A/N: Wow! I was totally blown away by the number of alerts this story has gotten and I want to thank all of you who took the time to review. The reviews are not only inspiring but helpful. Being a first time fanfic author is a little scary with the amount of truly talented writers out there. I will try to answer some of the review question from some of you.

BlackTidefan: There will definitely be a very close relationship between the two of them. Will they become romantically involved…now that would be telling. : )

Killjoy3000: The first few chapters do and will seem a bit rushed; most of it is trying to fill in the past so you can see how Harry and Bella's relationship began. Things will get a bit slower and more detailed once these initial chapters are done.

Warning: To all you squeamish people out there this chapter has a scene of graphic violence. You have been warned.

Chapter 2

Albus Perciful Wulfric Brian Dumbledore sat in his office on the last day of the term, the students had all left and he was contemplating the problem that was Harry Potter. The boy was showing too much backbone too much assertiveness; if his plan was to succeed he needed the boy broken, humbled, and completely dependent on him.

Two weeks ago after being told the prophesy and the reason Voldemort had targeted him the boy had literally destroyed his office, including many of the objects that he had used to monitor the boy and the wards at the Durleys, they would need to be replaced but would take time.

'I think I need to make sure that Harry has a reason to look to me for salvation this year. Yes I think that Harry will have a very unfortunate reception from the Dursley's once he arrives home. After a couple of weeks of increased mistreatment, just enough time to recharge the wards, I will swoop in and rescue him from those muggle beasts. The in my own magnanimous way I will offer him sanctuary at the Weasleys' and special training. Yes, the boy will be most grateful and I will have my pawn back on the chess board. ' Dumbledore steepled his hands and grinned to himself.

Severus Snape was relaxing in his dungeon office enjoying the silence and reveling in the soon to be complete absence of all those insufferable brats whose very existence was as welcome as a nasty case of dragon pox around the loins when the headmaster's head appeared in his fireplace.

"Ah… Severus my boy, glad to see you're still awake. Would you mind terribly kipping up to my office? I have need of your special talents, and it's best if this is not discussed over an open floo."

Severus rolled his black eyes in exasperation, 'what could the old fool want now' he thought, "I will be right there headmaster."

"Wonderful Severus."

Snape began the long trip from the dungeon to the headmaster's office, he scowled at a group of first year Hufflepuffs who were bouncing up and down with excitement that the end of term was almost here and they would be going home for the summer hols.

He gave the gargoyle statue the current password. "Twizzler. How does the old fool come up with these ridiculous passwords?" Snape sneered.

The door to Albus' office opened as Snape approached. "Come in Severus please have a seat- lemon drop? "

"No thank you headmaster, what is it that you require?"

"Right to the point then, well, as you have on many occasions commented on the arrogance of our young mister Potter I have found myself worried that he is becoming a little too independent and for the greater good I need to… shall we say knock him down a little bit." Dumbledore leaned back in his chair with his fingers steepled, his blue eyes twinkling.

"So what I need from you Severus is a mild aversion potion to help bring to heel so to speak the brash Gryffindor."

Snape's left eyebrow rose comically high "indeed headmaster… and what is to be the nature of this aversion potion? I'm assuming it will be for the brats muggle relatives?"

"I need the aversion potion to somewhat increase the antipathy the boy's relatives already have toward him to be a little harsher. It does not need to be too strong. His relatives already loathe the boy and mistreat him, so it would not take much to increase the level of animosity toward him."

Snape barely managed to control the smirk that was threatening to form on his sallow face. "And when would you need this potion?"

"At least a few days before the leaving feast, so it has time to be integrated into the Dursley's body chemistry."

"Very well headmaster, I will have the potion ready by tomorrow evening."

"Excellent, Severus excellent, I know I have no need to remind you to keep this just between us."

"Of course headmaster I'm not anything but discreet. Until tomorrow then." Snape gave a curt nod to the headmaster and quickly left the office.

