Chapter 5 - Chapter 4 - Cleaning House (and the exact opposite)

I don't own anything related to the Harry Potter franchise

Author's Note:

This chapter features an accounting of how the Dursleys horribly abused Harry, as he dives into his memories to get control of his mind. While I don't go into excruciating detail, the subject matter involved definitely isn't for the faint of heart. I will be writing a brief chapter synopsis at the beginning of the next chapter for those people who decide to skip this one.

Evening At The Delacour Manse...

Harry didn't usually make a spectacle of either his meditation practice or the time he spends in his Mindscape. He usually just found a quiet place and got to it. Tonight, he was going to need some extra precautions. Tonight, he'd be sifting through his most painful memories in order to get them out of the way. The reason he was approaching the task with any optimism at all was because he currently had some very unique help that would normally cost a fortune.

Veela's are very, very special ladies. They're the world's best psychologists because they can astral project themselves into your dreams or Dreamscapes (Mindscapes that happen while you're sleeping). Harry was about to take a potion to help him fall asleep early in the evening, and then Appoline was going to help him deal with his memories.

Appoline had explained what they had planned to the rest of her family over dinner, at which point Adrien had suggested that the show be moved to the living room. He thought it was wise that the healing happen in a neutral environment, where he could watch over them. That's the reason why Harry was currently laying down on a summoned bed in the middle of the Delacour living room, flanked by the Delacour parents. It was enough to make him grateful for the sleeping potion. Getting himself into a natural sleep felt just a little bit impossible under the circumstances…

Turning his head to the side so that he was facing Appoline, Harry vented his current thoughts, in a voice that was just a little bit slurred. "Am I asleep already? This feels just a little bit surreal?"

Appoline smiled from the chair she'd arranged right next to 'Arry's bed. "Not yet 'Arry, but any second now you will be. That was a very strong sleeping draught, so it should work on even your crazy metabolism."

Just as Appoline finished speaking, Fleur marched into the room, dragged over a chair and then took a seat on 'Arry's right.

Appoline, Adrien and Harry, all looked at Fleur in completely unconcealed surprise.

"Umm Fleur," Harry slurred out, fighting off his growing drowsiness for the moment. This... procedure will be extremely intimate as well as unpleasant and you still seem conflicted. Are you sure about this?" Harry was feeling both oddly touched and unnecessarily nervous at exactly the same time.

In response to Harry's question, Fleur looked down at the boy with an extremely determined look on her face. "You listen here 'Arry. I may hate the effect your magic has on mine, but I also dislike the idea of you hurting yourself. You want honesty from me right? Well here it is. I want your magic under control ASAP, and I want to help keep you safe."

Easing back into the mattress again, Harry sluggishly smiled up at the ceiling. Defying all common sense, he'd found Fleur's barbed explanation rather comforting. "That was a very passive aggressive answer you just gave me, Fleur. Welcome aboard. Appoline. Can you give Fleur some calming draught like the one you took? My reactions to my memories won't be pretty. It'll be a long and upsetting night if you're not prepared."

Appoline and her daughter looked at each other for just a moment, before Fleur drank back a dose of the strong calming draught.

As he started losing consciousness, Harry smiled softly at the two ladies. "Thanks in advance. I'll see... you... in... a..."

In the next instant, Harry found himself free floating in space, waiting for the two Veela ladies to come and join him. For security reasons, he'd made this patch of space the designated spawning point for anyone trying to enter his Mindscape. The problem was he wasn't sure if it was appropriate under the circumstances. After a few moments of consideration, Harry took the time to make a bubble of warm air surrounding himself. The idea was that when the Delacour ladies arrived, they'd be comfortable without ruining the view.

All of the sudden, two hands dug deep into the meat of Harry's shoulders, as a very surprised pair of Veela began floating in space at his sides. While Appoline was making no secret of how amazed she was, Fleur's reaction was quite a bit more complex.

"Free falling, in orbit, in space... Really 'Arry?" In a direct contradiction to her words, Fleur's eyes were flitting around in poorly concealed interest.

With an expansive arm movement, Harry gestured at his Mindscape planet far below them. "Let me ask you this, Fleur. Where do you think my memories are?"

In the wake of Harry's question, the two Delacours just floated there for several seconds, staring down towards a white painted metal shell surrounding an entire planet. The shell had the words "THINK AGAIN" painted on its surface in massive red letters.

"Think again," Fleur prompted, in lieu of actually answering Harry's question.

Uhhh yeah," Harry hedged with just a little bit of embarrassment leaking into his voice. It's... You know... It's a play on words. This whole place is supposed to represent my mind... Think again... Get it?"

…..

…

Snicker…giggle….giggle

Both Fleur and Harry turned to look at Appoline as the woman slowly but surely unraveled into a childish fit of happy giggles. Turning his body back towards Fleur, Harry pointed back at her mother as if the woman's amusement vindicated him.

"My mother laughs at all of my father's dad jokes," Fleur pointed out in a deadpan voice. "She's not what I'd call a discerning audience."

"Well I think it's funny in a sarcastic kind of way," Harry defended with his arms crossed. "I also think it's my Mindscape, so it's my opinion that really matters."

"Your spiritual center has what amounts to a smart ass no trespassing sign on the front door," Fleur pointed out, with her own arms crossed and her chin up in the air. "Sue me for thinking it's in poor taste."

"Oh well pardon me for the rudeness of my welcome," Harry drawled, in a voice just oozing fake concern. "I imagine your Mindscape rolls out the red carpet for any passing Leglimancer who decides to drop by."

"If by rolling out the red carpet you mean an endless sea of white-hot flames then you'd be correct," Fleur replied with a noticeably smug expression on her face. "Veela are naturally defended against mind intrusions. Our Mindscapes can become very... warm... at a single moment's notice."

"Huh," was all Harry could think to reply to what he'd just learned. It was a cool enough little factoid that he almost forgot how annoying Fleur was currently being... almost.

"Achoo...achoo"

Both Harry and Fleur turned around when their staredown was interrupted by some very fake coughing sounds.

When the two teens looked in her direction, Appoline gestured for Harry to focus on a stretch of space off in the distance. "Are those really what I think they are 'Arry?"

At Appoline's direction, Harry scanned the area, and then started grinning in a moment of fanboy enthusiasm. "Oh! Yeah. I created a couple of star destroyers and the Death Star from Star Wars, as well as the starship Enterprise from Star Trek to serve as the welcome wagon out here. I'm not really all that sure how effective all this will be against a powerful Leglimancer, but they do look damned cool."

For about two minutes, Fleur and Appoline just stared out at the scenery, as they grew more and more accustomed to life in free-fall. The moment ended when Fleur suddenly remembered that they had business to attend to, and she floated over to 'Arry's shoulder. "Can we get this show on the road now 'Arry?"

After nodding in silent agreement, Harry quickly started floating the three of them down towards the planet. While they were clearly moving very fast, for several moments it felt like the planet was merely growing in size rather than getting closer. Soon enough. All they could see in front of them was white painted metal and it felt like any second they were going to crash like bugs against its surface. That's when it happened. A ridiculously massive, layered and fortified blast-door opened up to admit them.

"Arry... Just who do you think is trying to break into your mind?" Admittedly Appoline was awe struck, but she was also confused as to why Harry would bother with such a grand undertaking.

"I created my Mindscape to be this big and this heavily fortified for three reasons," Harry began, while lifting up three fingers. "The first reason is because there's at least one extremely strong wizard out there who wants in here (Harry gestured towards his own head while dropping a finger). The second reason is because I was stuck in the Hospital Wing at the time with nothing better to do and as it turns out I'm extremely good at this stuff. The third and most persuasive reason… is because my magic is insistent that all of this is necessary."

As they approached the planet within the shell, the ladies were further floored by how beautiful Harry had managed to make it all. It was a full sized and fully developed planet with different climate zones, ecosystems, rainforests, oceans and deserts. It even had cities with varied architecture styles and shapes. It was also very, very empty... Harry might be good at imagining things into existence in his Mindscape, but even he'd never be able to populate a world full of free thinking individuals. To do so would be the work of a hundred lifetimes and it'd also be completely pointless. That begged the question though...

"Why 'Arry?" At this point, Fleur was looking at Harry like he might just be a lunatic.

By studying Fleur's facial expression, Harry belatedly figured out what Fleur was trying to ask. "Ah, I see. I created an original planet and made it impossibly huge and complex. Why do you think I did that?"

"So the things that are important are well hidden?" Appoline was scanning the world they were flying over with a completely mesmerized expression on her face. Nonetheless, she still managed to add her thoughts to their conversation.

