatings on his back. Finally, the girl finished and sat on the edge of the window sill. During the bandaging, she and Ron got into an argument and Harry, as always, had to calm them both down. He never liked it when his two best friends fought, especially when he was the cause of the skirmish.

"I'm just afraid that something might happen to you if you return to this house," Granger had tears in his eyes, so Potter tried to calm his friend down, he sat down next to the windowsill and took her hand.

"Everything will be fine, I promise. Nothing will happen to me," he whispered in her ear, stroking her hand. Ron sat down on the other side and also began to calm her down. The time was approaching morning, so the three Gryffindor decided to return to their tower as soon as possible, but first they decided to go to the Forbidden Forest tomorrow to find some herbs for the potion. They had no idea that they were being watched when they returned to their living room, although they felt the presence of someone superfluous.

The lessons went by pretty quickly, although the three of them looked rather tired after yesterday's walk. During this time, Hermione was able to get some ingredients for the potion. On their way to their final lesson, they managed to meet Percy.

"You don't look good," he remarked, carefully examining the faces of his brother and his friends, pushing them into one of the secluded corners of the corridor so that no one overheard them.

"We dealt with Harry's wounds yesterday," the younger Weasley whispered. The only one at Hogwarts who knew that Harry had family problems besides Ron and Hermione were Percy, Fred and George, and Snape, though Harry didn't know about it. Ron's brothers found out about Potter's secret only recently in the Burrow. Then they accidentally saw how their younger brother was providing medical assistance to the boy who survived. It took a lot of effort then to persuade the brothers not to tell anyone. True, the Weasley brothers delivered an ultimatum, either Harry himself tells one of the adults about his plight in the Muggle family before the end of the school year, or they will do it themselves.

"And today we are going to the Forbidden Forest," whispered Harry, "we ran out of the necessary herbs for the potion," Percy sighed heavily and ran his hand over his face.

"You're not going anywhere tonight," the elder Weasley shook his head, before any of the Golden Trio began to resent, he continued, "I'm going, it's not as dangerous for me to walk in the woods as for the three of you."

"Are you sure? We can go ourselves, or I'm alone if you're worried about Ron." Harry didn't want to burden anyone with something so stupid.

"I'm worried about the three of you, and as the headman I cannot let sophomores wander around the Forbidden Forest alone, so I'm your best bet." I'll meet you after lights out in the ladies' restroom on the second floor, I'll get all the herbs you need.

"But how will you get out of Hogwarts unnoticed?" Hermione asked, although she trusted Percy and knew he would be relatively safe in the woods because he knew a lot more spells than Harry and Ron, but she wanted to make sure he was okay.

"You didn't think only the twins knew the secret passages at Hogwarts, did you?" The elder Weasley asked sarcastically and disappeared around the next corner, hurrying to his lesson. Three children shrugged their shoulders and also ran to their lesson.

Percy made his way through the bushes to the Forbidden Forest. In fact, it was easier for the headman to slip out of school after lights out than for an ordinary student. Especially if you use the secret passages that are located throughout the castle. The Forbidden Forest was eerily quiet at night, although many of the Gryffindor and Slytherin loved to walk through the forest in secret from their teachers. It was one of the common features of the warring houses, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff would never go into the forest, especially at night. Some were afraid of him, others were simply not interested in him, and the third were smart enough to know what dangers the forest poses. But the Gryffindors and Slytherin were attracted by something unknown to him, perhaps it was the taboo and Percy would have lied if he had said that he had never made night forays into the forest. In fact, almost every student of the two faculties was in the forest more than once, because the forest had its own enchanting charm, albeit frightening. Now the Forbidden Forest frightened Percy and he knew that he should not go too far, otherwise he could get into trouble, since almost all the herbs that he needed to collect grew close to the edge. No one knew why this was happening, but everyone knew that the forest has its own special magic. Of course, all walks did not go too deep into the forest, both heads of the faculties specially put special signs every year to show where the end of the road is.

Percy had already gone to the edge and was about to go deep, but before that happened he was pulled by the collar of his robes.

"Going somewhere, Mr. Weasley?" I heard an angry cold whisper right over the ear of the red-haired boy. Everything went cold inside Percy, he stumbled upon exactly the teacher whom he most did not want to meet. When the boy turned around, he saw the terrible Potions teacher Professor Snape. The elder Weasley tried to explain, but before he could say anything, he was pulled rather roughly towards the castle. And the guy literally prayed to Merlin that Severus Snape did not take off his glasses from Gryffindor because of him.