A/N: Several things. First of all, I've put up a poll, on my profile, to pick the title for this series. The first title, Saga of the Staff, is based on something which will become a major plot point beginning in the fifth book. The other one is more generic. I urge you to go to the poll and pick one – the poll will close when Ch. 2 of KoS comes out in a week or so.

Secondly, for those who haven't read the first book in the series, I urge you to do so! This won't make much sense if you haven't. You can get there by going through my profile, or you can just go here: /s/8276119/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Draught-of-Life

Thirdly, in my spare time for the past couple weeks, I've been compiling a list of what we know about magic in canon (and in my AU as well) and a few theories on how it works. That document currently stands at 50 pages and contains a listing of all spells from canon for which we know the incantation, most for which we don't (with incantations I made up), plus numerous other spells which are likely to exist, but aren't seen in canon. It also has sections in major witches and wizards, magical transportation, innate magic, schools of magic, and other kinds of magic, and contains an expanded version of my Files from the Department of Mysteries fic in its entirety. To the best of my knowledge, while there is much in it that's supported by canon, nothing directly contradicts it. For this reason, I'm using this by-no-means complete guideline about magic to describe magic in this fic – anything in that file can be assumed true in the fic. There's a table of contents to make navigation easier, and the file can be found here (remove the spacse between 'www.', 'mediafire' and '.com':
www. mediafire .comview/?a2cpd563yrarf68
You don't have to read it to understand what's going on, mind you, but you might find some hints in there about what's going to happen.

Finally, I ask everyone to remember to read and review, because I'm not really satisfied with this chapter, and I'd like some constructive criticism. Flames are not welcome.

A few days later, after attending the graduation of the 7th years, Harry wished his friends well as they boarded the Hogwarts Express to return to London and Platform 9¾. He hugged Ginny and Hermione, clapped hands with Ron and Neville, and exchanged a curt nod with Draco under the watchful eye of the elder Malfoy. As the Hogwarts Express chugged onwards, Harry pondered where he would have been if not for Hogwarts. Probably locked in the cupboard already, either blamed for something he didn't do by Dudley or because of accidental magic. Instead, he had free rein of an enormous magical castle, and would be allowed to cast magic over the summer – under the supervision of the live-in professors, true, but it was more than Ron could say. Harry smiled. The summer awaited.

Harry returned to the castle, amazed at how quiet it already seemed with nearly everyone gone. There had been less than thirty people in the castle over Christmas, but now it was just 14 – him and the teachers. And after dinner tonight, it would be only 6, he and those few teachers who lived at Hogwarts over the summer.

But Harry thought that he liked the quiet. Hogwarts was always bustling with activity, but now was filled with a pleasant, drowsy sort of feeling. Considering the amount of magic saturating the area, Harry wondered if Hogwarts actually was alive, and slept over the summer. He yawned. It definitely felt like the area was taking a nap.

As he reentered the castle, Hagrid, who was exiting the Hall, gave him a funny look, but said nothing. He had the same experience moments later, when one of the teachers for the electives – Harry thought it was Victor Vector, the Arithmancy professor – stopped and stared at him for a moment. You'd think they've never seen a student before, Harry thought, and mentally snickered. But when even the stern head of Ravenclaw blinked at him in confusion, Harry had to ask. "What's the matter, Professor?"

Professor McGonagall frowned at him. "Why aren't you on the Hogwarts Express, Mr. Potter?"

Harry furrowed his brow. Didn't she know? "I'm staying at Hogwarts over the summer," he told her. "Didn't the Headmaster tell you?"

McGonagall's frown deepened. "Why does he never tell me anything," she muttered. "Come with me, Mr. Potter."

Harry followed the blue-clad witch as she led him to the Headmaster's office, scowling and grumbling. He couldn't hear everything she said, but what he heard sounded like very useful Scottish swear words. He listened carefully, nearly smacking into her when she suddenly stopped in front of the gargoyle. "Lollipop," she told it sourly, and it stepped aside.

"Professor," Harry began, but she stopped him before he could say anything.

