Disclaimer: I do not own nor make any profit off of Harry Potter. It belongs to J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros. etc.
A/N: Something that wouldn't leave my mind. I'm working on my chaptered stories, but very, very slowly.
Well, so far these chapters are very short (for me). Not sure why that is, but I'm just going to go with the flow.
Chapter 2: Broken
Albus Dumbledore had little time to do what needed to be done against Voldemort's rebirth, particularly considering he could not count on Cornelius being active against the terror. But even as he stood in the hospital wing preparing for the war ahead, planning and organizing what and who he had available, running footsteps crossing into the wing urgently grasped his attention for reasons he did not understand.
Turning with everyone around him to face the double doors of the wing, Albus stood shocked by the disheveled and red-faced appearance of Cornelius Fudge, who could barely breathe let alone speak.
Yet to speak was precisely what he attempted to do.
"Dumbledore! Crouch… d-dementor… Minerva… ah, lost control… patronus g-gone…"
Incoherently as Cornelius spoke of whatever incident occurred in the classroom where Barty Crouch Jr. was held, Albus did not like the sound of it at all. Minerva and a dementor in the same sentence disturbed him more than anything else. For what reason would a dementor be in Hogwarts? Possibilities rushed through his head, but nothing concrete.
Unable to spare time for the certain answer, in the tiniest second of decision, Albus called out strongly, "Fawkes!"
Arm extended above his head, Albus did not even glance upward, but by sensation and magic felt the presence of his trusted familiar above him and grasped hold of Fawkes' tail, disappearing in an explosion of brilliant flames.
Reappearing in a similarly brilliant explosion of light and heat in the doorway of the office he had envisioned, the headmaster recoiled from the vivid cold in the room, but sealed the door and persevered to check on Barty Crouch Jr. straight ahead of him, seated in the same chair with the same restraints, but still as death and mouthing nothing at all as his eyes stared into the distance.
Turning to the side in search of the dementor which had obviously brought this dreadful conclusion, what Albus then saw froze him to his place as if he had been bolted to the floor.
It was a sight from one of Albus' nightmares, a vision he had feared at one point or another for many years and many different reasons. The wizard wished his eyes were playing tricks on him, but they were not.
Minerva McGonagall, his trusted friend and voice of reason, the respectable and honorable woman who always stood by his side, lay prostrate on the floor as the vilest of creatures held reign over her. Even as Albus watched in stunned disbelief, the putrid demon stole piece after piece away from Minerva's heartbroken soul in an agonizingly slow drag. With the wraith's last terrible pull and Minerva's last wretched breath, the dementor dragged from her strained lips a tiny glowing orb of silvery white.
It hovered a moment, that tiny orb, shining with all the strength and grandeur of this powerful woman's spirit. Then a draw, a sweep, slowly pulled the silvery white glow upward and away from the very person to whom it belonged.
Deep, abiding fury tore through Albus Dumbledore, the sharp blade of shock melting away as white-hot anger beat in his soul like a drum.
Wordlessly, silently, the white-bearded wizard rapidly slipped the wand from his robes and directed the aim at the foul demon that some fool had dared bring into the school once more. A burst of pure silvery light shot from the tip of the elder wand with every ounce of its master's bone-deep fury fueling the spell. In the air partway to its enemy, the light took shape, fluid and flowing as it formed the swooping wings of a phoenix in flight.
Centimeters from the dementor's putrid abyss, the silvery orb halted as its predator felt warmth driving the air about its ghostly form. The orb now released, it floated back down at is slowest speed yet.
Albus watched with furious satisfaction as the disgusting form of the dark harbinger blasted back and out of one of the three large windows – moving with such force that the glass of all three shattered into microscopic bits and pieces across the entire classroom floor, a glittering mass of cutting shards to echo the broken woman left behind.
The ethereal phoenix floated, strong and pure, at the window through which the dementor had been forced. From a distance, Albus watched the dementor glide towards the Forbidden Forest in retreat.
Releasing a heavy rush of breath, Dumbledore allowed his patronus to disappear into the ether and turned to find the silvery glow of that tiny orb finally reentering the still-parted lips of his broken deputy. With a horrible choke of air, Minerva breathed again. Left gasping in shock and desolation on the floor, the witch shook violently.
Returned to himself from the vicious anger he had felt, Albus rushed to Minerva's side with fear in his heart.
"Minerva! Minerva!" he called to her firmly, gripping her shoulders with bruising force and lifting her upper body into his arms. Caught in the aftermath of her torment, the professor's head lolled to one side, dropping back off the crook of Albus' arm.
Fearing once again for her wellbeing, Albus managed a patronus to the hospital wing, summoning Poppy Pomfrey with a curt, but intense request – more of a command, truthfully – to immediately attend the classroom in which Albus now sat with his traumatized deputy.
In a moment of clearer foresight, Albus then summoned a house-elf he trusted, "Dobby!"
In a crack of noise, the little elf appeared, bedecked in his many hats and socks and bowing low to the ground.
