—-

She hated this part. Absolutely hated it.

You would think that admitting patients in to be helped would be something that would make her happy, seeing these people finally maybe having the chance to be healed, but she did not enjoy it.

There was too much pain in getting there, and she hated seeing it in their eyes.

As she went and retrieved the boy, grabbing Curtis, one of her assistants, with her to make sure if things went wrong the child would remain safe, she thought of all that was to come.

First thing first, the boy would need to be stabilized. That meant probably potions.

It was funny to her really, the fact that the potions generally given to patients were really very similar to those developed by muggles, only with some slight differences to help strengthen magical cores.

Because, really, if a wizard or witch has been sick a while, their magical core is going to be weakened. It takes a lot of energy from every aspect of a persons being in order to fight pain, whether it be physical or mental, and the fact that physical pain is generally less confusing to mediwitches and mediwizards means that mental pain can cause more damage than one might expect.

So, as with every other part of Harry's being, his magical core would need some assistance in straightening itself out and learning to deal with his conditions.

Hopefully the potions would help with that. Because the boy would need them, absolutely no question as to otherwise.

As she wheeled the boy to what would be his room she looked down on him. She knew he was Harry Potter, she had been informed to as much, but she also knew that... this was going to be tricky.

She had to keep his identity secret WITHOUT adding more confusion and uncertainty to the childs world. This meant, no name changes. Harry would remain Harry. Harry just... couldnt be Harry Potter.

It was good that the charm placed on the child hadnt given him away yet. Harry was just a young, slightly short and very scrawny, black haired boy with dark black eyes and a pale complexion. In fact, the boy looked very much like the man who had brought him in, she realized with a quick chuckle as she wondered if the man had realized what he had done.

The child looked at quickly and worredly her as she chucked. She immediately stopped. Poor boy, living so hard as he had without assistance, had lead to a psychotic depression. It had, from what she could gather from the disjointed way the child spoke, gotten worse and worse over time.

He was going to need a lot of help.

And like Severus Snape, she knew that the best place to start was at the basics. Which meant, as she rounded the last corner towards the childrens section of the floor... she was going to need to go over a few things.

—-

Harry couldnt believe the man had just left him there! He had trusted the Snape man!

Stupid stupid stupid.

He started banging his hands against his head as they were grabbed, softly from him by the woman in front of him.

She had been kind to him so far, he had to admit... but some of the things she was asking from him... he didnt think he could do.

She had rules. He wasnt good at following the rules. He tried and tried and tried to follow them but there was so much going on in his mind that no matter how hard he tried the rules would drift away from his mind. He didnt know if he could do it. She said they would all help him but... how was he supposed to know they werent lying? How was he supposed to trust ANYTHING?

And the worst part was... she said the number one rule, the biggest and most important one was, that he couldnt hurt himself anymore. That if he felt like he wanted to, he had to push the red button by his bed immediately, or tell one of the people in white nearby.

He couldnt do that. They didnt know how bad he was. How he DESERVED all the pain he gave himself. He tried to tell her that but she kept repeating the same thing again and again about the button until he felt like he wanted to to start punching the walls again.

But he was too far away, which lead to him hitting himself instead.

He got madder and madder and madder. Why couldnt she just let him have ONE THING? She didnt realize how bad he was... and she didnt realize just how much he needed to hurt himself.

It was all he had.

But she kept holding on. She kept holding and holding until... eventually, he stopped.

He just felt so broken all the time.

And then the tears came.

The healer just sat with him. Next to him. As he cried. Eventually she released his arms and they just sat in silence as Harry cried.

She repeated the rules to him as eventually the cries turned to sniffles.

The rules were very simple, she outlined as she told him of the schedule he would need to follow, and everyone was there to help.

There was a point system in place which lead to different levels. Right now, he was on level 1. Everyone starts out on level 1, and it didnt mean he was bad or a failure for being there.

And they would help him, and he WOULD do better. He would feel better.

He just had to trust them.

He had to let them help him.

He had to work with them to help himself.

And that meant, right now, he was going to have to drink this potion. And if he did, he would get a point. It was that easy!

And things, finally, could start to get better.

They were a team now.