“Harry,” Dr. Marsha Stanley said. “It’s not your fault. None of what happened is your fault.”

“Magic is a gift,” Dr. Roland Stanley added.

“Not to them it wasn’t,” Harry muttered.

“We work with a lot of abused children,” Marsha said. “And they aren’t magical. Their guardians abuse them nonetheless.”

“What Dr. Stanley is saying, Harry,” Roland continued, “is that even if you weren’t magical, your relatives would have abused you. They may have used another reason, but they would have abused you just the same.”

Harry doubted it. How many times had his relatives told him it was because he was abnormal? How many times had his punishments been so much worse after a bout of accidental magic?

“They called me a freak,” he said, hating to admit it.

“That is not uncommon, Harry. Abusers use name calling to belittle and intimidate their victims,” Marsha said.

“And to give themselves a feeling of power and unearned authority,” Roland added.

“And name calling can be immensely painful. Sometimes even worse than being hit,” Marsha added.

“Name calling is a very powerful way of controlling an impressionable child. It can make them doubt their reality. Even more so in your case when they weren’t magical and you were a wizard,” Roland said.

“Yeah,” Harry said. It was so much easier to talk to them now that they knew. “I didn’t know I was a wizard, though. Not until I was 11. Even then I didn’t believe it.” He took a deep breath and continued. “They’d always hated any mention of magic, though. It absolutely wasn’t allowed. I didn’t understand why at the time. I just knew if I said the word, or talked about anything that wasn’t physically possible, they would punish me.”

“Go on, Harry,” Marsha encouraged him.

“I just didn’t understand why they hated me so much. I tried to be good. I did what they asked. I always followed their orders. But I was never good enough for them, never.” Harry swallowed against the tears clogging his throat. He normally wasn’t this emotional, but since all of this had started, he felt so much closer to the edge, constantly. Taking a deep breath, he added. “They hated me because my mum was a witch and my dad was a wizard. But I didn’t know that either,” he pleaded.

“Of course you didn’t, Harry,” Marsha soothed.

“How could you know?” Roland added. “They kept it from you.”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. “So they made it their mission to… to try and beat the magic out of me.”

“Harry, it wasn’t your fault,” Marsha repeated.

“But it was,” Harry said. “I was magical, and I couldn’t change it. I didn’t know it at the time, but I couldn’t change what I was.”

“How does that make it your fault?” Roland asked.

“Because if I could have been normal like they wanted, like their son Dudley, then they wouldn’t have had to hurt me.”

Roland leaned forward, capturing Harry’s gaze. “Let’s take a look at what you just said there. You said that they had to hurt you. Do you think that’s true?”

“Well,” Harry stammered. “I guess they didn’t HAVE to hurt me.”

“No, they didn’t Harry,” Roland affirmed. “They CHOSE to hurt you, and that’s an important distinction.”

Harry tried to absorb his words, tried to believe them. “But if I wasn’t magical, they wouldn’t have hurt me.”

“Harry,” Marsha said, “when your uncle hit you, was he angry?”

“Always,” Harry said.

“Can you remember a time when he was angry about having a bad day at work, or maybe his car broke down?”

Harry nodded.

“What happened that time?” she asked.

“I don’t know, he lost a contract at work or something. I knew right away when he came home that it was going to be a bad day. I tried to hide in my cupboard, but he just came in after me and dragged me out and…”

When he couldn’t continue, Marsha said gently, “Beat you?”

Harry nodded.

“Had you done any magic that day?” Marsha asked.

“Not that I know of,” Harry said.

“Had you said the word magic, or referenced anything that couldn’t be logically explained?” Marsha continued.

“No way,” Harry said. “I’d learned my lesson by then, and anyway, Uncle Vernon was not in a good mood. I generally tried to stay out of his way and say nothing when he was like that.”

“So, is it correct to say,” Marsha continued, “that there was no magic involved?”

“None,” Harry agreed.

“Then what you are saying, Harry,” Marsha confirmed, “is that your uncle came home from work in a bad mood and took out his anger on you.”