Snape began in earnest to prepare the compulsion potion, 'mild he said ha! Potter needs to be put in his place and no means are too extreme. We'll give this just a little more oomph and really teach that little shite a lesson he won't forget.'

With a giddiness never seen before, the potions master worked through the night to make sure the brew was perfect, nothing could go wrong. Snape had never been known as a pleasant type, not even during his younger days as a student and his vindictiveness had been legendary. Anyone who dared to annoy him felt the sting of his malevolence.

As a student he had often been the cause of many "unfortunate accidents" that led many a student to the hospital wing and a few others to leave the school altogether out of sheer terror after being on the receiving end of some rather nasty curses.

Although due to his innate sense of craftiness nothing was directly linked to him. No he was much too crafty to be caught by the simpletons that ran the school. As a Death Eater he used his knowledge of potions and poisons to be a very adept practitioner of torture and assassination. Untraceable poisons, will inhibiting potions were a hobby of sorts to the greasy haired man.

The Dark Lord had used him on more than one occasion to use mind altering potions on many during the first war including ministry officials and other community leaders. Potions at best were hard to trace unlike a spell or enchantment where the magical signature of the caster could be determined if too much time had not passed; thus making it almost impossible to be traced to anyone person. These were just a few of his favorite things.

Snape approached the Headmasters office with his completed assignment. The door opened as he approached…"ah Severus, come in sit down…lemon drop?"

"No thank you headmaster, I have what you asked of me. It will take 24 hours for the potion to be at full strength once it is ingested. The effects should last a full lunar cycle before the effects begin to wear off."

"Wonderful Severus, I have just the delivery method in mind for this, now if you'll excuse me I want to get this off post haste." Severus nodded and turned quickly his cloak billowing behind him as he left the headmaster's office.

"I must find out how Severus gets his cloak to do that." Dumbledore mused.

Two days later a parcel arrived at the Dursley's , Dudley Dursley who had just arrived home that day to start his own summer holiday signed for the parcel and began to tear open the package as he took it into the kitchen where his parents were enjoying their afternoon tea.

Dudley's eyes opened in undisguised glee as he stared at a large box of chocolates, promoting a new candy company. The Dursleys never ones to pass up free sweets devoured the box within minutes. This could have been caused by a mild compulsion charm on the box, after all the Dursleys, at least the two male Dursleys, were supposed to be on a diet.

The entire box of chocolates was devoured in minutes. The only traces left were the chocolate stained fingers which would be licked clean as well. By the time the Dursleys left to pick-up Harry from King's Cross station 5 days later the potion was well saturated within the Dursley's medulla oblongata that part of the brain that controls our aggressiveness.

Little did Harry know that his mere presence would be the trigger to activate a chemical reaction within the Dursley's that would cause their hate and loathing of Harry to increase tenfold.

Harry was worried. Since he got into the car at King's Cross station something felt off about his uncle, well more than what was usual anyway. He had wished that 'Mad Eye' and Mr. Weasley had not said a word to his uncle.

He could sense the rage just bubbling under the surface of the morbidly obese man. The white knuckles on the steering wheel and the almost purple color radiating from his face was a bad sign of things to come.

Not to mention the mumbling and barely whispered threats of retaliation. What was more worrisome is that Petunia and Dudley also seemed to be in a more hostile posture as well. All three Dursleys kept staring at him with a loathing he had not seen before.

As the Dursley's car pulled into #4, Harry sensed that something awful was about to happen. He waited for the Dursleys to exit the car, hoping that they would ignore him and that he could just slip out and head up to his room without any interaction.

Alas, it was not meant to be, Uncle Vernon stood there waiting for Harry to exit the vehicle. Sighing in resignation Harry exited the car and was immediately set upon by Vernon. The beast had swung around and pinned him to the car by his neck.

Vernon's meaty claw squeezed Harry's throat to the point Harry felt he would pass out at any minute from lack of oxygen.

Vernon leaned in and whispered in a malevolent voice "your time has come freak!" with that Vernon let him go and gestured for him to get in the house.

