“This is Ren Normandy,” Professor McGonagall was saying. “For those of you in N.E.W.T. Defense Against the Dark Arts, you may have had cause to meet her already. She has graciously agreed to assist our understanding of a particular transfigurative syndrome.”
Harry had occasionally seen Ren around, never looking the same way twice, but he’d never seen Ren like this. McGonagall’s use of ‘her’ was not unfounded; though Ren was adorned with the normal strange accoutrements -- pure white butterfly wings sprouting from her biceps, curly purple hair, and brownish skin dotted with flecks of shimmering gold -- she was also possessed of unfamiliar, highly feminine features. Her rounded shoulders, her long and delicate legs crossed beneath her slim, frilled dress painted a very different picture of Ren than Harry was used to, despite knowing how changeable she was.
Ren lifted a hand in a dainty wave, her divergently-colored eyes surveying the gathered students. “Good to meet you-- or nice to see you again,” she remarked with casual friendliness. “Take your pick.”
Seamus’s hand shot in the air at once. “Aren’t you a man? Y’know... Normally?” he asked without a shred of tact, prompting a chorus of whispers to erupt throughout the class.
McGonagall shot a stern look toward them all, silencing them, but Ren merely shrugged in response. “Sometimes,” she answered; even her voice flowed differently. “And sometimes not.”
“I’ll thank you to ask respectful questions, with appropriate intent, Mr. Finnegan,” the professor demanded. “And that applies to all of you.”
The next raised hand was one he recognized: Cho Chang’s. Harry hadn’t spoken to her for a long while, the awkwardness between them driven further by the fact she’d moved on to dating Michael Corner. It was strange, he thought, that she had fallen so quickly from his notice, considering the frequency with which she occupied his mind only a year ago.
Cho’s wording was reluctant; she clearly wanted to frame her question with more decency than Seamus had. “Uhm, does… Well,” she hesitated and bit her lip. “How does… Professor Tenenbaum feel about… that?”
Ren waved a hand, tucking a few curls behind her ears. “Hm… annoyed, probably?” she flippantly replied. “She hates to be upstaged, you understand.”
The students let out a collective laugh, some enthused, others nervous. Cho piped up again, a little more confident. “Oh, so she’s alright with…?” She left this sentence hanging, her smile slightly nervous, but hopeful.
“With me?” Ren prompted with her eyebrows raised. “‘Course she is. But, you know, I don’t hold it against her.”
Cho sat back in her seat, head tilting. Her boyfriend, seated beside her, rose up with his hand raised at the elbow and asked: “Which do you like being better? Boy or girl?”
“Why pick favorites?” the woman remarked. “The way I see it, there’s plenty of good things about both. Or neither!”
The class as a whole wasn't sure what to make of that answer. Michael sank back into his seat, brow furrowed. Harry was just as confused as everyone else, but McGonagall saw fit to instruct, “If any of you are uncertain how to address Miss Normandy--”
“Missus, rather,” Ren smoothly corrected her, smiling.
“Ah-- yes, my mistake. Force of habit,” the professor shook her head as if to clear it. “At any rate, if there is any confusion, you need only ask Ren her current preference.”
The woman offered up a little cross-fingered salute. “I don't bite. Promise!”
There was a charged curiosity in the room, the quiet amassing in small eddies between the rows of students as Professor McGonagall organized her teaching materials. Perching her reading glasses atop her nose, she consulted a short length of parchment before querying the class: “Are any of you familiar with what a Mutaeternum is?”
Of course, Hermione had her hand up, that prim and unwavering palm so ubiquitous that the professor’s eyes seemed to pass over it entirely, seeking out another. To everyone’s surprise, a hand did go up; at the opposite end of the room, Rhys Urquhart answered when called upon, his words calm and measured. “A Mutaeternum is a metamorphmagus who is unable to alter their own body, but instead suffers random and uncontrollable shifts in appearance.”
Harry surveyed the boy’s stoic profile. Since the incident in the Entrance Hall, he’d been laying low in his classes, studious and quiet. A stark contrast to the brutal punishment Harry had seen him inflict on Malfoy.
“Correct,” McGonagall approved. “Five points to Slytherin. And, are you aware of the three core symptoms of this highly rare magical syndrome?”
The Slytherin shook his head. “No, ma’am.” His politeness was worrying in a way that Harry couldn’t place.
The hazardous moment passed, gone apparently unnoticed by all. The professor, with an air of resignation, next called on Hermione.
“The primary indicators of a Mutaeternum are auto-involuntary transformation, acute magical fatigue, and corporeal dissonance,” she rattled off, enthused.
McGonagall raised her eyebrows. “Thorough, Miss Granger," she intoned, the compliment a touch dry. "However, your classmates will require layman’s terms for their notes.”
“Right, ehm--” Harry was close enough to see her cheeks turn a little pink. “Their bodies change on their own, they um… have trouble with chronic tiredness and unreliable access to their magic, and their bodies never… settle? Their form is always in flux.”
“It’s most drastic while I sleep,” Ren chimed in. “I once grew a full set of walrus tusks overnight, so large Bridge couldn’t even fit on the bed…”
McGonagall explained, “Mutaeternums fluctuate much more rapidly while unconscious; the magical expenditure of the constant change they endure is recuperated during waking hours, unlike wizards without the syndrome.”
“Sleep is an elusive beast,” Ren lamented, hamming up her tale of woe. “I have hunted her for many years, but she still belongs only to the wilds.”
The next question was spoken timidly by Susan Bones. “Did anyone… um, tease you? When you were in school?”
Ren chuckled. “Of course! Though, they were always likely to get a kick in the teeth from Bridge.” She waved an excited hand. “I once saw her clock a grown man so hard with her fake leg that it actually cracked clean in half--!”
“Who?!” Lavender excitedly blurted out without raising her hand. “Was it a teacher?!”
“Well…” Ren began, her tone altogether sly.
However, Professor McGonagall stopped that line of thought in its tracks. “That is not a discussion for the classroom,” she declared before aiming a look at Ren herself. “Nor is it a topic one might consider professional in any context.”
Neither Ren nor Lavender appeared particularly phased by this admonishment, instead exchanging conspiratorial looks. Normally, Harry might have indulged his curiosity as well, but he felt too uneasy to engage with the amused whispers that had erupted around him.
“Any other questions?” the professor prompted the room. “Relevant ones, Mr. Ishida.”
The seventh-year Hufflepuff retracted his hand, rolling his eyes and slumping back in his chair.
Megan Jones’s hand fluttered in the air, the action both dainty and eager. “When did this start happening?” she asked, tilting her head. “How old were you?”
“Funny story about that,” Ren commented, eyebrows raised. “I was actually born with two heads on! My parents thought they’d had conjoined twins!”
Hannah Abbott made the hushed inquiry, “What are conjoined twins?”
At the same moment, Pansy Parkinson exclaimed, in horror-stricken tones, “You had two heads?! Gross! ”
The whispers struck up again around the room, this time of a more urgent nature, barely quelled by McGonagall’s displeased stare. She reigned in the students’ attention with the sharp proclamation, “That manner of language is unacceptable. Ten points from Slytherin, Miss Parkinson.”
The girl folded her arms, expression foul as she muttered, “What? It's weird.”
McGonagall's tone was crisp as she lectured, “It is common for this condition to begin at birth, though Ren's experience is, perhaps, more dramatic than most. As such, I expect you to comport yourselves with decency in this matter.”
Despite the reprimand, Ren seemed far from being affected by Pansy's words. Her smile was positively serene as she tacked on, “Honestly, I only wish I could have seen the doctor's face when that head disappeared overnight.”
“Doctor?” Cho's voice floated to the front again, gentle. “Not Healer?”
“Mhm! My parents were of the non-magical variety, bless.”
“Wait but,” Cho continued, flabbergasted. “How did the Muggles not…?”
“Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, I imagine,” Ren shrugged. “Mum just mentioned that none of the doctors remembered anything about it when she went back for checkups.”
The next question came from Hermione. “Were you able to go to primary school?”
“Nope!” the woman replied, popping the “P”. “Couldn’t even leave my house, really.”
This seemed to baffle Hermione. “Well-- aren’t there any magical remedies? Any treatments to help manage the condition?”
Professor McGonagall fielded that particular question. “Not much is known about this particular ailment, partially because it is so rare. There have only been two cases in the whole of Britain in the last hundred years.”
At that, one of the seventh year Slytherins, Raegan Stroud, spoke up. “Gee, so you’re a real freak of nature, huh?”
Ren raised her eyebrows, amused. “Oh! I love nature! Did I ever tell you all the story about how I once grew mushrooms on my head? Enraged some Moss Folk in Norway, but I managed to convince them I was a forest sprite--”
“Any further comments like that,” McGonagall warned, her shrewd gaze fixed on the Slytherins in the room “and I will be reporting your behavior to the Headmaster. Is that understood?”
During the protracted silence, Harry glanced over, the accused students either sulking or glaring. Even Urquhart, whose expression had been fairly neutral throughout, was now wearing a look of contempt. “Yes. We understand,” he answered in Raegan’s stead, his voice controlled. When McGonagall's attention diverted elsewhere, he threw Raegan a disparaging look.
A sigh curtailed the professor's next statement as she continued, clearly grown weary of interruptions. “Now, can anyone tell me how someone with this condition differs from, say, Animagus abilities, or someone who has performed a self-transfiguration? Padma?”
“Animagi have a base form, which is then altered to a secondary state, and they can switch at-will between the two. And… Mutaeternums have no control of their body states?” the girl answered.
“Yes, that is true; five points to Ravenclaw. But it is perhaps more accurate to say that they have no body states at all. It is difficult to discern if Mutaeternums have a natural body state, since they possess no stable traits with which to define them…”
As the lecture continued, Harry looked to Ren for a reaction. However, there wasn't much to see; her stance was relaxed, lounging with one elbow on the lectern. Up to now, he’d always chalked up Ren’s strange appearance to be another ‘magical thing’ that he’d spent so many years gawking at, some quirk of Wizarding fashion that he hadn’t caught on to. Now that he knew the unpleasant particulars, Ren’s plight seemed… terribly sad.
After the students had been dismissed, Harry extracted himself from his friends to approach the front of the room, heading for Ren herself. A few other students were chatting with her, causing Harry to awkwardly dither on the outskirts as he waited for an opening. When the others dispersed, he greeted her with a stiff, “Hey.”
“Hey Harry,” she returned, easygoing.
“Um…” Harry blew out a puff of air, trying to collect his thoughts.
"Looking to hear the rousing tale of Bridge's broken leg?"
"Oh, er… no, sorry," he admitted, not wanting to offend. "I'm sure it's a great story and all--"
“How about this class, eh? Best you’ve ever had, I’d wager!” Ren chuckled, a mischievous tilt to her lips. “I do tend to have that effect.”
His returning smile was tinged with gloom. “Sure,” he conceded. “You’re great. But erm, can I… can I ask you a question?”
She waved a hand. “Ask away!”
“How…?” He cringed, rephrasing in his head. Something easier to manage first. “How’s Professor Tenenbaum doing?”
Ren’s face lit up. “Bridge’s recovery is going swimmingly, I’m happy to report,” she said. “Just a little snag with her condition, is all.”
Harry frowned. “Her condition?”
“Ah,” the woman before him ran a hand through her aubergine-colored hair. “Just a silly little thing she ran into while she was investigating some old ruins in Ukraine.”
“Was there an accident?” he questioned, his mind conjuring the image of her in her wheelchair. “Some kind of… magical creature?”
“Oh no, nothing like that,” Ren commented, waving a hand again. “She’s just been sick, is all. But I reckon Snape will have it sorted before long.”
That set off a small alarm in Harry’s mind. “What’s he got to do with it?”
“Been supplying her with potions, to keep her strength up,” she explained, reaching up to play with one of the curls on her shoulder. “It’s thanks to him she’ll be returning to teach Defense next week.”
Harry had wondered why she was so long absent from her own classes; it was hard to imagine a tough-as-nails spitfire like Professor Tenenbaum needing time to recover.
“You’ve been doing alright, though,” Harry commented in an attempt to be generous. Ren’s command of a classroom was virtually nonexistent, and she mainly let everyone do whatever they wanted while she told absurd stories to the portion of the class who cared to listen.
Ren grinned. “While I’m glad you think so, I don’t think teaching is really my calling.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, what is your calling?”
The laugh that bubbled out of the woman was full of mirth. “Great question,” she complimented him. “I’d like to know the answer myself, though I think it’s as simple as ‘anything I’ve not got bored of yet’.”
At that, his mind returned to the original curiosities which had propelled him to her to begin with. “Right… D’you change jobs a lot?”
“No, no, I just don’t have one,” Ren clarified, smirking. “I prefer to exist as a leech on the backside of society.”
Harry felt certain that was meant as a joke, but he couldn’t quite find the humor in it. “It, er… It must be hard, yeah? To live with… a condition like this?”
Ren’s gaze drifted upward as she considered this. “Well, I don’t really think of it like a condition, ” she remarked. “I’ve just always been like this. You get used to it.”
Do you? Harry thought, agitated. If it were him, he wasn’t sure he could deal with something like that. “But isn’t it… I don’t know. Painful?”
The woman before him laid a hand on his shoulder, her next words quite gentle. “There’s no cause for you to worry, Harry. It’s not painful, just occasionally inconvenient.” Then, she laughed. “And I always like a good challenge anyway!”
Harry grimaced, still troubled. There was another question burning in his throat, the crux of all his distress, but he worried it would be rude to ask it. Or perhaps, more accurately, he worried that he wouldn’t find the sort of answer he needed.
He shifted in place, his question worming its way into the light of day. “How do you… know who you are?” he asked, forthright and earnest. “How do you know, when everything’s just… changing around you all the time?”
Ren took a moment to survey him, her brow creasing with concern. “I suppose it’s something I had to figure out on my own,” she divulged, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “I learned to take each day as a new adventure, to be what I wanted to be in spite of circumstances. Sometimes I’m the clown with a lizard tail, sometimes I’m the Loch Ness monster’s cousin, sometimes I’m the bearded lady.” She shrugged, offering him a small smile. “I’m content to let tomorrow bring whatever it will.”
That was… Of course, it made sense for Ren to think the way she did. But there was something achingly unsatisfying about that answer that Harry couldn’t quite pinpoint. Slowly, he leaned away from her reach, letting Ren’s arm fall away from his shoulder and back at her own side. “Right, yeah,” Harry murmured, distant. “I’m-- er, it’s-- it’s good to know that you have a good attitude about it all.”
“Exactly!” she chirped, clapping her hands together. “So, nothing to worry yourself over, hm?”
“Yeah,” he said again, turning to leave the room. Nothing to worry about at all.
“S’your move, Harry,” Ron remarked with a yawn.
