Harry was practicing his Mandarin when the door swung open and Jennifer approached him, offering him a series of pictures. "Do you know who these are?"
Harry studied the pictures of the strangely dressed old man and the heavily scarred man then offered, "The old man is Headmaster Dumbledore. I don't know who the other one is. They broke into an office building then?"
Jennifer accepted the pictures back, "The Department of Child Services, they're mostly closed on the weekend and they took advantage of that to search for you."
Harry grimaced, "I suppose it was too much to hope that they might just let me leave. It's a good thing the Healers are bound by oaths not to share my medical records with anyone we don't approve of."
While there they had instructed them not to share anything with Hogwarts unless it was life-threatening. The looks they had gotten were less than happy, but they were reassured that the oaths would ensure they followed their instructions.
Jennifer settled in his reading chair after pulling it up to where he was sitting at his desk, "The Prime Minister thinks that the magicals are going to try to kidnap you when the school year is up."
Harry's eyes widened in alarm, "Kidnap me?"
She nodded, "When you're an adult they can't stop you from coming here, but as a child with no wand rights, and no training, they'll be able to hold you wherever they please."
"But you can come to get me, can't you?" he demanded, not liking where this was going.
"We can, probably. The problem is- well think through it logically. If we go to pick you up how do you think the people hiding you will react?"
He swallowed, "They'll fight to keep me there."
"That's right. And then what will happen?"
Shaking a little he thought for a moment before saying, "You'll either have to send enough people to take them down or they'll kill or obliviate people."
He took a deep breath, steadying his hands, then continued, "Which the Prime Minister will use as an excuse to go to war. And who knows how that will go."
She nodded, squeezing his hand briefly, "That's why, if they order you to go somewhere, you're going to do it. You'll continue to give reports, if at all possible, but if not then they can wait until you get back to school."
"I understand, ma'am," he whispered, looking at his lap.
She lifted his chin and stared at him, "Understand, Harry, that this is not what we want. The people here have come to love you as our surrogate son. The thought of you not coming back breaks our hearts."
"I'll be back," he swore. "I'll endure them for the next seven years and I'll be back, I swear it. You guys saved me, you guys love me. I don't know why they want me but they sure as hell don't love me. I'll be back."
She pulled him into a tight hug.
The walk from where the helicopter dropped him off was a long and cold one. It took two hours to get to the village, fifteen minutes to get through the village, twenty-five minutes to get up the hill to the castle, and another ten minutes to get to the doors of the castle.
By the time he was pulling the doors open, with great difficulty, it was nearly eleven o'clock in the morning.
With classes in session, he decided to first put his things in his dorm room, which he was pleased to see was undisturbed, if a little dusty.
His things put away he headed back to Professor McGonagall's classroom and knocked on the door.
The Professor opened the door with an irritated look on her face that quickly morphed into a shocked expression, "Mr. Potter?"
He offered up the letter Jennifer had written.
Deputy Headmistress and Head of Gryffindor House Minerva McGonagall
The health concerns have been dealt with by specialists and Harry has fully recovered. Thank you for bringing his concerns to us. Since he has only missed a week and a half of school we have decided to re-enroll him in this semester. If this is not possible please let him know and we will take him back until next year.
Thank you for your concern, assistance, and understanding in this matter,
Once more it was signed with an illegible signature.
After reading it she said, "Please bring this to the Headmaster. The password is Mars Bars."
Accepting this Harry took the letter back and went up three floors to the Headmaster's office.
The Headmaster also looked concerned to see him but asked about his wellbeing before being given the note.
"I'm at full health now sir. Your concerns about my scar ended up being right on the mark, there was some dark magic sitting in it. But now it's gone and I can join Hogwarts again. Right?" he asked as he passed him the letter.
The man quickly scanned the letter and then said, "Of course, though that does beg the question of how your guardians managed to take care of the matter."
Well, it wasn't as if it was a secret, now that there was no chance of him being kidnapped before the ritual.
"The people at Saint Mungo's were very helpful sir."
The man's eyebrows rose and he asked, "Do you mind if I check?"
Harry shrugged, "Yes sir."
The man stood from behind his desk and walked around it to stand before him. He waved his wand for several minutes before sucking in a shocked breath. "It is gone. I didn't think the ritual would actually… but it is gone."
Harry nodded, wondering why the Headmaster had thought the ritual wouldn't work but decided not to say anything he asked, "It is sir, so may I start classes again? Without going to the Hospital Wing every day?"
The man stared down at him, surprise still clearly written on his face, "Of course… of course, we're happy to have you back, and in full health too."
After a moment the old man straightened himself, "You'll need to collect the coursework you missed and complete it all, for full credit. I'll send word to each of your professors. It's good to have you back Harry."
Confused Harry forced a smile on his face, "It's good to be back, sir."
It was lunchtime by the time he left the Headmaster's office so he went down to the Great Hall and settled at the table, feeling ravenous.
He was startled by two people settling down on either side of him. Hermione Granger and Randall(?) Weasley.
"Where have you been?" Hermione demanded.
Harry shrugged, feeling rather trapped, "I had some health concerns. They had to be taken care of."
"The troll didn't get you, I didn't think," Weasley said, more than asked.
"It didn't," he agreed. "It was something else, something I don't want to talk about."
Hermione huffed, "Fine, well I've made copies of all the notes of classes you missed." She pulled out a thick folder from her bag and passed it to him, adding, "The homework is at the end of each section. You'd better get a start on it soon, you don't want to get even more behind."
"Why?" he asked.
"Why?" she repeated in confusion, "Because the further you get behind the-"
"No," he interrupted, "Why did you make copies of all your notes?"
She shifted uncomfortably, "Well, I was rather hoping we could be friends. Ron and I are now, I think-"
"We are," Ron agreed.
She nodded looking more confident, "You two saved me. I'd be dead if it weren't for you. So," she took a deep breath, "I'd like to be your friend."
He stared at her with surprise. He'd never had a friend before.
She was shifting uncomfortably again, "So…?"
"Sure," he said softly after a moment. "Sure, we can be friends."
Hermione beamed brightly and when he glanced at Ron the boy smiled brightly at him too.
After that things passed very quickly for Harry. With Hermione's help he caught up quickly on his homework and he found that with her explanations he was better able to understand the assignments and could get the magic to work better and easier.
Ron meanwhile was good at keeping them all relaxed. He complained good-naturedly about doing homework, but he didn't interfere unless one of his friends was getting too stressed, then he'd drag them away to play chess or take part in a snowball fight that would leave them all laughing and better able to handle the homework.
It was nice, Harry decided after only a week of having friends.
It was, he admitted to himself, harder to get away with scanning the books into his computer, but he managed.
They both obsessively asked him about it, oftentimes at random points, but also around the time that he did it. It made no sense to them, he was sure, that he would check out ten books at a time (the limit for first years), disappear up to the dorm, activate the enchantments preventing anyone from opening his curtain or hearing anything happening inside the curtains that he'd had a seventh year do for him, stay there for an hour to an hour and a half, then return the books to the library. He was a fast reader, but not that fast.
He thought he would get a break about it when he leaned his computer, his printer, and his emergency cell phone to the same seventh year to have him enchant it so that no one but Harry would notice the electronic equipment but all that resulted in was them obsessively asking him about why he wasn't doing it anymore.
Finally, after he'd had his equipment back for a week he snapped at them that it didn't matter what he was doing, it was his business, and to leave him alone about it.
This resulted in them ignoring him for a week before going right back to questioning him about it which in turn resulted in him ignoring them for a week before they finally agreed to stop questioning him about it. He could still see the curiosity burning in them about it, but they finally left well enough alone.