“Who is Harry?” Dudley asked.

“Your cousin,” Severus suggested as he pointed to the small boy on the floor.

“His name isn’t Harry. It’s Freak,” Dudley said with obvious confusion.

---
Severus walked over to the tiny boy; there was a puddle of blood on the floor that had come from his nose. He kneeled in front of Harry and pointed his wand at his nose, he murmured some words under his breath and the nose was fixed instantly. He then pointed the wand at the child’s bottom which was bruised and bloody. He muttered some more words and the skin was healed. He picked him up.

“Just what the hell is going on around here? Is this not Harry Potter?” he demanded.

Petunia had her arms wrapped around Dudley tightly. Vernon seemed to have lost his voice while Severus has healed Harry.

“Yes,” Petunia finally answered. “What are you doing here? How dare you break into my house! I should call the cops on you.”

“Go ahead,” Severus said. “You can tell them exactly why I broke in. You can explain how your husband punched this child in the face, and then spanked him for no reason other than dropping a plate, and while we’re on that subject, why is he setting the table in the first place? Shouldn’t that be the parent’s job? Also why is Harry so small? I believe he should be five now, and he looks two. He doesn’t weigh much, don’t you feed him?”

“We’re you spying on me? Isn’t it enough that you did it when we were children, you have to do it now?” Petunia snapped. “Get out of here!”

“Why does that man keep calling Freak, Harry?” Dudley asked.

“His name isn’t Freak, it is Harry James Potter,” Severus said. “And I want some answers, why is this child so badly neglected?”

Vernon finally found his voice “You can be charged for breaking and entering and trespassing as well.”

“By all means, call your cops on me. In the meantime, I think I’ll be contacting the Ministry of Magic about Harry’s treatment here; this isn’t the last that you’ll see of me. You can be sure of that.”

Severus turned on his heel and left the kitchen. So far Harry hadn’t said a word, but he was no longer crying. He was staring at him with a look of confusion on his face.

“Where is your room?” He asked Harry.

He wasn’t sure if the boy had any toys or not, but if he did, surely he could take with him something that would comfort him. Harry pointed to a cupboard that was under the stairs. Severus walked past the cupboard and over to the steps. He walked up them; the house was one of the cleanest places he had ever seen. Once they were at the top, he set the boy on his feet.

“Show me your room,” Severus told him.

Clutching the hand railing, Harry made his way back down the steps. Severus didn’t understand but followed him, was there another bedroom downstairs? Once they were down the stairs, the child toddled over to the cupboard under the steps and opened it. On the floor were some raggy old blankets.

“That’s your room?” Severus asked in disbelief.

“Sleep now?” Harry asked in a very hoarse voice.

It sounded as if he hadn’t spoken in a very long time.

“Not here, you’re not. I just wanted to see if you had anything you wanted to bring along. Some more clothes maybe, some toys?”

When he looked in the cupboard, he didn’t see any toys, or any other clothes. There were some boots, and other items one would find in a storage closet. Other than the blankets that were made into a bed on the floor, he wouldn’t guess that it was a bedroom… and it shouldn’t have been one.

“Are you sure that’s your room? Where are your clothes?”

Harry pointed to the clothes that he was wearing.

“Don’t you have anymore?”

The boy shook his head. He reached into the cupboard and pulled out one of the blankets, it was very holey.

“Mine,” he said.

Severus picked Harry back up; the Dursley’s were all standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

“Where are the rest of his clothes?” Severus asked them.

No one answered him, so he pointed his wand at them again. Dudley was the only one who didn’t cringe. Vernon looked as if he wanted to shout, his face had turned very purple.

“He-he doesn’t own any other clothes,” Petunia said.

Disgusted, Severus turned and left the house without another word. He knew they were telling the truth, the boy stunk really badly, but he hadn’t noticed it before. As soon as they outside, he spun on the spot and disappeared.

“You weren’t supposed to bring him back here,” Dumbledore said.

They were in the hospital wing; Harry had been given a potion which had put him into a deep sleep. Madam Pomfrey was in the middle of checking him over. Already she noticed that he was severely underweight, his rib bones stuck out too much. He was covered in so many cuts and bruises underneath his clothing; she had also found a broken rib.

“You wouldn’t have left him there if you’d seen what I had,” Severus said angrily. “And it’s lucky I have self-control, otherwise I would have cursed both of them so badly that I’d be in Azkaban. He looks like he is no older than two-years-old!”

“Well, perhaps it’s best we saw this. I’ll talk to the Dursley’s before we send him back there.”

“He isn’t going back there.”

It was Madam Pomfrey who said this. She had been in the middle of healing a long cut that was down Harry’s arm, but had stopped.

“Albus, this child hasn’t eaten in days. He is very malnourished; I fear he is close to anemic. Not only that but he isn’t the height or weight he should be. Severus is right, he looks about two, and he doesn’t even weigh as much as a child at that age should. He is covered in so many bruises, and cuts!”

“He needs to return, otherwise the blood wards will no longer work on him and he won’t be safe anymore,” Albus said.

“He won’t be safe living with them Albus,” Severus snapped. “Vernon Dursley is too rough on him, and Petunia doesn’t give a damn either. When I was pretending to be the electricity man, she saw through it. I think she was worried I was a child abductor and she left him alone outside, but she took her pudgy son inside. And I haven’t even told you the worst part.”

“Worse than being beaten too much?” Madam Pomfrey asked angrily.

Severus had told them both what he had seen during the day as an electricity man and then through the window. He hadn’t told them the Dursley’s had named him ‘Freak’ and that Harry probably didn’t even know his real name. It explained why he wasn’t in school; the teachers would have grown suspicious because of his size, and the fact that he didn’t have a normal name.

