A/N: Hey!!! So this is a remake of a story I started not long ago, but it was in first person, and it really wasn't working, he he. So I'm re-doing (and revamping :D) it in 3rd person ;D Hopefully it will work better. Enjoy!
R&R please!!! Virtual cookies on offer ;D
Chapter One – Beginnings
The single clenched fist lifted and ready,
Or the open hand held out and waiting.
Choose: For we meet by one or the other.
Craig sat in his chair fast asleep, his quill lay abandoned at his feet. The rain drummed heavily off the thick fabric of the tent though making no visible mark upon it. The protective spells placed upon the tent seemed to be holding. Outside thunder rolled across the sky closely followed by a flash of lightning. The weather had been the same for several weeks and showed no sign of stopping anytime soon. Craig often found himself cursing his luck for running away at a time like this, not that he had much of a choice in the matter.
As another flash of lighting illuminated the interior of the tent Craig jerked awake suddenly. Rubbing his eyes he looked around groggily, barely registering the darkness. The main room of the tent exactly the same as it had been several hours earlier when Craig had been lulled into a light sleep by the gentle pattering of the rain on the fabric of the tent, a light sleep that had turned into a deep sleep, Craig wasn't complaining though, he still hadn't been able to get much sleep during the night even after two weeks of being on the run. Sighing to himself, Craig stared at the ground for a few seconds before dragging himself out of the chair and into the bathroom. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out his wand aiming it carefully at his own face and muttering,
"Aguamenti," Water erupted from the end of the wand as Craig closed his eyes, relishing the feeling of the cool water as it drenched his face. Finally lowering his wand Craig wiped his eyes and looked up, startled for a second by his own reflection.
Grimacing at the face mirrored back at him he looked at the brown eyes framed by dark circles. Craig's bloodshot eyes then moved to his hair, now clinging in tendrils to his face, the water turning his normally dark brown hair black. His eyes were dragged back to his reflections eyes, looking at the dark circles that had been caused by lack of sleep, which in turn had been caused by anxiety. Sighing to himself he made to turn away, only to jump as a voice spoke up,
"You don't look good, my friend,"
Craig turned back to the mirror and looked sadly at it, "Not been sleeping,"
There it was again, the constant need to explain himself to people...and mirrors apparently.
The mirror spoke again, "Take a sleeping potion then,"
Craig almost laughed, the solution to everything, take a potion, he shook his head, "No I'm alright...but thanks anyway," He turned and walked away from the bathroom.
The mirror had been the source of a lot of his conversations for the past couple of weeks, the others being with himself. It was annoying but, at that moment, the mirror was the only reason he wasn't breaking down from loneliness. The one thing keeping him sane. He owed it a lot.
Shaking his head at the idiocy of owing a mirror something Craig walked back into the main room. It was still covered in darkness, which didn't help his mood.
Taking out his wand again, Craig waved his wand as he thought, "Incendio,"
Watching as tiny lamps lit the tent with a warm golden glow Craig stowed his wand back in his pocket and sat down heavily in a soft armchair, his head resting in his hands. Shutting his eyes tight, he screamed inside his head, he hated every second of this, every second he spent either talking to himself, feeling sorry for himself or perhaps worst of all, constantly going over how he had got into this mess in the first place. He could remember every tiny detail. Every word spoken, every face, every spell.
Two weeks earlier
Craig looked around the depressing room as he followed Healer Macmillan around the Permanent Stay ward. His second month of training and he still could not get used to all the pain and injuries that surrounded him. This was perhaps the worst of all, the Permanent Stay ward, for the people there was no hope for. His first week of training Craig had been told that the numbers in the ward had doubled in the last few months and many times more than before the war, almost always the fault of Death Eaters. What was even worse was the fact that Craig was seeing multiple deaths per day, occasionally those of a friend's relative.
None of it had been how Craig had imagined it would be, he was having to take on many responsibilities of fully trained Healers and the few people he had managed to get to know were sharing his feelings.
Speeding up so that he could walk with Healer Macmillan, Craig glanced at the older man, noting how tired and strained he looked, the light brown head of hair flecked with several grey hairs that shouldn't have appeared for many years. Grimacing, Craig felt for his mentor, wondering how he could cope with it all.
