AUTHOR'S NOTES: I've provided some background on Dominic, Adele, Jessica, and Isabelle Potter along with details of their disabilities. Hope this helps answer some questions.

Chapter 2

Dominic

5 Years Ago

Dominic Potter was not afraid of Severus Snape. Oh, he knew he should be but Dom refused to be intimidated by a teacher who dressed like an oversized bat with greasy black hair.

It was nearly Halloween and while the rest of the students in his year were looking forward to the Hogwarts feast, Dom was more focused on finishing his essay for Potions before class began. Finishing the last few lines, Dom quickly stashed his quill and ink away just as Snape burst into the classroom.

"I do not recall giving you permission to be in the classroom early, Potter," Snape said, his tone icy.

"Wasn't hungry so I figured I'd get in early and finish my essay," Dom replied, handing over the roll of parchment.

Snape snatched the roll from Dominic's hand and swept over to his desk, reading the young man's essay as he went. Turning sharply towards Dom, Snape frowned. "Why would you add chamomile to a potion to remove boils?"

"It helps reduce redness to the affected areas of the skin," Dom replied, simply. "It also keeps the potion from stinging when applied to more… sensitive areas."

Snape didn't reply as he finished reading over the essay. Grabbing his own quill he quickly scrawled something at the top of the parchment before handing it back to Dom.

Dom gave the professor a quick nod as he looked at the 'acceptable' written at the top of the essay. When the other students began to come into the room, Dom shoved his essay back into his bag and pulled out his ingredients and small cauldron.

Sitting next to Adele in class, Dom watched as she carefully chopped her herbs and added them to the bubbling cauldron. While Dom liked the Potions theory just fine, he was always nervous about actually brewing the potions. Adele, on the other hand, was just like her mother in that she seemed to be able to mix just about any potion from memory.

Going to grab a fresh package of wormwood from the student stores, Dom had just walked past one of the other stations when there was a sudden small explosion and clouds of thick smoke started billowing up from the cauldron. Getting a face full of smoke, Dom started coughing and he backed away quickly as his eyes started burning as though someone had sprayed him in the face with acid.

Tripping over someone's bag, Dom fell backwards, cracking the back of his head against the stone floor and losing consciousness.

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Dominic knew that he had regained consciousness only because he could feel his head throbbing and his eyes burning still. But beyond that, he didn't know anything about where he was or how long he'd been out. Raising a hand to his head, he felt a thick turban of bandages. His eyes were covered by bandages as well and Dom suddenly wondered how bad he'd been hurt.

"Dom," a young, female voice said, sounding relieved. "It's me."

"Addie," Dom said, happy to have his sister there.

"I'm right here," Adele assured her brother as she sat on the edge of the bed after Dom sat up. "It'll be okay, Dom."

Touching the back of his head, Dom winced as his fingers lightly probed the tender area. "How long was I out?"

"A few days," Adele replied, taking his hand. "Mum and Dad are talking with Dumbledore and Madame Pomfrey."

Hearing the slight catch in Adele's voice, Dom sat up a bit more, ignoring the monstrous headache building. "How bad?" When she didn't reply, Dom asked her again. "Adele, how bad is it?"

"You had really bad chemical burns to your eyes from the smoke and fumes," Adele explained. "The head injury didn't help."

Dom didn't say anything for a while—not until he heard his parents' voices as they gathered around his bed. "What now?" he asked, wanting to know what would happen to him.

"Adele told you what happened?" Lily asked, sitting on the edge of her son's bed. When Dominic nodded, Lily sighed and squeezed his hand. "Madame Pomfrey said she tried everything possible. But there's no way to fix the damage caused by the burns and the head injury."

As the weight of the news started to come down on him, Dominic tried to think of what his family was telling him. He was blind. He couldn't see and likely he'd never be able to again. "What about school?" Dom finally asked. How could he do magic if he couldn't see what he was doing?

"Dumbledore said he'd start helping you adjust," James replied. "There's no reason you can't stay at Hogwarts, son."

Dom nodded, but he wasn't quite sure if he shared his parents' confidence in his future at Hogwarts.