“Yeah,” Harry said.

“And it sounds like this was a common occurrence,” Roland observed.

Harry nodded.

“So, would you say, that at that very moment, it wouldn’t have mattered if you were a Muggle or a wizard? That perhaps your uncle beat you simply because he had a bad day at work and you were a convenient target?”

Harry opened his mouth, and then shut it again. “Well, yes, but I was a wizard.”

“But at that moment,” Marsha repeated, “did your status as a wizard have any bearing on your uncle’s actions?”

“I… I guess not, but, I don’t know, if I wasn’t a wizard…”

“Then you would have been a Muggle child being abused by his abusive uncle, correct?”

“I guess so,” Harry admitted, feeling confused.

“Harry, sometimes we tell ourselves a narrative that helps us to put things in a framework that we can understand,” Marsha said. “For you, telling yourself that the only reason your relatives abused you was because you were a wizard has helped you to cope with that abuse. But now, Dr. Roland and I are asking you to question the very foundation that has enabled you to survive all this time. We are asking you to consider a new framework with which to understand what has happened to you. And that isn’t an easy task. It can be uncomfortable and scary to let go of the things that have worked for us, even if there are new things that can potentially work a lot better for us. Does that make sense?”

“I think I’ll need some time to think about that,” Harry responded.

“That is perfectly understandable,” Marsha said. “It’s not easy for any child, young or adult, to work through the process of having been abused by the very persons who were supposed to protect them and keep them safe.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, fidgeting with a loose thread on his robes. “I often wonder what my life would have been like if my parents had been alive to raise me.”

“I’m sure you do,” Roland said. “Your life has not been an easy one.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Harry muttered.

“Can you tell us more, Harry?”

Harry had been referring to Voldemort, and the headmaster said that he could talk about that if it came up, but that it might be better to work on one problem at a time. In other words, to focus on the abuse, and really, Harry knew that was what he needed help with the most at the moment.

“So, you’re saying,” Harry said, dodging the question, “that it wouldn’t have mattered if I was a wizard or not, that my relatives would have found something to hate about me, and they would have abused me anyway, just because I was there.”

“Yes, Harry,” Marsha said gently. “And most importantly, it wasn’t your fault.”

“I just kept thinking that if I could have been normal they wouldn’t have hated me.”

“Unfortunately,” Roland said, “it is never as simple as that, although children, and even adults, who are abused, think that very thing. It is a way for them to feel a modicum of control in a situation that is entirely beyond their control. The alternative is to feel completely helpless.”

“What do you mean?” Harry asked. His brain felt fuzzy. It felt like all too much information at once.

“If you believe that meeting the abuser’s expectations will stop the abuse, then you feel that you are in control of their actions. For instance, if last time your abuser hit you they claimed it was for not doing the dishes properly, you might think that if you’d just gotten them a little cleaner, or done them a little faster, that they wouldn’t have hit you.” Roland explained.

Harry nodded.

“The problem is that the reason the abuser hit you had nothing at all to do with the dishes. He or she just used that as an excuse so he could blame you for his own actions. If an abuser was to be honest, he might say: ‘I hate myself today and I have no self-worth. I am angry at myself for failing this that or other thing. I don’t like feeling angry, and so I am going to take my anger out on someone weaker than me. Then I can feel like this big strong person who’s in control of my life.’ Of course that’s not what they say. They say, ‘You didn’t do this right, or you didn’t do what I wanted you to do.’ Or they find some other way to place the blame on your shoulders.”

Harry tried to absorb Roland’s words.

Marsha added, “It’s never the victim’s fault. There is nothing that the victim could have done to avoid being abused, short of removing themselves from the situation entirely, which isn’t an option for a child.”

“I think I see what you are saying,” Harry said. “But it’s going to take some time to sink in.”

“Harry,” Dr. Marsha added, “if you found out that your friend Hermione’s parents treated her the same way as your relatives did you, would you think it was her fault that they abused her?”