“I know that,” he groused, brow furrowed. “How is it that you’ve gotten loads better at wizard’s chess, while I’ve only gotten worse?”
“Dunno, mate. Maybe you were born to be a loser.”
“Stuff it, you,” Harry retorted, sacrificing his rook to Ron’s bloodthirsty knight. “I’m just off my game is all.”
Hermione cut in with, “Another round, is it?” as she emerged from the girls’ dormitories, fingers curled around several writing instruments and cradling a stack of parchment to her chest.
Ron took an imperious bite out of his fourth ginger newt as Harry replied, “Yeah, did you want to play?”
“No, thank you,” her response was soft as she took a seat on the couch adjacent to Ron’s lounge chair, laying out her materials beside her.
“Suit yourself,” Ron remarked. “You can just witness me destroy Harry's front line.”
His bishop massacred another of Harry's pawns with a single vicious swipe. “We'll see about that,” he countered, eyeing the board as if he were merely scheming a foolproof plan.
His friend guffawed. “Don't act coy-- you and I both know you're rubbish at defensive maneuvers.”
Harry raised his head to glare briefly, but resumed his examination of the board.
They went on playing for a while in quiet, peppered about here and there with a few wisecracks from Ron, until Harry heard Hermione’s voice blossoming from beside him, the pointed nature of her words belying their utterly casual delivery: “Harry and I missed you during the Transfiguration seminar this morning.”
While Ron's knight was galloping into place, he mirrored her tone. “Well, here now aren't I?”
“I think you would’ve liked today’s subject.”
“Yeah?” he intoned, dull.
“Ren got to explain her condition,” she coaxed.
Harry inwardly winced at the reminder. Ron, however, could not have been more disinterested. “Mm. Great.”
When Harry looked at Hermione, he could see the lines on her forehead prominently as she frowned, deliberate in what she said next, even as she pretended to be engrossed with what she was writing. “What were you up to, then?”
The redhead shrugged, though he wasn't very good at hiding the tension in his shoulders. “Y’know. This and that.”
“Well, if that’s the case, then maybe next Sunday you’d consider going with us?” she suggested. “We could go to Hogsmeade after.”
“Think not.”
She finally turned toward the both of them, visibly flustered. “Well-- why not?”
Ron cast her a sidelong look, saying, “Because I don't want to go?”
“I don’t understand--”
“It's not that complicated Hermione,” he informed her, his voice suffused with attitude. “I've got enough school without going to extra school over the weekend.”
“Do you, though?” she challenged. “You barely attend your classes as is.”
Ron bristled. “I still go!” he insisted, before qualifying: “ Sometimes! What's it to you?”
Hermione appeared offended that he’d ask such a thing. “I don’t know, let’s think,” she said hotly. “How about the fact you’re my best friend and I’m worried about you?”
Harry was ready to intervene before a full-blown argument could start, but Ron backed down, if only slightly. “There’s nothing to be worried about,” he told her, subdued. “I just don’t care about extra credit. Don’t even know why you need it, anyway.”
“For you, it would be to improve your marks after all the classes you’ve missed,” she pointed out.
His sigh came out in a gust, and he leaned all the way back in his chair, his head flopping back to face the ceiling. “Who cares? ”
“I do!” she exclaimed, frowning. “If you keep on like this, you’re going to get expelled due to absence alone. Doesn’t that concern you at all?”
He closed his eyes, folding his arms over his chest. “No.”
Remembering what Hermione had said before, Harry spoke up, then. “Ron-- I know school isn’t a great time or anything, but haven’t you got some kind of career you want to do?”
The redhead sat up again suddenly, pinning him with a look. “Not everyone can be you, Harry. I’m not going to be an Auror, because that’s not bloody realistic.”
The condescending tone stung. “What's that supposed to mean?”
Ron snorted. “What d'you think? You're--!”
“Don't say something you'll regret,” Hermione rebuked him. “That’s not even what he asked. We want to know what you want to do. Not what other people think you're ‘capable’ of.”
“Well that’s just it, isn’t it?” Ron sneered in her direction. “No one expects anything of me, and anything else I thought I wanted was just stupid and childish, wasn’t it?”
Hermione’s features softened. “Oh Ron,” she murmured, crestfallen. “That’s not true at all.”
Her tone, rather than calming him, actually set him off. “Oh, please,” he spat with a scowl. “Quidditch star? Chess champion? Till boy for a joke shop? Who am I kidding?”
Harry frowned. “None of those are bad things to do--”
“I’m going to be seventeen years old in a few months,” Ron interrupted. “A proper adult. And what have I got to show for it? Nothing.”
Hermione leaned forward in her seat, as earnest as Harry had ever seen her. “Seventeen is still really young, Ron. You can’t have it all figured out right now, you know? But so long as you just sit down and have a proper think about--”
“Oh yeah, here’s me with my thinking cap on,” he mocked her, snatching one of her pieces of parchment and putting it on his head. “I’m not that thick, Hermione; just because I don’t go to class doesn’t mean I’ve forgot how to use my brain.”
She pulled the bit of parchment from his head, the edge of it catching on Ron’s lip before she put it in her lap. “I’m not saying you’re stupid,” she admonished him. “It just seems like you’ve been avoiding considering what you could possibly do. Have you even considered what subjects you may have an affinity for, anything that can translate into marketable job skills?”
“Ugh, not this again,” he groaned.
“Well, as you said, you’re almost seventeen,” she reiterated. “A proper adult--”
“Not everyone is bloody ‘marketable’--!”
“People aren’t just lost causes either, Ronald!”
The sound of a throat being cleared burst into their conversation. “Should we, er… come back later?”
Neville was standing on the outskirts of sofas, accompanied by Seamus and Dean. Standing together in a rough semicircle, they were attired casually for the weekend, though the heavy robes draped over their arms indicated they’d ventured out of the castle.
Harry was quick to fill the awkward silence. “No, it’s fine,” he said, casting a brief glance in the direction of Ron and Hermione. “Did you go out to Hogsmeade?”
Neville shuffled his feet. “Oh-- yeah, we did--”
“Are we seriously going to gloss over this?” Hermione burst in, frazzled. “We were just getting somewhere--!”
Ron scowled at her, clearly ready to counter that, but Harry raised his voice. “We can talk about it later. Right? ” He looked at them both pointedly.
The redhead grumbled something in the affirmative, while Hermione huffed.
Seamus commented, then. “If you need us to shove off while you’re working something out--”
Dean cut in, “Think they’re fine, mate.”
Neville still looked uncertain, so Harry reassured him, “We’re alright.”
“They say they're alright, they're alright,” Dean corroborated, giving the other boys a single pat on the back before settling himself next to Hermione. Seamus shrugged, tugging a chair over and sitting in it backwards, but Neville remained on his feet.
Ron blew out a gust of air. “To what do we owe the pleasure, gentlemen?” he questioned.
“Well,” Dean said, “Best cut to it, then, yeah? Neville?”
The boy nodded, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his trousers beneath his robes. “We got to talking on the way back from Hogsmeade, and everyone's been wondering why you haven't… you know. Rounded up the troops. So to speak.”
Everyone's gaze gravitated to Harry. He grew defensive under the scrutiny. “What? Why are you all looking at me?”
“D.A., Harry,” Seamus mentioned, quiet. “Y'know, I thought for a while that I just wasn't invited, but turns out you've been sittin’ on your hands--”
“That's not it, mate,” Ron came to his defense. “There's just been a lot going on.”
“Yeah, like You-Know-Who being back?” Dean commented, blunt. “We know. But wasn't the point of D.A. to prepare us to fight?”
“It was to prepare you to defend yourself,” Harry countered, his brow creased. “There’s a big difference between the two.”
Neville ran a hand across the side of his face to scratch the back of his neck. “We understand that, Harry. But, I mean, if that’s the case, why don’t we keep up with it? I’m sure there’s loads of kids in the younger years who could benefit from knowing the best--”
“No,” Harry cut him off. “There’s way too much--”
“Honestly,” Hermione’s words overlapped his. “I don’t think it’s such a good idea. We’ve all got our N.E.W.T.s to worry about, and we really only made time for it last year because Umbridge refused to teach us.”
Ron swiftly agreed, “Yeah, and now we’ve got Tenenbaum, and she’s brilliant with all the field scenarios she does.”
Seamus wrapped his arms about the chair back, leaning his chin on the very top of it. “She’s a mad banshee though.”
“That’s a bit rude, Seamus,” Hermione chastised.
Dean leaned forward in his seat, earnest. “I still think it’s important to group up, just us students. We’ve got to learn how to support each other if we want to have a chance against Death Eaters--”
“You won’t,” Harry blurted, his stomach twisting.
The looks the boys gave him were varying mixtures of concern and pity. Dean clarified, “I’m not saying we plan to face them any time soon.”
“They shouldn’t be faced at all,” he countered, clenching his fingers tightly together. “It’s--”
“Isn’t that what you did last term?” Seamus accused, frowning.
Ron’s reply was harsh, “For once, just shut that massive gob of yours--!”
“No, he’s right,” Harry silenced him, facing the irish boy squarely. “We went in reckless and unprepared. And that’s exactly what can’t happen again.”
Neville remarked, “And of course, we would be sure to include caution in the curriculum, Harry. Others can learn from our mistakes, and we should--”
“I already told Professor Tenenbaum no, and I meant it.” The delivery of this admission was as firm as he could muster.
Hermione looked surprised. “The professor spoke to you about it?”
“Yeah, a while back,” Harry sighed. “And if she couldn’t convince me, then you lot certainly won’t.”
Seamus snorted. “Boy… tell us how you really feel.”
Neville mustered a strained smile. “I know you aren’t trying to say anything bad about us, Harry, but we think this is really important.”
“Here’s the thing, Harry,” Dean said, leaning his elbows on his knees, gesturing to get his point across. “This is bigger than just you. Whatever it started as, D.A. became a place for students to help each other, to grow closer together. There was a unity there that didn’t exist anywhere else in the castle. The members felt like they had somewhere they belonged. D.A. was something that even crossed House lines… which, believe me, is nearly unheard of. It’s impossible to deny the kind of community it inspired, and, and… don’t we need that right about now?”
With an argument like that, it was hard to say no. Still, Harry knew they could never be in agreement about this… the very prospect of taking up the club’s mantle again felt physically repulsive. He did not want to talk about this.
Thankfully, he was saved from having to do so by Hermione, who, while normally so stalwart in her convictions, had evidently been swayed by Dean’s pronouncement. “I know what you mean, and those are all good things to cultivate, but I think there are other ways to do that,” she ventured before sitting straighter and articulating precisely, “I’ve actually founded a school club to support equal representation for Muggleborns.”
Ron spluttered, “What?! When? ”
“Officially?” she replied, controlled. “Just this morning. But I’ve been working on it since the beginning of term.”
Seamus raised his eyebrows. “What’s ‘officially’ mean?”
Hermione’s tone was crisp. “It’s a sanctioned, legitimate organization with signed approval from the Headmaster and a designated faculty representative.”
“Sounds impressive!” Neville commented, sincere.
Ron was much less so. “What’ve you named this one, then?” he chuckled with mocking disbelief. “'Tosh'? 'Bogey'? Was one useless club not enough for you?”
She rounded on him, face red, though, judging by her next words, she’d been well prepared for this. “They aren’t useless, Ronald. I’m planning to make an actual difference in this school, which is more than I can say for you.”
"Yeah?" Ron countered, venomous. "What are you going to do? Knit little hats for Muggleborns? Get real, Hermione!"
"I am!" she declared. "If you'd just listen for two seconds--"
"Weren't you the one who just said 'oh, we don't have time for clubs, we've got N.E.W.T.s'?!"
"Don't you twist this around!" Hermione accused him, flustered. "Just because you've decided you don't care about anything doesn't mean I have to!"
Ron abruptly stood, shrugging his robes back on. "I don't have to listen to this."
"Where are you going?" Hermione demanded. "You pr--"
"See you, Harry," the redhead purposely ignored her, giving the other boys a mock salute. "Chaps."
Neville offered a feeble, uncertain wave as Ron took leave of the common room entirely, leaving the five of them sitting there in stunned silence. Seamus looked deeply uncomfortable, Dean sympathetic, and Neville downcast. When Harry chanced a glance at Hermione, she looked poised to cry, her fingers twisting in her lap.
"Oh, I hate him sometimes," she seethed, her voice warbling with the threat of tears. "I really do."
"You don't mean that," Harry quietly interceded.
Hermione pierced him with a sharp glare. "And what were you doing? Just letting him talk to me like that?"
His objection was feeble. “I-- I wasn't…"
She stood up right as a tear escaped one of her lashes, gathering her papers. "Think I'll put these flyers together in the dorm after all," she said, turned away from them all. "The first club meeting is next Tuesday after dinner in the Muggle Studies classroom; you're all invited."
With that parting announcement, she disappeared up the stairs to the girls dormitory. Harry busied himself with packing up the wizard's chess set so he didn't have to look at the others.
Seamus broke the silence. "Do those two ever quit fighting?"
Harry grimaced. It was more than that. He couldn't strictly pinpoint what made this time seem different, but… He could feel it. These weren't just petty squabbles anymore, were they? There was something deeper running beneath their words, and he had no idea how to identify it, much less where he could possibly begin the work of fixing it.
Neville inquired, "Will she be alright?"
He shrugged. "Yeah, s'pose so."
Dean remarked, "I think Hermione has always had great vision, but…" He looked at Harry. "What this school needs more is a leader."
Harry dropped his eyes, closing up the wooden box of the chess set with a definitive clack. "I'm going to get ready for Quidditch practice."
Dean's brow furrowed. "What? That's not for hours, yet."
"Yeah, that's the idea," he returned, tucking the box beneath his elbow and walking away.
Harry had no destination in mind, but, at that moment, anywhere seemed a better choice.
By the time four o’clock came around, Harry had given himself a massive headache from trying, and failing, to figure a way to reconcile Ron and Hermione to each other. Equally dismaying was the fact that his exhaustion had fully caught up to him once more.
Ginny elbowed him in the arm, her safety pads digging in uncomfortably. “You’ve missed the whole of Katie’s pep talk, Harry,” she informed him, displeased.
He blinked around, slow to remember that he was at Quidditch practice, sitting in the changing rooms. It looked like the rest of the team had already left, and that fact roused Harry enough for him to shoot automatically to his feet, blearily alert. “Did I miss practice?” he asked, voice thick.
The girl got to her feet, fixing him with a pointed stare. “Not yet,” was her stiff reply. “But it would be a near thing if I wasn’t here.”
Harry sighed, relieved but still tense. “Right. Um, thanks for that.”
Ginny folded her arms. “You’ve been really out of it lately, you know--”
“Yeah, I’m…” He let out another sigh. “I mean, N.E.W.T.s and all…you know, pretty tired.”
