A/N: I got the idea for this fic in a very odd, yet vivid dream I had recently where I was Harry and he had some mental problems and I guess Dumbledore had sent Lupin and Snape to check things out after finding out or something like that. If I describe Harry's problems in the wrong way and you are offended, I am sorry. I don't know many people who have mental problems that are noticeable like Harry's is going to be.

Summary: What if Harry's mind was adversely affected by what happened with Voldemort. What if Vernon was the only one mistreating Harry and took it too far traumatizing the boy even more. Now imagine if Petunia Dursley took back her maiden name and took Harry and Dudley with her to another country in order to stay away from Vernon?

Butterfly

Chapter One: A Brand New Day

"Dudley, sweetie, would you please go wake up Harry and make sure he gets ready for school?" Petunia Evans, a rather skinny, horse-like woman with pale, neck-length blonde hair that looked like it could use a good brushing, called to her chunky, pale, blond-haired son whose blue eyes shone brightly as he sat finishing up his mathematics homework on the ratty sofa in the small living room, the family of three shared.

"Yes, Mum." Dudley replied, slipping his math paper into his binder, closing it, and setting it on the end table by the door. He walked down the narrow hallway to the bedroom at the end of it.

The door was covered with what looked like drawings made by a five or six year old with crayons and washable markers. This was the room of his ten year old cousin, a boy whose age was the same as his despite how the boy who lived in this room acted. Dudley took a deep breath and then slowly opened the door, praying that today would be one of his cousin's "good days" and that Harry would just wake up and get ready like he was supposed to without any fuss.

"Harry?" Dudley said quietly, approaching his dark-haired cousin's bed. "H-Harry, it's time to wake up. Mum said so." Slowly, Dudley could see the tale-tale signs of the other boy waking. First it was the turning over, then the slight opening of his eye lids, revealing a tiny glimpse of bright emerald green eyes, and slowly, finally, came the huge yawn and sleepy mumbles. "Morning, Harry… Do you think you'll need help with getting ready today?" Dudley asked as his cousin sat up and stretched every muscle in his slender body.

"No, I can dress myself…" Harry replied, sounding much like a four year old who just learned how to dress himself.

Harry got up out of bed clad in a pair of blue and white underwear, and half ran, half stumbled to the closet facing the end of his bed.

"Okay, I'm just going to set the timer like Mum does and go help with breakfast." Dudley said, getting a faint mumble in reply from the other boy before slowly walking out of the room. It was when he was in the kitchen helping his mother serve some hash browns when a loud thud and cry sounded from Harry's room.

Both Dudley and his mother dropped what they were doing and ran to the aid of the boy.

"Harry, sweetie, what happened?" came the sweet, caring, and yet worn sounding voice of Petunia Evans. Harry sat on the floor by a wooden chair clutching his left knee, tears freely running down his face as he sobbed. A red t-shirt, a pair of faded blue jeans with a hole in the left knee, tennis shoes, and a red baseball cap lay forgotten off to the side. Seeing that it might take a while, Petunia told her son to go serve himself breakfast while she took care of her nephew. "Harry… calm down, sweetie. Tell me what happened and I'll try my best to make it all better." She said, holding him closely in her arms as the tears and sobbing slowly died down.

"I-I-I f-fell a-a-and hur-urt m-my k-knee…" The boy stuttered, having trouble getting the words out through the tears.

"Lets get you sitting down on your bed and I'll go get the First Aid kid and we'll see what I can do." She led the boy, still clad in nothing but his underwear to his bed and helped him sit down before leaving him to go into the bathroom for the emergency supplies. Bumps and Scrapes were all too common for her nephew. She silently hoped that this time his fall wouldn't result in a visit to the doctor or even the hospital as they sometimes did.

Quickly she returned to the boy's room with a large red duffle bag filled to the brim with various first aid supplies. She quickly surveyed the boy's knee and saw that it was only slightly swollen, not enough to suggest any lasting damage, but enough to warrant use of an ice pack and perhaps some help getting ready.

"Sweetie, I'm going to go into the kitchen to get an ice pack for you to put on that knee." She said, putting a reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder.

"O-okay, A-aunt P-Petunia." He stuttered, a single tear running down his flushed face. She rushed into the kitchen, grabbing an ice pack out of the freezer and nearly ran back to her nephew, lightly pressing the blue ice pack to his injured knee.

"Here, hold this while I get your clothes." Petunia took one of Harry's hands and pressed it to the cold pack before getting up to collect the clothes that he had picked out. It was cold outside, Petunia knew. It had even been raining the last time she had checked so she grabbed the boy's warmest sweater, raincoat, boots, and umbrella. "Harry, look, I know you hurt your knee, but it's not that badly hurt. You need to go to school today, Sweetheart. Just think of how happy your teachers will be to see you after you've been gone for two weeks with the flu." Petunia patiently explained, hoping to avoid any arguments with her nephew. In response the boy slowly nodded, threw the ice pack to the side, and helped dress himself. His sweater was a deep burgundy and was hand knit by a little old lady who lived in another part of the apartment complex they resided in.