Healer Macmillan stopped suddenly and reached into his pocket, pulling out his wand as it sat vibrating in his hand. Healer Macmillan heaved a great sigh and glanced at Craig guiltily,
"Sorry Craig but I've got to go for a bit, they need me downstairs," He said apologetically.
Craig felt his face drop slightly before placing a false smile on his face, "No that's fine...so...what do I do?"
Healer Macmillan ran a hand distractedly through his hair, "Uhh...just stay here, I'll be back in a bit, make sure the patients are okay, you remember what I taught you?"
"...Yeah," Craig said uncertainly racking his brains for the memory before finally finding it and speaking more confidently, "Yeah...have fun," Craig said sarcastically.
Healer Macmillan let out a dark chuckle, "Oh I'm sure I will,"
He turned and left as Craig looked nervously around the room, unsure who to go to first.
Feeling stupid just standing aimlessly around he moved up and down the ward as if he knew what he was doing. As he reached the door leading out to the staircase he saw a glint in the corner of his eye, turning he saw a man sitting grinning at him.
Going over he looked at the man as he pulled a chair up, "Hi Profe...Mr Lockhart," Craig caught himself before making the mistake he had made several days before, ending up in a half hour questions and answers session with his old Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, the man who had decided in his very first lesson teaching Craig's class to give them a quiz and randomly jump at someone with his wand pointed out at them, an activity which ended with a wand in an eye.
"Oh hello," Lockhart beamed across at Craig as he held up a photograph, Craig looked at the very messy signature, "Look what I did, the writing's fancy and everything," Lockhart shook the photograph indicating for Craig to take it.
"Oh...that's great," Craig reached over and took the photo, trying to look enthusiastic. Craig watched the picture of a younger Lockhart sitting on a broom winking at the camera over and over again.
"I used to play Quidditch you know, yeah, I was seeker on my team, I was offered a place on several professional Quidditch teams but I turned them down, I wanted to contribute to the wizarding world. I never wanted fame or glory, it's just something that comes naturally I suppose, some are born with it and can't escape it like me and some just stay out of the radar,"
Craig watched him with a glazed smile. Lockhart was doing it again; he was making his past up, though one with a basis of truth about it. The Healers considered this good progress as the memories appeared to still be buried deep down. Something Craig was not so pleased about. The idea of Lockhart running about again signing everything that looks at him was not a very enticing one.
"And then I decided to go an-," Craig cut Lockhart off mid-sentence.
"I'm sorry Mr Lockhart, I've got to go and check up on the other patients now, I'll come back though and you can tell me all about your travels, okay?"
Lockhart looked slightly put out before shrugging indifferently, picking up his quill and scribbling his signature on the hundreds of photos all stacked in small piles around him. Craig stood up slowly and stretched, glancing around before crying out, hurrying over to the tottering woman who was now halfway across the room Craig gently turned her round and led her back to her bed,
"You can't go wandering about on your own Mrs Longbottom, we won't be able to find you if you do, you don't want us to get worried do you?" Craig said gently.
Mrs Longbottom just sat and stared at the opposite wall with her sunken eyes, Craig turned to the man lying in the next bed.
"Those are great pictures Mr Longbottom," Craig pointed up at the dozens of pictures lining the wall; the drawings had a very child-like look to them, though they were still recognisable. Many of the pictures were of animals, hippogriffs, what looked like a salamander and a large picture of a dragon. Then there were several drawings of plants. And in the centre directly in between the two beds was a small picture, one that looked like it had a lot of care and attention had been put into it, there was a man and a woman standing on either side of a small, round faced boy, with a older woman standing behind the boy. Then on both Longbottoms bedside tables, there was a photograph depicting the same thing, which must have been what the drawings had been based on.
Craig took a deep breath as he felt a lump form in his throat. Standing up slowly he moved off to a small wooden board placed above the two beds, the board was covered in letters, all in the same handwriting, many letters where several years old while some were just recently written.