“Sure.” She rolled her eyes. “But if you’re this bad off, you can go catch some sleep, Harry.”
“No, it’s fine, I’ll--”
“We’ll survive without you for one day,” Ginny pointed out, grabbing hold of her broomstick.
“No,” Harry insisted, taking up his Firebolt at the same time. “I want to play. Really.”
The girl before him frowned, offering him a shrug. “If you say so.”
When they walked out onto the pitch, Katie called out to him, “Good to see you’re looking better, Harry!”
The team was running Keeper drills it looked like… Dean was hovering near the goalposts, breathing hard and leaning heavily on the front end of his broom while all the rest of the team plotted their next maneuver to bombard his line of defense. The moment Harry’s name was mentioned, all eyes fell on him, and Dennis Creevey waved an enthusiastic hand in the air, his broomstick bouncing with the force of his joy.
Bashful and, if he was honest, still dead tired, Harry turned to blink at Ginny. “Did you, er…?”
“Told them you were under the weather,” she admitted, shrugging again. “Not that it wasn’t obvious already.”
Was it? Harry rubbed at his eyes once or twice before mounting his broom, his hair fluttering against his forehead as the Firebolt brought him level with his teammates. On his arrival, he could hear Katie saying, “... a good play, now that Harry’s here. Demelza, let’s have you and Ginny flank, Dennis can head straight down the middle-- show him that mean right hook of yours. And then Harry--”
He sucked in a short breath and sat up straighter, his mind having begun drifting off somewhere in the middle. “Yeah?”
“You’re always really good at those hairpin turns, plus you’ve got the speed most of us don’t. I just want you to get in Dean’s way, act like you’re going for the Snitch, but just sort of dodging past everyone.”
“Right.” Easy enough, he supposed, though the situation was less than ideal considering the unpleasantness of his recent run-in with Dean.
“Okay, it’s settled," Katie concluded, and her smile could be heard in her tone. "You all know what you’ve got to do? Good. Let’s give him hell, eh? Sure bet Slytherin won’t grant him any mercy in the next match.”
The group broke up, everyone drifting about the area, eyeing Dean like prey. For his part, he seemed to have recovered his breath, gripping the neck of his broom tight.
Harry took up his perch high center, the soles of his shoes making a rubbery noise as he positioned them on the broom's stirrups. The familiar vantage point helped steady him some, his mind automatically on alert for the Snitch, despite knowing there wasn't one about.
“Ready?!” Katie’s voice carried across the pitch.
The chill wind stirred his hair; Dean juked to the side as if he'd been expecting an early onslaught.
Harry's focus narrowed as Demelza leaned forward on her broom and Ginny affixed her goggles to her face. His fingers were cold and clammy inside his half-gloves.
At the climax of their anticipation, Dennis stopped fidgeting, his broom steady as a rock. Harry sucked in a gust of air, readying himself for the first dive…
“GO!”
He awoke to the bleary, familiar sight of the Hospital Wing ceiling.
Harry blinked. The effort to close and open his eyelids was tremendous; the fuzzy environs lent the real world a dreamlike tinge that tempted him to rest.
Thankfully, Madam Pomfrey's distant, emphatic words helped coax him into wakefulness.
“Young lady, you go back right now and tell Severus I absolutely refuse to accept potions brewed by students!”
The answering voice was just as easy to place as well. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I can’t do that.”
Harry turned his head toward the sound of Croft’s voice, wincing at a pain which bloomed from his right leg and shoulder. His glasses and wand lay on his bedside table, as they usually did whenever he found himself subjected to the infirmary’s staid atmosphere. There was no curtain around his bed, so he had an unimpeded view of the two women, standing just outside the matron’s office.
“You can, and you will,” Pomfrey insisted. “I take the recovery of my patients far too seriously to be made a mockery of.”
Croft rebalanced the crate of vials in her arms, no more convinced than she had been before. “I take the recovery of your patients with the utmost severity as well, Madam Pomfrey.”
“Then march yourself back to Professor Snape and tell him to do his own job,” the woman retorted, arms falling sternly akimbo.
“The second I go back down, Professor Snape will force me back here, and this argument will happen again. I’m saving us both the effort, ma’am.”
“If he won’t see reason, I’ll confront him myself!” was Pomfrey’s determination.
“I can’t stop you; that’s your prerogative. However, I would prefer to have us avoid that unpleasantness altogether.”
Harry quashed a small snort at that understatement. Snape was about as “unpleasant” as they came.
Still, this did not deter the matron in the slightest. “I have very strict instructions on how those potions are meant to be made, and I cannot abide this laziness on his part. Mr. Potter needs bruise healing paste, and this delay is unprofessional, to say the least!”
It had never occurred to him that Snape was the one who brewed potions for the Hospital Wing. Perhaps it should have-- after all, despite the varied supply of potions, he’d never seen a cauldron around the place. All the same, it sort of made him want to squirm, knowing that the professor's hands had touched them.
“I am completely aware of your standards, I assure you,” Croft replied, the utter picture of serenity. Without his glasses, he couldn't see her face clearly, but her demeanor said it all. It was an odd contrast to their last meeting in Hogsmeade, when she’d gone off on Ron. “And I can also promise that Professor Snape would not have sent me had they not met those standards.”
“Miss Croft, I understand my objections may sound like an insult, but it’s a matter of principle,” Pomfrey informed her with a sigh. “It’s not right for the man to set you on duties given to him.”
Harry grimaced. What an arsehole. Losing the battle against his lethargy, he closed his heavy eyelids, though that didn’t stop him from hearing the rest.
“If it’s a matter of efficacy, I’m happy to let you test them.” He heard the sound of the clinking vials as Croft shifted the crate in her arms again. “On me, if need be.”
“That won’t be necessary…”
“Then I’m afraid I don’t quite understand the problem, Madam Pomfrey.”
“Miss Croft, the problem is that you are a student, not a certified Potioneer, and an even farther cry from a Master.”
“I was overseen by a Master, who approved the formulations before they were vialed.”
Harry heard Pomfrey expel a frustrated sigh. “You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”
“I apologize, ma’am, but I’m not.”
“He sure does like to send me the live ones, doesn’t he?” The matron sounded quite put upon. “Very well. I’ll still be having words with Severus, but leave the crate just there on the counter.” As Croft began to move, the matron added, “And mind that you don’t disturb Mr. Potter’s rest.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”
Opening his eyes once more, he watched Croft pass, her footfalls as delicate as one could possibly manage while hauling around a container about the size of her torso. She settled it atop a nearby table, hardly making a sound in the process.
He blinked once, slowly, before addressing her, “Hey.”
“Oh,” she breathed, surprised. “Uh, hi.”
“Do you have the time?”
He watched as Croft squinted at him, before her gaze went to one of the walls. He didn’t understand why, but she flinched, her face immediately flying to the ceiling. “Probably past seven. Why?”
“Oh.” He stretched out his uninjured leg, shifting on the bed gingerly. “That late already.”
“Slept the day away, huh?” Croft glanced down the length of him, eyes drawn by his movement. “What happened here?”
Staring into the space above him, Harry shrugged. “Dunno. Probably some Quidditch accident again.”
“You don’t know how you got injured?”
His gaze drifted to her. “Remember being on the broom and doing… something. Otherwise, not really.”
Her brow furrowed, an odd display of concern overshadowing her features. “Did the impact knock you out, or were you going unconscious before the collision?”
Hard to say, really. Harry took in a breath, hoping it would clear his head; he was so tired… Even answering these questions seemed strenuous. “Don’t think I hit my head, no. Think my shoulder got a bit battered somehow, and the leg uh…”
“Broken,” Madam Pomfrey supplied as she reached the other side of his bed. She shot a critical glance in Croft’s direction. “I thought I told you not to disturb him.”
“He asked me for the time,” Croft excused herself.
“Mr. Potter, you need not trouble yourself with your schedule just now,” the woman instructed him, direct. “In addition to that nasty break of yours, your teammates indicated you were already feeling under the weather. Want to tell me about that?”
“Just tired, was all. Nothing serious.”
Where Madam Pomfrey normally would have replied, he heard Croft barge in instead. “Were you having a headache?” she asked, frowning. “Felt dizzy? Weakness in your limbs?”
“Ehm, well…” he began, but the matron cut in again.
“I’ll thank you to let me do my job as well, Miss Croft.”
That didn’t stop the girl. “Harry, did Professor Trelawney ever open those windows?”
“Yeah,” he answered, grateful there was at least one thing he could say confidently, “I opened them right after you left.”
Relief visibly washed over her, escaping in a loud sigh. “Okay. Okay. Good.”
Madam Pomfrey probably didn’t know what they were talking about, but neither did she seem of a mind to pry. “Potter, I’ll need you to focus, and I can’t give you Wideye when you’ve already had something for the pain.”
His mind stuck on an odd detail. “How’d I drink a potion if I was unconscious?”
The witch gave him a patient sigh, saying, “This is exactly what I mean, but I’ll humor you this once by reminding you not all potions are drinkable. Professor Snape ought to have taught you that much.”
Croft leaned down and whispered, “Topical,” by way of explanation.
“Right,” he murmured, thick. “Um. I’m… I’m awake.”
“You don’t look it, but I’ll take your word for now,” Pomfrey remarked, peering at his shoulder. “Considering I wasn’t able to discern any other ailments… Potter, how much sleep have you been getting?”
Harry glanced between her and Croft, his brain feeling fuzzy. “Some,” he answered with a small frown.
“‘Some’?” she echoed back. “And how much is ‘some’?”
He shrugged, a tad uncomfortable to say. “I’ve just been catching up on a lot of homework,” he dodged the question.
The matron hummed in disapproval. “And I suppose you think that’s a reason to neglect your health, Mr. Potter?”
“No,” he submitted, meek.
“You’ll stay here tonight so I can be certain of a full night’s sleep from you, and to ensure that leg of yours will hold you up tomorrow.”
He sat up suddenly, anxiousness suffusing his body with energy as his expression turned beseeching. “But Madam Pomfrey--!”
The mattress depressed as Croft sat down beside him on the bed. “You need to listen to her, Harry,” she implored. “She knows what she’s talking about, and she’s trying to do what’s best for you.”
He could hardly mention that he had work to do for the Order, even if he hadn’t been in mixed company. Turning toward the older woman, he pleaded, “I have something to do tonight. I can’t stay holed up in here.”
“You can, and you will,” she insisted, pointing toward the pillow. “Lie back down, now.”
He did not obey. “Please-- if… if I can prove that my leg is working alright, can I at least go for a little while, then come back later?”
“I doubt your recovery will be so rapid--”
“Please? ” Harry’s hands were clenched around the edges of the sheet. “It’s really important.”
Madam Pomfrey regarded him with pity. “There is always something important happening, child. But your swift recovery is just as important. I can’t allow you to go off and injure yourself further,” she replied with a note of finality. “Now lie down, and get some rest. I’ll be stepping out to speak with Professor Snape, but I expect you to be right where I left you when I return, is that clear?”
Deflating, his head hit the pillow with a soft thud. “Yes ma’am.”
“Good. Would you like a curtain to deter visitors?”
“No ma’am.”
His formality wasn’t lost on her. “I truly am sorry, Potter. But perhaps this will teach you to take better care of yourself in future.”
Harry didn’t reply, staring at the fabric of the mattress as it bunched beneath Croft’s weight. Normally, he didn’t mind being coddled a bit, but today was a special case. He absolutely had to get out of here. The matron hovered a glass of water onto the table beside his bed before she left. The moment the doors closed, he lifted his eyes to the girl beside him.
“I hate the Hospital Wing,” he muttered, his dejected gaze falling away quickly.
“No, I don’t think many people like being in a bad way,” she agreed. “Not many happy reasons to be in hospital.”
“It’s like a prison, ” Harry commented, knowing he was being a bit dramatic, but not quite awake enough to care. “I’ve been here so many times, there isn’t a bed in here I haven’t slept in.”
“I can’t imagine how tough that is,” she sympathized.
Letting out an explosive sigh, he shifted in the bed, jerkily grabbing hold of his glasses to shove them on. Harry cast about for something else to say, not particularly wanting to dwell on his predicament. “That’s a lot of potions you brought,” he observed, inclining his head toward the crate.
She look back at them, a satisfied smile crawling across her face. “I spent all day brewing them.”
Harry frowned. “Rotten luck.”
“It was fun, actually,” she told him. “I’ve never done large-batch brewing before. I liked it. Kept me on my toes.”
He stuck out his tongue in an expression of disgust. “Sounds like a nightmare to me,” he confessed with raised eyebrows. Then, sobering, he said, “So… I take it things went well with Snape, then?”
“In part thanks to you,” she admitted, abashed. “I’m… really grateful, by the way.”
“Oh. Hermione told you about that?” Surprised, and a little embarrassed, Harry stared at the glass of water at his side.
Croft chuckled. “In between giving me the business about taking you off campus without letting anyone know, yeah.”
He shrugged, even though it made his shoulder twinge. “Sorry-- she can be a little intense, but-- it’s my fault, really. I should have known it would make her worry.”
“I should have considered it in the first place,” Croft pointed out. “Considering your… I don’t know-- renown, I guess.”
“Pff, yeah,” Harry answered. “Still. I don’t really regret it. It was a fun day.”
“It was,” she agreed, before the levity in her expression sobered. “I’m sorry for snapping at your friend like that,” Croft apologized rather suddenly, her head turning to look out the window.
That wrung an airy chuckle from him. “It’s fine. Ron kind of deserved it.”
She shook her head. “It was my fault from the start anyway,” she admitted. “Thea didn’t need to hear that from a stranger.”
“How is she?”
She dropped her eyes to her lap, her fingers playing with one another. “Angry,” she said. “She needs a little time.”
“Makes sense,” Harry replied, looking at her. “But-- um. This thing with Snape. Does that mean you’re staying?”
Croft finally looked at him. “Yes.”
His reaction wasn’t quite as neutral as he thought it would be, an indefinable feeling gripping him. “That’s… good. That’s really good,” Harry remarked, surprised that he meant it. “So, you’re still my tutor, then?”
“If you’ll have me,” she intoned, the ghost of a smile shimmering over her lips. “Though, I might end up needing that Defense tutoring after all, I guess.”
His answering smile came involuntarily. “You might, yeah.”
“We’ll see how far you get until you realize how hopeless my offensive casting is.”
“I’ll warn you,” Harry joked with a wry slant to his lips, “I’m really bad at giving up.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Croft dismissed, waving a hand. Then, she shifted on the mattress, her gaze going to his leg. “How’s that feeling?”
