Just to say, Harry Potter does in no way belong to me, nor do I make any claim to that. This is me just building different sandcastles in someone else's sand.

Scar head

Eleanor Benzeki had been working at the Great London orphanage for the last twenty years, and had pretty much seen it all. However, that attitude had been broken with the arrival eight years ago from a young boy named Harry. There had only been a note telling his name, age,
and that his family was dead, with no other relatives alive. The school had dutifully taken him in, and things had stayed as they had been for years, with the usual young children that came in, either staying until adulthood or being adopted or placed in foster care.

However, with Harry's... problem, that had meant that he was pretty much destined to be staying there until he had grown up, and in fact more than a few of the teachers had made noises about keeping him on as a groundskeeper, as he would likely have problems with the outside world anyway. So it was a pleasant surprise when she had received
correspondence from a school professor that Harry had a free scholarship to a private institution. After showing Harry the letter, they had drafted a reply, setting up an appointment with that professor on the second of August.

Eleanor was sitting down in her office, enjoying the quiet between classes, and waiting for the mysterious school teacher to show up, when there was a knock on the door, and the young trainee poked her head through the door, announcing the lady. After Benzeki stood up and
nodded, the young office girl opened the door and a stern looking woman walked in.

The lady was much taller than Eleanor, and thinner as well. Her black hair had a touch of gray in it, and was done up in a tight bun. She wore rectangular wire-rimmed glasses, and had a sharp nose, with thin lips. All in all, she reminded Eleanor of some of the Sister at her
old school, the ones that were much more likely to use a ruler rather than talk.

"Good morning." she gushed just a bit, "My name is Eleanor Benzeki; Headmistress of the Greater London orphanage and special educational school, and you must be Professor Minerva McGonagall? It's a pleasure to meet you at last. Would you like some tea?"

"Good morning and it's a pleasure to meet you as well." the older lady said crisply even as she accepted the cup, "I must say that you run a very efficient school here. Do all the students here have special needs"

"Thank you Professor," Eleanor said proudly, "Unfortunately yes, all of the students here are both orphans and have no where else to go. Some of the students with milder disabilities go to the local schools, but we have some here that they simply don't have the facilities to handle. Now as far at we are concerned, we find that idle hands are non-productive ones, so we have worked on courses specifically geared to the children, which means that we have a small class size and allow us to focus more attention of the child than a normal school.

For one of the times in her life, Minerva McGonagall was nervous, and let it show, "Well, I'm sorry, but does this mean that young Mr. Potter is…well?

"Ah yes," Benzeki nodded as she refilled her half empty cup, "Mr. Potter is a special case indeed. You see, he is not mentally challenged at all. In fact, he's most likely a genius in the making. The problem is that the young man has a physical condition that caused uproar the first time he went to school, so much so that we found it was best to take him out and place him in a class with a few other students that don't mind his…appearance.

"Excuse me?" Professor McGonagall asked, her anger building, "Did you say that his physical appearance caused him to be placed in a class with special needs children, just to stop the other children from complaining? Has it gotten so bad that a small scar or something else causes the public school systems here in Britain to cave like they have appeared to?

"A small scar? You mean that you don't know…you haven't seen the poor lad? Benzeki leaned back in her chair for a moment, and twiddled her thumbs, before she sat up straight again, "Professor, I think it may be best if you were to see for yourself, so that you can make a fully informed decision about Harry. The lad has had quite a few disappointments over the years, and I don't want this to be another. Would you mind walking with me?

McGonagall nodded, finished off her tea, before Eleanor sat up, the two of them put their cups down, and they both walked out of the office and down the hall to a small classroom. Stopping in front of the door, Benzeki knocked on the door, before she opened it up and waved to get the teacher's attentions. While she did so, McGonagall took a brief glance into the classroom, and was surprised by the small number of children there.

"Excuse me?" McGonagall spoke up as she looked in the classroom, "But I thought there would be more children in the classes than this?"

"Yes, the standard classes are full-sized," Eleanor nodded, "These are for the advanced students. All the children in this classroom are more than a grade ahead of the others in their learning. The only thing that holds them back in the local school is their disabilities. In fact, young Harry would probably be able to go to up to a much higher level of learning now, if we had the money to send him. That's one of the reasons we were happy to see that he may get more education than we could provide him at this time."

"Well, he has had a scholarship to our school set up for him since the day he was born," the older lady said with a small smile, "I taught his parents when they came to school, and have been looking forward to teaching him for years."

"Excellent! However, I guess I should say this though; Harry has had many problems getting placed through the years. Not because of his attitude!" the younger lady waved her hand as McGonagall's lips thinned somewhat, "No it's more because of, well...his physical problem

is not easy to talk about. Why don't I introduce you to him, and then you can see, and maybe we can go from there?

Getting a curt nod, Eleanor whispered to the teacher that had walked over to the door, before the two of them walked into the room together. Eleanor nodded, and stood up and walked towards the back of the room. Minerva followed her with her eyes, and watched as she walked up to a desk with a young boy sitting at it. Her face grew warm, as she may not
have seen Harry since the night he'd been dropped off at the Dursley's, but she knew that head of hair could only belong to someone with James' blood.

The young boy stood up and followed behind the Headmistress, out into the hall, being careful to stay behind her somewhat.

"Harry," Eleanor said, gently guiding the young boy out from behind her, "This is Professor Minerva McGonagall, and she wants to talk to you about going to a private school up in Scotland."

"Hello Harry, it's a pleasure to finally see...you...again?"

The little boy had come out from behind the Headmistress completely, and stood there, seeming to accept the Professor's shock with resignation.

Minerva got another shock when he spoke, "Hello Professor McGonagall, it's a pleasure to meet you also."

Minerva couldn't believe her ears when she heard the small child speak with a deep guttural voice, and that, mixed with his looks had short-circuited her brain for a second. Harry's
face, well, the left side looked normal, a young boy with dark messy hair, smooth skinned, if a bit of a pale face, with a brilliant green eye, behind his glasses, but the other side...

The entire right side of his face was colored green, and scarred so heavily that it almost made her break down weeping right there. His mouth was stretched tight and pulled open in a permanent sneer, while the other side was a normal thin set of lips. His eye on the other
side was wide open and with a black iris, that disturbingly reminded her of Severus' eyes, giving him a look like he was glaring at the world.

Minerva stood there for another moment, before she swallowed, and then slowly bent down, and took Harry's hands in her own, "Hello Harry. I taught your parents at the school I work at, and I'd like to teach you as well."

I just had the idea of the scar not being something that would be much more gruesome than the standard version. In fact, this Harry looks a lot like Two-Face from the Dark Knight film, maybe not to the full extent of half his face, but close to it, and his scar is slowly creeping over the rest of his face, year after year, as his skin is affected by the dark magic of the horcrux. May try to turn this into a regular fic, but again, it's also up for adoption.