"Your body seems to be healing well." Madam Pomfrey said after examining the young man who was sitting across from her at the desk. "You weren't in the best physical condition to begin with, but with this exercise schedule from Madam Hooch and this nutrition guide, you should be better than when you left last year."
Harry nodded quietly and took the two small booklets.
"There are instructions on how to find the exercise rooms and you are to give this menu to the house elves in the kitchen, they will see that your dietary requirements are prepared for your meals." She said handing him yet another piece of parchment.
"So, I'm ready to be more active then?" He asked with baited breath. He really wanted to be able to finish what he and Hermione started the other night but the cramping in his back was quite the deterrent.
"Nothing to strenuous, that's why you're being prescribed exercise." She smiled knowingly. "I'm sure you and Miss Granger can work things out for yourselves ..." Harry glanced up at her a little too quickly and she smiled. "Oh, don't go thinking that I don't know what's going on." She said with a smile. "It was only a matter of time with such close proximity to one another ... Be careful, we don't want any relapses with your spine, it took quite a shock and there are at least four more months of potions to return you to full health."
Harry nodded again and sighed. "Thanks for everything, Madam Pomfrey." He said quietly. With a glance to his watch, he stood and smiled slightly. "I have another appointment before classes start."
"Right then, off you go." She said with a wave of her hand. Harry didn't waste any time and was soon walking into his room. Hermione was still sound asleep in his bed. He sat beside her and after brushing her hair from her face, kissed her gently on the cheek.
"Hmm? What time is it?" She yawned and stretched gingerly before fully turning to face Harry. A smile crept along her face and she took his hand in hers. "Morning."
"Morning to you too." Harry responded with a smile. "I-I've got a question to ask." He stammered as he blushed and looked to their entwined hands.
"What is it?" She asked with a bit of concern hinged in her voice.
He looked to her questioning face and smiled reassuringly. "It's nothing bad, really. I-I was just wondering if you'd come with me to therapy today."
"You want me to?" Hermione's eyes brightened at the prospect and she pulled herself into a sitting position to better gauge his request.
He nodded and looked into her eyes. "I think it's time. Besides, you know more about what happened than Dr. Mudds does and I want you to be a part of that now. If that's ok ..."
Hermione smiled and pulled him into a tight hug. "Of course it's ok." She whispered to him. "When do you have to meet him?"
"In an hour." He admitted. "I saw Madam Pomfrey a little earlier than planned so that you could have time to get ready ..."
She smiled at her boyfriend and pulled him into a kiss. "Thank you, Harry. I think an hour would be more than enough time. I'll be back in a little bit, why don't you get some rest?"
"I could use a little nap ..." He smiled as she extracted herself from the covers. "See you in a little bit then."
Harry watched as Hermione walked from the room. She stopped at the door and winked at him playfully before she closed it behind her. After a few minutes of staring at the door he lay back and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. The words of Rowena began to echo in his mind and after reviewing the meditation for restful awareness, Harry began following its instructions.
Clear the mind, breathe deeply, serene scenery, breathe deeply ... Through the mental mantra, he kept his eyes open and they glazed over. His heart rate slowed and his breathing grew even. He felt the room grow into sharp focus and he began to see the ribbons of light that Merlin called The Dragon. He watched those swirls subconsciously and noted the wards around the room. As he fell deeper into the trance, he was able to pick out the different components of each ward, their strength, and noticed an abrupt change in the flow of magic. Concentrating on that change, Harry discovered a malformed ward and began to right the inconsistency.
"Harry ... Harry wake up ..."
He shook his head as he pulled out of his trance and looked into the smiling face of the young woman in front of him. "What's wrong?" He asked quietly.
"It's time to go." She said with a smile and offered him a hand. "You had fallen asleep with your eyes open ..."
"Actually, I wasn't sleeping, I was meditating ..."
"Meditating?"
"Yeah." He replied. "It's the meditation for Restful Awareness." He explained when he saw her inquisitive look. "It has a number of beneficial side effects. Longer life, increased healing, and best of all, it allows me to get the equivalent of a full night's rest in about four hours. No dreams at all."
"Let me know the next time you do that, ok? It took me fifteen minutes to wake you up." She laughed and Harry swore he heard small bells tinkling in the air.
"I will." He said with a chuckle. "I did find something interesting and I'll have to talk to Professor Dumbledore about it. I fixed a malformed ward. If the magic flow is any indication, it could have meant that Voldemort had a way to get into the castle with little problem. It might be part of the reason why he was able to enter my dreams so easily from outside the castle."