"Dobby," Albus pressed before the little creature could begin an honored speech of his work ethic, not able to give him the time to do so. "I need chocolate, a great deal of it and in a hurry. I also need the black dog down by the pumpkin patch to be sent to Professor McGonagall's office. As fast as you may!"
"Yes, headmaster, sir!" Dobby nodded vigorously, leaving in a crack again.
Minerva groaned quietly, head rolling back towards Albus' chest as she fluttered into another semi-conscious moment. Albus tried not wince at the tears still slowly rolling down her cheeks.
"Minerva," Albus called more gently to her, squeezing her shoulders comfortingly. "You're all right. You're going to be all right."
Aware of the vast difference between those two states, Albus shut down his pessimism with a clamp of determination just as Dobby cracked back into existence. Laden down with trays and dishes as the elf was, Albus wasn't entirely sure if it was Dobby, but he saw the precise things he had asked for and decided it didn't matter.
"Thank you," Albus greeted the arrival with relief, realizing it was indeed Dobby after the clothes-clad elf had set the trays out on the floor near the headmaster.
"Dobby is glad to help, sir," the little elf answered, gratified, "Professors have been kind to Dobby."
"We are glad to be," Albus took the time to answer now.
"The Black Dog waits in Professor McGonagall's office, sir," Dobby explained dutifully. "Dobby took him there at once."
"Excellent, Dobby. I will call on you if I need any more help," Albus offered.
"Of course, headmaster, sir," the elf bowed again, disappearing once again from the room.
As he waited for Poppy to arrive, Albus did what he could to get some chocolate into Minerva to help her recover from the ordeal, but it did not work as well as he hoped with the victim so unresponsive. Giving up for the present, Albus summoned things to aid his deputy's comfort, as he had chosen to remain on the ground for ease of movement. A blanket for the chill, although he knew it would not really help, a pillow for her head if she became too restless, a more comfortable pair of flat shoes he knew she kept for walking in muggle company, and a green outer robe from a few years back. The velvet garment was softer and more cushioned than the more formal one she wore of late, and Albus hoped it felt less constricting in her discomfort.
Minerva faded in and out of consciousness, her eyelids fluttering to reveal glimpses of green-gray irises the headmaster had come to know very well since meeting this remarkable witch so long ago.
He had never expected an eleven-year-old to change his life so drastically, but little Minerva McGonagall had certainly done so. With her severe spectacles tipping off the edge of her nose and a serious little face with a pinch between the eyebrows, the young girl had struck him as much older than her years. And so she had proved to be, coming from the home life of a marriage without trust and a father confused by his own children's power.
It was her honesty, her desire to do right by others, that had first endeared Minerva to the inspiring but cynical transfiguration professor Albus had once been. Knowing she was better at heart than he had been at the same age, Albus tried to protect and nurture those beautiful qualities throughout her school years.
He needn't have worried. Minerva's stubbornness, her sheer indomitable will, provided all the protection she needed against changing who she was on the inside.
With a start, Albus turned at the sound of the door creaking. The headmaster glanced up, justified at the sight of Poppy Pomfrey stopping dead on her feet as the door closed behind her with a click.
"Merlin's beard, what happened?" the mediwitch spoke, her shocked voice practically echoing in the space around them, breaking the tense silence that had covered them while she took in the troubling scene.
"Cornelius brought a dementor for Barty Crouch," Albus replied in a hard voice, the conclusion striking him as naturally as breathing the air. "Somehow, he lost control of the demon and it nearly…"
Throat closing on him, Albus could not continue what he had almost said, instead waving his free hand at the limp form of Minerva where she laid against him. Seeing the terrible situation would been enough to haunt him for months to come, but saying the words aloud of what had nearly befallen Minerva… No, he could not do that.
Breaking from her horrified trance, Poppy rushed down to Minerva's other side and waving her wand over the deputy headmistress' listless body.
"She's nearly gone, Dumbledore," the healer informed him roughly, deep emotion coloring her attempt at clinical professionalism. "We're going to need Severus."
Nodding, Albus immediately shot off another patronus with simple, direct instructions for his potions master to attend the classroom in all due haste.
Considering the speed at which Severus Snape appeared through the classroom doorway not long afterward, a tidy box under his arm full of lightly clinking phials and bottles, Albus highly suspected the man had a very good idea what Cornelius had been babbling about in the hospital wing.
"Fudge must have caught his breath enough to tell you all more details?" Madame Pomfrey assumed, casting several generic healing spells over Minerva as she talked.
"No. He is mute now, it seems," Severus half-sneered, a slight concern dampening the severity of his expression while he looked down at his senseless colleague.
"How did you know so immediately, then?" Poppy wanted to know, a frown marring her taut face although her wand never stopped moving over the witch under her care.
"Did you not hear him raving when he first hastened into the wing?" Severus' tone dripped with sarcasm, the full measure of his feelings towards Cornelius Fudge now allowed free reign. "Based on that, I already knew he must have brought a dementor in the school and lost control of it. Dumbledore left only Minerva to guard Crouch; it merely made sense she was in danger of the foul creature."
"You're already prepared, then?" Albus confirmed in haste, halting Poppy from another question in such a small window of time.