“Not a lot, honestly,” Harry remarked, sliding the sheet off his leg to get a proper look. “Pomfrey’s got the good stuff for breaks, usually.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
He waved a hand for her to go ahead. Croft stood and edged around the circumference of the bed, wand already in hand. The leg of his trousers was torn at the spot, and the sight of flecks of blood clued Harry in that his injury had previously been worse, though the skin was now unmarred aside from some pretty horrid bruises. All it took was a single swipe over the air above his injured leg before an image of the inside of it was hovering beside his knee -- a nonverbal Intus Videre diagnostic he recognized from Charms.
“Nifty spell, that,” the girl remarked. “Don’t have to fiddle around with things like x-rays.”
“I’m not sure I know what that is,” he admitted.
“A type of electro--” She halted, mid-sentence, and shook her head. “Just a thing Muggles use to see your bones.”
“Oh, I think Dudley had that once,” he commented, off-hand, before tensing. He’d rather not lead the conversation toward the Dursleys if he could help it. “Anyway, what’s the diagnosis, doctor?”
She laughed at that, but it sounded subdued, struck with humility. “I’m a bit showy like that, aren’t I? I’m sorry.”
“No-- er, I didn’t mean…” Harry frowned. “Just asking-- y’know, how my leg is. I’ve seen a few medical dramas back home, just thought it would be funny…”
The look on her face was odd. He couldn’t place or read it; that seemed to be a problem when it came to Slytherins. “It was,” she promised him, but her heart didn’t seem in it. However, she didn’t dwell on it, instead looking down at the display, her lips twisting in thought.
“I don’t know what it was like before,” she admitted after a protracted silence. “But it’s healed up into a hairline fracture now-- down your tibia, see?” She dragged her wand across the image of the thicker bone in the lower part of his leg -- he could see it, sort of, when he strained his eyes. A small line, like a crack, slithering down the length of bone, ending just at his ankle.
“That doesn’t seem so bad,” Harry commented.
“You’d be surprised,” was her soft rejoinder. “It’s still not a good idea to move. Right now, your osteoblasts and other cells are creating a callus that the osteoblasts will then convert into new bone as it heals.” Her nose wrinkled. “That’s what I believe Skele-Gro does, anyway. Speeds up that process. Normal remodeling takes months. Yours would probably only take a day.”
“Well I mean, it took a day to regrow my bones entirely,” he pointed out, a sliver of hope gripping him. “So it ought to take much less time to heal a little thing like that, right?”
Her frown was pensive as she considered this. “It’s not an unreasonable hypothesis. It’d help me if I had a frame of reference as to what sort of fracture you had. And this is dependent upon if my assumption of what Skele-Gro does is even correct in the first place.”
“Worth a try, isn’t it?” Harry sat up again, muscles protesting against his vigor.
“What’s worth a try?”
“The Skele-Gro, obviously!” he laughed, confused that she had to ask. “Was it one of the ones you brewed? Or do you suppose Pomfrey keeps it somewhere else?”
“Harry,” she reproved, her wand slicing through the anatomical image to dismiss it. “No. She already has you on a regimen. It could be dangerous if you overdose.”
“I’m not going to drink the whole bottle!” he scoffed. “I’ve had broken bones loads of times; I know how much is a regular dose.”
“Any dose after your regular one is an overdose,” she informed him. “What if you caused some sort of ossification reaction that--”
“I don’t know what that is,” he confronted her, point-blank, “but she can’t have dosed me yet; I just woke up!”
“Mediwizards spell potion into patients’ stomachs if they’re unconscious and unable to take it orally,” she argued. “Like an IV.”
Harry’s expression was resolute, even though he began to feel the dread of fighting a losing battle. “Look, Croft-- I have to get out of here--”
“Why, though?” Croft questioned, frustratingly obstinate. Her expression was all wonky again. “I know being in the infirmary isn’t fun, but it’s Sunday. If you have homework needs I’m sure that your friends could drop it by--”
“I have detention, actually,” he lied after only a second of deliberation. “With Filch. And I’m sure you must know he’s not the most merciful person.”
Croft didn’t look like she believed him in the slightest. “You’re going to have to do better than that, Harry.”
He dropped his torso back to the bed with a short huff. “Whatever. Obviously I’m stuck in this bed anyway; Pomfrey will make sure of it.”
“It’s just a day,” Croft reasoned, sounding a great deal like she was getting tired of being in opposition to him. “You need the sleep.”
Harry looked at her, jaw clenching with all the arguments he would have liked to voice, but he didn’t. He saw there was no use in it -- of course she wasn’t going to help him take unauthorized potion when she was so medically-minded herself. Besides, maybe it was better this way; with her gone, she wouldn’t get in trouble for him breaking the rules.
“Guess I am pretty tired,” he capitulated, his deceptive words punctuated by a very real yawn. “At least if I’m asleep, I won’t have to look at this room any longer.”
Maybe he became agreeable too fast, because Croft’s eyes narrowed as she uttered a soft, “Yes.” Her next movements were measured as she traversed the space around his bed, taking the nearby crate in her arms. He watched as she ambled across the room, taking it into Madam Pomfrey’s office.
It was irritating, but at least it confirmed something. She had brewed Skele-Gro.
Croft emerged moments later, smoothing her hands over her robes. “I have to get back to Snape,” she announced. “He’s probably wondering where I’ve gone off to.”
He grimaced in response. “I suppose you shouldn’t keep him waiting.”
“No,” she muttered. For what it was worth, however, her expression softened after that. She looked over his bed, stuffing her hands into her pockets. “I’m sorry, Harry. Please feel better soon.”
His mouth twitched into the approximation of a smile. “I’ll do my best,” he replied, wistful. She turned her back, exiting silently through the large wooden doors.
He waited one minute. Then two. After the third, he threw his sheet fully off his body as he sat up on the side of the bed, swinging his legs over while keeping the injured one suspended above the ground. He felt really sore all over, which meant Pomfrey had likely only used pain potion on his leg and nothing else. He could barely feel his leg at all, but he knew he still needed to be careful with it. Despite what he was doing, Harry didn’t actually want to injure himself further.
Alright, he needed a plan. He was still in his Quidditch trousers, and only his undershirt on top. If he was going to properly sneak about without drawing attention later that evening, he’d need his Invisibility Cloak… Lifting his eyes, he spotted his school bag, causing him to blow out a relieved breath. He’d have to thank whoever had grabbed it from his locker.
Next was the matter of the potion, which was a good ten meters away, now. He grabbed his wand from the end table, holding it in both hands as he wracked his mind for a spell that could assist him in this situation. Most of the movement ones were… violent, for the lack of a better term. And he wasn’t so great at self-spells, so trying to make his injured leg feather light was probably going to backfire.
Maybe he didn’t have to think quite that hard, he realized. He just needed something to lean on so he could hop over; he was working against the clock after all. Madam Pomfrey could come back any moment.
A simple Accio brought a chair scraping across the stone floor to him. Leveraging his weight on his left arm, which was clutching the wooden slats firmly, he began making his awkward way over to the office, one quick footstep and one clomping bang of the chair after the other.
Finally, after several painstaking minutes, he reached the crate, and he twisted the chair so he could sit in it beside the counter, breathing hard. No time to waste. He slid the carton of potions into his lap to peruse the contents. Thankfully, everything was labeled, otherwise he would have had quite a nightmare of a time, considering the sheer amount of vials in the crate. Exactly how long had she been brewing for? Twelve hours? It was absurd how much was in there.
He replaced the crate, unstopping the bottle and taking a breath. Ugh, bad choice -- he could smell it already, and he hadn’t even brought it close yet. But Harry knew this was his only chance, and drinking a little gross potion was a small price to pay.
Two small sips. They made him shudder something awful, but he could discern no difference between this brew and any of the other Skele-Gros he’d taken. Good sign.
Harry knew it wouldn’t work immediately, but he had roughly three hours until he had to be at the Headmaster’s office. Until then, he had to lie low, get a message to Ron and Hermione, and somehow not alarm anyone like he’d done the last time he’d mysteriously disappeared from the school. Three hours evading capture with one leg out of commission. Normally it would seem impossible to accomplish, but he was possessed of a strange vigor, springing from some previously untapped well hidden deep inside him.
Despite his injuries, his delirium, his fatigue… Harry felt quite up to the task.
His body still felt heavy when he and Snape arrived in… wherever they were.
Upon entering the Headmaster's office, he had been met with only the Potions Master to greet him. Although, “greet” was a generous term, considering the fact the man hadn’t spoken a single word; meaning, of course, Harry had no introduction to their present occupation. All he knew was that they were once again in an unfamiliar environment, walking at a brisk pace along a moonlit shoreline. His leg was, thankfully, functioning well enough for him to keep up.
Harry sighed. Without Dumbledore to establish the premise of their outing, he felt even more listless than usual. “I suppose you’ll be wanting me to stay both unseen and unheard yet again,” he commented toward the ground in front of him, not bothering to frame it like a question.
The ocean breeze picked up Snape’s hair and tossed it over his shoulder in tangled strands. “That won’t be necessary,” the man said, his deep voice carried on alongside the gentle crash of the waves beside them. He did not elaborate further, but the answer itself was still perplexing.
“What, not going to snap later and tell me to shut up?” Harry challenged, folding his arms over his chest as they walked. “You expect me to believe that?”
The man glared at him, then. “I might, if you insist on remaining belligerent.”
“See, that’s what I mean,” he retorted, purposely training his gaze in a direction that excluded Snape’s form.
They both fell silent, boots molding the grass as they went. The evening was very cold, leaving Harry grateful that he’d thought to wear a proper cloak, but his cheeks were numb, his eyes watering as a slight shift of wind sneaked around the frames of his glasses. His arms folded tighter, a chill rippling across his skin.
Ugh, he hated the cold and dark. Even more so since he was forced to skulk about with Snape… Harry just felt so unbearably tired of dealing with the man’s bad temper. All he wanted was to leave. He was anxious to get back to Grimmauld Place before the day ended; he hardly cared about anything else when Snape was unlikely to include him anyway.
As Harry gazed out across the water, he noticed he could not distinguish where the ocean stopped and the sky began. The landscape had a blurry sort of look, as if someone had smeared a bunch of dark paint together to form the approximation of a beach.
They’d started their journey from an innocuous patch of coastline, all rocky outcroppings and wet sand, but no visible destination. Now, they trod on stone and vegetation as the ground beneath them climbed higher, the jagged cliff edge staying close by their side as they approached the first signs of civilization. Albeit, even in the dark, the architecture struck Harry as very old; there was a low stone barrier, uneven but square, which separated them from the silhouettes of three squat lighthouses, all within the same enclosure.
Unable to keep quiet any longer, Harry inquired, “Three lighthouses is a bit much, isn’t it?”
“There are at least four in this area.”
“Okay, but… why? ”
The man said nothing at all and Harry rolled his eyes, cupping his hands over his mouth to breathe hot air onto his chilled fingers. They trudged onward, veering off toward a break in the stone wall and heading in the direction of the nearest lighthouse, which was attached to a blocky structure. His right leg began smarting as they went -- the pain potions Pomfrey had administered must have started to wear off. He winced, but otherwise did not dare alert Snape in word or action. Harry already felt as if he was treading on thin ice with these Order missions. No need to give the man more reasons to call the whole thing off.
When they finally reached the entrance to the building, his leg was aching pretty bad, but still holding together. Snape brandished his wand, using it to unlock the shadowed door with a simple Alohamora.
“This is a safehouse, right?” Harry questioned.
“Of a kind.”
“Well, all the others had these fancy sort of things going on. Isn’t it a bit… I don’t know. Insecure? To just have a regular lock on the door?”
Snape cast him an irritated look. “Are you simple? We passed through five warding boundaries on the way here.”
Harry blinked. “What? We did?”
The professor did not grace him with a reply, stepping into the dusty entryway with wandlight held aloft. Harry carried on, looking about at the cold, abandoned interior as they passed through. No furniture, no appliances, no personal effects; it seemed that no one had lived there for a long time.
There was something deeply unsettling about an empty house, Harry decided. The stagnant air curled up in dark corners, forgotten. A house without inhabitants was just a husk, purposeless and hollow. He walked quickly so he wouldn’t have to look at it any longer.
Across a short hall, the lighthouse stairway arose before them. Harry frowned, dreading the trip when he saw how narrow and precarious the spiral was. Snape ascended ahead of him, and, as Harry began walking, he found many of the stairs mouldy and uneven, further jostling his injured leg. Slowly, painfully, he followed after Snape’s wand-light as they both made their way up to the top.
He had to admit, the view of the ocean outside was spectacular, though the windows were dirty and cracked. Snape was nearby, perusing the contents of a low bookcase. As Harry steeled himself to walk normally around the derelict lantern, the man selected a book, smoothing out each page as he flipped past.
“What’s that?” he asked without much hope of an answer.
His assumption proved true, since Snape did indeed stay silent. He was beginning to think that the man was developing a habit of pretending Harry simply wasn’t there. And while that treatment wasn't anything new, it still set him on edge.
“This your summer home or something?” Harry joked without humor, dread compelling him to seek any reaction from the man. “Needs some work, I think.”
Nothing. Snape flipped a page. The quiet was horrible.
Desperate, he ventured a third time, “Is this still--?”
He was cut off by the booming sound of a book slamming shut. “Must every moment be filled with your wittering, Potter?”
He'd anticipated this reaction, but it didn’t feel good to be right. Harry frowned, the pressure in his chest barely lessened by Snape’s reply. “Well, maybe it would help if you actually answered any of my questions.”
“I have,” Snape crisply informed him. “You simply lack the critical thinking to reach any of your own conclusions.”
Harry threw up his hands. “First you tell me I’m stupid for assuming things and doing whatever I want, and now I’m stupid for not doing that?”
The man took out his wand and Harry instantly tensed, but Snape merely turned toward the lantern, swinging his wand in a slow, vertical arc, strong blue light burgeoning within. The lantern screeched to life, brightening the room to such a degree that Harry had to shield his eyes, and it turned as if it were being hand-cranked. Maybe it was -- Snape seemed to be guiding it with his wand, his attention focused on something beyond the cloudy glass in which they were encased. Harry followed his gaze outside, but all he could see was dark swaths of water.
But wait -- as the deep blue light of the lantern swept past the surrounding coastline, Harry could see something in the distance, a shimmering something on the water which flashed into existence only when it was illuminated. Pressing a finger to the glass as he peered closer to get a good look outside, Harry remarked, “That’s where we’re going, isn’t it?”
The light swept past again, that time slower. Another time, slower still. Was Snape trying to pinpoint it? “It’s off that side, there,” Harry pointed out. “Just between those two bits of rock.”
The professor did not directly respond, but the next time the light came around, he appeared to dwell a little longer on the space Harry had indicated. Sure enough, the object came to sight. It was so far out that Harry had trouble discerning what it was, but it seemed roughly cylindrical.