Harry was positive now that things were about to go from bad to much much worse. Harry walked toward the door dragging his trunk behind him. With his head down and shuffling feet he exhaled a silent cry of help.

As Harry approached the entryway of his prison he caught the faintest scent of spice and sandalwood in the air. Before his mind could grab hold of what that meant, Harry was pulled into the house he heard the door slam shut behind him and then an explosion of stars which flooded his vision and then nothing.

"Wake up freak! I want you to see this coming! Wake up!" Harry groggily opened his eyes as he felt an opened hand slap him across the face.

His Aunt Petunia's face slowly came into focus as she continued to yell at him to wake. "Wha…what's going on?" Harry moaned as the pain from being punched in the face by his Uncle Vernon began to flood the synapses of his addled brain.

"What's going on is something we should have done long ago when we first saw the signs of your freakishness!" Petunia hissed.

Harry began to panic. He needed to protect himself he knew that this was not going to be a normal beating and he needed to get out. Harry reached for his back pocket looking in vain for his wand that was no longer there.

"Looking for this Potter?" Dudley laughed holding Harry's wand between his two meaty hands.

Then with one quick movement Dudley had broken the wand over his knee. "Uh oh did I break your whittle stick scar head?"

Dudley laughed mockingly as he threw the two pieces of wand in front of Harry. "What ya gonna do now Potter!"

Harry sat stunned for a moment, his wand; his link to his magic was all but destroyed. Lying in two pieces in front of him he could see the Phoenix feather half way sticking out of one side. The feather from Fawkes who only gave one other feather that resided in Voldemort's wand.

The advantage of having the brother wand to Voldemort's was now forever lost. Anger and dismay began to surge through Harry as his magic began to coalesce around him.

He launched himself off the floor and toward Dudley but his momentum was abruptly stopped when a heavy foot connected with Harry's stomach, which caused him to collapse back to the ground. His arms wrapping protectively around his middle as he began to gasp in pain and for the lack of air.

"Tut tut Freak, can't have you attacking Dudders can I?" Vernon snarled.

Vernon reached down with his left hand grabbing Harry by the hair on his head lifting him slightly off the floor and then with his right hand balled into a fist smashed it into Harry's left eye. An explosion of pain went through Harry's face.

The surrounding tissue around the eye immediately began to swell as blood spilled out into it from broken capillaries; the orbital socket was almost completely shattered. Harry tried to yell out but lost his breath when he was kicked in the stomach again this time by Dudley Dursley.

Petunia Dursley ran to the kitchen and pulled out a roll of duct tape from a drawer. Returning to the family room she began to wrap the tape around Harry's mouth and neck. "No one will hear you now freak!" she hissed as she spit in his face.

Harry was lying on his side, his left eye swollen shut, the blood pooling underneath the skin giving it a red and bluish color. His other eye watering and he was beginning to hyperventilate. He struggled to breathe through his nose but with his face turned into the carpet he was finding it almost impossible to inhale any air.

The pain in his gut was excruciating. The last kick caused him to lose control of his bladder, the warm liquid flowing down his legs and wetting his jeans. This sent Petunia into hysterics and she began to mercilessly kick Harry in the ribs and face screaming the whole time that he had soiled her carpet. Harry could feel and hear as ribs broke, and facial bones cracked under the assault.

During the melee of kicks Vernon had gone to the cupboard and grabbed Dudley's aluminum bat. Harry tried to ball himself up into the fetal position to protect himself somewhat from the onslaught of kicks. A muffled scream tried to escape his taped mouth as Vernon had swung the bat down from over his head and smashed it into Harry's right leg.

The bones shattered on impact, the right leg now bent in on itself. The blows continued to rain down on Harry as bones and soft tissue were viciously hit. No part of Harry's body was spared the savagery.

The three Dursley's took turns assaulting Harry's body. Blood was now pouring out of dozens of lacerations and perforations, where pieces of bone had pushed through the skin.

