Chapter seven
Harry, Severus and Albus stepped into the hospital wing, they saw Poppy setting up her potions cabinet.
'Poppy, have you got a few minutes to spare?'
'Of course Albus, what can I do for you?'
'I explained to Harry about a procedure that would help reduce his scars, he wants to know more about it.'
'It's a very painful procedure Harry and can take a long time before all your scars are either healed completely or faded.'
'Yeah, Sev explained, but I want this,' Harry sighed, 'Professor Dumbledore told me about your diagnostic charm, all these were done before I turned eleven. My aunt used make up to hide them whenever they allowed me out; I used it when I started here. Once I found out about the glamour charm I learned to use that.'
'After that article Harry has decided to release a statement about how he came to have those scars and why he is only now showing them,' Albus said.
'I'm sorry you were treated that way Harry, so if you wish to have this procedure then I will arrange it.'
'Can you explain how it works?'
'Are you sure you want to hear the details?'
'Yes, I've heard hard stuff before, it never stopped me.'
'Very well, first I slice the skin away from one scar, we do it one at a time. I treat the exposed flesh with specialized salves and charms. It has to remain like that for four hours. During that time I remove another piece of skin of the same size, treat it with another salve and charms, where I removed the skin will be healed straight away even if it will be tender for a while. Four hours later I will charm the skin in place, it's treated again with yet another salve then left to heal. You will have a numbing spell used during this time, it's the first few days after that you will feel the pain as the numbing spell can't be used. I need to know what you're feeling along with what it looks like so I can make sure it's healing right and there is no infection. Yes, you can have a pain potion, but nothing strong, then for five days it will need treatment, charms and more salve.'
'So where you remove the skin, it won't scar?'
'No, but since you explained that these were done by muggles and not magic, especially dark magic, I could say with almost certainty that those scars will heal completely, you will not even know they were there once it's done. It's magical scars that usually can't be healed completely, and scars done by dark magic will always scar.'
'Like my head, Professor Dumbledore explained about that.'
'Yes, nothing would work on that scar. Do you have scars that was caused by magic, whether light or dark magic?'
'Yeah, a few, nothing on my face or neck though, my arms and legs have those, one of my chest.'
'Then the most I can do is make some of the scarring less noticeable.'
'I'm not worried about this one I just want to know if the one I got from the basilisk fang could be healed. Fawkes saved me with his tears, but there is a small scar?'
'That will be hard to say right now, phoenix tears have never been studied, so for all I know he healed it enough that would let me do the rest. Basilisk venom is highly toxic and normally kills.'
Poppy, Albus and Severus watched Harry thinking, 'What do you want to do love, you can just go back to using the glamour charm?'
'No, there's been times I forgot about it, I want the main ones done, the ones everyone can see. But the ones on my…' Harry hesitated as he lowered his head.
'Yes, we saw them Harry, I can do them as well,' Poppy said kindly.
'Okay, are you okay seeing the others Sev?'
'I'm fine with all of them but you need to feel good about yourself.'
'Then I want to do this, my face first if it's okay?'
'I will get everything ready, I just need to make the salves you will need, I have the potions. So how about we work this for Monday of next week, first thing in the morning, no breakfast.'
'Sounds good, thanks Madame Pomfrey.'
'You're welcome Harry.'
'Now how about we go work on that statement?' Albus asked.
'Yeah, I want them to realise that it didn't work, whatever they wanted to achieve.'
Severus slipped his arm around Harry and they followed Albus up to his office where they sat and discussed what to release in the statement. Harry was fine with everything apart from the sexual abuse he went through. Albus sent the statement off with one of the school owls while Harry and Severus headed back down to help with repairs again. They were outside working on the walls of the courtyard when they heard Harry's name called.
'Neville, Seamus, Dean, what are you doing here?'
'Something we heard and I want to hear the truth from you, mainly because of all the lies that get written about you. I can see what was written is true, but why you're showing them now is not what I'm sure about.'
'None of it was true apart from the fact I'm no longer hiding my scars.'
'Harry just had Albus release a statement about the true facts regarding his scars,' Severus said.
'We never saw them after you killed Voldemort, why?' Seamus asked.
Severus could see Harry was feeling uncomfortable, 'They will read the truth tomorrow love.'
Harry sighed, 'They weren't done by Voldemort, I've had these since I was a kid, before I started here. My muggle relatives did all this. I'm going to have this procedure done to remove them or at least they won't be so noticeable.'
'So how come we never saw them that first day here?' Dean asked.
'I used woman's makeup until I learned how to do the glamour charm; that was three weeks after we started.'