A thought crept up on him, then. “Er… this might be a good time to mention that I can’t swim.”
Snape fixed him with an impatient stare. “And what would you call your Tri-Wizard excursion, then, Potter?”
“Extreme luck and body transformation,” Harry admitted. Blunt honesty would get his point across more easily; he’d rather not have a lecture from Snape about how Harry drowning was such a burden.
The man’s expression did not change in the slightest. “Is it in fashion to refer to thievery as ‘luck’?”
Offended, Harry burst out with, “I’m not a thief--!”
Snape’s doubtful hum was overshadowed by a loud meow from Harry’s feet. He flinched, a mixture of instinct and skittishness prompting him to snap his wand in the direction of the sound as he took an automatic step back. Only when his heart had slowed somewhat did he realize that the intruder was simply a regular striped brown cat, although, notably, it was missing a tail. Letting out a breath, Harry grumbled, “Where the hell did that come from?”
“That,” the professor indicated, “is our guide.”
The cat let out a series of mewls at Snape, as if striking up a conversation. The sight was so bizarre that Harry made a face of confusion and distaste, watching on as the professor followed the animal's gentle footfalls back down the stairs as if nothing at all were amiss.
Irksome as it was to discover he had to descend the stairs he had just suffered through, Harry was able to do some creative footwork to avoid further jostling of his leg. Reaching the bottom, his bemused question surfaced. “Why is our 'guide’ a cat, again?”
“The architect of this place wished for its defenses to remain innocuous and unassuming, I would imagine,” Snape replied, droll.
“So, it's not a real cat?” Harry surmised. “It's… something else? Disguised as a stray?”
Snape did not confirm nor deny, so Harry pressed, “What is it, then?”
The professor turned his back in a way that Harry could only describe as purposeful. They passed through the shell of the house in crushing silence.
Once they were outside, the cat sauntered into a sharp left, walking directly toward the cliffside. Feeling as if he were in primary school again, playing an extremely odd game of follow-the-leader, he and Snape trailed after, awash in the sea breeze. The freezing cold was a shock to Harry’s system, and he began to shiver in earnest just as the cat paused, sitting at the very top of the rock face, its head dipping as it licked a paw and dragged it across its face.
A whole five seconds passed and Harry was already fed up with the wait. “Maybe you could tell the ‘guide’ to hurry it up!” he expelled at the professor, temper flaring.
The moment he looked back, however, the cat had vanished. He blinked, squinting around them in a frantic effort to locate the stupid animal, but halted his search when he saw Snape approach their guide’s previous perch. Without the slightest hesitation in his step, the man walked directly off the ledge, his fitted robe flapping once about his knees, and disappeared from view.
A cold fear grabbed hold of him, pushing the air out of his lungs. Reason suggested that the older man hadn’t dashed himself on the rocks below, that there was something magical at play, but Harry’s overwrought mind took his sudden isolation to heart. Because wasn't this just what Snape wanted? To make a fool of Harry in order to prove him utterly useless to the Order once and for all? Or worse, to leave Harry behind, vulnerable to whatever servant of Voldemort was lying in wait?
The image of Barty Crouch Jr.’s face swam in his vision; his eyes darted about in an effort to dispel it. Unable to stop himself, Harry approached the cliff’s edge, his breath coming shallow. There was nothing at the bottom but stone and sea, but that was hardly conclusive.
He had his wand gripped so tightly it hurt, staring at the distance. A hundred meters down to the shore, but the cliff was steeply sloped and dotted with sharp outcroppings. He was scared -- terrified, really -- but he had to go, didn’t he? If things didn’t turn in his favor, he could always Apparate back to the top… underage magic laws be damned.
Harry knew the trick had to be magic. Of course he did. But there was still something viscerally horrifying about stepping off solid ground and letting himself fall. When he took the step, his whole body tensed, throat clenched around a scream --
And his feet landed on a solid plank of wood. Thrown off balance by the awkward shift in gravity, Harry stumbled forward, his knees making hard impact with the platform. His first exhale was harsh, laden with a fear that escaped from him, rushed in its departure.
From his surroundings, he first took notice of the sounds. The structure beneath his hands and knees groaned under his weight, the alarming noise signaling age and instability. He could hear water lapping at the edges of something, the sound of cloth fluttering in the wind… and a distinct, high-pitched mewl. Harry lifted his head to lock gazes with the cat guide, its eyes round and unblinking as it lounged nearby, as if it were waiting for him to arrive.
With a groan, he levered himself up, the pain causing sweat to spring to his forehead despite the awful chill. Pushing his glasses back into place, Harry realized he was standing on a boat, the coastline only distantly visible. He didn’t know much about boats, but perhaps he didn’t need to; after all, the spacious top deck upon which he was standing was covered in rust and grime, the wood beneath his feet rotted and wet, and barnacles clung to every exposed surface. During his inspection, Harry’s attention was drawn to an open trapdoor, from which warm orange light was emitting. He drew closer, finding a short ladder leading down to more wood flooring, and gingerly made his way into the lighted belly of the ship.
“Lagging behind, Potter?” Snape sarcastically addressed him. His voice sounded loud in the cramped space.
Harry looked around in awe. The inside of the ship was pristine and comfortable, each curved wall lit by floating lanterns and covered with books. The shelves were so large and cumbersome that they curved over the ceiling as well, layers of tomes suspended above Harry's head as he wandered further. In the center of the cylindrical room were scattered tables, bolted to the floor, and enormous stacks of books, arranged in such an orderly way that they looked like patchwork walls.
Harry was so caught up in his surprise he forgot to be angry for a moment. “It's… a library,” he murmured.
“Yet another astute observation from the Boy Who Lived himself,” Snape drawled, acerbic, eyes glued to the row of book titles he was perusing.
That time, he slanted a glare at the professor. “You could have mentioned not knowing how to swim was a moot point.” When the man didn't respond, Harry continued, “In fact, you also could have mentioned we were meant to take a dive off a cliff!”
Snape slid a tome from the shelf with one finger, cracking open the cover. Harry traversed the space between them, fury building. “Hey!” he shouted, slamming an open hand on the table. “Listen to me!”
The professor shot him a nasty look. “Control yourself, Potter--”
“No!” he snapped. “If I wanted to be ignored, I would have just gone--” To the Dursley’s, he didn't say. Instead, he ground his teeth together.
But Snape derisively supplied, “To your summer home, perhaps? I seem to recall you being in favor of the change.”
“Change?! ” Harry was seized by a clipped, disbelieving laugh, placing both hands atop the table and resting his weight on the backs of his fingers. “Right, yeah. That's what it was. Got it in one.”
The professor evidently had nothing to say to that. Harry sighed, taking back in a steady breath to calm himself. Perhaps this would all go smoother if he took Snape's lead and pretended the other man was nothing more than a dirty patch of wall -- unsightly, non-communicative, and best not acknowledged all around.
His eyes stuck on a peculiar object toward the center of the room. It was a pedestal, of a sort… It appeared to be made up entirely of branching coral, reaching upward to chest height. The pillar was irregular and intricate, a collection of polyps and fan-like protrusions, the shapes piled together like a collage. At the top, the mass of interwoven tendrils unraveled to expose a large glass brain, faintly glowing.
Having no desire to resist the impulse, he made his way over to it, examining the thing closely. The brain hummed, its light thrumming as he approached, beckoning. Harry looked over at Snape; the man had his back turned, attention elsewhere. Good.
He reached out a hand, touching a single finger to the glass. For a moment, nothing happened, but just as he began to think it had been foolish to expect something significant to occur, a scroll of parchment zoomed toward him from the other end of the hull, unraveling itself just above the pedestal.
Telepathic Lexicon, the title at the top read. Intent, Harry leaned closer, and the brain’s glow grew brighter, illuminating the page.
I see you’ve been wondering what this little invention of mine is for! The Telepathic Lexicon contains a record of everything in this library, and for what purpose each bit of information could be put to use. To begin your journey, simply do as you have already: lay a hand on the Lexicon, think of a question, and it will supply any information it can think of which might answer your question.
Take nothing with you when you leave. The contents of this library are disastrous, in the wrong hands.
Use wisely, my friends.
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
Harry’s eyebrows rose. Dumbledore… made this? Did that mean he was the one who had spelled the entire safehouse? Those five ward boundaries Snape had mentioned, the lighthouse, the hidden boat? The cat, even?
He was struck, not for the first time, by the yawning chasm between his abilities and that of the adults around him. Of course, the Headmaster wasn’t the greatest wizard of their age for nothing, but the gap seemed impossibly wide, considering Harry was meant to beat Voldemort -- a task which even someone as powerful as Dumbledore could not accomplish. With that in mind, how could he even hope to compete?
Hand shaking, he placed it atop the glass brain. The scroll folded up and zoomed away, replaced by a single book, and Harry took hold of it. The Incomplete Biography of Grindelwald’s Equal, by Edwin Sparrow. Frowning, he opened the cover, peering curiously at the table of contents. A book entirely about Dumbledore’s life wasn’t quite what he’d been looking for, but it was nonetheless a topic of interest--
“What do you think you are doing?”
Snape had deigned to notice him. However, Harry was feeling vindictive; so, he didn’t say a word, his gaze firmly placed on the pedestal before him. He placed a hand to the glass once more. What is the cat? he thought, hoping the question wasn’t too imprecise.
The book about Dumbledore flew back to its place, and this new question yielded several results, which flew over and lined themselves up for his perusal. Several he could identify as answering a much broader question than he’d meant to ask, such as Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Felines and 100 Pages of Kittens in Teacups. Since his hand was still on the pedestal, the moment he determined a book wasn’t needed, it left the lineup to go back to its place.
Just as he was narrowing it down to the more relevant texts, Snape’s voice accosted him again. “Potter,” he seethed, the name like poison on his lips, “What do you think you are doing? ”
Harry went on with his business as if the man hadn’t spoken at all. Served him right, didn't it? For putting Harry through hell? Maybe it was stupid to provoke the beast like this, but any opportunity to give as good as he got was too tempting to pass up.
There was a tome before him, titled Something Interesting, An Anthology of Obscure Sorcery . Intrigued, he reached out a hand to take it, but the next moment, the soles of his shoes scraped against the wood panels as he was unceremoniously moved several meters away. His leg twinged. As the books all zoomed back to their places following Harry’s removal, he cast his darkest glare in Snape's direction.
The older man looked livid. “This is a repository, not a playground--”
“Do I look like I'm 'playing’?” Harry lobbed back.
“Clearly, your stupidity knows no bounds,” the professor snarled, “since you seem to think it wise to handle magical books while being entirely unable to use magic yourself.”
“I'm not unable! ” was his heated counter. “I can handle myself--! ”
“-- and in the process expose the location of a remote safehouse to the Ministry?” Snape broke in, mocking. “Brilliant idea, Potter.”
Harry folded his arms. “Maybe if you bothered to tell me where we even are, I could make more informed decisions!”
“The Calf of Man,” the professor replied, his tone derisive. “I presume now that you are well informed, you will refrain from disturbing magical artefacts in future.”
“Like you care about artefacts,” he spat, recalcitrant. “You just don't want me to disturb you! ”
Snape's lip curled.
A silence passed between them as they shared looks of contempt. Harry looked away first.
The professor returned to the table and Harry sighed, keeping himself rooted in place. Was this what the entire night was going to be like? Was this what every mission was going to be like, for the rest of his Hogwarts career?
Was this… what Dumbledore wanted? For Harry to be tread on and beaten down by Snape? For Harry to feel like a waste of space and time, merely an obstruction to the real Order members? Was this meant to be some sort of life lesson? Or was there no point to this at all, and it was merely an exercise in keeping Harry occupied, a way to forestall his complaints?
He was tired. So, so tired. And rest was a long way off.
It didn’t take long for boredom to set in, and with it came anger. Why should he be forced to stand around and do nothing? This entire day had been rubbish from start to finish! The last thing he needed was to be pushed around by Snape. Harry was done.
With that thought in mind, he sauntered right back up to the glowing brain, placing his hand on it once more. Several tomes flew in his direction, their titles matching his mood perfectly: Pulverize by Timothy Gorm, Compendium of Revenge, and Tricks & Traps for Troublesome Twats, written by someone named Jane Withers.
This time, Snape’s attention was drawn immediately. “Are you deaf as well as brainless, Potter?”
“Nope.”
“Then step away from the Lexicon.”
“I’m not touching the books,” Harry slyly informed him. “So it doesn’t matter.”
Snape's glare was withering.
Harry turned back to the tomes hovering beside him. Wondering if he could simply use a mental command to open them, he tried it out--
“Potter.”
The sound of his name in Snape’s voice was grating. He wished he could unhear it.
“Potter. ”
“What? ” Harry barked, hands clenching into fists as the books before him stayed stubbornly closed.
“Make yourself useful.” This was said with the casual confidence of someone accustomed to obedience. From the corner of his eye, he saw Snape place a length of parchment atop the table, firmly pinning it in place with a finger. “These are the books I require.”
Harry didn’t bother moving; he wasn’t particularly keen to be ordered about like a servant.
The professor was moving back toward the other papers he’d gathered when he added, “Unless you would prefer standing in place for the next hour.”
His tone held all the dry sarcasm inherent to his tactics as a teacher. Mince your leeches at once; unless it was your intention to douse your classmates in acid, in which case you may carry on. Harry turned a look of disgust and hatred right at Snape, but the man’s back faced him squarely, implacable.
"I thought I wasn't allowed to touch the books," he goaded. Snape infuriatingly didn't take the bait.
He kept up his stationary defiance for a minute more, but it became apparent that his silent protest simply wasn’t going to work. Snape seemed entirely unperturbed, which was an irritation of itself, but more importantly, Harry couldn’t stand to be so still, or so quiet. It very quickly began to drive him mad.
What began with a fidget led to a short round of pacing, which in turn, against his pride and better judgment, led him right up to the table to inspect the note Snape had indicated. It helped that the professor had turned away and no derisive sneers or triumphant smirks were directed at him. As the boat drifted sluggishly through placid sea, Harry’s anger vanished, leaving behind a vacuum, an utter absence of feeling nearly as staggering as his fury had been.
Examining the list, it seemed only two books were required. Cracks in the Fortress, by Augustyn Kowalczyk and Haunting, by Red Alice.
If there was any rhyme or reason to the arrangement of the bookshelves, he couldn’t discern it. The first shelf he looked at was full of children’s books which were so old that the spines were falling apart. The second was a grouping of plant-based handwritten notes sandwiched between some books about fine dining etiquette and recipes for self-icing cakes. Another housed travel guides for all sorts of places Harry had never heard of.