Harry was only semi conscious when the final blow from the bat careened into the side of his head, and then nothing. His body went completely still. Not even the rise and fall of lungs taking in air could be seen. Harry was all but gone.

Petunia fetched a blanket, and they rolled the body up in it. Vernon and Dudley then drug the body down into the root cellar to be disposed of later. After all, nobody would miss the freak, and if someone did come around they would just say the boy ran off. After all, he was known as a criminally insane boy. Ask anyone in the neighborhood.

Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley had just begun to clean up the mess following the un-pleasantries, when the front door exploded inward and an enraged Bellatrix Black glared at the Dursley's with a murderous look that would make the hardest of gangsters whimper in fear.

Bella watched from across the street as Harry entered number 4 and had an uneasy feeling. Seeing the slumped and defeated looking shoulders, the head hanging down, only confirmed in her mind that his uncle had most likely threatened the young man.

She was about to move toward the door when she smelled the unmistakable odor of fire whiskey. "Damn! Mundungus is around here somewhere. I'll have to take care of him before I go to Harry. If he sees me he'll go straight to Dumbledore."

A disillusioned Bella made her way to the large oak tree that Mundungus used often when he was assigned to "watch" over Harry. More times than not he would use the time to sleep, and today was no different.

Bella approached the tree, she could hear the deep breathing and light snores coming from in front of the tree. Bella approached her target and saw the sole of a rotting old shoe that seemed to be poking out from under an invisibility cloak.

Not wanting to set off any wards that Dumbles may have set by using her wand, she grabbed a medium sized stone from next to the tree. She slowly removed the invisibility cloak off of Mundungus, then raising the stone above her head she swiftly and deftly brought the stone down to the side of the drunks head.

A small groan is all that passed Mundungus' lips as the now unconscious form of Mundungus Fletcher fell to the side of the tree. Under the cover of darkness Bella dragged Mundungus to the nearby hedge that ran alongside the sidewalk and stuffed him underneath it as much as she could.

Taking the invisibility cloak and throwing it over herself, she silently gagged, as the odor left behind by Mundungus was almost over powering. With watering eyes, and a scrunched up nose, she made her way to the front window of the house. There was a slight gap between the curtains which gave her a limited view of the front room.

She noticed Petunia Dursley on her hands and knees trying to clean something off of the carpet. She looked closer and noticed that the carpet was splattered with a red substance… a lot of it.

"Oh sweet Circe, that looks like blood!" Bella's heart began to beat wildly within her chest. "Calm down Bella you don't know for sure what that is, it could be anything."

The whale and his spawn then entered the room both with a red substance on their hands, arms and all over their clothing.

"We will dispose of the body tomorrow Pet, and look at some new carpet I don't think the blood will come out." Vernon said as if he were talking about the weather.

Bella lost all color in her face and her hands began to tremble. She stumbled backwards a few feet before falling and landing on her backside with a thud.

"No, no, no, no they couldn't of…not my Harry!" Bella leaped to her feet in a rush of adrenaline and rage "they've killed my Harry!"

In full fury mode Bella whipped off the invisibility cloak and turned toward the front door, "Bombarda!" the door was blown off its hinges sending splinters in all directions. Bella's cloak and hair were billowing around her as her magic flared and rippled like an unseen wind.

"Where is he you muggle bastard!" Bella screamed at the shocked Vernon Dursley.

"Now see here, get out of my hou-"Vernon began.

"Diffindo!" Bella screamed.

Vernon's head slowly slid off his shoulders as the overpowered cutting spell separated bone and sinew, the lifeless body of Vernon Dursley crumpled in a heap in front of a now screaming Petunia Dursley.

Bella swung her wand and pointed it directly between the screaming banshee's eyes. "What have you done with Harry?" Bella hissed in a low but deadly voice that left no room for doubt what the result would be if she failed to answer.

Petunia's eyes were opened wide in terror as the wand that was pointing at her began to glow an ominous color of green from its tip. Quickly glancing at the decapitated body of her husband she knew she would be next if she didn't cooperate with this enraged witch.

