Title: Lusus Naturae
Chapter: Chapter Six
Rating: M for Mudblood
Warnings: Abuse, Death, Self-Reflection
A/N: School year starts soon! Don't forget to bring your Patronusi? Patronuses. Patroni.
"I won't be around to clean up your messes much longer, Albus."
Dumbledore stood askew of the enchanted mirror that floated in the center of his office. Fawkes gave a sad trill from his perch nearby as the Headmaster surveyed his collection of rare books.
"You never spoke of Tom's condition," Albus accused the dying man in the mirror. "What other secrets might you take the grave, old friend?"
"A great deal more than I care to share with you, friend," Nicholas replied, none-too-kindly.
It could be said that the relationship between the two wizards had soured considerably in the wake of Pernelle's passing. Nicholas was rarely himself these days. The Elixir of Life had pervaded his system for too long. Death was not an easy feat to achieve, even in the pursuit of love eternal.
"What can be done for Harry?"
"I'm sure he will live well beyond his years," Nicholas muttered, waving off the idea of a cure once more as if it were a nit buzzing around his head. "You may wish to change the way you look at him with such disgust."
"It is difficult to look upon one's own failures with humble eyes."
"Then own up to it. Move forward as you always do. You certainly had no difficulties leaving Riddle in the past." Nicholas gave a wry laugh. "Came back to bite you, didn't he though? Tell me, Albus. When you asked for my help with the blood wards around the boy's home. Did you mean to keep the Dark Lord out, or in?"
The Alchemist quickly descended into a coughing fit that left Albus bereft of the cruelty required to carry on an argument with the man. He sighed and waved his wand, banishing the looking glass back to the cabinet wherein it normally hung. Flamel's hacking coughs grew distant as his image in the mirror faded to a mercurial grey.
Self-reflection was not Albus Dumbledore's strong suit. Here was a man who fled from the Mirror of Erised like a frightened schoolboy from a bully - that bully being his own subconscious. He was in no state to be dissecting it now.
With a groan that showed the age on his bones, Dumbledore deposited himself into the chair behind his desk and began work on yet another enchanted pendant. The spellwork in the first had taken a week of near constant tweaking. This second iteration would need far more work if it were to protect the boy in place of the blood wards.
With Petunia Dursley deceased and Vernon Dursley half-mad from the obliviation, Albus conceded sending the boy back to the muggle world was a lost cause. He would need to find a new secure location to hold Harry over the summers, but that was a matter for a less tiresome day. First and foremost came hiding the boy's disfigurement.
Severus bent over the cauldron and felt his spine settle into a familiar hunch with little protest. The potion brewing in the size six cauldron on the burner before him was mottling well. Dimples appeared over the surface of the viscous liquid as it came to a simmer over the heat and interspersed blotches of maroon grew to overtake the amber base. He referenced briefly the notes he had taken from Nicholas Flamel's dictation.
Had the Alchemist been in better spirits, or Albus Dumbledore not been present to stir the pot, Severus might have begged a moment of the man's time. As it were, the genial conversation had rapidly deteriorated as Flamel revealed his diagnosis of Potter's condition.
Looking at the boy in the aftermath of the revelation, Severus failed to see any glaring similarities between Potter's current appearance and the memory of the Dark Lord in his mind's eye. Of all of them, Severus had seen more of the Dark Lord's serpentine features than the rest. Potter lacked the blood-red eyes. The boy did not have slits for nostrils. Moreover, he doubted Potter was capable of making a grown man piss himself at a glance.
Therefore, Severus was not wholly convinced of the diagnosis. It was more so the treatment he was invested in. Flamel had dictated a nutrient potion that Potter's new found anatomy might find more agreeable. It had to do with the protein, Flamel stated. The Alchemist seemed certain they would find the draught to be effective, which made Severus wonder how acutely familiar with the Dark Lord's own condition Flamel must have been. He had no idea what the Dark Lord ate or what measures were taken to keep his inhuman body operating at peak performance. Such weakness was not to be witnessed by the Dark Lord's humble servants.
As the potion bloomed and the maroon color swirled to encompass the top layer of the liquid, Severus reduced the heat and pulled the cauldron from the burner. He would bottle this smaller batch and record the results. Hopefully it put some weight on the boy. Thinking of the ribs protruding from beneath the scaled flesh across Potter's chest made him shudder visibly.
How the Headmaster expected to keep the boy's condition hidden from the world at large was beyond him. There was no glamour in existence that could hide the child's double-lidded eyes. No amount of misdirection could distract from the prescribed diet of raw meats and fats if he were expected to eat in the Grand Hall among his peers during the school year. Severus was quite certain the whole of the Wizarding World would know by the 2nd of Sepetember that something was horribly wrong with Harry Potter.
All that he had ascertained from Flamel's expert advice was that there was no hope of some miraculous cure - try as Dumbledore might. Some small part of him rejoiced in that, and another berated him for thinking it. Gone was the visage of his childhood bully, the mirror of the boy-turned-man who had stolen his... friend, crush, love? It was easier to look upon Lily Evans' child as an abused, ruined shell of a boy than as a healthy one with the face of James Potter. Severus had no intentions of ruminating on what that said about him.