Surrounded by an endless array of knowledge, Harry quickly became overwhelmed. He cast a glance at the professor, who was then seated on a low stool, poring over several sheaves of paper, a monstrous stack of information at his side. Asking for help wasn't an option; the man was more likely to sabotage than assist. Besides, he wasn’t keen on being berated for faltering on a task Snape had set him on in the first place.
Harry glared at the note in his hand. Snape had made it clear, time and again, that he counted Harry as nothing more than interference. But he wasn't . Or, at least, he didn't want to be. And if he was going to prove it, he needed to provide a tangible, undeniable contribution, else Snape would surely convince everyone in earshot that Harry's only talent was getting in the way. If he could do even this small thing… perhaps that would help change Dumbledore's mind about Harry's usefulness, if only a little.
And so, he started with the titles. Haunting seemed likely to be related to ghosts and spirits. Easy enough. But Cracks in the Fortress was trickier; it could be a book about war strategy, history, patching holes… any strange topic was fair game in a library curated by Albus Dumbledore.
However, Harry mused, Snape wouldn't be looking for a method to patch holes unless the ship they stood on happened to be sinking; he would be looking for books that contained pertinent information. And the most pressing issues the Order was facing were… Barty Crouch Jr. and the warding at Privet Drive.
That thought caused a shiver to ripple across his skin, but Harry tried his best to ignore it, making his way around the room to search for related texts. Harry's leg gave a sharp pang as he was rooting around and he did his best to keep his weight on the other foot. He found a section full of books about the undead, but could not find Haunting among their number. Then, he found a section dedicated to warding, and it was there he paused.
The section was huge. The hundreds of books worth of material was surprising enough, but what Harry found even more astonishing was that, even though he did not spot the specific book he was looking for, there were five numbered texts by Augustyn Kowalczyk on the subject… and an empty slot in the center.
Harry grimaced, his ignited suspicions carrying him over to the opposite end of the professor's table. “You have the books already, don't you,” he intoned, pairing his words with a hateful glower.
Snape spared him the barest of glances. “What is it that drew you to that conclusion?”
“Cracks in the Fortress is part of a collection,” Harry emphasized, “and it's mysteriously missing one installment.”
“Mysterious, indeed,” the man replied with feigned surprise. “Perhaps you should investigate this conundrum further.”
It came to Harry with bright clarity that Snape had set him on this empty task just to keep him out of the way; it was a diversion, and nothing more.
“You've had them since before I got here,” he concluded, his voice gone hollow. “This was your plan from the start.”
Snape stared at him, saying nothing. That was confirmation enough.
Harry fixed his eyes on the wood grain of the table. “You don't even need them, do you?”
“On the contrary, I do,” the professor admitted in a voice so neutral that Harry squinted at him suspiciously.
“You're not even looking at them,” Harry accused.
“Official documents from the Ministry require a great deal more time to sift through,” he explained, setting the tips of his fingers atop a stack of pages for emphasis. “Books generally have the good grace to provide a table of contents.”
Off-kilter, Harry's gaze traveled across the array. “What do you need Ministry documents for?” he ventured, cautious.
“These records detail the circumstances of one Bartemius Crouch Jr.'s repossession and incarceration on the twenty-seventh of June, nineteen ninety four.”
Harry was surprised, not only to receive a real answer for once, but by the substance of it. “Er… repossession?”
“Of his soul,” Snape elaborated, candlelight barely illuminating his dark eyes. “The Ministry's attempt at fashioning the grotesque Dementor's Kiss into something more palatable to its benefactors.”
He couldn't help but shiver in response. “Right.”
“According to these documents,” the professor supplied, “the young Mr. Crouch was divested of his soul and left to rot in Azkaban. It is widely rumored that soulless persons are unable to perform even the most basic functions for survival and, as such, their bodies die shortly thereafter.”
“Guess that rumor is rubbish, then.”
“Not necessarily,” Snape remarked, pulling a leather bound book from one of his stacks. Harry's lips twisted in irritation when he caught a glimpse of the cover: Haunting by Red Alice.
He opened to a chapter in the middle. “This journal contains research conducted by a purveyor of illegal potion ingredients. She was, for a time, interested in the trade of human parts.”
Harry grimaced. “Lovely.”
“In this account, she details a time in which she came into possession of a soulless man by purchasing the body from an employee who worked at Azkaban,” Snape continued, seeming fully in the midst of a macabre lecture. “The Ministry does not keep further record of those people without souls, as they are considered effectively deceased, and she was thus able to acquire the body with relative ease.”
“Wait, there are people who work at Azkaban?” Harry questioned with a frown.
Snape stared at him, and Harry inwardly cringed, awaiting a cutting remark. However, oddly, it did not come. “You in fact are already acquainted with someone who has,” the man pointed out, tone dry. “Though it comes as no surprise someone like Arthur Weasley would not mention it.”
“What?” Harry choked out. “Mr. Weasley worked at Azkaban?! ”
“Yes,” Snape confirmed, disinterested.
“Why--?”
“I suspect you will have to ask him yourself,” the professor interrupted. Harry fell silent, his unease returning.
Snape turned a page in the book before continuing: “When this woman received the body, she discovered that, while it was lacking a mind and will of its own, it did, in fact, still possess automatic function. Its heart still beat, its lungs drew breath, and it could yet process food and drink, despite being unable to nourish itself.”
Remembering what Croft had said, Harry ventured, “She spelled it into the stomach?”
“Quite,” Snape replied, an eyebrow raised. “In effect, this specimen she had procured was an unprecedented boon to her business. A human form without a human inside, but still invariably alive… It was harvestable for decades, regenerated repeatedly with potions until her greed brought about the body's eventual demise. Had she been more careful, it likely could have subsisted long into old age.”
“So…” Harry's brow crinkled. “What you're saying is, even though Barty Crouch Jr. doesn't have a soul, someone could be keeping his body alive to… I don't know, use it for Polyjuice? Like what happened to Moody?”
“Presumably,” the professor remarked, closing the book with a dusty thud. “The Headmaster ruled out the possibility of his being reanimated in some fashion. Inferi are debatably intelligent, but not perfect recreations, and zombies are much like the soulless bodies Dementor's leave behind-- nothing more than the shape of a person, lacking their mind.”
“And he looks and acts like himself,” Harry concluded, troubled.
Snape hummed an acknowledgement. “As for the matter of warding at Privet Drive,” he commented, standing. “There is no such substantial documentation.”
“Hm.” He didn't want to talk about it. Not particularly eager to unpack his mixed feelings just then.
“There is, however, precedent for speculation.”
Harry frowned. “Let me guess, it’s all in the other book,” he predicted, folding his arms over his chest.
The professor’s expression was unreadable, but he said, “In truth, Cracks in the Fortress has very little to say about blood bond wards, but its slim observations were nonetheless… interesting.”
“Blood bond?” Harry questioned, the phrase feeling sort of unpleasant on his tongue.
“That is the brand of warding on your summer home,” Snape informed him, each of his words precise. “It should come as no surprise that, considering the ward required a death to commence, it is considered blood magic.”
It made sense. Of course it did. He’d known for ages that he was being protected by his mother’s sacrifice. But having it laid out like that, in such simple and detached terms… It made his skin crawl. “It’s… isn’t that like… dark magic?”
“Yes,” the professor confirmed.
“Dark magic is illegal,” Harry recited, feeling strange having to state the obvious.
“The Dark Arts are illegal, but I imagine the Ministry would have a difficult time outlawing dark magic outright,” Snape commented, an ironic edge to his tone.
“Why?”
The man rose an eyebrow. “They would have to arrest every magical child on the continent.”
Harry spluttered, “What?!”
Snape seemed annoyed that he was belaboring this point, but explained, “Instinctive magic, or ‘accidental magic’ as it is known colloquially, is a subset of dark magic. And dark magic itself is generally defined as any magic with an unquantifiable element.”
He frowned, still greatly confused. “What on Earth does that mean?”
“Joy and sadness, love and hate, the nebulous nature of the human soul,” the man listed. “Those elements which produce strange magic that is neither wholly controllable nor understandable by logical means. By contrast, the Dark Arts are defined as the direct manipulation of those sacred elements, or an attempt to substitute them to produce similar results.”
“So, because the wards weren’t really made by, y’know, casting a spell or whatever, they’re dark magic?” Harry ventured.
“There is plenty of common magic that does not require foolish wand waving,” came Snape’s dry retort. “The blood bond is considered dark magic because it is unable to be understood-- There is no possible way to replicate its effect in any consistent fashion.”
Harry wondered why no one had ever thought to mention any of this to him. He supposed it wasn’t strictly necessary to understand the situation, to know that his mother had died to protect him. But it seemed so much more… momentous, knowing how mysteriously it had come about. Knowing how her love and magic had entwined, solidified into an impenetrable wall between him and those who wanted him dead.
No wonder wizards and witches alike were so fascinated by his survival. It had come on the coattails of some truly extraordinary magic.
After what must have been a prolonged silence, Snape cut into his thoughts. “Despite the strength and rarity of such protections, there is a known… loophole, of sorts.”
Harry grimaced, his thoughts disrupted. “What--? Really? If there’s a loophole, then why was it so important for me to stay in the wards all this time?!”
“All wards have loopholes,” the man countered. “Just as all defenses have a weakness.”
“Okay, sure, ” Harry conceded, his shoulders lifting with the force of his sigh. “But they’re supposed to be-- I don’t know… the best wards, right?”
“They are,” Snape said, crisp. “That does not make them infallible.”
“I know that,” Harry insisted, though that was news to him. “So… what? What’s the loophole?”
“The circumstances of blood bond wards are very clear,” the professor began, “as they as are formed purely by instinctive magic, deeply rooted in the protection of the home in particular. However, those protections are simply meant to prevent the cruel and bloodthirsty from stepping foot on the property. If someone who meant no harm crossed the threshold, they would find the house quite bereft of additional fortifications.”
That was a wonder, considering the Dursleys managed to enter that home every day without problem. But Harry wasn’t likely to make mention of that to Snape.
“What, so anyone who just walks in the house can change the wards?” Harry balked. “How is that a ‘little’ loophole? Seems like a huge one to me!”
Snape’s glare indicated he did not appreciate Harry’s outburst. “The ward itself is of such unfathomable power that its workings cannot simply be overwritten by random passers-by,” the man informed him. “Any attempts to cast wards near it are often swallowed up by the infinite energy on which the blood bond sustains itself. It would take a wizard of immense talent, and an iron will, to change anything at all.”
“But you’re saying… it would have to be someone who didn’t mean any harm.”
“Just because no harm was intended does not mean no harm has been done,” the professor clarified. “But yes, it seems likely that our saboteur is at the very least acquainted with you.”
“Well,” Harry said, “maybe it was Mad-Eye Moody.”
Snape’s glare was withering. “I said immense talent, not drunken dexterity.”
He wasn’t sure what to make of that response, though the tone in which it was said put him on the defensive. “Well-- it’s not Dumbledore, obviously, and… and Moody made a point to give the Dursleys a scare last summer…”
“I highly doubt the man has ever cast a ward the whole of his life.”
A thought struck Harry, then. A brilliant one which tugged the grim tilt of his lips into a smile. “Remus,” he breathed. “It has to be Remus!”
Snape’s tone was as sour as Harry’s was elated. “That is as baseless as it is absurd.”
“No it isn’t!” Harry argued. “Look-- he was one of the ones who confronted the Dursleys at King’s Cross, he doesn’t mean me harm, and he’s the warding expert for the Order--”
“That is a pity title, awarded to him for the simple fact that he lacks any other talent.”
Harry couldn’t possibly let that stand. “Remus was excellent at Defense! Without him, I never would have been able to cast a Patronus at all, much less--!” His words hitched in his throat, strangled as they were overcome by a searing, white-hot pain shooting up his leg. It was sharp; the sort of pain that grappled your attention and refused to let go. His body bent into a heavy lean onto the tabletop, papers crunching beneath his elbow, as he clenched his eyes shut, waiting, hoping, for the ache to pass as it had so many times that night.
It refused.
His concentration was difficult to penetrate, but Snape managed it, his voice a loud bark nearby. “Potter?”
His tongue felt swollen. Eyelids fluttering open, the first thing to greet him was the harsh glare of the candlelight. It took a few moments of blinking before his vision cleared and he swallowed.
For what it was worth, the pain was ebbing. His leg felt hot, and it pulsed in a familiar, disconcerting way, like his heartbeat struggling underneath his muscles. It was just a spasm, and it would go away. He could deal with it.
“Nothing,” he blurted out an answer to a question that wasn’t asked, the words squirming out from his clenched throat. “It’s fine, just--”
A shout surged from him, the force of it enough to break him apart. He didn’t understand it. He’d just tried to shift his weight to his other leg and--
His knees buckled under his weight. Losing his balance entirely, he crashed to the rotted floor, the pain unbelievable as his leg reignited with the fall. In a haze, he felt a presence beside him, hovering close by. A harsh Lumos bathed the floorboards with light, but it was a single, sharp word which roused him. “Where?”
Harry squinted hard, putting a hand over his eyes to protect them from the sudden brightness. “It’s fine, just give me a--”
“Where? ” the professor snapped, his voice grown further severe.
Too tense to argue, Harry pointed to his leg, keeping his sweat-slicked forehead in his hand. He hardly paid attention to what Snape was doing, Harry's breathing loud in his own ears. Now that he was still once more, the pain was dimming again, but he wasn't stupid. He wasn't about to try moving around again.
“Potter…” His name sounded like a warning.
Harry took his hand away from his eyes, looking down. He wished he hadn’t. His leg existed as one long bruise, worse than it had been before, but the flow of blood reached an apex just underneath his knee; a piece of bone, splintered and jagged, tented a large patch of his skin as it attempted to break free. The white protrusion peeked out, wearing his skin as a cloak as it tore through, streaks of blood sweating from its crown. Worse, there were other parts of his calf that were uneven and bumpy, showing through under the impossible amounts of inflammation, threatening to do the same.
Snape, in his crouched position beside him, looked murderous.
“What?” Harry questioned weakly, feigning ignorance. He had a suspicion that he knew the exact source of the problem.
The professor's eyes narrowed. “I know what an overdose of Bone Restorative looks like, you imbecile.”
Admitting he had purposely taken it would also mean an admission of lying and thievery. He didn't want it to get back to Croft, and he certainly didn't want to be barred from future Order activities because of it.
“Maybe Madam Pomfrey made a mistake,” Harry commented, staring at the wound.
“She is not the type to miscalculate,” was the man's counter.
“She's still human.”
“Something tells me her story is likely to differ from yours.”
Harry pulled in a harsh breath as the bit of bone stretched against his flesh when he flexed his toes. “Why do you care?” he challenged through gritted teeth. “I’ll deal with it. It's--”
The sight of his mangled bone was upsetting, but the smell of blood was nauseating. Harry wouldn't normally react that terribly to something so small, but he'd felt frayed at the edges already, even before he'd done in his leg.