"Yes and yet no at exactly the same time. Everything you see before you is a red herring," Harry replied happily. Every single inch of this planet is just waiting to explode with traps and magical creatures. The buildings are all what they appear to be, but at a mental prompt from me this entire place can become a death trap. As he spoke, Harry gestured to a forest well outside of any urban area and over the next minute they flew towards it. They finally landed in an empty field next to a large but nondescript Boulder.

"Ah, I see… So this massive spectacle is an equally massive waste of both time and effort..." Even as the unpleasant words slipped from Fleur's mouth, she was looking around at everything that they passed...

Turning back towards the teenaged Veela, Harry made a point to have Fleur catch him rolling his eyes in a way that screamed "typical bitchy Fleur." While he did understand the complex feelings that were driving her passive aggressive behavior, that didn't mean he had to like it, or condone it as if he deserved it. The location that they were about to visit was quite literally the most intimately private place Harry could possibly imagine. With that much in mind, he didn't have the time or the patience necessary to endure Fleur's barbed commentary.

In the end, that's the reason why, when Fleur looked like she might snap at him for rolling his eyes at her, Harry held up a hand to get ahead of her. "Fleur seriously... Just shut up... You volunteered for this, I hope, out of a desire to support me... Please don't make me regret your presence."

Fleur recoiled as if Harry had struck her.

After an extremely bizarre moment in time, during which Appoline had to figure out where she stood on this matter, she beamed an extremely proud smile at Harry for telling her daughter where to put it. She was legitimately happy that Harry was finally learning to assert himself, because Fleur would walk all over him if he wasn't careful, and now that wasn't such a concern. Appoline really did want Harry and Fleur to become friends at some point, but she wanted them to become REAL friends. Fleur didn't need anymore of the mindless toadies she seemed to collect over at Beauxbatons.

With his unhappy deed accomplished, Harry abruptly turned away from a visibly guilt-ridden Fleur, flew towards a massive random boulder, and pushed it over as if it was as light as a feather.

Appoline and Fleur stared at the boulder in their surprise. To them the stone hatch clearly looked like it weighed about ten tons. Underneath the boulder was a stairwell leading down into the earth. The two ladies shook their heads at the lengths Harry had gone to...

Fleur, Harry and Appoline ventured down the stairs and then entered a simple but imposing looking elevator. Harry pressed the M Button on the elevator's wall panel and they immediately began descending.

"How deep, 'Arry?" Appoline was leaning against a small window panel that was displaying layers of the planet's crust blurring by at amazing speeds.

"Three quarters of the way to the core of the world," replied Harry. "We should be there in about a minute."

Snapping her fingers in realization, Fleur started laughing. "Core of the world... magical core... Cute."

Harry smiled happily at Fleur's much more natural interaction even as he stuck his tongue out at the girl. "You can't argue that I've created some great natural defenses. You could wander around in my Mindscape for years and find absolutely nothing of value."

Both ladies just nodded. Fleur couldn't have argued with that even if she wanted to.

Soon enough, the three of them arrived on the memory floor and the elevator came to rest with a soft melodic ding. The door slid open to reveal what would under normal circumstances be an extremely opulent library, except for two things. It was huge beyond measure, going on for miles, and the books were lying around everywhere, scattered across the floor.

When Fleur and Appoline looked back at Harry, Fleur had her hands resting on her hips. "Please tell me you did something intelligent to make this go faster."

Having never set foot in his library before, Harry was currently looking at his own handiwork in satisfaction. "As a matter of fact I did. When I mentally decided that my memories would look like books, I made a color code. The darker the color of the book the worse the memory involved. Black books are seriously bad memories. Now I just need to grab them, experience them and file them away. I'm happy to have the healing and support when I exit the books, but I have to warn you. I suspect my reactions are going to become pretty ugly."

At Harry's words, Appoline stepped closer, caught his attention and then shook her head. "Arry... I had no idea you expected us to wait out here while you relive the memories alone. That's just not a possibility at this point. We are both empathically linked to you right now. While you will be the one reliving the memories, we will witness them as well."

Swallowing heavily, Harry looked down at his feet. He hadn't realized just how exposed he was about to become. It would be the very first time in... ever that he allowed anyone to know, to understand. Then he was shaking his head and turning away. "I'm not sure that I can do that Appoline. I... I'm ashamed of how weak and defenseless I am in almost all of these memories. I didn't know this would be a viewing gallery. I'm also afraid that you'll take damage just by witnessing the things I've experienced."

Raising her hands palms out, Appoline smiled softly as a soothing, sense of calm and love began radiating out of them. "You want the magic hands that will heal your psyche and help you keep moving, 'Arry? Then you need to suffer the knowledge that we find out about you. My daughter and I are strong 'Arry. We can handle it. You called me family 'Arry... Let me help you."

For several moments, they all just stood at a standstill. Harry was still extremely reluctant, but over time, when Appoline refused to back down, he nodded his head and allowed her to hug him. "Okay then... I uhh... I designed this place to order my memories from newest to oldest. As we move along, the books we encounter will be younger and younger versions of me."

The ladies both nodded at Harry, then at each other, then they fanned out to look around.

Fleur, Appoline and Harry started walking through the immensely long and relatively thin rectangle that made up the Library's only room. They moved slowly because a lot of the books were grays or browns and they didn't want to miss a black.

It was Appoline that saw the first black book and she immediately called them both over. When she pointed to it, Harry walked over with quite a bit of trepidation.

Across the cover, the book said the words Chamber of Secrets.

Turning back towards Appoline and Fleur, Harry smiled reassuringly. "Hoookay ladies... This one's more like an adventure movie than anything abusive. Just keep in mind that I do survive this memory, and the only permanent injury I take from it is this scar on my right arm (Harry briefly pulled up the sleeve of his sweater to show the ladies the scar). I imagine it's a black book because of how scared I was at the time and how painful it was, but as far as bad memories go, I gave as good as I got and that helps me deal."

The two Veela women nodded and then watched as Harry picked up the book.

As Harry's consciousness was drawn into the book, he became the Harry from his memory, except that he knew he wasn't. That's the only way to describe how it felt.

Appoline and Fleur found themselves watching Harry's memory almost like they would in a pensieve, only they were much closer to it, could sense Harry's emotions and we're picking up a lot of the context involved. They instantly knew about the magical Petrifications that had happened that year, they knew that Harry was a parseltongue, they knew about the extreme isolation he experienced, even in his dorm room where his friend Ron hadn't spoken to him in several weeks. They also knew about his friend Hermione worrying about him and the research that she'd been doing. Finally they learned about the king of the serpents as the contents of Hermione's note flashed through their minds...

The information that they received had both Fleur and Appoline watching on pins and needles as Harry walked through the dark, gothic, skeleton riddled tunnel.

Harry opened the chamber's door using parseltongue, and the ladies had their first glimpse of the Chamber of Secrets.

As the memory played out, the Veela tried desperately to remember that these were just memories. It didn't matter. Even though they succeeded, they were still terrified. Tom Marvollo Riddle – I am Voldemort and then a fifty foot snake. Harry was running, hiding, a Phoenix, a hat, a sword. The Phoenix pecked out the Basilisk's lethal eyes, but was killed in the process. Then Harry was fighting the snake. He swerved, he dodged, he shoved the sword right into the beast's brain through the top of its wide open mouth. When Harry pulled his arm free of the snake's mouth, one of the Basilisk's fangs had ended up lodged deep inside of his forearm.

Both Fleur and Appoline gasped in horror as Harry stumbled away from the Basilisk and yanked the fang out of his arm.

Despite how freaked out they were about what they were currently seeing, neither Fleur nor Appoline could help but wonder how Harry was still alive. Basilisk poison is lethal without exception. The complete lethality of Basilisk poison is a well-known and well-established fact, and yet they both knew that Harry did in fact survive this encounter. The Delacour ladies closely observed the puncture wound on Harry's arm, as it steamed and smoldered like a pitch black fire in his flesh. As they watched over his shoulder, Harry managed to stumble across the room and then fall to the floor near the redheaded girl, Ginny.

Tom's spectral persona started to gloat about his impending victory, as the Basilisk poison rapidly coursed throughout Harry's body. Groaning in agony, Harry writhed on the stone as the veins underneath his skin became riddled with eerie black lines. After slowly rolling onto all fours, Harry closed his eyes, clenched his teeth and his entire body tensed up as if he were lifting an unbelievable amount of weight.

Over the next few moments, green lines of pulsing, ambient magic appeared to spread along Harry's veins, counteracting the poisonous black lines. It looked as if his body had become a battleground between twin armies of black and light green serpents. All throughout his body, his veins were changing from black to green and then back at irregular intervals. As this was happening, Harry's body twitched and popped and moaned and growled. He punched the floor beneath his body, as if the stones were the source of his agony.

They weren't…

It appeared that Harry was desperately willing his magic to heal his body, but he wasn't strong enough to completely destroy the venom. A stalemate of some kind had been reached, but at a cost.