Craig slowly dragged himself away from the letters, feeling that they were private and none of his business. He glanced one last time at the Longbottom's before moving off.
As he got halfway across the ward he paused as he felt his wand vibrate in his pocket. Exclaiming out loud he hurried over to the fire, grabbing a little box filled with floo powder as he went.
Craig kneeled down on his knees as he pulled out a handful of the fine powder and moved to throw it in the fire. Just before he could throw the powder in though, the fire erupted in a burst of green flame. Frowning, Craig leaned forwards to make out the head sitting in the fire; its eyes alight with fear.
Worried by the look Healer Macmillan gave him he opened his mouth to speak, "What is-,"
He was cut off as the building shook and he heard screams in the street below, Healer Macmillan flinched as he glanced over his shoulders. Craig's face drained of all colour,
"No," he whispered, "They wouldn't dare,"
Healer Macmillan gave him a grim look of confirmation, outside, Craig heard the unmistakable sounds of spell fire, coupled with screams and yells.
"Craig, you've got to get down here, they've surrounded the building, they're taking down the floo connection, it's not going to hold long," Macmillan said, wincing as another explosion rocked the building.
Craig was kneeling frozen on the ground, "Why are they here?" he said softly, "Why do they always have to come,"
Healer Macmillan glanced quickly behind himself again, "Hurry Craig," and he was gone.
Craig stood up quickly, fire burning in his eyes. Snatching his wand up quickly he ran out of the ward. Doing his best to ignore the explosions and questions from the portraits lining the walls, he ran down the stairs. Cursing St Mungo's for having so many floors, Craig glanced at the sign for the third floor.
After running down countless staircases Craig watched as the door leading out to reception was blasted off its hinges. Diving out of the way he jumped up and jogged to the large gap in the wall, ducking as several spells flew over his head.
Flying into the room Craig froze at the scene of total devastation that greeted his eyes. Dust hung in the air, lit up every so often as a spell flew through its cloudy gloom. The entrance lay shattered and abandoned on the floor leading out into the empty street. Even as Craig watched a desk was thrown across the room, carrying a body with it as it crashed into the far wall and shattered into hundreds of pieces, the body lay unmoving underneath the shards of falling debris. Spotting a small group of Healers and Staff Craig ran over to join them as they protected the only available staircase, the one Craig had come down had been blocked off as several large chunks of rock had fallen from the ceiling high above.
"'Bout bloody time Ashers," One of the Healers shouted as he sent a spell soaring through the dust into a large black mass. Death Eaters.
"Effringo," Craig took aim at the large group of Death Eaters and shot a bone breaking curse towards them. Hearing a satisfying crack and a yell of pain as a Death Eater collapsed, his leg broken. Not bothering to aim, he sent several stunning spells in the direction of the large impenetrable mass of moving Death Eaters, steadily getting closer.
"This is impossible, we can't beat them all, we're Healers not Aurors," Another Healer said as several of their group collapsed on the ground writhing in agony. Craig looked down as his foot met with something slippery; a pool of blood lay next to an unrecognisable body as the blood flowed slowly towards their group.
"Where are those effing Aurors, this is turning into a blood bath," screamed Macmillan, who had also seen the body.
Spell after spell flew out of the Healers wands, some making contact with the Death Eaters, but most being blocked or dodged.
"What do they want?" Craig shouted as several spells shot out of his wand in quick succession.
"Don't know," Macmillan screamed, "But we can't let them get to the patients,"
Craig glanced around quickly, waving his wand, instantly a battered desk rose up and hovered in the air for a few seconds before Craig shot it towards the group of Death Eaters. The desk made contact with several Death Eaters before it came to rest awkwardly on top of the fallen Death Eaters,
"Confringo!" Craig shouted aiming carefully at the desk, which exploded instantly, knocking many Death Eaters down.
"Fantastic Craig!" Macmillan shouted proudly, throwing bone breaking curses everywhere.
"What are those-," The healer frowned at the group of Death Eaters, who had all moved their wands as one.
BOOOOM!!!
A huge explosion sent a shockwave through the room, knocking everyone off their feet, no time for defensive spells.
Just like the dust just beginning to settle, silence fell.