"Really?" She looked at him in surprise. "I thought the wards were sound ..."
"They've been around for over a thousand years, Hermione." Harry said with a slight grin. They were on their way through the common room by this point, walking hand-in-hand. "They were bound to start decaying sooner or later. They might need to be reinforced."
They continued talking casually about the strength of the various wards and how he was able to discover why the one was malformed when they stopped in front of a rather large portrait of an elderly wizard smoking a cigar.
"Oedipus." Harry said with a slight grin at the look on Hermione's face. The portrait slid sideways to reveal the entrance to the school psychologist's office. "Recognize him?" He said with a grin.
"Isn't that?"
"Yeah." Harry said with a laugh. "Who would have thought to look here?"
Hermione shook her head and followed behind her boyfriend. After their short walk through the revealed tunnel, they took a seat on a very comfortable couch and waited patiently for a few moments. Hermione looked at the various certificates on the walls and raised an eyebrow.
"Finurge?" She asked quietly.
"That's my name." A tall, average-built man with spectacles and grey hair said from a now open door. "Doctor Finurge Mudds, and you must be Hermione?"
Hermione smiled shyly and took the offered hand. "That's right, Doctor."
The doctor laughed and shook her hand jovially. "No need to be shy, Harry and I have talked about you quite often." He laughed again at the look she sent Harry's way.
"Well, I talk about my feelings here." Harry said with a flinch.
"If it makes you uncomfortable, you can wait here while Harry and I have our session." Dr. Mudds said in a serious tone.
"I'm ok." She said quietly. "Do you still want me here, Harry?" She looked up to her boyfriend and relaxed at his smile.
"Of course I do." He replied with a reassuring squeeze of her hand. "I want you here ..."
Satisfied who would be attending the session Dr. Mudds escorted the two of them into his office and closed the door quietly behind them. After locking the door and setting the silencing charms with a wave of his wand, he crossed to his desk and pulled out a few rolls of parchment and a QuickQuotes quill. Settling comfortably in a chair across from the two of them he smiled comfortingly and unrolled one of the scrolls.
"We've pretty much covered how you feel about Hermione, Harry." He said as he read the parchment and glanced up to see Harry's nod. "Why don't we get to the root of your problem then ..."
Harry took Hermione's hand in his and held it tightly before clearing his throat. "Right ... Well, I told you why I came back, for the most part ..." He said nervously. "I guess it's time to talk about why I did it in the first place ..."
Hermione looked from Harry to the doctor but remained quiet. Doctor Mudds nodded for Harry to continue.
"To tell you the truth, I don't know why I did ... but I do know why I fell so far this time."
"This time?" Hermione asked quietly.
"Hermione, please let him speak. We'll get to that soon enough." Dr. Mudds said with an encouraging smile. Hermione nodded and settled back to keep her attention on Harry.
Harry smiled at her and nodded. "I'll get to that ... I don't know if you realize where I've lived, Dr. Mudds?"
The older man nodded. "You've been staying with muggle relatives of yours, am I correct?"
Harry nodded. "I have, but they weren't the nicest of people."
"They were your relatives ... How bad could they be?"
Harry sighed. "I lived in a cupboard under the stairs for eleven years." He said matter-of-factly. "I was treated like I was nothing, then as a slave when I could do chores around the house."
A startled look crossed the doctor's face for a moment but he nodded for Harry to continue.
"For most of my life, I've been told that the only people who will ever love me are dead. Everyone knows what happened to my parents, so I don't think I need to go over that again." Harry fidgeted in his seat. "Every day I lived with them, I was told over and over that I wasn't worth the hand-me-downs I got from my cousin. They asked why I was so stupid and kept calling me a freak. I grew up listening to all the put downs and getting beat up by my cousin and his friends.
"Whenever I stood up for myself, I would be punished and locked in the cupboard with little to eat for days at a time. It really got bad when my uncle came home from a bad day of work. He'd beat me and put me down because I was the cause of his troubles. I wasn't molested, thankfully, but being thrown around by the scruff of my neck wasn't all that fun." Harry looked up and noted the look of shock on the doctor's face and the concern and sympathy in Hermione's. He cleared his throat and concentrated on her hand and holding it.
"Well, with all the abuse I got at home, school wasn't much better. No, not here at Hogwarts." He added quickly. "At the primary school I went to. Dudley and his friends scared everyone away so I could never make friends. Other children started shunning me and making an effort of not being seen around me. They were all afraid of getting beat up, I reckon. Well, I did the only thing I could think of, I pushed all that anger and sadness as deep inside me as I could and made it look like I didn't care. Oh, sure, I knew that real families weren't like mine, if you could call it a family, but I went along as if everything was perfectly fine.