"I…in th…the cel…cellar" she whimpered as she pointed to a door off to the right of the kitchen door.

"Stupefy!, Stupefy!" Bella stunned the two remaining Dursley's and ran down to the cellar.

She saw a mass rolled up in a blanket with what was obviously blood seeping through the fibers. She hesitantly kneeled down and began to unwrap the blanket from what it was hiding. Bella let out a strangled gasp as she saw the broken and bleeding body of the young man she had become so emotionally attached to.

Silent tears were flowing freely as trembling hands reached out toward the unmoving form of Harry Potter. "Please be alive Harry, please be alive. I can't lose both you and Sirius," she whispered.

Not knowing what else to do she took out her wand and performed a simple diagnostic spell. It would not give her much information about the injuries but could determine if he was alive or not.

A very pale yellow field surrounded the body of the boy who lived. Through the waterfall of tears, Bella let out a soft chuckle as she tried to sniff back the tears…he was alive! Harry Potter was alive, but only just.

Bella knew if he did not get help soon that he would indeed die. It seemed the only thing keeping him in the realm of the living was his magical core which had somehow put him in a form of magical stasis, but that would only sustain him for a short time.

Bella levitated the motionless form back up the stairs and to the family room where Petunia and Dudley still lay stupefied. The rage returned to Bella as she looked at the remaining Dursleys and decided that anyone who could do that to their own blood did not deserve to live.

A quick death would be too easy for these monsters. Bella knew from Harry that physical abuse and near starvation had been common during his years with the Dursleys, so she felt no pity for the muggle monsters.

"Petrificus Totalis, Petrificus Totalis. Enervate, enervate." The now conscious but frozen Dursleys looked up at the witch that had destroyed their front door and killed Vernon now looked at them with an unmistakable malice.

"Look what you have done to your only nephew. LOOK!" Bella screamed.

Petunia and Dudley looked at the bloodied body of their nephew and cousin and then looked back at Bellatrix as if to say 'yeah and what of him?'

Bella could not believe the lack of any kind of emotion from the Dursley's. If there was any emotion at all it was that of indifference.

Bella stood up straight and glared at the Dursleys, and in a calm voice, as a judge passing sentence.

"You are the most foul of human beings I have ever had the misfortune to come across, and seeing how you treated your own sister's only son you will suffer the fate that you had planned for Harry. Family is the most sacred of bonds we have in this life and you defiled it in a manner that screams out for justice. I would say I hope you find forgiveness in the next life, but I doubt that your sister would be moved to do so."

Bella returned to Harry's side and covered him with the cloak she took from Mundungus. She then levitated the body out of the house. Leaving the still frozen Dursleys inside. She crossed the street and grabbed the wand from the still unconscious Mundungus and cast the destructive fire spell of "fiendfyre!"

The spell struck the house and within seconds the home was totally engulfed. She tossed the wand back at Mundungus and wondered if the drunk would come to before the whole house had burned to ash. Bella lifted up a necklace from around her neck; she held the limp form of Harry tightly to her, the tears returning now with a vengeance.

"Hold on Harry I'll get you help" she whispered, and with a tap of her wand to the necklace she whispered "activate."

A/N 2: Chapter two is in the can as they say. Okay don't kill me for leaving it here, it seemed a natural place to end the chapter. Again let me apologize for the graphic scene of violence and I hope I haven't scared any readers away. I haven't had a creative writing class in more than twenty years (giving my age away here) and mostly the writing I do is security and law enforcement related, so I tend to stick to facts, so getting the creative side of my brain to kick in can be a challenge at times. I would love to have a couple of Betas if anyone is interested…please please. If interested let me know!

Question: I like to keep my chapters within the 3000 to 5000 word range; mostly because when I read a chapter that is more than that I tend to get impatient especially those of10, 000 or more. However, if you would like to see longer chapters let me know what you feel would be a good length and I'll see what I can do.

Thanks again for all the reviews! They really inspire me to write more. Please Review!