Harry cried himself to sleep in his cupboard, the cleaning supplies taking up most of the space, there was no comfortable position for him to be in, both because of the cramped space, and the smarting cuts and aching bruises covering him. The stool...
"What are they doing?" Harry looked up at McGonagall with big, wet eyes.
"Something I don't know about." McGonagall shook her head, leading Harry to a sofa with a mug of hot milk and a tray of all the snacks James said were Harry's favourites. "Now, why don't you have these and draw me something important to you?"
Harry sniffed, their hands shaking as they picked up the mug, McGonagall going back to her desk to mark some more of the abysmal essays she had been handed and promised were the best work Severus Snape had ever done. That boy was a nuisance if ever she had seen one, but no matter what she did nothing would change, and she couldn't go any further. She just wished she could do more with the situation with Lily.
"What kind of important thing?" Harry asked, rubbing his eyes.
"It can be anything, like something that happened before you came here or something with James." McGonagall wasn't really paying attention, looking at the utter stupidity Snape had written for his detention.
"Okay," Harry nodded, picking up the colour changing crayon and a piece of parchment and starting to draw.
-----
"James, you are injured, go to Mme Pomfrey first, you know Harry will worry about you if you show up injured like this." Sirius grabbed James' shoulder as he tried to rush off back to McGonagall's office for Harry.
Sure enough, James had gotten a cut on his head, it was nothing too serious, but it had bled a lot, leaving half of his face covered in his own blood. His clothes were fine because of not being there when he was transformed but he was otherwise covered in injuries. He had been distracted this full moon, his mind on Harry. He had no injury a potion or two can't fix, but it looked bad.
Remus, on the other hand, was not doing well. Sirius had been forced to rush forwards to catch James, meaning only Peter was left to support his weight. James' distraction had led to a worse night than usual.
"Fine," James sighed, Sirius was right, ducking under Remus' other arm to carry him to the half-conscious boy to the Hospital Wing. "But if Harry cries after I'm delayed, it's your fault."
"Or maybe," Sirius rolled his eyes, waiting for the group to catch back up to him. "It's your own damn fault for being so distracted while dealing with his furry little problem."
"Nope, I could be facing You-Know-Who himself and I would still head straight for Harry when I get back. You're the one making me go to the Hospital Wing." James brushed past Sirius, who scoffed.
"How could anyone like you do anything straight?" Sirius' walk had a strong bounce to it as he walked backwards just in front of the other three.
"Oh, hark who's talking." James tried to kick Sirius, who easily danced out of the way.
"Do you have to do that?" Peter snapped at the two who stopped walking to look at him. "Right now."
There was quite a long gap between the two parts of what he said, but James and Sirius dismissed it as him being tired.
"Sorry, let's get moving. I want to do this as fast as possible." James started walking faster, his legs much longer than Peter's making it difficult to carry Remus carefully.
"Prongs, you go on ahead, we'll meet you back in the common room." Sirius sighed, taking his boyfriend's arm from James, gesturing for him to go.
"Thank you, I'll see you three soon!" James yelled as he ran off, taking the stairs two at a time.
While on the way out they had been forced to use the invisibility cloak, they had all volunteered to bring Remus in the previous year, meaning they couldn't be punished for being out of bed at this time.
-----
"I'm here to pick Harry up." James said, knocking on McGonagall's door.
"Mr Potter," Professor McGonagall opened the door and standing to the side. "Please come in."
Her tone and demeanour was serious, making James' stomach churn as he took the seat gestured for him. He was pretty sure that Harry hadn't done anything wrong, they were Harry, his little good child.
"Did Harry do something wrong, Professor?" James' brows were furrowed as he tried to pretend that his hands weren't shaking.
"Do you really thing Harry is the kind of child to do something wrong? No, It's... I'm worried about them. I asked them to draw me something important, either before you two met, or after. This is what they drew." Professor McGonagall slid the piece of parchment Harry had been drawing on towards James.
"Before I look at this, where is Harry?" James looked around, realising he hadn't seen his child since coming to pick them up.
"They're sleeping, they seemed exhausted." Her eyes trailed to a door James had never been through before.
James picked up the parchment. Harry was hardly an expert at art, though they were 4, but James could still see what had made Professor McGonagall concerned. In rough crayon was drawn what looked like Harry in the centre of what looked like demonic ceremony. What looked like a smaller version of the Potion Mushroom Harry had drawn before was above them in the drawing. Outside the circle was clearly a wix, with long grey hair.
It may be a drawing, but Harry's fear was still evident just looking at it. Perhaps this was what he Healer had been talking about when they absorbed the Sprite back then.
"Did they explain anything about this?" James put it back on the table upside down, his hands shaking despite his effort to make them stop.
"I asked, obviously, but they insisted they didn't remember. When I didn't immediately drop it they started shaking and apologising. I thought it would be best to ask if you know anything about this and take the drawing away from them. As you can see the edge closest to them was already getting singed by their magic." Professor McGonagall brought the attention to the blackened, rough edge of the parchment.
"I... I would be lying if I said I didn't have an idea, but I don't know enough to say anything for sure. You know about Harry's magic situation? Apparently someone used a ceremony that used to be fore people diagnosed with too little magic that's illegal. I don't know anything about it, but... Ceremony." James shrugged, trying to sound calm.
"Why don't you contact someone who knows more about it, probably someone from St Mungo's, and otherwise try not to think about it. You can't do anything about what you don't know." Professor McGonagall laid a hand on James' shoulder. "Have a biscuit while you wait for Harry to wake up."
James' hand moved forwards to take a ginger nut before he even thought about it. He nibbled at it while watching the door Professor McGonagall had been looking at when talking about Harry sleeping, his mind whirling.
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((A/N: At the bottom I added Harry's drawing. I tried, it's not perfect, but my usual art supplies broke and I usually don't try to draw like a traumatised 4 year old.))