“That wound requires immediate attention--” When Harry opened his mouth to cut in, Snape qualified: “-- from a professional, not an arrogant child.”
“I'm not being arrogant-- ”
“Refusing a healer when your bones are growing out of your skin is foolhardy and, yes, arrogant, Potter--”
“Fine!” Harry erupted, “I'll go to the stupid healer! Happy now?!”
“Not in the least,” Snape’s retort rode on a sneer.
Harry grasped hold of the table beside him, muscles in his arms straining as he lifted himself up, all his weight on his uninjured leg. The effort drew a pained grunt from him, and he wobbled on his tired, heavy limbs.
“What are you doing?” the professor snapped, impatient.
“Leaving, obviously, ” Harry shot back.
“That does not require you to stand.”
“Yeah, well--”
“Potter, cease this pitiful endeavor at once, before you injure yourself further!”
He grit his teeth, frustrated. Humiliated. Afraid. Agonized. Exhausted. It was too bad he wasn't the sort to give up; his life might have been a lot easier if he was.
Harry finally raised himself atop one leg, the muscles in his arms protesting as he steadied. “Alright, how do we get out of--?”
A loud meow sounded behind him, giving him such a start that he nearly lost his balance again. The bloody cat was back at it. Harry knew it was probably a masterpiece of magic, but all he could really feel about it was creeped out.
“The guide will allow Disapparition,” Snape commented, still sounding annoyed.
“Great,” Harry grunted. “What's that going to do to my leg?”
“Other than what you have done already?”
He shot a look at the man. “I didn't do anything.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“Not my problem,” was Harry's waspish retort, the pain further weakening his already questionable control of his mouth. “So? We going or what?”
Snape let out a breath through his considerable nose before flicking his wand, returning all the books and papers he'd amassed to their places. Harry closed his eyes again, his head feeling heavy and unwieldy on the precarious perch of his neck. He felt rather than heard Snape's approach, as if even the air around the man was repulsed by him.
The candles guttered right before they left, and Harry thought he heard a plaintive meow follow them to Grimmauld Place.
Fortunately, when they arrived in the dismal sitting room, there was no cat to be seen. Unfortunately, Harry's leg exploded with another throb of agony from the Apparition. Putting a hand over his mouth, he suppressed a shout, leaning against the back of the sofa.
When he managed to recover, still miraculously standing, he saw Snape in profile, standing sentry beside the fire. His shrewd eye landed on Harry, an order coming swiftly after: “Sit.”
Mind in a haze, he did as he was told. The sofa was hard and creaky, and Harry fidgeted, nervous. “Um, before we go back to Hogwarts--”
“We are not returning until your leg is sorted,” the man declared, tucking his wand away in his robe.
Surprised, Harry said, “I thought I would go back to Madam Pomfrey?”
“This is out of her purview,” Snape remarked. “I have sent for the Order medic, who should arrive presently.”
Order medic? Who? He’d spent weeks at Grimmauld Place, watching members come and go, and he’d never heard of anyone among their number who was a healer! In fact, if he were asked to make a guess, he’d have pegged Madam Pomfrey, but evidently that wasn’t correct.
His eyes locked on the Floo, waiting for the tell-tale flare to illuminate the space. However, the hollow rumbling of footsteps commanded his attention. His gaze drawn to the hallway, Harry leaned forward with anticipation to catch a glimpse of the mysterious stranger but, no sooner had he done so then the nearby grandfather clock burst open, the sound so sudden and loud that Harry had taken an alarmed hold of his wand. Hinges rattling, he saw a lithe old woman step out of it, brushing dust from her shoulders with an expression of distaste.
“This best be debilitating, Severus.” Her German accent was stark as she addressed the man, brushing off the dark leather bag she was carrying. “I still have intake paperwork to finish.”
The woman straightened herself, closing the portal she’d come through behind her, and Harry got a proper look for the first time. Clad in green, collared robes, cinched at the waist with a belted sash, she looked just as all the other healers Harry had ever seen, except for the large silver pin below her shoulder in the shape of a salamander. She was older, certainly, with a weathered, flyaway pixie cut composed of greyscale curls; perhaps a tad younger than Professor McGonagall, but not by much. And her features, while not particularly unusual or malevolent, still struck Harry as imposing and severe. Her wide, sharp almond-shaped eyes peered about the space, assessing, and the sight of it made him feel a bit nervous, like she might reprimand him at any moment.
Snape answered her with a scowl. “See for yourself,” he instructed, arms folding.
He felt like flinching when she approached, but she didn’t touch him. Moreover, she didn’t even bend down to examine him. Her eyes drew to the problem area in a manner distinctly practiced, before she scowled, accosting the professor with a derisive: “Is this a joke?”
Snape glared at her.
“You bring me out here for this obvious diagnosis?” she scoffed. She began to turn away from them both, heading toward the clock. “You already know. Take him to the hospital.”
“I am not asking for a diagnosis,” the professor sneered.
The woman stopped, turning toward them again. “Take him to the hospital.”
“I think you know that is not possible.”
“No, I don’t,” the woman challenged him in a way Harry had rarely seen before. “I see no reason whatsoever to waste my time on him when he can easily and properly be taken care of elsewhere.”
“Albus was quite clear that Potter must not draw undue attention, or be publicly seen anywhere but the Hogwarts environs.”
“Is that so,” she uttered, deadpan.
Harry expected Snape to respond in kind, but instead his eyes settled on her, intractable. She was just as unmoving, her gaze boring into his with an energy that managed to feel both subdued and intense.
He couldn’t say how long the two adults stood at an impasse before it was broken by movement.
“You, ” suddenly the woman was addressing Harry, her strides long as she crossed the room again, “lay on your back. Quickly.”
He obeyed in haste and silence, cowed by the harsh staccato of her commands. The stressed beat of his heart accelerated further when she opened up her case, which contained an array of metal potion vials, a shrinkable broom tucked into a mesh pocket, and various odd contraptions he'd never seen before.
“What are you going to do?” he questioned her, tone strained.
“Fix this,” was the woman’s gruff reply as she roughly grappled Harry’s leg. “Hold still. ”
The urge to wriggle away was overwhelming; he had to fight against his muscles to keep them in place. There was something instinctual to his reactions that the situation didn’t necessarily call for, he knew, but that didn’t stop his anxious fidgeting, nor did it prevent goosepimples from creeping up his arms.
Her face was set on a grimace. “Did you give him a neutralizer?” she addressed Snape without looking at him.
The man snorted. “No, I don’t keep obscure brews on hand.”
“Then perhaps you should go get one,” she scathed, “so he doesn’t get any more growths while I shave off the others.”
“I hardly think--”
“That’s obvious,” she cut in with a voice as smooth as silk. “Now, are you going to continue saying whatever fool thing comes to mind, or are you going to fetch the potion?”
Snape’s expression was the epitome of vexed as he whirled on the spot, tossing a snappish chunk of Floo powder into the fire and disappearing a moment later. Harry’s fear spiked, radiating through his limbs like a physical pain; he wouldn’t have called Snape’s presence comforting, but it was at least familiar. Now, he was alone with a stranger. It felt like Lovelle all over again, except this time he hadn’t remotely signed up for it.
“What d’you mean by ‘shave off’?” Harry asked, his voice a horrified whisper.
“What I said,” the woman asserted, impatient. With a wave of her wand, Harry felt an area around his thigh tighten, constricting around the entire upper portion of his leg. She drew the tip of her wand over the lower, swollen portion of his leg, and an image shimmered to existence above it. It looked like the spell Croft had used earlier in the day, but much more detailed. He could see it, then -- the extent of the damage done. Gnarled bits of bone curled and grew, like tumors, along the length of original bone. It had more of the appearance of a root, curling tendrils hoisting themselves at all angles in search for escape. Harry swallowed.
“Had a whole second full dose, did you?” the woman predicted, her accent somehow thicker than it was before.
It was a moment before he found his voice again. “That's… er, how come it normally stops growing with one dose, but two does… that? ”
“It is just what happens,” the woman told him, dismissive.
“What’s a neutralizer?” He blurted the question as if he were grasping hold of a life preserver.
“It gets rid of the bone restorative still left in your system,” she explained, “so that it won’t continue to cause growths.”
Finally, an actual answer. Harry let out a breath, slightly depressurized. “Um, can I ask who you are?” he inquired, subdued.
She didn’t speak. Instead, her attention was drawn to the bag beside the sofa, where she reached in and grabbed a couple items. A silver plate, a towel…
Then, she glanced over her shoulder, scowling. “Where is that cursed--”
As if she had summoned him, Snape emerged from the grate, wreathed with green flame and expression markedly foul.
Her next words were impossible for Harry to understand, mean spirited and very distinctly German before she threw her hand out, expectant, to the man. “Here.”
Snape passed it off with an aggressive flair, resuming his dark corner by the fireplace, his manner distinctly dismissive.
To Harry's surprise, the potion's taste was actually pleasant, the flavor a subtle caramel and nutmeg. However, it started up a brief, but intense, burning sensation in his leg. He winced, attempting to hand back the vial, but the medic was too occupied or, perhaps, too unconcerned.
“All right Mr. Potter,” she finally addressed him after finishing her makeshift workstation. She turned to him and he noticed her unstop a second vial, the silvery sheen of the metal glinting in the firelight. She presented it to him, but, as he reached to grab it, her hand lifted to deter him. The expression on her face was truly unsettling; her previous severity paled in comparison.
“Do you understand what this is?” she asked him, pointed.
He’d taken enough of them to recognize them by smell alone. “A potion for pain.”
Her nod was slight. “Ja, good. A potion for pain.” Her gaze turned sharp. “But do you think you deserve it?”
For a moment, he thought he hadn't heard her correctly. “What?”
Her tongue laved over her bottom lip as the corners of her mouth upturned marginally in an amused smile. “You did a stupid thing here, boy. A very stupid thing. Do you think people should be rewarded for doing stupid things?”
His stomach dropped as he caught on to her meaning. Was it a test, or an act of cruelty? Perhaps she wasn't a medic for the Order at all; he certainly couldn't trust Snape's word on the matter.
If he was to be punished, so be it, but he still wouldn't say a word to confirm Snape's suspicions.
"I didn't do anything," he doubled down on his lie, the words falling from his mouth, automatic.
Her fingers curled around the bottle, the plummet of her hand falling in time with the frown that pulled at her mouth. “That is not what I asked.”
"So?" Harry replied, belligerent, turning away from her piercing stare.
He could feel her eyes raking over him; it made his skin crawl. “Everything in this Mediwizard’s Satchel belongs to St. Mungo’s, which, in turn, is overseen by the British Ministry. This vial-- each drop must be accounted for,” she explained, each word exact. “And with the consideration that I cannot give the actual reason for its usage -- Mr. Potter, if you cannot be honest to me, why should I lie for you?”
Harry had no reply. What could he say? Unbidden, his gaze flicked to Snape, his mind going back to the sacrifices which Order members were forced to make. It wasn’t just Aurors, was it? All kinds of people were breaking rules and bending truth, risking everything to combat the greatest evil of their time.
And here was Harry, a child playing at adulthood. Just as Snape had said.
Harry's unfocused eyes landed on his exposed wound, listless and resigned. "Get on with it, then," he murmured, folding his arms.
The sound of the vial colliding with the silver tray clattered beside him. The woman, when she shifted, gripped her wand tightly in her hand and perched over his leg like a scavenger on carrion.
He waited for some sort of warning. A sign to brace himself. Eyes trained to the hard lines of her face in anticipation, Harry waited.
Instead, focused on the image floating just above his knee, the woman made a large swipe across the air with her wand. With it, he felt the sickening pull of something jerking inside his calf, then the scorching pain that erupted as something else dislodged. He immediately flinched back, legs instinctively curling inward.
“Hold still, ” she warned, pulling him back into position.
He tensed, but regretted it; his leg ached in protest. Harry grit his teeth against the woman's harsh treatment, but said nothing.
Again, his stare sought Snape, who was faced toward the window, hands clasped behind his back, and surveying the wall hangings with a look of profound boredom. Harry knew he would receive no sympathy from that quarter, and perhaps it was for the best that Snape's ire wasn't directed his way, but it still stung to be entirely ignored.
He heard another clatter on the tray. Eyes drawn there, Harry had the revolting sight of a large chunk of his bone, covered in blood and strips of muscle, seared into his mind. He looked away quickly, dread churning his stomach.
It continued on like that, twelve more times. He couldn’t say why he’d started counting, other than a means to distract himself from the pain. His delirium mounted with each shard of bone that collected on the tray, until the sizable pile weighed down his resilience to its breaking point.
The agony had dulled to a molten thrum; he couldn’t focus well enough to remember how much it hurt.
And somewhere in that in-between, he felt the smooth neck of a bottle press urgently up against his lips, strong hands tilting his head back and forcing him to swallow.
How long it took to rouse him back to consciousness after the pain began to ebb, he couldn't say, though it was just in time to observe the medic's arduous wandwork as she started in on a more intricate task. Sweat accumulated on her brow as she worked her arm in a sawing motion, her eyes peeled to the image as she sanded down one of the leftover knolls of bone. The magic crackled with every swipe.
Her sculpting took what felt like hours. His leg was limp and useless against her hand as the woman sat back on the floor and let out a breath.
Harry's voice sounded dull to his own ears. "S’it over?"
Her answer was nothing more than a grunt as she leaned forward, wiping the sweat on her temples on her sleeve as she went to banish the bone fragments on the tray. Moments after, she examined his leg again, twisting it in her hands to get a look at it from all angles.
Her answer was nothing more than a grunt as she leaned forward, wiping the sweat on her temples on her sleeve as she went to banish the bone fragments on the tray. Moments after, she examined his leg again, twisting it in her hands to get a look at it from all angles.
“How does it feel?” she prompted. “When I move it, do you feel anything sharp? Tearing?”
He shook his head, the motion slow and meandering.
“Good,” she sighed. “Keep off it for a few days. The muscle needs to heal. Ask the school matron to provide tissue and blood replenisher. After the pain is bearable make sure to walk on it often to exercise it. Verstanden? ”
"Yeah." He didn't look at her.
He heard her murmur a spell and observed as the open wound on his leg stitched closed, seamless. Afterwards, he heard her shuffle around as she gathered her things back into her bag. The air shifted as she rose to her feet with cracking joints and a tired exhale; her next words were directed elsewhere. “You have it from here, Severus?”
"Of course."
Harry drew his knees up to his chest, propping his chin against the uninjured one. There was no pain, but he did feel a touch nauseous, his face hot and flushed.
She appeared distracted with organizing her pack, but she addressed the professor again, off-handed. “Ah, I was going to let you know tomorrow, but I will have that sample you asked for by Friday.”