Pain...

Harry was being tortured as his body fell to pieces and was regenerated over and over again. Nothing changed for well over a minute, during which time Harry gasped and groaned in an intense cocktail of misery.

The Delacour Ladies had no idea how the boy was still resisting, in the face of this kind of suffering, and with no real end in sight. They just floated there watching, as he strained and fought against what seemed like his inevitable death...

Then, with a small but beautiful trill, a baby phoenix suddenly landed on Harry's arm, where it began releasing copious amounts of its tears directly into the wound. Suddenly both Appoline and Fleur understood. They knew exactly how Harry had survived to meet them, and twin triumphant smiles bloomed across their faces. Harry had held out long enough for the Phoenix to reincarnate, and it had saved him with its healing tears.

At the last second, just as Spectral Tom was about to become corporeal, Harry brandished the Basilisk fang as a weapon. He didn't aim to fight Tom at all, but instead he impaled the journal right through the middle. As the poisonous fang melted the journal, Tom's handsome appearance transformed into the wraith that he really was. Then, in a flash of blinding light, he was rendered down to nothing.

Harry had destroyed the book and saved the damsel. As the memory faded to black, it was to the sight of the roughed up boy shaking Ginny awake...

Harry Appoline and Fleur stumbled across the library floor as if they'd been launched back into their bodies. As they regained their balance, Fleur and Appoline looked at each other and then down at Harry. He'd fallen to the floor but was already rising to his feet again. The boy's body was shaking a little bit, but otherwise he appeared to be handling the memory just fine.

Harry just shrugged and shook his head to clear his mind of the lingering pain and panic. Yeah. That was an extremely unpleasant experience. Without another word, he turned the black book into a pebble, put it in a bag and cinched it at his waist.

After dropping their hands on Harry's shoulders, Fleur and Appoline started radiating soothing comfort and healing, even as they mended his mind. Appoline was also sending Harry quite a bit of maternal affection, although she was barely aware of that fact.

As she worked, Fleur watched Harry closely, before turning away with a frustrated expression on her face. "Dumbledore did mention two times that you saved your school, but I ended up making light of it. What is wrong with this school of yours?"

At first, Harry just grinned at Fleur's question, but then the smile slipped off of his face and he shrugged helplessly instead. Gods only knew why Hogwarts was the way it was. Fleur's words also brought to mind the next memory that they were about to encounter and the fact that Harry should give the girls some advanced warning.

"Listen ladies... The next memory we're going to encounter will most likely scare you both, because of what it implies. Just... be prepared." Harry didn't say anything after that because there was no easy way to describe what he was talking about. He just looked around for the next black book.

After a few seconds spent just staring at Harry's back, Fleur and Appoline followed his lead.

The next book was labeled The Third Floor Corridor on the Left, Philosopher's Stone.

Despite the warning he'd already given, Harry turned towards the ladies with a look of concern on his face. Due in part to the panic reaction people tended to have when this next subject was brought up, Harry wasn't going to just spring it on his friends. It was bad enough that they'd had to see him destroy a remnant of the man. "Okay, it's time. Are you both still under the influence of the calming draught?"

Both ladies nodded.

"Alright then." Harry sighed and gestured at the black book on the floor. "This memory features a man possessed by the real Tom Riddle. I assume you've realized just whom it is I'm talking about?"

Both women visibly shuddered in response but stood their ground.

"Yes. He's alive and out there somewhere. He's currently far less than human but far more than a ghost. He's trying to find ways to get himself a new body. This next memory is the second time the two of us met each other, at the end of my first year at Hogwarts. Of course the first time I encountered him, I was only an infant..." As Harry finished his explanation, he picked up the book and began to look at it.

It was Harry's first year at Hogwarts again and the two Veela were being tugged along for the ride. Both ladies were quickly brought up to speed when dozens of relevant memories formed in their heads unbidden. As a result, both Fleur and Appoline learned a great deal about Harry's entry into the magical community. What they both thought was especially shocking was Harry's small stature at the time, looking more like a nine or ten year old than the eleven year old he really was. Then, there was his extreme ignorance about literally everything magic related. Harry loved Hogwarts right from the very beginning, yes, but he was also lost, scared and having to figure it all out as he went along.

As the memories settled, the Delacour ladies began getting angry at the connections that they were making. From an outsider's perspective, it was obvious that Harry had been set up to look completely incompetent upon entering magical society, especially considering the unreasonable expectations everyone had heaped upon his shoulders. Harry was the so-called Boy-Who-Lived for Gods' sakes. He was literally the last boy on the face of the planet that should be kept completely clueless to his own heritage.

As all of the context involved in the current memory finished settling into place, Fleur and Appoline also learned of the various clues that Harry had encountered throughout the year. The Gringotts vault break in, the ongoing pain in Harry's scar, the troll attack, the attack during his first Quidditch game (and winning regardless), Norbert the dragon hatchling, the Mirror of Erised, Snape and the wraith in the woods, Hagrid and his pet Cerberus Fluffy...

All of these separate incidents came together, as the Delacours watched Harry and his friends make their way through the corridor's various tests. By the time Harry drank the fire proofing potion and walked through the final door, the two French ladies also thought that he was about to confront Snape in the chamber beyond.

They were wrong, just like Harry had been.

When Harry entered the chamber containing the Philosopher's Stone, he was extremely surprised by who he found. Professor Quirrel stood there, which meant that he was far more capable than he'd been acting all year...

When Harry failed to sneak up on the man, Professor Quirrel demanded that Harry assist him in figuring out the mirror of Erised. Harry refused. They dueled... after a fashion. Harry fought bravely, but he didn't even know how to cast a Protego shield at the time, so he was subdued with almost embarrassing ease.

Quirrel spoke to a voice emanating from somewhere unseen. At the voice's order, Quirrel took off the turban that he was wearing, and Harry saw the face of evil embedded into the back of the man's head. Harry's scar exploded in pain, causing the being in Quirrel's back to laugh maniacally. Voldemort attempted to convince Harry to join forces with him, but the boy defied him over and over. In the end, Harry was physically hoisted in front of the Mirror of Erised, at which point the Philosopher's Stone settled into his pocket.

In his steadily building frustration, Quirrel physically attacked Harry, only to find out that his body disintegrated wherever their skin made contact.

Without any hesitation, Harry went on an immediate offensive, screaming in agony as he grabbed at every square inch of exposed skin he could find. It was painfully obvious to both of the Delacour ladies that although Harry's skin wasn't falling off, making contact with Quirrel's body was hurting him badly.

After a short but vicious struggle, Quirrel's body was destroyed and Harry collapsed to the floor. Whatever magic had destroyed Quirrel's body had exhausted Harry, to the point that he was unable to reach his feet again.

Unfortunately, that was the moment when Voldemort's wraith exploded out of Quirrel's ashes, screamed in rage and flew directly towards Harry's body.

The wraith entered Harry's chest, where it began a full possession attempt. Harry writhed and moaned on the floor for several long moments, before screaming the words "get out of my body!" Harry's body exploded with green tinted magic and Voldemort's wraith was ejected from within his chest with the force of a bullet. The wraith was damaged and was forced to make it's escape. After gasping for breath and trying once again to reach his feet, Harry passed out slumped against the mirror.

Instantly, both Harry and the Delacours found themselves back in the library. While the two Veela staggered and stumbled, but managed to remain on their feet, Harry immediately fell to his knees, where he began shaking violently. After a long moment of shocked stillness, both Fleur and Appoline rushed towards Harry's side. Alongside their healing ability, they both began radiating feelings of soothing comfort, calm, healing and in Appoline's case love.

"I've never remembered the possession attempt until now," Harry choked out. "I think I was Obliviated. Until now, I've been led to believe that Dumbledore saved me."

The two French Veela looked grim as they hovered over Harry, helping him move on and heal with their empathic abilities. Fleur began to leak some affection inside of her comfort without even realizing it.

After a little under two minutes passed, Harry finally managed to climb back to his feet again, where he turned to address the Delacours. "Uhh, well... Okay. According to the mechanism that tracks time in my Mindscape we've been in here about twenty minutes real-time now. If you're willing, I'd like to keep moving."

Despite the fact that Harry was still visibly shaking, he still looked determined to finish his task.

After catching each other's eyes, the two Veela decided not to comment. It would've been a waste of time anyway as Harry had started walking away already, and they were forced to jog to catch up with him. As they walked along, Harry began to talk again but for the first time since they'd met him he was noticeably avoiding making eye contact.

Slowing almost to a stop, Harry turned to look at the Delacour ladies before staring down at his feet again. "I uhhh. I want to explain something before we go any further... The rest of my memories are neither heroic nor brave nor anything even remotely comparable to those two words. I'm just a weak little boy with no means to defend myself, and I'm under the care of my... relatives."