"After I got accepted to Hogwarts, things really changed. People wanted to talk to me. Everyone, actually, because of my scar ... because of what I did and didn't remember. They called me a hero for living through an unstoppable curse. They didn't know what I lived through. Sure, it wasn't as bad as some children have ..." He sighed quietly before continuing. "Anyway, when I met Hagrid, Ron, and Hermione I thought things were finally turning around. Then things started to happen, the philosopher's stone, the basilisk ..." He looked at his girlfriend and squeezed her hand. "Finding out that I had a godfather, Cedric dying ... My godfather dying ... Hermione almost ..." He stopped and wiped a tear from his cheek and Hermione tightened her grip this time.
"Well, I thought she did but she was lucky. It seemed like everyone I cared about was being taken away from me or leaving me. Last summer was the first time I actually thought about it. It would have been so easy to just do nothing, to waste away so I could be with them again, to see them again ..."
"Who, Harry?" Dr. Mudds asked quietly. "Your parents?"
Harry nodded. "Mum, Dad, my godfather ... At the time it felt like they were the only ones who cared about me. I know I had friends, but I wanted to be loved. I wanted to feel what it was like to hug my mother or to see my father smile proudly at me. I wanted to see them, to be with them. I never had the chance that almost everyone else had."
"What changed your mind then?"
"Hermione did." Harry said confidently as he looked at her. "It was our talks and you just being there." He said with a smile. "But one day you started acting strangely and I thought you were trying to pull away from me."
"I was worried, Harry." She said quietly. "I didn't mean ..."
"I know." He smiled softly at her. "I know you didn't mean anything by it and I didn't know why. I tried to tell you how I felt several times but something always got in the way. I guess Christmas Eve I couldn't handle it any more. I remember feeling very alone and unwanted ..." He nodded when Hermione attempted to speak. "I know I was wrong and what I did was incredibly, brilliantly stupid. I'm not sure if I could handle holding in all my emotions at that point and I also think that's what's been my main weakness." He looked to Hermione and smiled. "It wasn't your fault, Hermione, it was all mine. My inability to control myself. I just kept everything bottled up inside and I lost it in the end ..."
"I'm sorry, Harry." She said concernedly.
"You don't have to apologize. I've had emotional problems for a long time now. For a while I didn't even know what love was but I know a bit now. You, my godfather, Ron, and Lupin have shown me several sides of it and I know that my uncle was wrong."
"That's a good first step, Harry." Dr. Mudds said with a smile. "I'm going to talk to Madam Hooch regarding your physical therapy. I want to add self-defense to your schedule so you can protect yourself when you need to."
Harry nodded and squeezed Hermione's hand once again. He wanted to do more but in the presence of his therapist he felt he should keep his affection light. The pressure she exerted on his hand in return comforted him and lifted some of the doubts about Hermione leaving him after this session.
"Is there anything else you'd like to discuss?"
Harry nodded and cleared his throat. "I learned if you can't control your emotions, you'll make more mistakes than normal. I haven't told you this, Doctor, but while I was unconscious I dreamed that the Founders of Hogwarts and Merlin trained me. It seems strange, if you think about it, and I reckon I had those dreams because I want to keep those I care about safe."
"Dreams? Would you like to discuss them?"
"There really isn't much to tell." Harry replied cautiously. "I learned about the different aspects of the four houses and some of the history of magic. I think I was incorporating what Hermione was reading to me into my dreams and if what I learned is any indication, I should be ready for my N.E.W.T.s now ..." He winked at Hermione and smiled when she let out a snort of laughter. "You read quite a few books to me, you know that?"
"Ginny suggested it might help with your grades ..." Hermione quipped with a return wink.
Dr. Mudds smiled at the banter between the young couple and cleared his throat. "I can see that you are healing and we're making some progress. I think you should talk to your other friends before our next session."
Harry's expression went serious and he nodded that he'd understood.
"Our time is up for today, I'd like to see you in two weeks. We'll keep the time the same."
"Do you want to keep coming with me?" Harry whispered to the young woman seated next to him. "If you don't, I understand."
"Of course I do." Hermione replied with a smile. "If you want me here, I'll be here."
"Then I assume I'll be seeing you as well?" Dr. Mudds smiled at Hermione's nod. "Very good then. You have an hour before your first class, Harry, I suggest you eat a healthy breakfast and follow the nutritional guide Madam Pomfrey has provided you."