"Not now, Mr. Potter. I must have words with the Headmaster," she snapped. So Harry fell silent as they stood on the spiral staircase and it turned, bearing them upwards. "Albus Dumbledore!" she shouted, flicking her wand and slamming the doors open as she strode forward. "What on earth are you about?"

Dumbledore smiled passivle, sitting behind his desk with a large roll of parchment partially opened. "Hello, Harry, Minerva," he said calmly. "Lemon drop?"

"Yes please," Harry said as the professor snapped "Certainly not." She glared at him momentarily before turning her ire on Dumbledore again.

"Why, exactly, did you arrange for a student to remain over the summer without consulting me?" she snapped.

"I discussed it thoroughly with Filius," he pointed out. "As he is Harry's head of House."

"And I am your deputy!" she cried. "I should be kept informed, if not consulted, of any matters of this sort, especially for such a young child!"

"Minerva, Harry's home," Dumbledore began, but Professor McGonagall interrupted him, shouting again.

"I know his home situation is bad, and I have no objection to him staying! The problem is that I didn't know about it!"

"Minerva!" the headmaster said firmly, and she immediately fell silent – although her mouth continued moving. Harry noticed that Dumbledore's hand rested gently upon his wand, though – not true wandless magic, then, merely a good imitation. "What I was going to say was that Harry is right there."

"I'm well aware of that, Albus!" she snapped. "What is he to do while he is here, might I ask? Is he simply to wander the grounds, or have you composed a course of mischief for him?"

"Perhaps you should go see Poppy for that full examination I mentioned, Harry," Dumbledore suggested to him, his low murmur somehow carrying through McGonagall's ire.

Harry nodded and retreated, but stopped at the doors, swinging them closed and then pressing his ear up against the frame. This worked for a moment, but then Dumbledore called "All the way to the Infirmary, Harry!" and he left, chagrined.

"Open wide, Mr. Potter," Madam Pomphrey told Harry as he sat on one of the infirmary beds. "Wider than that. Say 'ah'."

"Aaaaahh," Harry said, stretching his tongue out of his open mouth.

"Good, you can close your mouth now. Lie on your back, please." Harry lay down, and Pomphrey began waving her wand over him in a wide figure-eight. She began singing, a melodious tune in a language that Harry didn't know.

"Do shláinte, do shláinte,
conas a bhfuil do shláinte?
Cnámh briste, fiacail lobhadh,
thaispeáint dom, a thaispeáint dom.
Breoiteacht, bhfuil tú ann?
Conas a bhfuil do shláinte?"

As she sang, a soft blue light began to shine from her wand onto Harry's body. He began to feel long-forgotten aches – no, not feel, just to notice. The pain he always felt from his left knee, from his cracked ribs, his shoulder, once dislocated and never properly set, all came to the forefront of his mind. Pomphrey's eyes widened for a moment, then became hard and narrow. She continued her chant, but shrank the figure-eight to cover only one leg, then the other. It seemed as though every small pain Harry had learned to live with was being unearthed, his resistance to pain depleted – by the time she reached his head, he was gasping with the many small pains.

Madam Pomphrey gave him a greenish potion and told him to drink it slowly, then strode over to the fire and cast a handful of grayish powder into it. As Harry sipped, his pain began to recede, but he was more interested in the conversation going on between Pomphrey and the disembodied head which had appeared in the green fire.

"I can't believe he got this far without anyone noticing," she was saying. "There's barely an inch of his body that hasn't been abused, and none of it's been healed properly. I've half a mind to send him to you straightaway, and to Hades with the headmaster."

"If he's made it this far alright, he can last a little longer while I speak to the headmaster," said the long-haired man in the fire. "If the headmaster won't listen to reason, well, we'll work that out when it happens. May I come through?"

"Of course," agreed Madam Pomphrey, and the head disappeared from the flames for a bare moment before a person stepped all the way through.

He was tall, certainly above 6 feet, and had black hair down to his shoulders. A thick goatee, lightly dusted with grey, adorned his face, and he wore grey-tinted glasses that hid his eyes from view. He wore plain white robes, bare of any decoration but for a name, embroidered over the breast pocket: Senior Healer Dane.