At the tail end of Harry's explanation, he found another black book called The week of the Hogwarts owls. He grunted in a particularly grim sort of way, picked up the book as if he was tearing off a bandaid and they were immediately launched into the memory...

Harry Potter had received a Hogwarts acceptance letter by owl delivery of all things. The boy didn't even know what the letter contained yet, but what he did know was that its contents had earned him a severe beating that left him crawling into the safety of his cupboard. The next day it became clear that this Hogwarts place wasn't going to give up that easily. Four letters were owl-delivered this time, instead of one, and Harry was once again savagely beaten. The day after that, ten letters arrived, and the two Veela were forced to watch as Harry was cut to bloody ribbons with a metal coat hanger pulled straight...

The next day letters began coming out of every nook, cranny and hole in the Dursley's house, exploding onto every exposed surface available. At the sight of it all, Harry broke out into mad, out of control laughter because of the silliness of it all, before he was once again beaten to a bloody mess by the infamous coat hanger.

These events repeated themselves daily for the next week, and by the end of it Harry could barely move due to partially healed lacerations and bruises collecting all over his body. Hundreds of owls were now sitting on the roof of number four Privet Drive, and in response Vernon was approaching Harry with murder in his eyes.

Petunia, ever the voice of reason, stopped Vernon from his course of action because he'd stain her new carpet with all of the blood. She quite calmly explained that they'd go somewhere remote to finish the very necessary deed. Harry was unceremoniously trussed up like a pig for slaughter, put in the boot of their car, and taken to a small island just off the coastline.

Later that night, when Vernon started to drink himself into an incoherent rage, Harry knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was just minutes away from death.

That is, of course, the exact moment when Hagrid knocked the cabin's front door right off of its hinges, interrupting the Dursley's little party.

Harry would always be grateful that Hagrid had come to fetch him, inadvertently saving his life in the process. Hagrid was far too decent a bloke to understand the Dursley's true intentions that night, and Harry never had the heart to inform the rather naive giant about the truth...

Once again, Fleur and Appoline were expelled from the memory onto their feet only to find Harry dropping to his butt on the floor. This time was worse than the last few memories however, as this time they found Harry shaking and shivering against a railing.

Despite his obvious discomfort, Harry rapidly changed the memory into a pebble and then stashed it in the sac with the rest.

Appoline and Fleur quickly moved over, bathing Harry in positive emotions and smoothing over raw hurt with everything they had. At this point, they both began sending out feelings of love and affection without even having to think about it. When Harry's head slowly rose up from his chest and he smiled at the two of them, they didn't know how to react at all. All they knew for sure was that they'd hugely underestimated the depth of Harry's suffering...

"Despite Hogwarts's many, many faults, I like it there," Harry whispered, as he rubbed at his temples with his palms. "Hogwarts is dangerous, of course, but I'm not a helpless victim there. I'm allowed, and even expected to, defend myself there. It... is... refreshing."

Harry looked exhausted at this point, but that didn't stop him from pulling himself back to his feet. "Let's move on shall we?"

Despite their growing misgivings, the lady Delacours could only follow along as Harry walked further into the library.

Appoline was the one who saw the next memory book. When she pointed it out, Harry smiled, which surprised the two Veela. "This memory was a milestone for me," Harry admitted, as he gazed down at the book. "It's not a well known fact, but I'm a parseltongue. I know it's supposed to be a dark skill but I've always been one and it's actually helped me out in the past. This memory is indeed painful, but it's also important." Harry picked up the book and they fell away into the memory.

Despite the fact that it was Duddykins eleventh birthday that day, the Delacours could see that the Dursley's were extremely frustrated. There was nowhere for Harry to be and there was no one else available to foist the boy's unwanted presence upon. Their house was being fumigated that day and the cat lady next door was out of town. The Dursleys hated to have to do it, and they were very vocal in their frustration, but they were forced to take Harry with them to the zoo for Dudley's birthday party.

While the Dursleys marched around the Zoo, they all went into the snake house where this unbelievable thing happened to Harry. A python that was just sitting there in it's glass walled cage replied to Harry's voice, and he, somehow, defying all common sense, understood the snake in return.

In that moment, Harry was overawed by the wonder of it all. He didn't care that it was impossible and very likely to get him in trouble. It was magic! He was taking part in magic in real time and it wasn't by accident either.

Later, Dudley pushed Harry over, at which point he accidentally vanished the glass wall of the snake's cage. Things became hectic after that and Dudley accomplished a ton of very girly screaming.

The beating that Harry ended up receiving that night was particularly vicious. Harry ended up with a broken arm, a broken wrist, a messed up knee, and two swollen shut eyes. When he was finally thrown into his cupboard, wracked with pain and completely blind, Harry ended up feeling quite pleased with himself because the snake had gotten away. The snake had been good people after all...

This time when they were ejected from the memory, Harry smiled a somewhat feral looking smile even as he shook from head to toe. He was still trembling from the remembered injuries but the two women could see in his eyes that he liked his own defiance in the memory.

After stashing the memory in his sac, Harry growled out the words "no sweat let's continue." The two ladies followed him quickly with their hands outstretched, feeding him support, healing and comfort.

It didn't take long for Fleur to find the next book but she didn't like the look of it, so she just stared at it without saying a word. It was so pure a black color it looked like a dementor's shroud. Shaking herself out of her fugue, Fleur very reluctantly pointed the book out to Harry.

Harry's eyes narrowed to flat disks when he looked down at the next book because it was called FREAK in all-caps. Then, when he turned towards the two Veela, his face looked haunted. "Ladies... this one's going to hurt."

Although the two Veela immediately reached out to stop him, they were far too slow. Before they could reach out and catch his hand, Harry had already bent over and scooped up the book. The three of them once again fell into the memory.

While Harry had no idea how it was happening, nor did he know how impossible it was supposed to be with his core bound the way it was, Harry was still performing accidental magic a few times a year. Thankfully, he was rarely ever caught, but there was this one infamous time. He was running from schoolyard bullies that were being led by his cousin Dudley, and they all had him hemmed in by the school's walls. All Harry wanted at the time was to be "not there," that was all.

All of the sudden, Harry found himself on the roof of the school, with about nine witnesses loudly claiming that he'd teleported there… By the time the teachers had finished calling in the Dursley's, Harry already knew that he was in for some major pain. The problem was that if he avoided going back to Privet Drive the punishment would only grow exponentially larger over time. Just like every other time he'd ever run away in the past, eventually he'd be caught, dragged back to the Dursley's and then...

Well...

Long story short, while it sucked big time, the wisest choice of action was to just get the beating over with. The best that Harry could hope for was that he made good time to his cupboard, so that Vernon gets a chance to cool off a bit...

Once again the context of the memory had the Delacour ladies shaking in both anger and rising anxiety. The isolation, the abuse, the injustice. It all hurt too much and yet they both knew this was only the beginning.

As soon as Harry arrived home, he was ambushed, grabbed and bodily thrown into a wall, which broke his right arm. That's when he saw a metal bar resting on the heating element of the stove, and he thrashed around like a fish trying to get free.

As Vernon held him down and growled the word freak over and over, Harry struggled with all his might. It wasn't working. Due mostly to the man's bulk, Harry couldn't get out from under Vernon and the look of madness in his eyes almost had him pissing himself.

In the end, Harry was both weak and injured so his struggles were useless, and he was finally punched into a painful form of stillness.

After grabbing the super-heated metal off of the oven, Vernon ripped open the collar of Harry's ill-fitting t-shirt. Then, with a twisted smile on his face, he unceremoniously shoved it against his chest.

Harry screamed and thrashed but he was being held down by the man's immense body weight and still couldn't struggle free. Over the next minute, he took the brand that would be present over his heart for the rest of his life. Until the very day he dies, Harry would have the word FREAK burned into his chest in big bold capital letters.

As soon as they cleared the memory, Harry dropped to his back, clutching at his chest with an inarticulate sob. Rolling onto his hands and knees, he started punching the floor in an uncontrolled fit of extreme rage, breaking open his hands and spilling blood onto the floor.

An instant later, Appoline and Fleur were on their knees right next to him, holding him still while bombarding him with soothing comfort and love. Fleur looked at Appoline over Harry's shoulder and saw that they were both beginning to look a little scared. This was so much more, so much worse than they'd expected, and by the looks of things they were barely even getting started.

Eventually Harry rolled over and just sat there looking down at the book in his hands. Belatedly, he turned it into a pebble and then he drew in a very long and shaky breath. "We're making good time. Thank you for helping me. I now know for certain that I couldn't have done this alone."