Harry stood and offered his hand to Hermione who took it with a slight smile. "See you in two weeks, Doctor." He said as they left the now unlocked room.
The couple walked to their suite in companionable silence and retrieved their books for the day before heading to breakfast in the Great Hall. The day went by rather quickly and Harry quickly proved to Hermione that the training he received was of rather high quality.
Before lunch, Harry visited the headmaster and explained what he'd seen in the wards and how he fixed the anomaly.
"Where did you learn this?" Professor Dumbledore asked from behind his desk. He hadn't spoken with Harry, save from his daily visits when the young man was comatose, since the beginning of the first term.
"I dreamed that Merlin and the Founders trained me." Harry said matter-of-factly. "Rowena taught me how to recognize the seed pattern of magical effects and Merlin showed me how to see the ... Well, to see the Dragon."
"Ah, our forbearer's theory of collective life." Dumbledore said with a small smile. "I've researched this topic myself and have some successes with determining the flow of life force from one being to the next."
"Actually, it flows from everything to everything." Harry explained without thinking about it. "The energy you refer to as life force is partially correct. It connects both living and non-living things."
"I hadn't heard about the non-living aspect ..." Albus steepled his long fingers and thought on the explanation that Harry provided. "How is it that you were able to see Merlin's Dragon?"
"I used a meditation technique that Rowena taught me. It's called the meditation of Restful Awareness. When I was in the meditative state, I could follow the paths around the room and that's when I found the malfunctioning ward." He went on to explain how he'd manipulated the components of the magical barrier and righted what was wrong. After which he went into a slight dissertation on seed magic and glossed over the various aspects of what could be done with it.
"There aren't any texts on seed magic." The wizened wizard commented after Harry had finished the summary of what he'd learned. "I don't think that Miss Granger could have imparted that knowledge to you from her daily readings."
Harry didn't look surprised at the news. "I thought as much." He said simply. "Perhaps there was some benefit to my actions, though reckless they were."
"They were reckless, Harry." Albus said sternly. "Do you know why you didn't die? Most people would have after a fall of that magnitude."
Harry sighed. "I reckon it has to do with the Prophecy." He said dejectedly. "The only way I'll die is if Voldemort kills me himself, I can't take my own life."
"That's not entirely true." The headmaster said evenly. "You are mortal, Harry, and you can die by the hands of someone other than Voldemort. You are correct that you cannot take your own life due to the power of the prophecy."
Harry nodded his understanding. "I'll be paying for my stupidity for a while, according to Madam Pomfrey. I assume she's been keeping you informed?"
"Of course." He replied with the tell-tale twinkle in his eyes. "I wouldn't be able to look after those in my charge if I weren't apprised of the conditions of them." He smiled and nodded. "Yes, I have spoken with Dr. Mudds. He is under wizarding contract to never divulge what he hears from those he treats however he has informed me of your need for self-defense classes and further therapy for abuse?"
"Aunt Petunia seems to let Uncle Vernon do as he wishes. He loses his temper and I'm usually the target he releases his stress on." Harry said blankly. "It's much more verbal and emotional than physical, but I do get some of that from time to time. Nothing like what's appeared on the news or in the papers but it's enough to let Dudley think beating on me is fine. If not for the blood magic and the protective spells I would ask if I could be moved somewhere else."
"We'll look into that, Harry. The way the protections work is still being researched but it may just be as simple as spending one week a year in the house." He smiled at hope reflected in Harry's eyes. "It's nice to see hope from you, Harry, but we're still uncertain how the measures your mother set in motion actually work, it is very ancient magic and Lily was a marvelously brilliant witch."
"I hope to learn more about her, one day." Harry said with a distant smile. "Not too soon, mind you, but when my time is really here." He added at the look of concern on his headmaster's face.
"You will see them again and it makes me glad that you realize there is quite the span of time still available to you before that happens. Now, you should head on to lunch, I hear the house elves have prepared a wonderful dish for you today."
Harry smiled and excused himself from the office. He quickly made his way to the Great Hall and found his usual seat by Hermione and across from Ron waiting for him. The three friends ate in silence and finished their classes for the day. On their way back from Defense Against the Dark Arts, Harry fell into step with Ron.
"Alright, Harry?"
"Alright, you?"
"I'm fine." Ron replied quietly.
"Ron, I think it's time we talked." Harry said as he placed a hand on his friend's shoulder to keep him from hurrying off.
A/N:I know it's been a bit, but I got in the mood to finish this chapter :) One more to go and
I'm not sure how long it will be until this is updated again, so don't be upset!
-Curt