'Why did you want to hide them?' Neville asked sadly.
'After Hagrid told me about my parents and Voldemort, the name I was known as, the attention I got that day I went to get my Hogwarts stuff, I realise how much attention I was going to get, I didn't want anymore, I didn't want any of it. You know how I am, or you should, I hate the way everyone treats me. Back then, it made me feel guilty. I hear that my parents were murdered by this psychopath that wanted to kill me. I knew nothing about my parents or that I was a wizard until Hagrid came to tell me because Dumbledore knew I wasn't getting my letters. They kept taking them, burning them so I couldn't see where they came from. So after all that the last thing I wanted to do was draw more attention to myself.'
'We never knew you didn't know about your parents, everyone knew,' Seamus said.
'I didn't.'
'Who wrote that story for the Daily Prophet, Skeeter?' Neville asked.
'We don't think so, we believe it was three people or one of those three people,' Severus said as he slipped his arm around Harry, pulling him close, 'Harry explained to Ron, Hermione and Ginny about our bond, how Harry's mother performed the bonding ceremony when he was only six months old. I knew what Lily was asking of me, but she knew I would do anything for her. Ginny stormed out of the great hall accusing Harry of ruining her life, Ron was angry that his sister was hurt and Hermione wanted Harry to break the bond, which would mean I die.'
'No one hurts you Sev, no one. My mother knew this bond would work, she must have known there was more to us than she led you to believe. Dumbledore said our feelings shouldn't have been this strong so soon, but they are,' Harry sighed again as he put his head on Severus' shoulder.
'Right after we read the article, Harry came out here, I found him down at the black lake,' Severus smiled down at Harry, 'I saw Ron and Hermione down at the gate, staring in. I can only assume they wanted to see Harry's reaction.'
'But apart from Ginny, why would Hermione and Ron do this?'
'Hermione said to me once that when she marries Ron and I marry Ginny we would be family. She realised that wouldn't happen but maybe it was what I said that day, something I don't really mean but I wasn't going to let Sev die. I think Ron took me seriously.'
Severus could see by Harry's face that whatever he said must have been bad, now he wondered if Harry would tell him.
'What did you say Harry?' Severus asked cautiously.
'That I wasn't going to let you die, that they wouldn't let Fred die. The bonding spell that Dumbledore activated with us was the same with Fred and George. I said I was going to be a right bastard since Ron calls me that quite a lot. I said if the bond was going to be reversed on Sev then it should be reversed on Fred, meaning they both die. I just wanted Ron to understand what he was asking, he doesn't want to lose his brother, I don't want to lose you, the only family I have. I've lost enough, I couldn't lose you too,' Harry moved out from Severus' arms and ran into the castle.
'Harry suffers from depression, sometimes it gets too much for him to handle. He suffered as a child, then as a teenager. The last few weeks has been the only time Harry hasn't suffered, but someone is trying to hurt Harry with this. I better go make sure he's alright.'
'Tell him we don't believe he wanted attention, we know he didn't. If Ron or Hermione did that then they've lost us as friends.'
'Thank you Neville, I'm sure Harry will appreciate your support.'
Neville, Seamus and Dean watched as Snape walked into the castle, 'So Harry's mother bonded them together, she must have known something no one else did. Harry dated Cho and Ginny, now he's married to Snape,' Seamus said, 'who is actually being nice.'
'Do you think that's part of the bond Neville, we're both halfbloods, we don't know as much as you would?' Dean asked.
'No, the bond wouldn't change anyone; it joins two people and will bring out hidden feelings if there is any. I think how Snape just was, is how he really is. Remember that article by Dumbledore, it said Snape acted the part of a death eater so he could spy for Dumbledore. Think of this as well, if Lily Potter did this, then she must have known Snape. But why would Hermione and Ron hurt Harry like this, Ron I get in a way, Ginny never stopped talking about Harry, hoping they would get back together.'
'It said in that article about Harry and Snape's marriage that Harry was never told, that Dumbledore didn't think it would be needed so he never told him about this bond. I know I didn't trust Harry that time when Voldemort returned and I learned my lesson, Harry doesn't lie. If he knew about this bond I don't think he would have dated either girl.' Seamus said.
'He looked a little uncomfortable explaining, do you think there's more to this than what he said?' Dean asked.
'Maybe, we'll see what's written tomorrow, but going on what we saw and the way he looked, yeah, I think there is. But after hearing this and how Harry seemed uncomfortable, I will never forgive Ron and Hermione for this. Let's go and hope there is nothing else written that can hurt Harry.'
