Whatever Happened To Harry Potter
The Unfortunate Muggle
A middle-aged woman in a lime-green robe stood tottering on the landing of the 4th floor, fumbling with the wand in the pockets of her apron. The healer was so fixated on the fact that the door labeled SPELL DAMAGE was locked, that the green light surging through the small window set in the double doors completely bypassed her notice. She was muttering to herself – it had been an unusually hard day at St. Mungo's. First there had been an influx of exploding cauldrons, then an epidemic of misguided hexes, and now this.
And by this, she was referring to one of her patients – the one who was on her 6th trip to St. Mungo's in the past year. No one knew the patient's name, only one thing really mattered: she was a Muggle. No one knew how she kept getting herself into the most illogical situations that, more often than not, included magic and her having to get subjected to emergency bone regrowth and memory modification. And yet, every two months or so, here she was again, requiring even more magical medical attention. Even for a Muggle, no one was that clumsy, or uncommonly unlucky.
The witch shook her head, remembering the first time she laid eyes on the girl; she had bought a biting doorknob from some idiot, Willy Widdershin. The Ministry even had to get involved to make sure Widdershin couldn't pull another stunt to physically damage Muggles: it was troublesome enough to just make sure wizardry was kept a secret.
"Alohomora," the witch said, freeing her wand from the depths of her pocket. The lock made a slight click and the door swung open. Green light billowed out into the hallway like a thick fog. The light almost seemed to coat the inside of witch's throat, like she was swallowing the smoke of dry ice.
Coughing, the witch walked into the SPELL DAMAGE unit, towards the Augustus Gorodok ward, at the farthest end of the corridor. One of her arms was covering her mouth; the other was outstretched in front of her – wand at the ready. The door was ajar. Green light was spilling from this room into the rest of the hallway.
The witch moved closer and closer inside the room, hoping that nothing was out of the ordinary other than the thick, green light. Thin, flowery curtains enveloped the Muggle's bed, leaving the girl out of sight.
"Roger Flicket? Elia Donnary?" The witch's voice called out to the other patients in the ward – the Muggle girl had been placed with Squibs once she was the only Muggle in all of St. Mungo's. The painting of Dilys Derwent in the reception room advised the hospital to do so. Even after all these years, Dilys Derwent was still a particularly sharp woman (you don't become Headmistress of Hogwarts for nothing [1741-1768]).
Moans came from the far side of the room. The witch carefully made her way to the sound. Roger Flicket, in his delusioned state of stupor, tried in his own way to direct the witch to the problem. The few strands of wispy blonde hair on his head quivered as his body withered and thrashed; the straps holding him captive on the bed almost gave way. His watery green eyes appeared double their size, his face void of expression. Opening his mouth to scream, the sound seemed to evaporate before the screech could leave his throat.
"Ssh. Ssh. Everything's okay…" the witch said, straightening the sheets around him. Hoping it would fail his notice, she tightened the straps around his torso – anything to prevent him from throwing himself off the bed in a panic.
He just stared at her with wide eyes, as if begging to differ.
"Oh, Roger dear, you know that nothing will happen to you. Calm down please," the witch said, in the same tone she would to a two-year-old about to erupt into a tantrum.
"Gir – Vol…'e got…n – nce…gone – po'r gir," his breath caught in his throat. Roger shook his head at his failed attempt to speak. His boney finger shook as he pointed to the direction of Elia Donnary and the Muggle girl.
In an attempt to console Roger, the witch briskly walked over to Elia, and almost cried out in shock. Elia lay on the bed, her body stiff. Her head was turned sharply to the left – her ice-blue eyes fixed on the flowery curtain in front of her face. She wasn't blinking, her glass-like eyes merely staring relentlessly towards the Muggle's bed. Her mouth hung open, yet she didn't seem to be trying to speak.
"Elia… Elia…" the witch said, trying to shake the girl. But Elia's body was solid – a marble statue stuck in a hospital bed. The only part of Elia that looked relatively alive was her eyes, ever staring at the Muggle's bed.
The witch followed Elia's gaze – right to a folded piece of paper lying on the ground just outside of the curtain surrounding the Muggle's bed. She bent to pick it up – ignoring every instinct in her body screaming warnings. Her eyes flicked back and forth across the page as she read.