“No!” Harry was horrified by the thought of that happening to Hermione.

Roland interjected, “But her parents are Muggles too, and Hermione is a witch. Wouldn’t she have deserved it for being so different from them?”

“No,” Harry denied vehemently. Shaking his head he said, “I see where you are going with this. It’s easy to see that my friends would not have deserved this. It’s just harder for me to see it when it’s me.”

“It’s always easier to feel compassion for another person. Self-compassion, Harry, is much harder for most people.”

Harry nodded. He had a lot to think about.

 “Ready, Harry?” Covey asked.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Harry said.

“I bet ye just want ta get it over with, aye?”

Harry nodded.

Severus watched as Covey visually checked in with Madam Pomfrey and then himself. He nodded his consent that he was ready.

“Alrighty, then, Harry, just go ahead an’ relax,” Covey coached. “I’m goin’ ta start with me hands on yer chest as always, aye? Madam Pomfrey an’ Professor Snape will be here ta help ye with whatever ye need, ken?”

Harry took a deep breath and nodded.

“There’s a good laddie,” Covey soothed. “Nice an’ easy.”

Snape watched as Covey laid her hands on the Potter’s chest. She glanced up briefly and smiled at Severus, before returning her attention to her work.

Snape found that he liked to watch her: the way her hands glided over her patient with an assuredness that made him envious, the way her closed eyes fluttered and her lips pursed as she concentrated, the way she hummed when she was ensconced in the healing process. He thought he could watch her all day.

First, she ran her hands lightly over Potter, checking to make sure that all of the healing she had done in previous sessions had held. If anything needed to be tweaked, she always did that first. This part of the healing usually only took a few minutes, since she rarely had to redo her work.

Occasionally, she had told him, there was a stubborn spot that didn’t want to stay healed, but when that was the case, it was usually more of an emotional block than a physical block on the patient’s part. Covey’s hand checked over Potter quickly, so clearly all was well regarding her previous work.

Now her hands rested once again on his chest as she waited for Potter’s body to lead her where her efforts were most needed.

Snape first noted that something was different when her hands wavered over his chest for much longer than normal. After an interminable length of time, he asked, “Covey?” But she just shook her head. She didn’t talk while she was healing. She said it took all of her attention and focus to do the healing; she couldn’t chat at the same time.

Still, it struck him as odd. Perhaps she was working on something in his chest, or his core, but as Potter was lying perfectly still and not showing any physical reaction, Snape didn’t think that was the case. Potter always reacted physically when Covey healed him.

Covey had told him that this wasn’t always the case, but because Potter had used his own magic to mend himself, and because his magic was untrained, she’d have to release his elemental magical bindings before she could heal him. By releasing his magic in the injured areas, she would cause his body to revert to the injured state before she could properly heal it. And that meant immeasurable pain for the boy.

Snape and Poppy tried to stay ahead of the curve with potions and Occlumency, but even so, it wasn’t easy on Potter, and they all knew it. Albus’s phrase that it was all in Harry’s best interests had come to make Snape want to strangle the old wizard.

Snape jerked to attention as a shudder ran through Covey. He stood, on full alert should he be needed, but there wasn’t anything he could do at this point. He looked to Poppy, who looked equally unnerved.

“Everything in order?” Snape asked Poppy.

Poppy nodded. “His vitals are holding steady.”

Reluctantly, Snape returned to his seat. He couldn’t fight the feeling that something was wrong. Looking at Covey’s face didn’t ease his worries: She looked distraught.

As he watched, her hands slid gradually up Potter’s chest to his neck, pausing momentarily, and then to the boy’s head. Here, she seemed to settle. Slowly, she moved her hands around his skull. When she began to hum, Snape felt himself relax. Potter twitched and moaned a little, but then was still.

Releasing the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, he looked to Poppy, who smiled in understanding. He noticed her hands unclench as well.

Later, Snape wouldn’t have any recollection of that brief moment of serenity: the calm before the storm.