Harry Potter The Long Lost Malfoy

Healer Letham snorted. "Politics. I had a high rate of success with my patients, so they thought that meant I should be willing to heal rich idiots, and idiots high in the Ministry. No matter what was wrong with them."

"Oh." Harry folded his arms. "Well, I don't have anything wrong with me."

Healer Letham studied him. "No, I don't think that's true."

"How would you know? You didn't cast a diagnostic charm or anything!"

"No. But I know the signs. You sit on that chair as though the whole world wronged you. And, well, at your age, that doesn't usually happen unless you have some amount of trauma."

"You know that Voldemort killed my adoptive parents when I was one, right?"

"And I know that you never received treatment or healing for it, if you're sitting like that."

Harry paused. She hadn't flinched when he said Voldemort's name. That was actually pretty good. Or good enough to make him give her a chance.

"Well, no," he admitted. "I don't think anyone thought I should. I didn't even know I was a wizard until about two years ago. My relatives are Muggles. They wouldn't have thought to take me to a Mind-Healer."

"Or a Muggle equivalent? I know they exist. And I must admit I am curious how a Malfoy comes to have recent relatives in the Muggle world."

Harry flushed. "I mean—they're not really my aunt and uncle and cousin. I know that now. Not related by blood. But I thought they were at the time. I thought I was the child of James and Lily Potter."

Healer Letham nodded as if that had clarified something for her. "Very well. So you didn't receive treatment or healing from any trauma that you endured when your adoptive parents died. And what was living with your Muggles like?"

Harry flinched before he could stop himself. He knew Healer Letham would have seen it, but he still said, "Fine. Not great, but fine."

Healer Letham gave him a direct stare. "You seem like an intelligent young man, so we both know that's not true."

"Well, here isn't any better!" Harry snapped. "The Malfoys don't make me do chores like the Dursleys did, but they make the house-elves do it! And the house-elves beat themselves! And they were going to do something, I don't know what, at Hogwarts! And Mr. Malfoy followed Voldemort. He claims he was under Imperius, but I don't believe it."

Healer Letham leaned forwards. "Neither do I," she said in a loud whisper.

Harry's mouth fell open, and then he found himself giggling without thinking about it. He leaned back on the chair a little, and studied the Healer at more length. She smiled back at him, not entirely at ease, but calm. Calm was better than most people in the house had been for the last few days, Harry thought. Draco shouted every time he tried to talk to Harry, Mr. Malfoy kept making excuses, Mrs. Malfoy was sad and tried to make him talk about other things, and Dobby cried every time Harry saw him.

"Why are you saying that?" he asked. "Don't you work for the Malfoys?"

"They're paying me. I work for you. I'm on your side against them, if you need me to be. And I find it interesting that you don't see yourself as one of them."

Harry looked away for a second. Then he said, "They've been—they really want me, but it's not the me I really am."

"What do they want?"

"Someone who doesn't sympathize with house-elves. Someone who didn't grow up in the Muggle world. Someone who wasn't adopted by the Potters. Someone who isn't a Gryffindor. Someone who feels like a pureblood." Harry rushed the words out, and then turned back to her. "Mr. Malfoy even said that he hated me when I was still Harry Potter."

"Yes?"

Healer Letham seemed calm about it, which Harry couldn't understand. He stared at her. "He hated me! How can he go from hating me and then start liking me in just a few months? He only likes the person he wants me to be."

"Ah." Healer Letham moved so that this time, her other foot was tucked up under her and the one that had been tucked was dangling towards the floor. "Well, keep in mind that they may have mythologized you in their own minds. In fact, from what your mother told me, that is exactly what happened. They didn't know where you had gone or what had happened to you, so they told stories about you, about what you might have been like. It's not easy to go from that to a living child, no matter how desperately happy you are to find him again."

"So I should feel sorry for them?"

"Not exactly," Healer Letham said, with that calmness that made Harry keep shutting up. "But let me say that I find it easy to believe both that your father could have hated you as a Potter, instantly loved you when he found out that you were his son, and now doesn't know how to deal with the middle."

"I don't know how to deal with it, either."

"I know. And I'm here to help you deal with it. We don't have to do anything right away. I fully expect this to be a process of many months."

"But you said that you work for me."

"Yes. What of it?"

"What if I tell you to go away?"

....

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