A low cackle came from behind her – she hesitated as she slowly turned around – a tall, skeletal man stood, robed entirely in black stood next to the bed in which Elia Donnary lay. His long, thin fingers gently stroked Elia's cheek. "Poor dear. Nearly died on sight the first time… haven't you heard her mumbling about me these past months? Ah – but no one believes a Squib damaged by a Cruciatus Curse…poor girl. But I believed you – didn't I?" His cold, calculating voice spoke softly, evenly. He gently pushed back a stray strand of hair from Elia's face with his wand – a paternal gesture turned sour by the menacing look on his face as he watched the other witch.
"You're – but…how? Not…dead?" The witch's words stumbled, tripping over her tongue.
The man made a tsk sound. His eyes came closer together as he read the name tag on the witch's robes:
ANAXANDRA ABBOTT
ST. MUNGO'S HOSPITAL HEALER
SPELL DAMAGE WARD
"Anaxandra Abbott, don't you pay attention to the news? It's all over The Daily Prophet." His face twisted with laughter. The air around him rippled with the musky smell of death – Anaxandra had heard the stories of his attempts to beat death itself.
Anaxandra swallowed. When she was able to speak coherently, the first question she asked was one that would not save her. "H-How did you g-get in here? The security…"
The man just laughed – that cold, lifeless laugh.
"Y-You can't be in here. The p-patients," Anaxandra stopped. A wand was inches from the tip of her nose, and was unlikely to recede.
"Don't make me do anything I don't want to." The man's red, snakelike eyes were staring at Anaxandra with such intensity it was almost as if he was staring through her. "It's not you I'm here for."
Anaxandra took a step back. "I-I'm sorry. I'm a-afraid you'll h-have to leave." Her voice trembled – cracking every few syllables. Her body shook like a withered leaf: the faintest breath would have nearly tipped her over.
"And let my toy get away? I think not." The man smiled, relishing in the witch's panic. "Just step aside – I want the girl." Anaxandra didn't move; she was shaking too hard.
"Do as I say!" The man screamed. When Anaxandra failed to heed his demand, he took great delight as he said, "Crucio." A smile twitched on his lips, his eyes dancing at the pain that flashed across the witch's face.
Anaxandra fell to the floor; her body curled up, twitching, rocking from side to side. Screams filled the room – the kind of scream where your blood feels uneasy: bubbling, boiling, burning in your veins. The wand remained steady: her body shuddered and jerked, more violent with each passing second.
"Are you willing to play my little game now?" The man asked, lowering his wand. Anaxandra lay on the floor; catching her breath, glaring all the while at the man. He stooped down, grabbed the front of her robes, bringing her face closer to his own. "Let me have the girl."
A look of contemplation passed Anaxandra's face. She spit in the man's eyes.
He reeled backwards, howling.
"Why so protective? She's just a Muggle after all…" The man's voice faded off, in an attempt to get an answer. He spoke to the wall, away from Anaxandra, but his attention was solely on his task ahead of him. Anaxandra clenched her teeth – from the way he said 'Muggle', one could tell that he could imagine nothing worse for one to be.
Anaxandra didn't respond, not wanting to show another weakness in the face of death – the Muggle girl was weakness enough. She didn't want to set him on the trail of her daughter, Hannah. Hannah wasn't much older than the Muggle girl, and the resemblance was shocking. That was yet another reason Anaxandra was so protective of the Muggle girl. But the man needn't know that.
By the time he turned back to face Anaxandra, she was back on her feet. The flowery curtain waved by some light breeze. The man extended his wand.
"I just want you to hear the name of the man who killed you – the name the entire world has been shying from: LORD VOLDEMORT."
Roger Flicket let out a bloodcurdling scream – his eyes rolled back in their sockets, his body jumping up against the binds holding him to the bed. His body seized, contorted, jerked and flailed.
"Silence!" Voldemort thrust his wand in the fleshy, vulnerable spot under Roger's jaw, pressing against the side of the esophagus. Roger froze, yet his ragged breathing continued – not daring to breathe too hard, Voldemort's wand kept that from being a possibility. Unnerved green eyes fixed themselves onto Voldemort's hand, watching it's every move with a hawk-like quality.
"I'll give you something real to scream about…" A smile spread across the man's face. "Crucio." Roger twisted in the strap, screams bounced and echoed throughout the room.
Anaxandra covered her face; it was too much.
