Chapter 4: In which someone wakes a few people up.

The scarred man walked up to Purge & Dowse Ltd. the storefront that served as the visitors entrance to St. Mungo's the old faded mannequin with a fashion from over thirty years ago stood propped up in an awkward position as if it knew it was hideously dressed with an outdated fashion.

"Right," Arwin paused looking at the mannequin, "Here to visit Frank and Alice Longbottom."

If one could imagine a dummy conveying surprise this was certainly one instance where the dummy in the store front would have shown quite the surprised expression. After a moment the dummy lifted a hand and beckoned with the index finger. Taking his cue the scarred man stepped forward through the barrier into the waiting room of St. Mungo's.

Mages in lime-green robes bustled around the room with clipboards taking notes as they questioned the various patients scattered throughout the room waiting to be sorted. Witches and Wizards approached the welcome desk where a surly witch sat with a grumpy expression as she directed people to their destination.

He entered the line with about seven people ahead of him and did his best to completely ignore them. Instead looking around the room at the multitude of signs and posters on the walls around the room. An aged metal plaque listed each floor and what injuries were dealt with there. He scoffed at the notation embossed at the bottom that read, "If you are unsure where to go, incapable of normal speech, or unable to remember why you are here, our Welcome-witch will be pleased to assist you." Right, she doesn't seem that pleased to be sitting there.

After a probably ten minute wait Arwin was finally at the front of the line, the surly witch glaring at him. "Arwin VanDreren, Here to visit Frank and Alice Longbottom," he spoke just loud enough for the welcome witch to hear.

"Fourth floor, Long term spell damage ward." She reached into a drawer and pulled out a visitor's pass and handed it to me. "Stick that on, it's your ticket in and out of the ward. Please wait off to the side a Medi-witch will be available shortly to direct you to their room."

Arwin examined the patch before sticking it to his robe over his heart. It read Long term spell damage visitor's pass. The patch was charmed so that only the hand that placed it could remove it. As he finished his examination of the patch a chatty young witch with brown hair came out of the elevator and called his name.

"Quite sad really They've been here four years now, Madame longbottom has tried everything. And Neville the poor dear, I'm not sure she wants them to wake up now the way her brother has treated the dear boy. Oh they don't speak about it but you can tell the way he looks at you as if one wrong word could see him dissolve into tears on the spot." Arwin merely nodded and let her carry on as they walked to the ward. "Oh where are my manners, I'm Elthia. Just graduated from the Healers college. Got lucky if the stories my siblings are telling me about the new potions master at hogwarts are anything to believe. That spiteful man has single handedly halved the number of students continuing to newt level potions."

She briefly paused outside the door to the room the faded parchment in the holder on the wall read F. Longbottom and A. Longbottom. "I'll just leave you to it then. If you need anything just pull the string next to the door and I'll be right along."

Slipping into the room he examined the longbottoms with his mage-sight. If anything all the attempts to bring heal them had done anything but. He would have to reverse a lot of the spells that covered both of them before he could do anything about breaking the dark red chains around their minds. He sighed taking a chair from the outer wall and moving it between the two beds in the room. Frank first he decided looking to have received the worst of whatever spell was aimed at them. He settled into the chair making himself comfortable before aiming a mental probe at the spidery web of light surrounding the patient. He slowly loosened the web examining each layer down to the one just on top of the chains this last layer he left along as it contained a trigger that was set to alert whoever placed it there if it was removed or if it detected a change in the patient. His probe grew teeth and split in a dozen directions, ripping the layers of spells to shreds and feeding the energy into the patient's core.

His next goal rendering the alarm spell impotent would be trickier he needed to shift it just so that it was still there but inactive. He pulled up from his work to glance at the time and drink something. He had been sitting there for twenty minutes.

After a five minute break to stretch his legs he settled back down to his task, reactivating his mage sight he spent a few minutes examining the red chains closely before deciding what to do. With silky movements his mental probe extended itself around the chains wrapping around and around until all of the chains were completely covered before he began to corrode the spell. This time he pulled away the mess and passed it through a crystal focus that hung from his neck before feeding its energy back into Frank's core it was partially blood based and without purifying it through the crystal it would do more damage than good.

Entering Franks mind he pushed past the haze and started rebuilding from the subconscious out until he reached the edge of an untouched area where he found Frank sitting staring at an imagined blue sky.

