It is generally considered to be disconcerting when one wakes up in a pool of blood. It is rather more disconcerting to find oneself passed out in a pool of your own blood, pinned to the ground by a rotten body of a soul-sucking demon, and next to the mindlessly gibbering husk of your cousin. Nevertheless, this is the position that Harry found himself in upon awakening, covered in blood and left for dead.
"Oh my!" came a voice from the entrance to the underpass that Harry had fled to when the dementors had swooped after him.
"Mrs Figg! Help please!" harry cried out, not caring that she likely couldn't even see the issue of the dementor holding him down, but realising that the fact that he was covered in blood, and his once-cousin was making unintelligible sounds on the floor next to him.
"Just a second, Harry, I'll just get a message to Dumbledore then I'll help you out from under that dementor." the elderly woman continued as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened, as though she had not dropped a bombshell on the worldview of the already shaken teenager that was currently pinned beneath the corpse of an often thought unkillable monster.
Mrs Figg fiddled with some trinket that she had pulled form the pocket of her overlarge coat, which let out a soft blue flash and vanished, before she started forwards and dragged at the dementor's robes. She made a noise of disgust as some foul miasma seeped into her skin from them, but she remained unable to move the being.
"Where's your wand, Harry? I can't move it on my own."
"It broke." Harry spoke listlessly, and the reality of the situation finally began to sink into him; how close he had come to death, or worse, was beginning to be apparent to him. He gestured to the fragments of holly and phoenix feather on the floor of the tunnel.
"Oh dear," intoned Mrs Figg, "that's… a problem."
At that, a crack echoed through the tunnel, and Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, was stood in the tunnel, accompanied by a faint smell of lemony sweets. He frowned, seeing Harry pinned under the creature, but pulled out his wand and levitated the body off of the boy.
"Harry, can you hear me?" he said, hoping that the boy had not met the same fate as his cousin, and was relieved to see the tiny, almost imperceptible nod that confirmed that the boy's sentience remained. "I am going to transfer you to the Hogwarts infirmary, I believe you are in need of quite some treatment." his eyes found the broken wand on the ground, and his expression turned sorrowful, "I will also look into getting your wand replaced. It would not do for you to remain without magic." The headmaster rose and eyed the body of the dementor, moving the corpse to Hogwarts castle with a flick of his wand. A tear etched its way down his face as he eyed the husk of Dudley Dursley, but nothing could be done for him now. The boy's soul was gone, consumed by the monster that had attacked him, and the body would never recover. It would be a kindness, mused the aged teacher, to end what little remained of the life within the ex-human's body, to spare the parents the torment of hope, and the financial ruin that would surely come as they searched for a way to cure their son.
"Arabella, would you kindly escort Harry to the infirmary, and explain to madam Pomfrey what has happened here? I must arrange circumstances here to minimise the damage that shall occur. The elderly squib nodded, and removed another trinket from her pockets. She took Harry by the arm and vanished as the portkey sucked them through space towards the infirmary. Dumbledore sighed and absently twirled his wand in his hands. Another flick of his wand had a second body, one which was the precise image of Sirius Black, splayed out across the floor. The spell was one from an obscure dark tome which Dumbledore had found many years ago, and had since sequestered in his private library out of fear that some dark wizard would use it for its original purpose; creation of an army of inferi of unlimited size. The image created was a literal perfect replica of the original form of the witch or wizard that it was used on, and as such was perfectly suited to fake the death of oneself or a comrade. Dumbledore added some blood around the head of 'Sirius,' and caved in the back of his skull. Dumbledore then added a knife on the floor, pressed into the hand of the decoy body, and coated the knife with blood from Dudley's husk. Finally, he slit Dudley's throat with a spell.
Dumbledore replaced his wand with a sigh, wiping a small spot of blood from his cheekbone, before vanishing with the characteristic soft crack.
( | | | | | | )
Hogwarts infirmary was usually pretty quiet over the summers, a fact that was greatly appreciated by the matron in charge of the ward, and chief healer madam Pomfrey. Normally she only had to deal with the odd patient from one of Dumbledore's schemes, or some overflow from St Mungo's is things were particularly bad there. Today, however, the infirmary was a hive of activity, as Harry had inexplicably survived a brush with a pair of dementors, with a broken wand. After ensuring that Harry's soul was in fact still intact, the stern witch put him through every diagnostic test in her arsenal, and yet was unable to find any issue at all with him. Contrary to that, Harry was better than ever somehow, other than feeling the after-effects of shock and exhaustion.
Presently, Dumbledore arrived, and similarly to the matron began to perform a myriad of his own diagnoses on the boy. The headmaster frowned, and called a house elf to send for Snape before he leaned down and peered at Harry's scar. The old man made a noise of astonishment, and pushed his glasses further up his nose in order to observe the scar more clearly. Snape, fond as always of overly dramatic entrances, chose that moment to sweep through the doors, cloak billowing behind him as he strode over to the headmaster.
"You called for me?" he spoke in his slow, low tone reserved for only the most secretive of subjects.
"Yes, I need you to take a look at something. Do you remember what we discussed shortly after Mr Potter's return from the maze in my office? Pertaining to Harry?"
"Yes, I recall that conversation." snape spoke uneasily, as that conversation had been one of the few times that he'd properly lost it with the headmaster and his manipulations, pushing his pieces around and sacrificing them to have the most impact possible.
"I believe the situation that I spoke of has been resolved. Would you kindly take a look."
