Chapter Thirteen
Poppy's POV:
Severus and I waved our wands muttering diagnostic spells. I could tell that he was furious with the growing gray cloud above the poor girl. As a healer myself, the information I was receiving was concerning. No person - even a witch or wizard - should be able to go through that much suffering and still be alive, especially a child. When the parchment in front of us had filled up with ailments, I summoned another one, which began darkening with ink. Only after 6 parchments did the writing start to slow down, and it took 8 to finally stop.
"Ivory, do you know what we did?" Her scared eyes looked up at Severus as she shook her head. "We ran a test that would list and describe all physical and mental/emotional injuries to you since you were born. However, this is one of the longest lists we've ever seen. Would you be okay looking over it with us and maybe describing some of the things that it says?"
She concentrated very hard on the loose string on the hospital bed before looking up to meet our waiting gazes. "I can try. It is going to be hard. I haven't talked to anyone but Harry about this... and he doesn't even know it all."
"We understand that, sweetie. If you need to stop for a small amount of time, that is absolutely okay. We are here to help you." I tried to answer her concern with care. This little girl in front of me had already wormed her way into my heart.
She nodded slowly and sat up. I pulled the first piece of paper and joined her on the edge of the bed, Severus on the other side. "Okay, this is going to start when you were born, normally, we'd skip to when you first moved into the abusive house, but in cases such as yours we need to make sure that you didn't have any lasting injuries from anything. Is that okay?" Severus' voice was low and soft, he really wanted her to feel comfortable.
She pulled the page from me gently and glanced at it. "We can probably skip the introduction and birth stuff, just normal baby injuries." I nodded at her gently, and let her continue. "The first one after that says 'Age: 2 months 4 days - scraped elbow from flailing during a diaper change.' It even records small stuff like that?" Her eyes held astonishment.
"It records everything. We need to make sure that nothing happened to you at any age," I explained. She looked down, skimming the page.
"Well, most of this first page is just little things, nothing lasting. Do we really need to look over it? I mean, how many babies don't get hurt?" At our insistence, she looked back down at the page incredulously. "Like, here's a few bug bites, some more scrapes, a couple diaper rashes. These aren't that important!"
I took the paper out of her hands and skimmed the page. "It would appear you are right, much of this is of no consequence. I guess we can skip to the next page." As I was about to turn the page over, Severus stopped me.
"Ivory, when were you born?" We both looked at him in surprise. His voice had held so much concern.
"Um, my birthday is October 30th, why do you ask?" He looked at the page again, this time looking closer.
"Poppy, please run that test again, focusing on only the very first few months." I looked at Severus weird, but did, and a new piece of paper fluttered before me.
Ivory picked it up and read, "Age: 2 days - cursed scar from attempted murder on baby and brother." She looked up at me with tears in her eyes, and pushed her hair to the side. Down her face was the scar I had only caught a glimpse of. "I always thought the Dursleys did this, but I don't think that is the case anymore."
The scar stretched from the edge of her eyebrow down the side of her face to her cheekbone. It was jagged, like her older brothers'. I couldn't believe it. A cursed scar on both of them?
Severus took one look at the scar, grabbed the paper, and ran out.