Rising to his feet, Harry marched off, on the lookout for more horrifying memories of abuse, with a grim resolve that was almost frightening. Both Appoline and Fleur bit their lips as they trailed along. They wanted to stop Harry, but they knew to do so would be unwise. With every memory that Harry managed to gain control over, the healthier his mental state would become. What they were doing was an absolutely vital task and not just because it would allow him to control his magic. In the end, even knowing all of that didn't help very much, and the Delacour ladies were completely miserable.

Over the next two hours, Harry, Fleur and Appoline found and then relived eighteen more terrible beatings that would've crippled a normal Muggle boy. It appeared that Vernon Dursley knew all about Harry's ability to heal from the worst of his injuries, allowing the man to lay into the little boy without a single care in the world, and then justify his actions after the fact. Harry Potter was a freak. He needed his freakishness beaten out of him, or it would get worse and affect those around him...

It was Fleur who saw another black book with a sinister looking title. She couldn't help herself. She stood in front of it instead of pointing it out. She was hurting for Harry and wanted him to take a break. He was looking around with a single-minded determination now, and he'd stopped talking or making any noises.

Eventually, Harry looked in Fleur's direction and then seemed to look right through her. Soon enough, he was walking towards her and Fleur thought she might cry. She finally stepped out of the way of his approach, but she didn't bother hiding her frustration.

On the ground behind Fleur was a book with the word 'idiot' for a title. When Harry first saw it, his downcast expression grew very complex. Whatever this memory was, it appeared to hurt Harry emotionally far more than it did physically…

Without saying anything at all, Harry bent down and slid his hands underneath the book's cover

Harry Potter ran home that day with a perfect mark on his Maths test. He was still quite young at this point, and still desperately seeking approval the so-called 'normal way.' Even the Dursleys couldn't complain about him getting a good grade in school right?

Well... Unfortunately, Harry hadn't factored Dudley into the equation...

Dudley Dursley is as dumb as a Dementor guarding a school. He'd failed a similar test given on exactly the same day by exactly the same Maths teacher. Normally, the teacher wouldn't even bother making house calls, but Dudley's grades were so abysmal he called up the boy's parents to inform them of his concerns.

It was only when Vernon started getting noticeably angry at the teacher for badmouthing his son that the man began singing Harry's praises as if doing so would make Vernon feel better...

Little did the teacher know, the reckoning Harry was about to go home to...

When Harry ran into the house with his perfect test, Vernon's head immediately snapped towards him like a robot. "Well if it isn't the IDIOT," he spat out in a cold but brutally angry tone of voice.

After blanching in surprise, Harry immediately swerved and started moving to enter his cupboard. It was no good. Vernon had locked it closed. Then he saw a shadow looming over him from behind, and a squeak left his mouth in his rising alarm.

By the end of the day, Harry Potter would barely be able to move an inch with most of his body a mass of dark purple bruises, at which point he was thrown like a bag of garbage into his newly unlocked cupboard…

Needless to say, Harry very carefully kept his grades completely mediocre from that day forward, a defense mechanism that followed him all the way to Hogwarts...

When the two Veelas and Harry were ejected from the memory, Harry slowly dropped to his knees again, and pressed his hands against his temples.

Appoline dashed towards Harry's side, immediately followed by Fleur, who pressed her forehead down against his shoulder. "We need to stop this, 'Arry. It's too much, too fast."

"Removing a bandage always stings," Harry breathed out in return, as he turned the memory into a pebble and stowed it away. "In that last memory I was quite young. I think my abuse memories are running out, and then we'll encounter my struggle against the core bindings." Standing back up, Harry quickly turned away from the Veela and started moving further into the library.

At this point, despite the highly potent calming draught that she'd taken, Fleur was unable to stop crying. Who lives this life and continues to function? Why her Harry? It hurt too much...

Even as Fleur asked those questions of herself, Appoline and Harry were steadily moving away. With one last silent sob, Fleur wiped her tears, and ran to catch up.

Harry found a memory that he was surprised was even a black book at all. It was called "Who am I?" and it apparently featured his first day of primary school. Harry turned towards the ladies and shrugged in an ambivalent fashion. "Well, no big deal. This one has only the normal garden variety of physical abuse." With that said, he grabbed the book and they dropped away into the memory...

By law Harry Potter had to be sent to school. The Dursleys didn't want to send him, and they'd made that opinion very clear. A freak like him would only bring shame upon their family. They had no choice in the matter however, so he was given an apple and sent off to the school bus.

While walking into his school and then his classroom, Harry weathered the staring as well as he could. He was wearing the most ridiculous mixture of colors and shapes for clothing, so he was standing out way more than he was comfortable with. Taking a seat at a desk, Harry waited for further instructions. As the teacher began calling out names, Harry felt a flutter of concern growing within the pit of his stomach. The two Delacour Veela immediately seethed in anger at the reason for Harry's anxiety...

"Harry Potter," called out the teacher... "Harry Potter," he called out again, while scanning the sea of young faces. Moving on, the teacher read out the rest of the names before marking Harry Potter as truant. When the teacher was done however, he noticed that there was a student who hadn't replied present to any name on the list. He approached the boy, knelt down and smiled. "Are you Harry Potter by any chance?" The boy looked up at the teacher and shrugged helplessly. "I don't know sir. I've never heard that name before…"

The teacher leaned much closer to look at the pale, gaunt little face of the boy sitting in front of him. "What do they call you then?"

Harry looked up at this man, this teacher, and he told the truth without a single care for the consequences. Even while reliving this memory, Harry couldn't figure out if his words were a cry for help or picture perfect ignorance.

"My relatives call me Boy or... Freak, sir..."

Needless to say, Harry spent the rest of the day in the principal's office, as the Dursley's were questioned by the Police. The beating the newly revealed Harry Potter received later that week when he was returned to Privet Drive kept him from returning to school for yet another week...

When Harry, Appoline and Fleur emerged from the memory, the ladies were surprised to find a completely ambivalent expression upon Harry's face.

"Are you okay?" Fleur was giving Harry an odd look now, as she and her mother released comfort and care into him in heavy, healing waves.

After shrugging his shoulders noncommittally, Harry tried to grin and failed. "Yeah, sorry it's okay. That's more of a bittersweet memory for me really. I was very happy afterwards to finally have a name of my own."

At this point, Appoline looked both pissed off and confused. "How did the Muggle Police not arrest these Dursleys? How can it be possible that you were left in their possession?"

"Good question, and I have no idea. I remember wondering that same thing literally all of the time." Harry ran his hands through his hair. "By the time I went back to school at the end of the following week, the teacher had inexplicably forgotten just how concerned he was. I've experienced that same negligence from adults all my life. Do you think I didn't reach out for help from anyone who would listen? As a child, I approached several teachers, priests and Police Officers for help, and I was forgotten or deserted every... single... time. When I was a little older, I ran away over and over again and I fought to stay away, but somehow I was always tracked down by the Police and dragged back to the Dursley's, despite my protests and... begging. In the end, I was always the one treated as if I was in the wrong. Eventually, I stopped trying to run away because the beatings I received afterwards were always particularly gruesome."

The two Veela immediately gave each other a very significant look. Compulsion Charms?... Obliviation? Both?

"Well that should be near the last of them," Harry finally sighed out as he looked around the room. "There's a lot of dark gray in here that we're skipping, but I should be able to chip away at those on my own. Let's get this over with. I need to see how I handled myself as a three year old." Harry began walking again with two extremely concerned Veela hovering at his shoulders.

There was a very thick and extremely black book called Two Years of Extremely Poor Health, laying on the floor in front of them. Harry looked back at the ladies and tried to smile but failed. "Well, it looks like we can save a lot of time. It appears that I can experience all of my body's various health problems all at once, and find out how I handled it."

Appoline looked at Harry as if he were crazy. "Yes 'Arry that sounds just marvelous. Let's just drop you into an avalanche of pain and illness. I want you to take a break, 'Arry!"

Harry closed his eyes and firmed up his posture. "Ladies. It's already nine thirty Pm and your bodies are awake. If we wait much longer you'll both doze off and I'll be left in here alone. I only see these two memories left." Harry pointed at the sickness one and one that they could all identify instinctually. There was a blacker than black book that was somehow radiating a green light. "I suggest we get to work so it's finally done."

Fleur and Appoline were extremely upset now and were losing their will to go on despite the fact that Harry was right.

Harry gave the two women another questioning look, at which point they both nodded with sad expressions. Harry grabbed the book below him.

Toddler Harry was lying in his cupboard, where he was in the midst of becoming very, very upset. His body was... not a body anymore, but rather a prison of poorly fitted flesh and bone. He was in terrible pain all day, all the time, and it was getting worse with every single second that passed. He couldn't move anymore and he feared that this was his end...

It had all started with his right hand not moving right, then it was the arm. Later, he'd started having nose bleeds and migraines. If he just had those problems right now it would've been a good day...