Jessica

When Jessica was born 15 years ago, Lily and James were shocked when they saw her right leg. Her knee was bent the wrong way and the bend of her ankle was far to sharp for an infant. After Jessica was cleaned up, the healers immediately went to work trying to correct the malformations to Jessica's leg but nothing worked.

Two months later, James and Lily ended up taking Jessica to the Rowena Medical Complex—the only hospital in Europe which combined magical and muggle medicine—for treatment.

After getting magical scans, x-rays, and MRIs of Jessica's leg—Dr. Elise Brennan, the chief pediatric orthopedic surgeon, and Gail Halleck, the head healer at the hospital—met with James and Lily in the children's ward of the hospital.

"Mr. and Mrs. Potter?" Dr. Brennan said as she walked up to the two who were standing next to Jessica's crib.

"Yes?" Lily replied, looking up hopefully.

"I'm Dr. Brennan," Elise said, before indicating her companion. "This is Gail Halleck. We're handling your daughter's case."

"Oh," Lily said, softly. "Can you help her?"

Gail hesitated for a second before she replied, "Typically in a situation like this we would magically sever the limb before using potions to regrow the leg."

Lily looked horrified at that news and looked imploringly at the healer and doctor. "There has to be something else you can do besides cutting off Jessica's leg."

Elise looked patient as she said, "We won't be doing an amputation, Mrs. Potter. With Jessica's resistance to magical healing, we'd likely be unable to regrow her leg. Meaning that your daughter would need to use a prosthetic later on."

"We will, however, still need to operate on Jessica's leg," Gail added. "And likely she'll need further surgery when she gets older."

"What kind of surgery?" Lily asked as she felt James put his arm around her.

"We'll have to essentially fracture Jessica's ankle and knee," Elise replied. "She'll also need multiple screws and pins to make sure that the adjustments are maintained. Afterwards, Jessica will have to be in a lower body cast for approximately 3 months. After a year and a half, we'll double-check the scans and re-evaluate the need for further surgery."

"What do you mean, Jessica will be in a lower body cast?" James asked, not liking the sound of it.

Gail stepped closer to the crib and reached in to show James on Jessica what she was talking about. "Jessica will be in the cast from the upper part of her left leg and her entire right leg up to just below her armpits."

Seeing tears falling down Lily's cheeks as she looked down at her baby girl, James pulled his wife into a hug. "It'll be okay, Lily. It'll be okay."

7 Years Later

As they watched Jessica be wheeled into the operating room at the Rowena Medical Complex, James and Lily hoped it would be the last time their daughter needed surgery on her leg. The past 7 years had been hard on everyone and sometimes James thought that he and Lily spent more time in the hospital than at home, especially considering that their youngest child, Isabelle had severe throat problems and had undergone a tracheotomy 3 years ago.

As they sat in the surgical waiting room, Lily didn't look at James until she finally asked, "What's wrong with our family?"

"Jess is going to be fine," James said, although the words had crossed his lips so often that even he didn't really believe them anymore.

"It's not just Jessica, James," Lily sighed, turning to her husband. "It's tragic, what she's been through and if were just her, it'd be one thing. But Isabelle, too? James, it feels like our family is cursed somehow."

James took Lily's hands in his and waited until she looked at him. "Lily, we will get through this, alright? Cursed or not, we're a family and we can deal with this."

Lily closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to draw upon her inner strength as a mother. It hurt her to see her children hurt and thinking of Isabelle and the tube doctors had inserted into her trachea so she could breathe—not to mention the image of Jessica after her last surgery in a full leg cast—just made things worse.

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One of Jessica's earliest memories was lying in the hospital when she was about 2 years old, unable to move her lower body except for her left foot.

As she woke up in the hospital after her most recent surgery, Jessica noticed that her right leg was once again in a cast almost up to her hip. She hated being in hospitals all the time and wished she could play like a normal girl her age. But because there was something wrong with her knee and ankle, Jessica couldn't do things like that. In fact, for the past year and a half, she couldn't even walk because of the pain and instability of her right leg.

According to her parents, this surgery should be the last, but Jessica wasn't sure. That's what they'd said the last time, after all.