“He doesn’t know his real name,” Severus answered. “Little Dudley Dursley told me that his name is Freak.”

Now even Dumbledore was outraged. Madam Pomfrey swore and it was very rare that she ever did. No one said a word at first, than the matron glared angrily at the Headmaster.

“If you try and send this child back to that home, I will fight you,” she said through clenched teeth. “He is not going back there, ever. I don’t care what you say about the blood wards, he is not safe there! Those people will end up killing him, I’m surprised they haven’t. How do you think Lily and James would react if they knew this is the way their child is treated? They are both probably spinning in their graves as we speak.”

For the first time since Severus had met him, Albus seemed to be lost for words. There were a few moments of silence, but then he gave a small nod.

“You’re right; we’ll have to find another alternative to keep him safe.”

Harry  had a hard time responding to his rightful name. He believed that his name was Freak. He also didn’t speak very well. Most children could talk in complete sentences by the time they were five, but he sounded as if he were only two or three-years-old. He wouldn’t answer their questions about his home life either. As soon as someone asked, he would close his eyes and keep his mouth shut.

He wouldn’t eat more than a few bites of his meals either. Madam Pomfrey had to resort to potions that would give him the nutrients he needed in each meal three times a day. When he did talk, he told them that he needed to do his chores.

“Do chores,” Harry said. “Freak do chores.”

“You don’t have to do chores,” Madam Pomfrey said. “I want you to rest.”

They also learned that he wasn’t potty trained. Several times a day he would wet himself or make a bigger mess. He didn’t understand that he was supposed to tell them when he needed to go to the bathroom, so Madam Pomfrey had to take on the task to train him as well as heal him.

The Dursley’s meanwhile were taken into custody. The Hogwarts staff had been smart enough to take pictures of his battered body before Pomfrey had healed him. Severus had also provided his memory of the night he had taken Harry from their home. The problem was, the Ministry wanted to hear about it from the boy as well.

“He can’t talk about it, Albus,” Pomona Sprout said; she had just come back from her trip. “He’s already traumatized as it is. They can’t be serious about making him go to a hearing?”

“He won’t talk about it at all,” Severus said. “We’re going to have to get the memories from him.”

“But we can’t use Leglimency on him,” Albus said. “I’m not sure what it would do to him.”

“There is a potion,” Madam Pomfrey answered. “We’ll have to get him to drink it. His memories will come out from his ears, mouth and nose an hour after he takes it. So we’ll need a Pensieve to store them in. We’ll have to sift through them too because it will likely give us most of his memories.”

So one evening, they fed him a potion that was blue. Harry made a face when he drank it, but he didn’t complain, with so many adults watching him, he did as he was told and drank it all. After he was done, he looked at Madam Pomfrey.

“Bafwoom,” he told her.

It was the first time he remembered to say anything about it, so she picked him up and rushed him off to the bathroom in the hospital wing.

“That poor dear,” Professor Sprout said. “He is so adorable and yet those people willingly beat him… couldn’t they see what they were doing to him? Didn’t they care that he wasn’t the size he should be? And what about the neighbours? Why didn’t anyone notice that he was abused and too small?”

“I don’t think he was allowed outside much,” Severus answered. “They let him out long enough to do the chores, but that was it. They also had him dressed in oversized clothing, and when I was pretending to be some electricity man, he tried to keep his head down so I don’t think anyone saw his injuries.”

Madam Pomfrey returned with Harry. He had a sucker in his hand, but he wasn’t eating it. Once she set him on the bed, he sat very stiffly, just as he always did. They had bought toys for him to play with, but he wouldn’t touch them. Most days he just clutched the old blanket he had brought with him and would ask about his chores.

“Freak do chores,” he said now.

“No, you don’t have to do chores anymore,” Dumbledore told him. “Why don’t you play for a bit?”

Harry just shook his head. He lay down on his bed and closed his eyes. The problem with the potion was that the drinker had to remain awake, so they all tried to keep him busy for the next hour so he couldn’t sleep.

“We could get him to wash something,” Severus said. “Just to keep him busy.”

“But we have to get him out of that habit. He needs to understand that he doesn’t have to chores. While I agree that it’s healthy for a child his age to have a chore, it’s not a good idea in his case. He will think that if he does something for us, he will always have to,” Madam Pomfrey said.

“Freak do Chores,” Harry said again.

“You’re name is Harry, not Freak,” Pomona told him. “Harry James Potter.”

“Name is Freak. Don’t deserve real name,” Harry said.

“Harry, you don’t even know what a freak is, but it isn’t good, and you do deserve a name,” Madam Pomfrey said.

“Abnormal, strange, not normal,” he said. “Repeat after me. I am a freak. I deserve beatings. I am not normal. I am a very horrible child. I am disgusting. I don’t deserve food or toys. I should not be alive but since I am I need to be beaten. I should have died with my loser parents.”

It was the most he had ever said. Everyone in the hospital wing had a feeling that it was something he had to say everyday; otherwise he wouldn’t be able to say it so well. He also normally didn’t speak in complete sentences. Madam Pomfrey turned away to hide her tears. Severus glared at Albus.

“Harry, none of that is true!” Professor Sprout protested, she hurried over to give him a hug, but Harry cringed away.

“NOT HARRY! MY NAME FREAK!” he shouted.

Suddenly, blue stuff seemed to be coming out of his ears, nose and mouth. Everyone stepped forward and started to take the blue threads of memories and placed them in the Pensieve that Dumbledore had retrieved from his office. It took a while before they had gotten them all.

“Well, Severus, are you ready to go through the memories?”