"Stop," She whispered. "Stop, stop, stop it! He can't do anything to you. He's helpless!"
"What was that?" Voldemort leered, his wand never stopping the curse aimed at Roger.
"Stop it. Please." Anaxandra whimpered, knowing full well that defeat was coming, knowing that she'd never see her daughter again.
Voldemort leaned down, whispered something into Roger's ear… and Roger went slack. The flash of green light was so small, Anaxandra would have barely known it happened if she hadn't been unable to take her eyes off the scene unfolding in front of her.
Fear crept into her throat, she wanted to run. She wanted to run so bad. Her feet suddenly seemed to have grown roots and attached themselves to the floor. A strangled scream escaped her lips before Voldemort turned his attention back to her.
"I'm done playing games with you." All the pleasantries were gone from his face; all that was left was a shell of a man…no, a monster, throwing death at Anaxandra, at anyone who dared contradict him.
"Avada Kedavra!" There was a flash of green light, a scream, and then…nothing.
Anaxandra lay dead on the floor, surrounded in a pool of green light and the Dark Mark hanging high above St. Mungo's. The note she had picked up earlier sat crumpled beside her hand, waiting to be found. Moonlight from the window lit up the scrawled message that had been written in a hurry only days before:
My name is Anna Polkiss. I'm 15 years old. For the past five years, I've been trying to locate a boy I knew in primary school. I finally found out what happened to him, and am writing this to myself so I know what happened, because it seems that I've stumbled upon something I'm not supposed to know about – I'm a Muggle, you see. With everything that I've done, my memory has been modified so many times, I can't keep what really happened from what I think happened. When I started, all I wanted to know was whatever happened to Harry Potter – that odd little boy with the lightning scar that lived with the Dursleys. Then I got in too deep. And from what I've found out, it's highly unlikely that I'll get out of this with my life, let alone my memory.
I've found the Ministry of Magic.
And I'm a Muggle.
But that's not the biggest threat to my life: Voldemort is alive.
I know where he is, and I'm going to find him.
The following morning, another witch in the customary lime-green robes walked past the Augustus Gorodok ward humming to herself. She had spent the night tending to her patients in the Janus Thickey ward – the long term spell damage patients' ward – and had no knowledge of the still evident Dark Mark hanging above St. Mungo's or of the ghastly green light illuminating select parts of the building.
She opened the door to the Augustus Gorodok ward; she had been asked to retrieve Anaxandra for the painting of Dilys Derwent in the lobby. The fog of green light dissipated into the hallway. A sob caught in the witch's throat.
Anaxandra Abbott lay on the floor, a piece of paper sat next to her outstretched hand. The witch hated the fact that someone would have to send the news of the death to Anaxandra's daughter.
A quick scan around the room told the witch one thing: death had struck early in the Augustus Gorodok ward – Elia Donnary and Roger Flicket were both in critical condition before this morning, but their projected life remaining had accounted for a couple more months.
The flowered curtain surrounding the last bed in the room hid the patient from view, but the patient's personal articles, which were in a box underneath the bed, sat on the floor next the scrap of paper. The witch bent down, examining the remaining items in the box. A red backpack was in the box, unzipped and emptied. She knew what had been in the box – she had put them in there once the girl had been found, after all – only an old book had been removed.
The witch tore back the curtains around the Muggle girl's bed, in hope that someone escaped the night alive.
The bed was empty.
Somewhere far away, Voldemort sat fingering a crown. He had found what he had searched for all those years in Albania. The missing puzzle piece to his grand plan to murder Harry Potter once and for all sat in his very lap. All he had to do was find the pawn who only desired to help their beloved Harry Potter, the girl. It hadn't taken much to dispose of her; one Avada Kedavra and her body dumped in the Thames. No one was the wiser, and he, Voldemort, was one step closer to Harry Potter.
"Pettigrew!" His voice rasped.
His mousy servant entered the room. "Yes, master?"
"Bring this to the Room of Requirement in Hogwarts. Replace the imitation I have located there. In your animagus form if you must. No one must see you."
"Yes, master." The man left the room, the crown in hand.
Voldemort opened the book he had taken from the girl: THE DEATHLY HALLOWS AND OTHER WIZARD LORE was inscribed across the front cover. He opened the book, and started to read. A smile spread slowly on his face; he had found exactly what he was looking for.