3 Years Later

Physical therapy never got any easier, Jessica thought as she sat in the PT room of the hospital. She'd been doing better lately, though, and it wasn't as painful to put weight on her right leg as she walked, but she still relied heavily on the elbow crutches as her leg wasn't strong enough to bear much weight.

The past year she'd been trying harder to strengthen her right leg but the increased effort hadn't yielded the results she'd been hoping for. As it was, Jessica was only a bit better at going up and down stairs and getting around the house. But the steps at home were one thing.

Being able to navigate the magical staircases at Hogwarts would be an entirely different challenge.

As Jessica worked with the therapists on her leg exercises, she also thought about her brothers and sisters. Just last week, Dominic had been blinded in a potions accident and was now working with a tutor who was helping him learn Braille and how to use his magic without being able to see. And then there was Isabelle who most certainly was having a hard time currently. After several throat collapses, Izzy's doctors had inserted a tube directly into her trachea in order to maintain her airway.

It was certainly a hard time to be a Potter, Jessica decided after a while. As she slowly stood, steadying herself with the crutches, she wondered why her family seemed to be cursed.

Adele

3 Months Ago

The only member of the Potter family better at Quidditch than Harry was Adele. James had named her after his aunt who had been the first member of the Potter family to play Quidditch professionally.

Playing on the Gryffindor team as a chaser, Addie was swift and agile in the air, able to quickly dodge her opponents and the bludgers flying about. She'd started playing in her 3rd year and had helped Gryffindor win the Team Cup for the past two years.

On a warm, sunny summer day, Adele was over at the Weasleys working on some new Quidditch moves for the upcoming season. Flying through the woods nearby to evade Fred, Adele looked up just as a shaft of sunlight came through the branches, hitting her square in the eye. Flying upward, she blinked, trying to see where she was going. But as soon as she cleared the treetops, she felt someone collide with her on the right. She felt the bone in her upper arm crack and she lost her grip on her broom, falling towards the ground. Reaching out her hands to brace her fall, her arm smashed into a tree limb and she cried out right before crashing to the ground.

The pain was excruciating as Adele held her right arm to her body. Looking down, she started when she saw that her thumb was bent backward and her pinkie and ring fingers were bent at odd angles. But most alarming was when she felt something odd just below her elbow. Looking at her forearm, Adele felt like she was going to be sick when she saw the blood and the end of the broken bone protruding from the skin.

"Addie!" George shouted rushing over to her. "Oh, God!" He exclaimed, horrified when he saw his friend's arm.

"It's bad," Adele said, breathless. Her heart was pounding and the pain seemed to be getting worse by the second.

"Can you stand?" George asked, going to Adele's left side and bending down to help her up.

"I think… It's just my arm," Adele replied as George helped her back to the Burrow. Once inside the house, George went to find his mother, leaving Adele sitting on the couch, cradling her arm.

When Molly Weasley called using the Floo fireplace saying that Adele was badly hurt, Lily apparated over to the Burrow immediately. After almost an hour of trying to magically heal the injuries, Lily finally helped Adele up and the two of them apparated to the Rowena Medical Complex.

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Vicki Lars had worked at the medical center for nearly 25 years and in that time had seen her fair share of both the magical and the mundane. Lily Potter was a regular but Vicki was startled to see that she was her eldest daughter, Adele, rather than Jessica or Isabelle.

"Dr. Norton!" Vicki called, seeing Adele's arm. When the doctor noticed the Potters, he hurried over, pushing a muggle wheelchair.

"Have a seat, honey," Norton said, noticing that Adele was also limping slightly. Looking at Lily, he have her a comforting smile. "We'll take good care of her, Mrs. Potter. And Vicki can contact your family and tell them what's going on."

"Thank you," Lily replied, giving her daughter a reassuring smile before she was whisked away to an exam room.

While the healers were able to mend Adele's sprained ankle in an instant, no amount of magic had any effect on her arm. After ensuring that Adele had no other injuries, she was taken to the radiology wing where the healers and doctors took images and scans of her arm to assess how bad the injuries were.