"Yes," was the potions master's simple answer, the wizard already uncorking a phial of deep blue as he knelt beside the headmaster. "May I?"
Reaching out his arm towards Minerva's place in Albus' arms, the younger professor indicated his wish to take Minerva into his grasp. With a strange reluctance to release his dear friend from the safety of his arms, Albus watched in mild embarrassment as Severus lifted a sardonic eyebrow.
"Dumbledore," Poppy reprimanded him sharply with a single word, still moving her wand in the forms and techniques of healing spells Albus had never learned.
To her reproach, Severus added with crisp efficiency, "Time is of the essence."
Dismissing his hesitation as detrimental to Minerva's health, Albus swiftly aided in transferring the witch's startlingly light weight over to Severus' surprisingly gentle care.
Turning the Head of Gryffindor to rest with her back against his chest, Severus slid his arms beneath Minerva's to ensure she did not fall from his grip while he used both hands to persuade the blue potion down an unconscious throat. Silence reigned as the potions master worked his skills to bring back the transfiguration professor. Other potions followed slowly but surely, bit by bit falling into Minerva's unresponsive mouth as Severus patiently cared for her and even Poppy's spells ended.
Of two potions left after several agonizingly tense minutes, the gleaming citrine phial was the one which finally revived something in the defeated witch Severus held so carefully. Coughing slightly on the last drop of the pale, golden-green potion, Minerva came back to a shadow of her health, dull eyes fluttering to a half-wakefulness yet never truly regaining lucidity. Her breathing came easier, however, and Albus found he could breathe easier himself at the realization.
"She may not wake for some time," Severus explained, breaking through the high-pressured quiet of the room as he began massaging the remaining bottle of blue-white potion down Minerva's vaguely more cognizant throat. "This is not a quick, simple fix."
"She will certainly need someone to watch over her for at least another day," Poppy determined, casting a diagnostic over the other witch. A purse of the healer's lips worried Albus for a moment.
"What is it now, Poppy?" he questioned her concernedly.
"I doubt it's specifically related to the dementor," the mediwitch assured the headmaster fairly confidently. "Her general level of health… It worries me. Minerva seems incredibly deficient in many of the nutrients she needs on a daily basis."
"How long do you think she has been this way?" Albus inquired, more disturbed than if it had been a symptom of the dementor attack.
"Quite a while, if I'm not mistaken," Madam Pomfrey determined, allowing room for error.
Albus felt quite certain she was not mistaken, and that fueled his worry exponentially.
"We can give her nutrient potions and see how she fares," Poppy eventually declared, still staring unhappily at the numbers her wand produced in the air above Severus and Minerva's heads.
"You don't believe that will solve the problem," Severus concluded, sure of his answer.
"No, I don't," Poppy confessed baldly. "But I see little that can be done until she is no longer so deeply controlled by the dementor's effects. I will wait and see. Professor Dumbledore, you must keep an eye on her as she gets well. If anyone will be able to tell the difference between the two states of Minerva's health, I'm sure you will."
"I will remain vigilant," Albus promised not only Poppy, but himself and Minerva.
Nodding sharply, Poppy rose from her knees and brushed off her robes. "I will return to the hospital wing. Severus, would you be able to make a less modified version of the potions? The student stock is too mild. Minerva will need the full gamut after this."
"Certainly," the potions master agreed with a single nod, vanishing the box in which he had carried the potions. In a swift movement, Severus rose off of his knees and swept Minerva into his arms at the same time. Raising both eyebrows at the gesture, Albus failed to find words for the question in his mind.
"You have a full house to face down in the hospital wing," Severus explained with a dry smirk. "I'm sure the dog will need your backing to survive the introduction, if nothing else."
Sighing at the reminder of all he had abandoned in his rapid attempt to ensure Minerva's wellbeing, Albus rose as well – more slowly, it may be said – to stand beside Severus.
"You will be careful with her?" the headmaster could not help asking firmly, reaching out to tentatively brush wayward strands of Minerva's raven hair out of her still-smooth face. While her color and breathing had improved, the witch's features had become fiercely pinched with discomfort. Whatever the dementor had dredged up in her heart would not be so easily dispelled as her physical symptoms.
"I will," Severus vowed plainly, no sarcasm in his voice this time.
Promising to himself he would reach out to his dear friend when she regained herself, Albus forced himself to leave the room without looking back. Severus would take good care of the witch for the time being, and Albus could not very well stop a war to sit with Minerva until she woke.
She would never have allowed it in the first place, he reminded himself with a sudden burst of amusement.
Forcing thoughts of Minerva's fiery iron will and sternness in front of the memory of her broken form lying on that cold stone floor, Albus hurried just that much quicker to fight through everything he needed to prepare for the future.
The first item on his agenda was a certain minister who needed far more than a friendly reminder; Minerva had paid the price for Fudge's stupidity and Albus would not stand for that. Once Cornelius decided his path one way or the other, the headmaster of Hogwarts had any number of unpleasant and difficult tasks to perform before the Order was ready to battle Voldemort's evil.
Perhaps – if he was very, very lucky – he would be able to return and sit with his dearest friend when it was all finished.
A/N: Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed Chapter 1: Horror!