Snape's tone was supercilious. "You realize time is an object, for this research--"
“No, of course I wouldn’t,” the woman droned on, sardonic. Then, more seriously, she added: “This was the soonest I could find one. If you knew anything about how hard these things are to track down--”
"I am aware, " he snapped, impatient. "Very well. Friday, then, Tenenbaum."
"Tenenbaum…?" Harry found himself echoing the word, curiosity piercing through his hazy consciousness.
The two adults, surprised to hear him speak, looked his way. The woman’s eyebrow raised. “Yes. Tenenbaum.”
It was uncanny, now that she mentioned it, how much she looked like the Defense professor. Her features were just as minute, just as strict, just as distinctly pretty. Their principle difference was that the Professor Tenenbaum knew how to smile.
"I know that name," he eventually supplied, vague.
Tenenbaum and Snape’s expressions mirrored one another, both bewildered that Harry would share something so inane. They glanced at each other; Tenenbaum tilted her head.
“Friday,” she repeated.
Snape’s head jerked into a tight nod.
The woman turned to approach the clock; Harry’s head dipped to watch her leave.
He spoke again, feeling like a passive observer to his clumsy probing. “Do you know someone named Bridgette--”
“Remember,” she interjected, glancing over her shoulder. “Let it heal. I do not want to see you again.”
She was grinning; it was a bit offset on her face. Not at all friendly, but cordial enough to shut him up. Harry nodded.
He could see the blood on her arms -- his blood -- when she reached up to turn the hands on the grandfather clock to 9:25. Even her wristwatch was coated with it, her sleeve peeling away from it, sticky. Harry observed as she bowed her svelte frame into the clock’s body, shutting the door behind her with a spectacular clack.
Snape half-turned toward the fireplace. “Come,” the professor ordered, off-hand.
Harry's exhaustion was bone-deep, but more than that, he just felt… concave. Like it wasn’t just his bone scraped away, but the rest of him with it. The effort to keep his eyes open was tremendous, and the effort to hold up his torso was even worse.
He knew he should just leave with Snape, endure Pomfrey’s scolding without complaint, and get some rest as he’d been instructed.
But.
“Professor,” he addressed Snape, holding his voice steady as he slid his legs off the sofa. “I can’t go yet. There’s something I need to do.”
The man shot him an impatient look, not pausing for a second in his movement to take hold of the Floo powder. “You are delirious.”
“No, I’m--” Harry took in a calming breath. “It won’t take long, I swear.”
“Not yet reached your quota for time wasted, Potter?” he questioned, scathing.
His lips twisted as he stood up, his balance shaky but holding. “Just five minutes. That’s all I need, and I’ll come right back.”
The professor fixed him with an unblinking stare. “You have just undergone a crude medical procedure to rectify a potion overdose exacerbated by both time and Apparition. You will return to Hogwarts and stay put in the infirmary, as you should have done to begin with.”
“I will, ” Harry stressed, already putting tentative distance between himself and the professor, “in five minutes.”
“I believe you are laboring under the misapprehension that this is a negotiation. ” Snape’s glare was full of warning, hand poised over the powder box on the mantelpiece. “It is not. ”
Harry shook his head. “Please, ” he insisted, his voice and knees wavering as he backed away. His leg felt like a hunk of limestone, heavy but brittle, ready to crumble at the slightest provocation.
However, his determination did not waver. “I need to do something. It's important.”
“What could possibly --”
When he reached the door frame, Harry stopped listening, Snape's voice becoming a blurry backdrop to the creaking joints of Grimmauld Place; he fancied that he could hear even the minuscule sounds of dust accumulating on windowsills, the steady drip of the faucet in the downstairs bathroom, the shift of stagnant air as it parted to allow him passage.
There was a fuzziness to his processes, a sluggishness to his movements. He knew he was in a bad way, but so long as he was conscious, he'd crawl to his destination if he had to.
Harry had dreaded climbing stairs earlier in the day, but at that moment the task was so inconsequential that he had reached the top step before realizing he’d moved at all. Once he got there, though, it was a different story. There was a hesitancy to his gait as he crept forward, navigating the corridor with care. The dark walls surrounding him were claustrophobic, looming. He wasn’t even technically sure he was going the right way, but, when he reached the end, it was immediately evident that his guess had been correct.
The door to his left was slightly ajar, as if the owner of the room had merely popped out for a midnight snack. Harry knew better, though. The thick silence which permeated the house belied any perceived signs of life, no matter how badly he wished for them.
He pushed open the door.
Coming to this room had previously been unnecessary; its sole inhabitant had only rarely used it to sleep. It was surprisingly sparse, the only furniture a single twin bed, the dark sheets bunched up at the foot as if they'd only just been thrown off. The air smelled a touch sour, like dog's breath, and there were a few random piles of rubbish strewn about. On the walls hung several old posters of a Quidditch team floating majestically over a World Cup pitch, still images of girls posing suggestively on motorbikes, and a large strip of red-and-gold cloth draped unevenly across the wall behind the bed.
It was all so quintessentially Sirius that Harry had to momentarily close his eyes against the wave of longing that surged in his gut. Settling for staring at the floor, he moved to take hold of the end of the bedspread, worrying at the fabric absentmindedly. Harry didn't quite know how to feel, nor did he really understand why he'd been so dead set on coming… Now that he was actually there, he felt a bit queasy. His presence was a disturbance -- he felt as if he were intruding somehow.
Shaking off the thought, Harry’s gaze caught on the wall beside him, where the fabric was hanging. There appeared to be something hidden underneath, the corner sticking out of the edge of the drapery. Without giving it a second thought, he took hold of the fabric, shifting it away to reveal… a huge, messy collage of notes and moving photos. Harry realized, with shock, that the notes were written by various Marauders, the four separate writing styles interspersed with enchanted drawings and paper tricks.
He peeled the fabric back further, cautious, as if a single hasty move might disturb the tableau. One note protruding from the wall nearby was shaped like a pair of bird wings, except one side was fluttering frantically, noiselessly, in the air, and the other was inert, flat against the wood as if it had been glued on. Harry reached out, taking hold of the end of the parchment; every bit of it was covered in writing, the ink a touch faded with age. And there were tons of them littered across the wood surface, all bearing silly catchphrases or bombastic announcements about school, summer vacation, girls, or their “monthly outings”.
Between those mementos were photographs. The first one Harry spotted was a snapshot of his father and Sirius blowing gum bubbles the size of their heads, the fierce competition ending with uproarious laughter and their hair and faces covered with splattered candy. The second was of his mother playing Gobstones with the group, chin in her hand as she considered her next move, and Sirius holding up two fingers behind her head as if they were rabbit ears, offering a playful wink at the camera. Another was of a young Remus sitting on the ground, yawning at the spine of his open book before noticing whoever was taking the photo and offering up a bashful smirk. Then, he turned gingerly away from the camera, a small breeze kicking up his wispy hair and a smattering of dead leaves beside him. Harry’s heart gave an awful lurch at the sight; he missed Remus terribly, but now wasn’t the time, he reminded himself. This day was for Sirius.
His eyes drifted to another and stopped. Everyone was together in that one, his mum and dad, Remus, Sirius… even Peter, Harry realized with a start. They were all smiling, laughing. His father was seated on an unfamiliar sofa, arm laid behind his mother's shoulders, the former saying something excitedly while the latter rolled her eyes at the lot. Remus was doubled over in his seat as he choked on his drink, expression brimming with mirth, Peter patting him lightly on the back and chortling himself.
And Sirius. He was standing on top of a table, swinging a tie around above his head and dressed up nicer than Harry had ever seen him. His motions were expansive and languid, looking absolutely sloshed, regaling his friends with a story that Harry would never get to hear.
The pressure in his chest grew to astronomical proportions, to the point where it actually felt hard to breathe. He let go of the draped fabric, turning away quickly, unable to look at the rest. Five minutes, he'd told Snape; he didn't have time to unravel the mass of feeling that was threatening to crush him.
He took in a shaky breath, the bed springs squealing in protest as he sat on the very edge of the mattress. Harry felt as if he’d swallowed a large, sharp rock, and it had settled painfully behind his sternum. He’d known thinking about Sirius would be hard, but… not this much. He probably shouldn’t have come.
There was dust on the floor, Harry observed inanely. Sirius had likely ordered Kreacher to stay away ages back, and no one had disturbed the place for months. It was odd, though… There were thin scratches in the wood leading toward the closet, weaving together in a well-worn path. Harry drew himself forward, compelled by… Curiosity? Dread? The need for a distraction? He couldn’t be sure. All he knew was, when he cracked open the door to the walk-in closet and lit his wand to see, he regretted it.
The inside was small and devoid of anything one might expect to find in a closet. No clothes hanging, no shoes or scarves, not much of anything closet-like at all. On the floor was a nest of several tattered pillows, covered in short, dark fur and cobwebs. Beside that was a ceramic bowl filled with three candles that had begun to melt together, a few quills, several of which were broken, and what appeared to be the half-chewed leg of one of the dining room chairs.
Had Sirius been… sleeping in there? The resemblance to Harry’s cupboard as a child was uncanny. The space was cramped but, in dog form, perhaps Sirius would have fit. Still, it disturbed him to think of his godfather spending dark, solitary nights shut up in a closet. As the lighted end of his wand passed around the space, he could see deep, jagged scratches on the walls. In the back corner, there was a rumpled leather jacket, one that Harry had seen Sirius wear constantly and, secured to the wall just above it, was a small rectangular mirror.
His throat tightened; it was the same as the one Sirius had given to him last Christmas. The one Harry had shattered beyond repair. The one that might have saved Sirius’ life, had Harry only thought to use it sooner.
The pressure in his head and chest increased tenfold. Harry sank to the floor, arms folded tight over his chest as if to shield it. Knees on the wood, he bent over to lay his forehead on the dirty pillows, willing his lungs to take in air normally. His blood pounded in his ears.
Sirius had kept the mirror by his side the whole time, hadn’t he? Waiting for Harry to call. Waiting for some kind of contact from the outside world. Because that was just it, wasn’t it? Hadn’t he seen how happy Sirius had been to have visitors over Christmas? Hadn’t he noticed his godfather’s awful dejection as their time had drawn to a close? Yet, with all that was going on, he had hardly spared a thought for Sirius, had hardly considered how terrible it must have been to be trapped in that dismal house for months and months. At least when Harry was at the Dursleys, he was able to leave sometimes. See the light of day.
But Sirius? He’d been forced to swap one prison for another, with no end in sight, no possibility of escape. His reasons for never using the mirror, his worry about being the catalyst for Sirius doing something reckless… It all seemed so foolish. The irony was biting; Sirius had done nothing wrong, while Harry’s own recklessness had caused the tragedy.
In the end, wasn’t it his fault that Sirius was dead?
The thought curled his shoulders inward, the pain of it far worse than his leg had been. A gravelly sob tore out of him, harsh as it shredded his defenses, and he struggled to reign in his grief. The pressure was unbearable, splintering his mind. He should never have come. Every memory of his godfather had etched themselves into the furniture, crammed themselves into every nook and cranny, burrowed themselves into the floorboards. His thoughts were too sickening to bear. He was so small and pitiful, so patently useless that Dumbledore had foisted him off on Snape indefinitely. His own weakness was likely to get everyone he cared about killed.
Perhaps it was an appropriate punishment, to be haunted by Sirius.
He was exhausted. He hated himself. Harry drew in a sharp breath, his heartache reaching its apex, and broke.
The anguished noise he made sounded inhuman. As hard as he’d tried to contain himself, his despair crashed into him harder; his weeping was utterly uncontrollable, the tears piling up on the dusty floor of the closet. Wretched and alone, Harry could do nothing to stop his suffering; he tried to swallow his cries, but they burst from his throat, warped and jagged.
How long he stayed that way, paralyzed by the strength of his own misery, he couldn’t say. But when he had finally wrestled his breathing into submission, Harry regained command of his muscles. Drained, he slowly sat back on his heels, swiping both hands across his face to dispel his tears, but they still ran freely, relentless.
Instead of continuing that fruitless venture, Harry crossed his arms over his chest, staring dazed at the dog hairs on the pillows. He didn’t feel any better for his outburst. If anything, he just felt… numb. Lately, he’d been so tired, but it was a new kind of tired the likes of which he’d never felt before. The kind which weighed down his limbs, slowed his breathing to a crawl, and filled his mind with wool. The kind that made him want to sink endlessly into nothingness, unmoving. He’d hardly slept for months.
His sigh was more involuntary than revitalizing, but it did rouse his faculties enough for him to remember the reason why he’d come. He couldn’t forget its importance, no matter the circumstances. His arms dropped to his sides and he shifted to one side, taking his weight off his injured leg. Harry’s trousers were covered in dust and grime, but he made no move to clean them off. Instead, he dragged a listless finger across the floorboards, tracing a cylindrical shape in the dust. At the top, he drew several straight lines, all in a row. He didn’t quite know how many to do, so he just filled it in until there was no space left.
That done, he took a moment to wipe away the tears dripping off his chin with his sleeve. Sniffing, he whispered into the heavy air, “Happy Birthday, Sirius.”
The room was cold and silent, raising the hairs on his arms. His voice cracked when he mumbled, “Make a wish.”
His tears renewed their solemn march down his face and he closed his eyes, mouth twisting as he suppressed another sob. As lonely and desolate as the house felt, Sirius still deserved to be remembered. No matter how much it hurt, Harry vowed that he would never forget.
When the door to the room abruptly opened, the doorknob rattling with the force of the entry, Harry flinched, alarmed. “ Potter--”
Mortified, he turned away quickly, rubbing his face with his hands in a hasty bid to remove any evidence he’d been crying. Harry steeled himself, awaiting whatever malicious words Snape saw fit to spew at him.
However, it was quiet for several seconds. Was he not going to say anything? Did he expect Harry to--?
“Your five minutes have concluded.”
Harry suspected that he’d been gone far longer than five minutes. With that in mind, he finally looked at the man. Snape was stood in the doorway, his height even more imposing than usual due to Harry’s position on the floor. Those black eyes of his were as menacing as they ever were. Everything about him still felt severe, exacting. And, despite being unable to read the man’s expression, it seemed obvious that he understood the situation. Nothing seemed to get past him. Ever.
So, why had his insults not arrived?
The professor’s hand fell away from the doorknob as he turned back toward the hallway. “It is time to leave,” was all he said.
Harry blinked as Snape fell out of sight, his footsteps echoing as he descended the stairs. No anger, no derision… It was unnerving, that complete lack of reaction. Shocked, Harry stayed in place for a minute more before he felt able to get to his feet and return to the drawing room as he’d been instructed, still braced for some sort of impact.
But it never came. No further words passed between them, and only the green blaze of the Floo marked their departure.