Severus couldn't find Harry anywhere, checking their room first, but since there was a lot of the castle still damaged, there wasn't many places Harry could hide, if that's what he was doing. Maybe he just needed to think about everything, the article, his scars, Severus realised that maybe Harry should have kept his glamour on until he had the procedure done. Ever since Harry took his glamour off, he has hardly smiled, hadn't laughed once and last night all he did was turn over and go to sleep. Severus checked everywhere again before he stepped into his rooms and heard a sound, that's when he saw Harry, sitting in the dark corner beside the large cabinet. The sound was Harry's sniffs and realised he was crying, something he'd never seen Harry do.
Severus sat beside Harry, pulled him into his arms, 'Everyone will know the truth tomorrow, they won't be able to hurt you with lies again.'
'It's not just that, I've been doing a lot of thinking, trying to find out why they would do this. Fine, Ginny's hurt but I told you I never thought it would work anyway.'
'So did you come to any other conclusion apart from Ginny being hurt?'
'Money,' Harry slowly looked up, 'Sirius left me a fortune, I don't want it, I've never touched it. All I did was ask Dumbledore to get an inventory in case there was something he left for me, something personal.'
'Why would you believe it's money?'
'Right after we started dating, not right after, about six weeks or so, Ginny was talking to me about when the war was over. She mentioned going on a holiday, just the two of us. The thing is she wanted to travel, see different countries, then she mentioned some hotel that Bill told her about in Egypt, not a cheap one either. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but she must have thought I would pay for it, she doesn't have anything, neither does the Weasley's.'
'Did you ever tell her how much your godfather left you?'
Harry gave a small smile, 'You can't say his name, can you Sev?'
'At least I did not call him some of the other names I used to describe him. Now answer the question.'
'I told Hermione and Ron that the Blacks were rich, I never said how much. The Dursley's were greedy people, Hagrid explained that the vault I was left by my parents had some gold, but a few years ago I realise it wasn't a lot, I just figured their jobs didn't pay well. I found out the vault Hagrid took me to was just set up to use until I turn seventeen. Dumbledore said he did that in case the Dursley's found out, they would have made me give them all of it, this was after he explained about blood wards. The Dursley's would use the argument that they fed and looked after me since I was a baby. My parent's left me another vault, it was pretty full. Even though I trusted Ron and Hermione, knowing there is people out there that would try to get money out of me, I decided to keep it to myself, but it was more. The Weasley's never had much so I didn't want to make them feel uncomfortable. But the main reason was I've been betrayed before, it hurts so I wasn't going to risk it again. I don't really care about the money, I never had any growing up, I got used to getting by, but I won't let anyone use me for it.'
'Do you believe I would or that I knew you had money?'
'No, I trust you completely.'
'You did not ask if I knew.'
'I don't need to know Sev; that day we bought the rings showed me everything I needed. You went to pay for rings that were expensive, platinum with moonstones. Now I have no idea if you have money apart from your wages as a teacher but you were going to pay for it. If you wanted me for my money you wouldn't have offered. We don't know each other that well Sev so you wouldn't know if I would have let you pay for them or not. What you did told me the truth even though I knew in my heart what the truth was.'
'I have a little my parents left me when they died, those rings would have taken all of it, but I would have paid for them. But no, I had no idea if you had any money, the day with the rings let me know you had some, probably from…Sirius, but not how much. I did not realise the Blacks still had money, and that came down to how Grimmauld placed looked. So I figured all he left you was the house, it's contents, the house elf and maybe a little gold and that's what you used to pay for the rings.'
'I used my parent's money to pay for them, my money. I found out that my mother was left a lot by an aunt who never had kids of her own, but she loved my mother, hated Petunia who got nothing. The main vault was my father's money, from his wages and their savings, the other vault was the one my mother set up for me if she died. I just thought you should know that your old enemy didn't pay for these rings, I didn't want you to feel uncomfortable accepting something that was paid for by my father, in a way.'
'Like my money came from my parents, it is now mine, you are the same, it's yours. But I do not want you buying me anything. Like you, I live a simple life, I am not one for a lot of material things.'
'Yeah, I've worked that out. But one thing I would like to do, for us, maybe after the next school year.'
'And what would that be?'
'Could we buy a house that we could share, away from here?'
'Then I will pay half, I have to sell that old house that my parents owned, I do not like being there.'
Harry smiled, 'If you want Sev and I would probably say the same thing.'
'Now let's get off this floor and go make love, I am going to make you beg to be fucked my love.'
Harry groaned softly but allowed Severus to pull him to his feet then straight into the bedroom.