Thankfully, once out of radiology, the doctors had splinted Adele's arm before giving her something for the pain.

"Hi, Adele," Dr. Brennan said as she came into the room the young woman was waiting in. Adele was wearing a set of hospital scrubs instead of the clothes she'd come in wearing and looked like she was trying not to show how much pain she was really in.

"Dr. Brennan," Adele said as she tried to sit up on the gurney she was lying on. But even with the morphine she'd been given, the pain in her arm was impossible to ignore.

"You'll be taken to surgery in a minute," Brennan reported, giving Adele a look. "You'll need multiple plates along with several pins and screws to repair the damage to your wrist, forearm, and elbow. Thankfully, the fracture to your humerus—that's the bone in your arm—was a hairline break and won't require surgery."

"After surgery?" Adele wanted to know. Remembering her sister's surgeries, Adele wondered what it would be like for her.

"We'll put your arm in a cast along with your thumb and fingers," Brennan replied, matter-of-factly. "You'll be in the cast approximately 4 months and then we'll see how you're healing."

"So after about 6 months, say, I'll be fine?" Adele asked, hopefully. She didn't want to think about permanent damage. What if she never regained full use of her arm? How could she play Quidditch with one arm?

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Brennan admonished, although she understood why Adele was asking the question. "The most important thing right now is to fix your arm."

"Right," Adele muttered, knowing the doctor was right. As Dr. Brennan turned to head for the door, Adele asked, "About the cast?"

"Color request?" Brennan asked with a smile as she turned back to Adele.

"Can I get the cast in red and gold?" Adele asked, hopefully.

Isabelle

Present Day

On her first day of classes, Izzy approached the Potions classroom with a mixture of resolve and trepidation. For years she'd heard the horror stories about Severus Snape and while part of her doubted any of it was true, another part of her was afraid Snape was even worse than her siblings had said. Once inside the classroom, Izzy chose a seat nearer the back of the room and withdrew her books and potions kit from her bag and set up her things on the desk.

School had never been easy for her, not even in the primary school she attended until this year. The other children stared at the trach tube and made fun of the way she talked. The teachers were often hard on her and didn't seem to understand that she simply could not speak louder in class.

"I don't recall having my classroom door open, Miss Potter."

Isabelle jumped when she heard Professor Snape behind her. When he walked around the desk to face her, Izzy glared at him. "Don't do that," she admonished.

"My door was locked, Potter," Snape said, staring down the youngest of Lily Potter's children.

"I wasn't hungry," Izzy replied. "And Mum told me you wouldn't mind."

Snape didn't say a word for a while as he studied Isabelle Potter. Her red hair had more curl than Lily's and her eyes were hazel but she looked very much like her mother. In fact, he was so focused on Isabelle's face that it was a few moments before his eye was drawn the tube just barely protruding from her throat.

"Could you please not stare?" Izzy asked when she saw Snape's gaze go from her face to her neck.

Snape flicked his gaze back to Isabelle's face and gave her the slightest of nods. Thinking for a moment, he wanted to ask if it would even be safe for Isabelle to be in the Potions class if she had breathing difficulties. However, finding a tactful was of asking was tricky and Snape knew that if he was too blunt Lily would hear about it and—if he was lucky—send a Howler berating him for not being nicer to her children. "Are there any precautions I should be aware of regarding having you in my class, Miss Potter?"

Isabelle nodded and after a moment of rifling through her bag, pulled out the note her mother had given her to give to Snape.

Snape read over the note from Lily and looked at Isabelle again, frowning. "Miss Potter, in this class there are often various vapors and fumes in the air. Given that I do not wish for anything to happen to you, lest your mother find out, we shall have to make other arrangements."

"Like what?" Isabelle wanted to know.

"Learning the theory of potions making is simple enough," Snape replied. "However, you must demonstrate that you possess the skill to combine your ingredients to create a successful potion." Thinking about the situation for a moment, he finally added, "For today, you are excused from class participation. Once the day's lecture is concluded, you may go to the library and work on the assigned homework. Tomorrow, you and I will further discuss your situation with the headmaster."