Harry's legs had stopped working properly and he'd lost all of his hair. He ached all over, the world was dimming around him, and he didn't know what to do. The people who fed him didn't look all that upset and they didn't come when he cried. Harry was desperate and didn't know what to do. His heart beat funny in his chest and he felt something wrong within his torso...

As the Delacour ladies learned the context of Harry's memory, they found themselves unable to fully comprehend what the toddler was experiencing. They couldn't. It was too awful, too inhumane, too... everything. The one thing that the Delacours did fully understand was that the Harry that they were looking at didn't have much time left to salvage his situation. After just one look at the toddler's body, both ladies knew exactly what he was experiencing...

Harry Potter was in the midst of experiencing his death throes.

In truth, Harry had been at death's door for quite a while now, as slowly, ever so slowly, his body fell apart. His body had betrayed him over and over for what felt like his entire existence. Harry Potter's brain didn't work well anymore. He was slow and dizzy, but he did still have memories.

Harry Potter remembered a before. He remembered warmth, good smells, a comforting embrace... He knew those things existed, and he wanted to experience them again.

Toddler Harry began to get angry. Without truly understanding what he was getting so upset over, he railed against the injustice of it all, and he strained to do something about it. He poured every scrap of his will into that one desperate idea. He poured his entire focus on making a change, any change, because Harry Potter wanted to live!

All of the sudden, Harry felt the presence of some indescribable... something, just at the range of his understanding. It was a feeling of... potential. Toddler Harry grabbed onto it like a man drowning and held on for dear life while screaming internally "help me! I don't want to die, I want to live!"

There was a bright green light and his body was enveloped in a river of soothing magic.

Over time, toddler Harry Potter began to feel relief. He felt his worst pains begin to ease. He was also able to think again, and was so comforted by that fact that he immediately fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Harry, Fleur and Appoline collapsed out of the memory in a tangled heap of limbs at which point they didn't even try to separate. Instead, they held onto each other, desperately seeking comfort. Harry curled into a ball and shook uncontrollably as he started hyperventilating for real.

The ladies on top of Harry were pouring both healing and positive emotions like care, love and comfort into him. They were crying and shaking just at the sight of what had happened to Harry as a toddler. The boy's skin had been peeling off and he'd possessed different sized malformed parts instead of working limbs. He'd been stowed in that damned cupboard like garbage as his body slowly fell to pieces, and he hadn't experienced a single moment of human kindness that entire damned time. Fleur and Appoline didn't move for several minutes. They just held Harry tightly as if he was trying to get away.

When Harry's breathing finally evened out, he uncurled from his ball and looked up at the ceiling. He took in the two ladies curled up next to/on top of him, and then he smiled for their benefit. "Thank you ladies. I don't know what I'd have done without you. Now... We're almost done."

Slowly rising back up to his shaky feet, Harry turned around to face the two Veela hovering nearby. This time, the smile he gave his two female friends was entirely unfeigned. Appoline and Fleur really truly cared about him, and he could feel that much in their magic... Reaching out, he rested his hands atop the Delacour ladies' shoulders. "Look, we all know if I'd confronted my past alone, I'd never have emerged a sane man again. I can't begin to describe to you how grateful I am. Thank you again."

Both Appoline and Fleur just shook their heads while smiling to the best of their ability. Harry didn't owe them anything and he knew it.

Harry slowly approached the last black book and picked it up.

Out in the real world, Adrien was sitting in a chair while watching over his wife, daughter and Harry Potter. The boy was quite obviously having a very hard time of it. Over the last half an hour (two and a half hours Mindscape time), Harry Potter had shook, writhed, screamed, cried, sobbed, flailed, shuddered and gasped. He'd shown all the hallmark signs of someone being tortured to death by Cruciatus, and it was unnerving for Adrien to witness even here on the outside.

His wife and daughter weren't showing such intense reactions but they'd definitely be dehydrated when they returned, because they'd been crying off and on for four hours straight. Adrien began to worry that Harry Potter's life was doing damage to his family.

Just as Adrien was becoming truly concerned, Harry shuddered and went still. Adrien ran up and checked the boy's vitals, only to find that he was physically fine and sleeping. Several minutes went by where there was no outward movement by the young man. Finally, just as Adrien was thinking of trying a very strong Enervate spell to wake the boy up, Harry's eyes snapped open by themselves.

For several seconds, Harry just lay there staring at the ceiling, with a thoroughly exhausted expression upon his face. Then, he turned towards Adrien and coughed to clear his throat. "Your family," he whispered out. "Your family saved me my sanity. I am forever in your debt."

Adrien nodded and leaned closer. "My wife and daughter?"

"We are here," replied Appoline, coming out of her trance. She looked like she could sleep for a week.

Fleur awoke from her trance a single second later, at which point she immediately began staring at Harry with her usual laser-like intensity. Despite looking just as drained as her mother, she quickly moved to settle on the edge of Harry's bed. She then did something that surprised her father into slack jawed stillness. She leaned in closer so that she could start rubbing softly at Harry's chest.

Harry appeared to be just as surprised as Adrien, because his eyes snapped open, and he gasped in a deep breath.

"Will you show us 'Arry?" Fleur's voice was just above a whisper as she leaned in and grabbed Harry by the shoulder. "We aren't done until you face this. You need to be beyond this."

Appoline looked torn at first but after several moments passed she finally nodded her agreement. "Arry, we are here for you and this is the time."

For several moments, Harry continued to look at the ceiling, without any outward emotion on his face. While Adrien had no idea what his wife and daughter were talking about, he could easily see that the girls were asking a lot from the young man lying between them.

Finally, after about half a minute passed where he didn't respond at all, Harry snapped out of his indecision, sat up in the bed and regarded the Delacours. "It will probably come as no surprise to either of you ladies that no one has ever seen what I'm about to show you. I shower alone and I wear long sleeved clothing even to this day because I will not be pitied... In the last five weeks, they've improved in appearance due to my body's rapid transformation. They're silver and smooth now rather than red, angry and bumpy. Nonetheless, they're still... dramatic... ugly."

Taking a long and shuddering breath, Harry slowly rose to his feet and then walked into the center of the room.

Appoline and Fleur pulled Adrien onto the couch, where they wrapped their arms around his torso seeking comfort. As Adrien began to understand what he was about to see, his face turned pale in concern.

Fleur looked especially affected by what Harry was about to reveal. She was sitting up, leaning forward and staring at the boy as if he might try to run.

As Adrien stared at his eldest daughter, she suddenly turned back towards him and begged for patience with her eyes. Adrien began to understand that his daughter was about to do what she thought was necessary, and she didn't really care what it would look like. Adrien slowly nodded his head. He could kind of guess what she had in mind.

In the center of the room, Harry continued to look away from Fleur, Appoline and Adrien. While he was well-aware that it was irrational, he was terrified of their reaction to his current appearance. Logically speaking, Harry knew that the Delacours weren't going to be unnecessarily judgmental about his appearance. Not even Fleur at her bitchiest had anywhere near that level of cruelty in her. Knowing that didn't seem to make what he was about to do any easier…

At exactly the same time, Harry knew that Fleur was right. He couldn't continue living the way he was. He needed to truly put the past behind him.

Fine... He was going to show them.

Despite his tenuous resolve, Harry didn't want to see their faces when he started the reveal, because he knew he'd chicken out if he did. Wrapping his fingers around the hemline of his large, messy sweater, he took one last calming breath and got to work. Slowly at first, but then all at once in a determined movement, Harry ripped off his sweater. Next he did the same with his jogging pants.

When he was done, Harry stared at the far wall in nothing but a pair of dark blue boxers.

Sure enough, Harry heard three separate heavy and startled gasps. He suddenly found that he was freezing in the warm air of the living room, and he might even be shivering a bit. Not much, but a bit. Time seemed to slow down because Harry was too much of a damned coward to turn around. He didn't want to know...

Several moments of painful quiet followed, as Harry stood there frozen in the middle of the room. Then, with no warning whatsoever, there was a hand gently pressing into the skin of Harry's lower back. It was a small, cool, and smooth hand, and it slowly trailed the whorls and splotches covering his back. Nothing had been said yet, but Harry found the tension in his body easing as he focused on that hand...

The hand started low and slowly rose, finding all the different points of interest as it crawled up Harry's back. When it encountered particularly large pockets of silvery skin, the hand always dwelt there, slowly, gently tracing them… and Harry shivered for more than one reason... Historically, his scars had always been sore, but nowadays they were just sensitive to the touch.

When the hand trailed up towards his shoulder, Harry could sense that he was about to be turned around… As he predicted, the hand started pushing gently on the back of his right shoulder, and he turned as he was led, but with his eyes averted left and down.