:Who are you?:

:My name is Arwin:

:Nothing has helped, everytime they try I can feel it get worse.:

:I have a distinct advantage over them:

:Oh? you can let me out of this cage? Let me hug my son again?:

:Yes, help me repair your mind. Then you need to sleep, I still need to remove the spell from your wife.:

The two went to work fervently pushing aside the twisted remnants of the landscape Frank pointing out everything that was wrong and helping Arwin set it to rights. When they finished Arwin led frank back out into his conscious mind before opening his own eyes.

"Shh. if you make noise now I won't be able to remove the damage from your wife."

Arwin started pulling the webwork of spells away from Alice pushing them into a ball that he fed back into her magical core. being careful to avoid triggering the alarm spells that would surely make noise if she recovered. When he finished destroying the red chains around her mind he went back to frank and asked if he would like to help find Alice and help her fix the torn landscape in her mind as well.

They both entered her subconscious pushing aside the rubble of what had been her once orderly mind, and started their work repairing Arwin was faster than Frank having more experience in the mind arts. Franks extra help though was welcome as they moved outward and pushed back the fog with rays of light and heat. When they approached a broken down cottage with wilting flowers and rickety fence they moved as one to bring it back to life.

Inside they found Alice sitting at the kitchen table her eyes tired and weary.

:Frank! please let that be you. oh merlin. I've been trying to leave this place but the fog I just wander around and end up right back here. A few times I thought I heard Augusta's voice and my dear neville.:

:Alice: Frank choked out between tears as he hugged his wife.

After waiting for them to calm down Arwin opened the door. :Alice your mind is your own again. Help us repair the damage from the pain curse and the mind prison. Then you both must sleep. True sleep to heal:

Arwin turned and walked through the door Alice and Frank following behind him. As they walked the fog rolled back and didn't return where they went the ground beneath them came to life. Skeletal twisted trees straightened and blossomed with leaves and flowers. As they finished the last of the fog pushed back. Arwin showed Alice back to the world of the living and returned to his own mind.

His work finished he turned to each of them and told them they would have to remain for a few more days and fake a slow recovery of their minds. After watching to make sure both were sound asleep he turned and rang the bell his eyes weary, his legs stiff from sitting for over an hour. He turned in the visitor's patch and left the hospital.

Part 2: A Rat in the Weasels den, and other things.

Outside the visitor's entrance he paused for a moment looking at the street before shifting a little to make sure he was fully within the notice-me-not muggle-repelling charm before lifting his hand and holding his wand out.

There was a loud bang and a flash of light as a triple decker bus, the color of over ripe plums pulled up almost knocking him over. The fading gold lettering over the windshield proclaimed The Knight Bus. The door folded open and a young man in an uniform almost matching the plum purple of the bus vaulted down the steps, breathlessly giving the standard greeting for the Knight bus.

"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. My name is Nathaniel Teague I'm your conductor this afternoon."

"The Burrow in Ottery st. Catchpole if you please." Arwin cut off the speech passing the coins over to the conductor before stepping into the bus and taking a seat. He conjured a seat belt and buckled himself in ignoring the stares at this unusual apparatus.

For the most part the ride was a short one, with only a few stops between when he boarded and his destination. Though he might have sworn that they were lost at least twice. For a split second he thought he saw the Parthenon outside the window before the bus gave a jolting shudder and it was gone.

After a brief stopped at the leaky cauldron to let a few of the witches and wizards disembark and a few minutes wait for new passengers to board. He found himself getting off in front of a building that more resembled a child's toy building blocks haphazardly stacked with little consideration for what normal people would consider architectural soundness.

A little girl with blond hair was thoroughly absorbed in one of her mother's books on elemental creatures, she was looking at an unnamed air elemental vaguely resembling a cross between a dust bunny, tuft of cotton wool, and possibly a cumulus cloud with large eyes.

The description read that the eyes varied in color from a light purple to dark blue grey. These creatures were mostly harmless and invisible to the naked eye. The book informed the reader that advanced mage-sight would be able to give a more detailed view of the elusive air elemental. Followed up by speculation on it's relation to the wrackspurt which was known to cause confusion, forgetfulness, and general fuzziness of the mental faculties.

The girl froze looking up with a dazed expression before running to her mother. "Mommy! Something's different!" she called out into her mother's workshop as she ran through the doorway.

"He's not there anymore."

"Who's not where?"

"The dark haired, green eyed one, he's just gone. It's like he was erased or something. Everything has changed. The whole picture is cloudy now."

A/N: Author's notes for this chapter in the reviews, use the drop down at the top of the reviews page to jump directly there if needed.