Dane walked over to Harry and held out his hand as Pomphrey left the infirmary. "Good morning, Mr. Potter. My name is Arnold Dane, and I'm the head of the children's ward at St. Mungo's."

Harry hesitantly shook his hand. "Am I going to the hospital, Mr. Dane?"

"You are," Dane agreed. "Madam Pomphrey is a highly qualified Healer, but her expertise lies in recent, superficial wounds: cuts, bruises, broken bones, and the like. I have more experience in older wounds of the sort that you have."

Harry nodded in understanding. "To heal my ribs and shoulder and stuff."

Dane's eyes, barely visible behind his glasses, darted down to those places on Harry, then returned to his face. "Yes," he said. "And perhaps we can do something about your eyes as well."

"My eyes?"

"If caught early enough, deteriorating eyes can be fixed," Dane explained. "It's a relatively recent development, only about 10 years old, so it wasn't any use to me, but we'll likely be able to fix up yours easily enough."

"No wonder none of the other students have glasses," Harry mused.

Dane nodded. Then drew his wand. "Mr. Potter, I am going to perform an extensive diagnostic charm on you," he said. "Do you consent?"

Harry furrowed his brow. Why would he have to agree? Then again, he supposed he didn't have a guardian to give permission, but really, a diagnostic charm didn't sound like something a Healer should need to ask permission to use. "Yes," he agreed, still somewhat confused.

"You will feel a light tingling sensation over most of your body," Dane said, "along with a high-pitched beep in your left ear and a strange taste in your mouth. I understand it's rather similar to codfish. Don't be alarmed, please. Dimitte me sentiunt, quid hoc unum sentit. "

A moment later, Dane winced and lowered his wand. Harry made a face at the sudden taste. "More like salmon, I think," he said.

Dane sighed. "What Albus has allowed is… inexcusable. This is just…"

"I know it is a terrible thing," Dumbledore said, striding into the infirmary. "But Harry needed protection, and I believed that his relatives could give it to him."

Dane snorted. "Muggle relatives? Useless. Worse than useless! I don't see how anywhere else could have put Mr. Potter in more danger than they clearly did!"

"When Harry's mother died, she created a powerful protection which remained," Dumbledore said. "It lasted this long, and saved his life not a month ago. If the Dursleys had been a proper family, then Voldemort would never have been able to even enter the castle – as it is, he was unable to touch Harry." Harry noticed that, unlike most wizards would, Dane didn't flinch at Voldemort's name.

"If anything of the sort was once on Mr. Potter, it is gone now," Dane pointed out.

"Yes, it broke driving Him away a second time," Dumbledore agreed. "I believe that the remnants might possibly be knitted back together, but only if another who loves Harry dies for him. And, of course, we don't want that either. Nonetheless, Harry is no longer protected from Voldemort or his followers. As such, he is safest at Hogwarts."

"The Dark Lord was driven out of his possessed body," Dane snapped. "He cannot –"

"He was not," Dumbledore interrupted. "He remains within Alan's body, though it is burned and cannot cast proper magic. I believe he will remain there and attempt to rebuild his own body, especially given his vanity… And while he may do so solitarily as he has been for ten years, he might also contact his followers."

Dane growled. "Mr. Potter needs the attentions of specialized Healers, and he cannot get that at Hogwarts."

"Nonetheless, he cannot go to St. Mungo's as it is. It's too open, and the emergency wards will not provide sufficient protection against, say, Augustus Rookwood."

"Then I will ward Mr. Potter's room myself!" Dane roared. "And if you still say nay, then you will help, Albus!"

Dumbledore opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, then shrugged. "I suppose that will be safe enough. An extra room, mind you. Under Fidelius, too. I will be the Secret Keeper –"

"I'll be the Secret Keeper, as I'll pick the Healers to tend Mr. Potter," Dane said flatly. "Come, let us do this as soon as we may. The sooner Mr. Potter can be tended, the better."

A/N: The charm Pomphrey does is in Gaelic. The charm Dane uses is Latin.