Starting low again, the hand started rubbing against Harry's lower stomach. His well developed abdominal muscles were actually something he took pride in nowadays, but the view was ruined by what covered them. Same as before, whorls and lines of silvery scars dominated the landscape. The hand trailed up the length of his stomach, following the scars but noting the muscle. It was more of a whole hand rubbing him now taking in more of his skin. It rose slowly, following whatever lines or definition took its notice.

Harry was definitely trembling now. There would be no denials later, because this was blatantly obvious.

The hand rose to just under Harry's chest, where it rubbed across his sternum and then paused atop his collar-bone. Then the hand rubbed downwards towards his left pectoral muscle, where it stopped over the single most disgusting thing that had ever been done to his body.

The hand slowly traced the letters, beginning with the F, a finger moved over slightly to an R, it rubbed over an inch to an E, It swept down and back up to an A, and finally slid over and found the K.

The soft hand was resting over Harry's heart atop his chest where lies the burn scar of the word FREAK, immortalized in silvery skin. Fleur Delacour, the most beautiful woman in the whole damned world, was exploring every last inch of his deepest, darkest, most secret shame…

Harry wouldn't, couldn't look up even to save his own life, but he stood perfectly still as the hand ran upwards from his chest to slide up the side of his neck. The hand slid its thumb in front of his ear and then hooked the rest of its fingers around the back of his neck. Harry and the hand stayed that way for a few incredibly long seconds, until very suddenly, he was drawn a step forward.

As Harry's body made contact with Fleur's, she immediately wrapped her unused arm around his waist. The hug was loose at first, but it tightened more and more over time. The hand resting behind his head moved further round his shoulders until it became an arm pulling him flush against her body, and a head of perfect platinum hair was pressed in down below his chin. Then, there was a wetness dripping against his chest and running down the length of his stomach, and Harry's breath hitched within his chest…

The sobs were quiet, but Harry could feel them in the shaking of Fleur's shoulders and the wetness on his skin.

Fleur Delacour was sobbing and Harry didn't know what to do...

Appoline moved in next, to join in on the hug from behind her daughter. She shored Fleur up against Harry's body and gently put her hands on either side of his face. She was crying as well, but she was also in her element as she sent wave after wave of comfort into the two teenagers.

Harry knew that he also needed to help Fleur, who was shaking now and looked like she might collapse. He closed his eyes and screwed up his will. He flooded his aura with the memory of them caring for him in his Mindscape. He filled his thoughts with the two of them shoring him up with their care, keeping him sane. He radiated intense love and gratitude to the family around him, bathing the room in a Patronus effect...

Fleur choked out a gasp only to start sobbing all the harder. The boy... man… Harry... didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve any of it. He was good, he was just, and he'd lived such a monstrous life. She shook and she cried in his arms for a very long time.

Adrien was shocked silent by the sight in front of him. Harry Potter had more odd silver scar tissue on his torso, legs and arms, then he had empty untouched areas of skin. It was, in fact, oddly beautiful, he suddenly realized. He was shocked that he might feel that way about the signs of a lifetime of abuse, but he did. The scars were mesmerizing. They traveled his body in whorls and lines like a painting made on flesh, and it was obvious that his magic had intervened quite a bit on his behalf...

At exactly the same time, Adrien watched as his daughter was more physically intimate with a man than he'd ever seen or would ever simply allow. He couldn't even stop her, because dammit right now it was necessary. His wife soon followed suit, and Harry was being dog-piled by female Veela. Then, not to be outdone, Harry flooded the entire house with caring and positivity, as if he refused for them to remain sad over him… and they sobbed all the harder. The poor boy had no idea that he'd just staked the two Veela through the heart with his actions. Fleur and Appoline wanted to hurt with him, they wanted to hurt for him, so his actions were having the opposite effect...

An hour went by, during which time the three of them found the floor and held tightly to each other. Very few words were spoken but the message was conveyed nonetheless. Harry was not to blame for what had happened to him, He was not a freak or an idiot and he wasn't ugly... He was Harry Potter and his past was behind him.

Five Days Later, Surrey…

Petunia Dursley stood in her kitchen and stared out the window at her long suffering garden. After all the years of the freak doing the yard work, she'd forgotten just how tiring it actually was. She couldn't seem to do even a fraction of the work the boy had been doing and a lot of little neglects were beginning to pile up. Petunia couldn't figure out what she was doing wrong, but the grass was brown, the weeds were gaining traction, and the flowers hadn't grown this year except in small lackluster patches. That prissy little bitch Tiffany from across the street had even pointed it out to her lately, asking quite cheerfully that she please not allow her property to become an eyesore.

It was all so very embarrassing.

The amount of work that the freak had done every day to repay them for suffering his presence had been truly immense. Then, as Petunia looked at her brown lawn, she thought of another role that the boy had filled while he was here that she wanted him to take back. He was a vent. He was a distraction. He kept her hubby Vernon occupied, allowing him to release his frustrations in a healthy, productive way.

Now that the boy was gone, Petunia feared that he would start looking to his family to release those same tensions. Vernon was becoming short with them as of late. He was having troubles at work, was constantly grumbling about the injustice of it all and something about self-entitled, punk kids. Vernon was wearing all that stress home and snapping at both Duddykins and her far more than he used to. It was a subtle thing. He didn't outwardly look different, except there was a specific sneer on his face and a tone in his voice that was leaking out more and more over time. There was a reason that she didn't like the sounds of it. It was the tone he'd used with the boy who used to live in the cupboard...

Vernon Dursley hadn't had a good day at work... again. It all started a little while back when he'd caught some young man standing around, loafing in the staff room. Vernon had gone on a much needed, long rant, about how useless the man was being, just standing around. Vernon never got to vent like that anymore and it had felt really good after so long without.

Too bad the man hadn't been some junior worker of the company. He'd been Mr. Mason's (Vernon's boss) son Taylor Mason. Taylor had been quick to ask if this was normal behavior for a senior member of the company, and he'd demanded to know his name. Taylor had been completely incensed that he could arbitrarily be yelled at by some fat, red, idiot, in a terrible suit, as he'd called him.

Taylor had marched right into his father's office, followed by a spluttering Vernon and had point blank asked for Vernon to be terminated from his job. Mr. Mason had replied that unfortunately that wasn't how businesses worked and that you needed a valid excuse. Then Mr. Mason had stared at Vernon, as his son explained what had occurred in the staff room. After that Mr. Mason calmly told his son not to worry. He'd looked directly at Vernon as he'd described to his son how the process of drumming up a paper trail to fire someone worked, and that he'd get right on it.

Vernon had felt the executioner's ax on his neck ever since that day.

Finally returning home, Vernon collapsed into his spot in the dining room chair, boiling over with stress. Little did he know, he was being watched by a beautiful, but invisible pair of unbelievably furious witches.

Just a few months earlier, random witches and wizards entering the Dursley's property would've been completely impossible.

Well, not anymore...

Now that Harry was gone, the blood wards had failed entirely. Good riddance. The wards had taken large portions of Harry's ambient magic to charge on an ongoing basis. The two foreign witches were left wondering how in the nine Hells Harry hadn't been sapped completely dry of his life giving magic, to earn this so-called protection.

Now that the blood wards were gone, there was nothing left to stop them from being here. So here they were. The gorgeous pair of invisible blondes were currently layering both the Dursleys and their property with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of jinxes and minor curses.

None of the spells the invisible witches were casting were overtly violent in nature. There was just a mountain-load of them. The witches layered the jinxes so heavily that it would be a century before they disappeared, if ever. The jinxes were cast in the household's walls, beds, floors, objects, clothing, furniture and fridge. In fact, the only area of the house left untouched was the cupboard under the stairs. It would be the only source of relief available for the Dursleys, if they ever found out about it.

The Utrumleptresitfungent jinx is a very poorly named and rather obscure spell that grows rampant mold and mildew on its target. It was cast in any wall space available both visible and not, including air ducts.

The Putredeign jinx is another charm designed to bring rot in all its forms, and it can affect either wood or food. The entire house wasn't covered in the jinx because it would collapse if that were the case. Instead the spell was cast inside of the fridge to an absolutely absurd degree... From this point forward, the Dursley family would need to eat any food they bought immediately, lest it go bad.

The Vermesvoca jinx is like a siren song to vermin of all shapes and sizes. All manner of roaches, bed bugs, lice, mosquitoes, earwigs, centipedes, moths, mice and rats would soon be flocking to the structure as if it was a paradise. The beautiful witches performed a screening spell to keep away illness ridden versions of these pests... It wasn't a kindness... They weren't looking to kill the family off so easily.

The Pulvislotta charm is like a magnetic force to attract dust. It's actually a rather useful charm because it can attract dust away from a home to a designated location outside the house. Too bad the beautiful witches were casting it on every available surface in the house. It would attract all of the dust and dander for miles. From this point on, the neighbors would find their lives a little bit easier, as the Dursley's lives became quite a bit harder.