Soon enough Harry was dressed, apart from his raincoat and boots, and was slowly working through his breakfast that Dudley had so graciously put in the microwave to keep warm. This morning, it was orange juice, sausage links, scrambled eggs, and toast with grape jelly, Harry and Dudley's favorites.

"Harry, hurry up or we'll be late… You don't want to be late do you?" Dudley whined impatiently. To him, it was all too common for his cousin to take too long doing one specific thing, like eat breakfast, or tie his shoes, or even put on a clean shirt. Then there was the time it took to walk to school, especially with the Weather slowing them down.

"Dudley, don't rush him." Petunia warned. "Harry, could you please try to get breakfast eaten just a little faster. You don't want to be late and miss out on seeing Miss Bradley for your reading, do you?" Harry gave a quick shake of his head and immediately started to shovel more food into his mouth and before long the plate was empty and Harry was downing a second glass of orange juice. Less than five minutes later, both boys were fully dressed and outside walking to school. Now Petunia had clean up the kitchen and get ready to run off to work.

Dudley and Harry had arrived at Clearview Elementary just as the first bell rang, telling students to get to class. Dudley promptly dropped his cousin off at his assigned classroom and ran off to his own.

Inside Harry's class, the walls were decorated with all sorts of art work, papers, and charts with differently colored stickers on them. There were several adults in this particular classroom. One was the main teacher, Mrs. Peterson, a tall, severe looking woman with bright red hair and hazel eyes. She was very pale but the colorful, flowery dresses she wore made her look beautiful. The other two were teachers aides. Miss Hart was one of Harry's favorites. She always commented on how nice his artwork was, even though kids from other classes made fun of him because of it. She had light brown, almost blonde hair always hung loose around her head. Her eyes were a dark blue and were almost almond shaped. Her voice was like that of a thousand angels, or so Harry thought. Miss Daniels wasn't so nice. She was always the one telling Harry that he wasn't doing things right. He hated when he was stuck with her during reading when Miss Bradley, the special teacher who came from another school to help with his reading, wasn't there. She had dark black hair, and even darker eyes. She dressed nice, but Harry still though she was mean. She made him think of his Uncle Vernon, who was also very mean to him and used to hit him before his Aunt Petunia took him and Dudley away from his house.

"Welcome back, Harry." Mrs. Peterson and Miss Hart said together in unison. Both seemed very cheerful. Miss Hart lightly hugged him and led him over to the cubbyholes to deposit his raincoat and boots. "We missed you, Harry. Are you feeling better this week?"

"Um… yes… But I hurt my knee today… I fell again, but Aunt Petunia made it all b-better." Harry replied as he had to sit down to pull his left boot off. Thankfully he had been careful not to get any water in his boots or else his shoes would have gotten wet.

"Well as long as you're feeling okay. We missed you so much in here, Harry. Did you get the card from your Aunt?" Miss Hart asked, taking Harry's left boot and setting it neatly in his cubby space.

"Yeah, I have it on my-my wall. Aunt P-Petunia helped me put it there with t-tacks." He replied, looking up at the Teacher's Aide with bright eyes.

"That's nice of her to help with that. Were you able to read what the card said?"

"Not a-all the w-way. I needed Dudley to h-help with s-some words." Harry said, somewhat uncomfortably. If there was anything he hated the most, it was his trouble with reading. It was so difficult for him to read even the simplest of books. There were times when he would throw himself into a fit over not being able to finish a book by himself.

"Well, I'm sure Miss Bradley will be able to help you some more today after Reading Circle. Right now we're going to do a math worksheet. I'll help you with it if you need help." Miss Hart said softly, leading Harry over to a table where some of the other students were already sitting down.

The math sheet that was placed in front of Harry was only simple addition, but Harry and many of the other students still worked through it very slowly even with the help from the Teacher and Teacher's Aides. Harry got distracted from it far too easily and found his eyes wandering to the windows where you could see the dark clouds, heavily pouring rain onto the cold, wet earth. Harry shivered at the thought of not going out for recess. Going outside for recess was his favorite thing to do, especially because he could play soccer with some of his friends in other classes. Soccer was his favorite things to do. It wasn't something that needed math or reading. Sure he would tumble to the ground a few times a day, and it would show when he got home, but falling onto the soft grass was different than falling onto hard wooden floors.

Eventually, Harry was shaken from his daydreams by the cold presence of Miss Daniels, telling him to get back to his work.

A/N: Okay this 3 and ½ pages long and I'm getting very sleepy so I'm going to go to bed now. Hope you liked it so far. More explanation about what's going on will be added to later chapters, assuming I get enough reviews to keep this going.