Snape took Dumbledore's place over Harry, and withdrew his wand. He gently traced over the outline of that famous scar, murmuring an incantation as he did so. Snape raised an eyebrow.
"Indeed. The situation appears to have solved itself. Now the question must become how did Potter survive a dementor's kiss? I was led to understand that his wand was broken, and so how it it possible for him to be here, intact?"
"I'm afraid I do not know. I wrote to my primary contact in the department of mysteries, but not only did they not know, they told me that any research and enquiries about dementors, unlike most things in that department, have to go through the minister's office. I believe this rule was put into place after an experiment gone awry led to the deaths of all but one unspeakable, which was almost an unmitigated catastrophe."
"So our ideas are as good as theirs, as they have not studied the beings thoroughly enough to conclude either way?"
"It would appear to be that way. Now, I find myself in need of magical items for the construction of a new wand for Mr Potter. Normally, wands have no pre-existing connection with their owners, due to the fact that wands are usually acquired at age eleven, but my unspeakable friend told me that it is rather well known wandlore - at least in wandmakers circles - that having a wand with some kind of connection to you appears to be beneficial for the user. That basilisk from which the venom was extracted had bitten Harry, and so the same venom would be in his blood. I was thinking of using dementor ash and basilisk venom for the core."
Snape narrowed his eyes at Dumbledore.
"You want to put concentrated essence of two of the darkest creatures into a wand, and have the person that we are pinning all of our hopes on wield it? Do you want him to go mad with power? You cannot put such dark essence into a wand without balancing it out. Perhaps phoenix tears, if Fawkes is willing to provide them, of course?"
Dumbledore stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"Yes, I see how that could work. Mr Potter also has phoenix tears in his bloodstream after the basilisk incident, so it would have the same sympathetic effects I suppose."
"Did you know that dementors had proboscides? It would have been useful information for a combating the foul things."
"No. As far as I know, nobody has ever seen one up close and kept their mind after the fact. This corpse represents the first opportunity to properly study them up close. Perhaps I will be able to find a way to reliably kill them, rather than just warding them off. We know it is at least possible form this incident, which is a lot further on than we were yesterday.
( | | | | | | )
Harry opened his eyes and groaned despite the softness of the sheets that he was wrapped in. The hospital wing, his brain supplied after a few seconds. Harry pushed himself up and reached for his glasses and wand, before he froze as his hand touched broken fragments.
So it had not been some mere nightmare as he had hoped.
Harry put his glasses on, and took the pair of splintered halves of a wand, one in each hand. They softly sparked as he held them, a weak greeting from his faithful companion through the wizarding world. Harry felt a tear drip from his chin, landing on the end of the wand which let out a much brighter spark, and a small puff of steam. Nothing seemed real, surely his cousin was not dead, surely his wand would be fixable. Harry's eyes landed on the man in the chair beside his bed, snoring softly with his head hanging forwards uncomfortably, with the mane of hair covering his face. Sirius, thought Harry. He moved to touch him, to wake him, but something stopped him. Sirius wouldn't want to see him like this, surely, thought Harry.
A short while later, a jerking snore from the chair captured Harry's wandering attention, and he watched as the man within yawned and stretched, twisting his head from side to side to try and clear the crick that had formed overnight.
"Hey, pup," came the soft, deep voice of his godfather, and the flow of tears that had petered out returned with full force, causing Sirius to shift from the chair onto the bed and wrap an arm around Harry.
Sirius said nothing, just sat beside Harry until the tears stopped, before offering him a conjured handkerchief to dry his eyes on. Silk, Harry absently noted. Just then, an owl flew in, carrying a softly pink envelope, which folded itself into a mouth and began to speak to him.
"Mr. H. Potter.
We have received intelligence that you performed a lumos charm at twenty-three minutes past nine yesterday evening in a muggle-inhabited area and in the presence of a muggle.
The severity of this breach of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underaged Sorcery has resulted in your expulsion from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Ministry representatives will be calling at your place shortly to destroy your wand.
Yours sincerely,
Mafalda Hopkirk, improper use of magic office."
The letter then unfolded itself into a transcript of what he had just heard, but did not want to believe. Silent seconds ticked by, and Harry swallowed nervously.
Suddenly, a second owl flew in, dropped off its own pink envelope, and left out of the same open window.
"Mr H. Potter,
Further to our previous correspondence approximately four minutes ago, we are revising your expulsion from Hogwarts on the grounds that you attend a disciplinary hearing in late August. The precise time and date of this hearing will be provided to you no later than the last day of july. Please have all necessary evidence and witness statements prepared beforehand in order to expedite the process of the hearing.
As we received intelligence that your wand has already been destroyed, we do not recommend that you purchase a new wand until after the hearing has been completed, as it would be a waste to destroy a wand needlessly. Additionally, as it is not term-time, you should have no need of your wand until school resumes, and as such it should be no great loss to wait until a verdict is reached.
Yours sincerely,
Mafalda Hopkirk, improper use of magic office."
Harry frowned as he held the twin sheets of paper in his hand, the colour having faded along with the speaking enchantment. While he appreciated the logic behind the advice to not replace his wand, he felt naked and vulnerable without one. Sirius was silent beside him, trying to gauge his reaction.
"Looks like I'm going to have to break another few rules. No way am I not having a wand for up to six weeks." said Harry, causing Sirius to grin at him.
"That's my boy!"
( | | | | | | )
"You blundered that pawn, old friend," muttered the pale figure, as he took it with his own bishop.
"Blundered or sacrificed?" replied the dark one with a grin filled with decaying teeth.