The Labelotta jinx was a stain jinx. Every single surface of the house, as well as all of the clothing was hit several times and would be massively prone to persistent stains.

The Perdita jinx is a prank jinx commonly used by children. It can make specific items easily lost or misplaced. The two beautiful witches made sure to hit every item that was conveniently sitting around. They targeted one sock of every pair, ties, belts, jewelry, shoes and every tool in the house like pots, pans, knives, dusters, fly swatters, etc.

The Scabiecarent jinx is a general feeling of being itchy cast over a wide area. The witches cast the jinx in every room except for Harry's cupboard.

The Dolormaxima jinx causes people in specific areas to be massively prone to spilling things. Every room was hit with this just in case the Dursleys tried to eat or drink anywhere other than the kitchen or dining room.

The Neuempediant jinx causes anything hit to have a massive tendency to clog or leak. Not one pipe or vent in the entire house was left untouched. The Dursleys would soon find it an intense struggle to shower, use the toilet and wash dishes. Hell, even their central air and heating would be less effective.

The Capturem jinx causes random and surprising chilly drafts to float around a room until it's dispelled. It wouldn't be... ever.

The Aphaca jinx was cast on the lawns and gardens. It would cause the entire span to become rampant with dandelions.

The Foetor jinx is a common and immature jinx that causes a foul smell to follow an object everywhere, activating at random intervals over time. The house was coated in the spell that would activate at different times, in different rooms, so that the family would have to move back and forth for relief.

The Iteruina jinx or common tripping jinx was layered all over the damned place. It was nowhere near the stairs because the beautiful witches were playing a long term game. They had no interest in allowing a stair fall death to end any of the Dursley's suffering.

The Frictio jinx or friction spell was cast on the car and would decrease fuel efficiency dramatically.

The Cibusnegate jinx is a spell to decrease a fuel's efficiency. It was originally designed to help put out dangerous chemical fires but would work on gas as well. It was cast inside the family car's gas tank. It would soon take nearly a whole tank of gas to get to and from work.

The Exhauriat jinx is a power draining jinx and was cast on the car battery casing. No matter how often the battery was replaced, it would soon go dead in record time.

The Rubigo jinx causes rapid rust development. It was cast on every non-essential part of the family car.

The Sudore jinx was put on the Dursleys themselves, as they milled around. It would cause them excessive amounts of sweating.

The Balbiture jinx was another jinx put on the Dursley family themselves and would cause them to develop a stutter.

The Twinjire Jinx was put on every member of the family and would cause them all to twitch like drug addicts at irregular intervals.

The Sensibilatem jinx was put on the family and would increase skin sensitivity to uncomfortable levels. It would only make what was to follow feel even worse for the family.

The simply named Acne jinx did exactly that. The entire family would experience a plague of pimples on their faces and shoulders from that point forward.

The Capiilum Incrementum charm was a rather useful charm designed to regrow hair as fast as possible in case of accidents. Too bad the two beautiful witches had hit the Dursleys in every body part not located on their heads.

The Congregandae jinx was put on the entire Dursley family and would create in them a tendency to hoard objects. The family would soon find it very hard to take out the trash, but rather they would feel an intense desire to collect it instead.

The Obliti jinx causes forgetfulness. The entire family was hit by this jinx but only at a minor level. They would soon find that they had trouble remembering what they were supposed to be doing way more often, but would remember their problems quite clearly.

A rune stone ward anchor was magically placed below the foundation in the basement. It had no other purpose but to release waves of ambient magic at irregular intervals. This was actually quite an expensive addition, even though it was a very small ward stone. All that the invisible blonde witches wanted to have happen was to create an atmosphere where electricity wouldn't work for more than a few moments at a time. The house would be an electrician's nightmare for decades to come.

Finally, the two beauties cast a strong Compulsion Charm on Petunia and Vernon Dursley in regards to themselves and each other. The compulsion would assure that the Dursley parents would never even consider killing themselves, killing each other, moving away or purchasing newer belongings. They could hurt each other if they wanted to, but outright murder or suicide would never even occur to them as a possibility.

If/when that spoiled brat Dudley decided to run away from home to live on the streets, then fine (they'd be keeping tabs on him magically from here on out to make sure he doesn't get up to no good). To a certain extent, Dudley was merely a product of his environment, so he was being given a chance to redeem himself.

The Dursley parents on the other hand, would feel an intense stubbornness in regards to changing their home/car/clothes/toaster/etc and they would fight to keep them if necessary.

The very beautiful witches desired that the Dursley parents don't try to move away from Privet Drive. A lot of their work was placed on their home/car and they didn't want to have to do it again (although they would if they had to).

When the beautiful witches were finished hitting Dudley, Vernon and Petunia with all of the mischief level jinxes listed so far, they turned their focus towards the Dursley parents alone, and then got down to the business of ruining their bodies. They peppered them both with nearly a hundred minor curses that would cause every non-lethal but intensely uncomfortable health ailment from arthritis, to headaches, to restless-leg syndrome, to pink eye, to wax-blockage of the ear canal, and everything in between, to happen again and again at irregular intervals.

The two beautiful witches cast curse after curse after curse for hours and hours and hours on end… It was an exhausting day's work, but they went at it with a will.

Of course, Vernon Dursley was the primary target of the two invisible beauties, and they had something special in mind for him… The elder of the two beautiful witches was gifted at Arithmancy, which she used to create an appropriate punishment for the man... It took four full days to cook up, but she'd managed to design a rather nasty and magically taxing curse that was going to be intent driven by Vernon's own out of control hatred. Over about a twenty minute period of time, the two beautiful witches tandem cast a so far unnamed curse on the hateful man, that was designed to only be as bad as he himself makes it.

From that moment forward, every time Vernon Dursley thinks a cruel thought about another person, his arms, legs, back or torso would be subjected to a very specific scorch mark that would appear over a few hours' time. Every mean spirited word, thought or deed he does to another person, would from then on be engraved into the flesh of either his upper arms, shoulders, thighs, stomach, back and chest. The filthy words the man thinks about other people would end up looking exactly the same as the red, raised, ugly brand that the monstrous man had given Harry Potter, pre his miraculous transformation.

Unfortunately, the branding process wouldn't feel like anything at all, let alone hurt as bad as what Vernon had subjected on Harry. To make the curse that painful would've been too magically powerful for even the two of them working together. If they'd had the power to perform the spell in a way that made Vernon feel the same pain Harry had, then they probably would've done it that way. In the end it didn't matter, because what they cast on the man was going to be poetically appropriate in a way that pleased them both.

If Vernon Dursley began feeling immediate pain upon thinking cruel things about people, he might eventually change his way of thinking and the punishment would end. There was only a very slim chance a man as sick as Vernon would learn his lesson, but that wasn't a chance the two beautiful witches were willing to take. No... They were not here today to improve this man's thinking, and they were not here to teach him a lesson. The two beauties were exacting a terrible form of vengeance. There would be no chance for redemption for either Vernon or his wife. Both of the blonde witches were a hundred percent certain that Vernon Dursley's body was about to become a very, very unsightly and gruesome mass of angry, scornful, racist, sexist and hateful words.

The two invisible beauties had brought three pepper up potions each, and yet they were still completely drained by the time they Apparated home. It was all worth it to the both of them. No one would treat Harry like the Dursleys had and get away with it…

The Dursley family would soon come to understand what Hell on earth truly is...

Tomorrow, the two beautiful witches would be visiting the house of a Margery Dursley, where they'd be doing some very similar things to her life.

They were also going to need to save those dogs from her and find them a proper home.

Nothing, not a single thing on the entire face of the planet, is more terrifying than an enraged and protective Veela…

Severus Snape found himself scouring the countryside, approaching every Death Eater that he knew for a visit. He would meet with them and use Leglimency to ferry out where the Horcruxes were. He knew that he was acting suicidal, but he had no choice in the matter. He'd broken a magically binding oath and had been given only one way out. He'd thought by having a Death Eater friend of his Imperio him into brewing and administering the potion to Harry it would absolve him of blame in the eyes of magic. He'd had his friend Obliviate his complicity to the plan and he'd thought that he'd be safe from the consequences of his oath to Dumbledore.

Too bad Dumbledore was intensely strong and had revealed his long buried memories as if it was nothing. Snape had immediately started dying until Dumbledore had extended him just one chance to live. He either die by the broken oath or attempt to find the Horcruxes.

Snape was now on a suicidal hunt for Voldemort's soul-containers and he'd already found the location of two of them. He lived his life in a constant state of panic that they'd be too well hidden, and he'd fail.

Severus Snape's very life hung in the balance.

To Be Continued

Author's Note:

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