Chapter 12 - Aftermath

"Merlin!" moaned Hieronymus Massingbird as he shifted around, trying to find a comfortable position. He had been sitting in the same chair for almost twenty hours now, slowly but inexorably growing more uncomfortable with each chiming on the clock. He was a tall man but it wasn't this that made him uncomfortable, rather than his bulk.

In his youth he had been quite slim and as a young man he had always managed to keep in trim without any apparent effort on his part. He couldn't quite put his finger on the age when he had begun to pile on the weight - it had just seemed to happen. At first he had been the butt of some jokes, of course; some of them from men who were tubbier than himself and were glad to see him finally follow them down the same path. Oh, it had all been good-natured as by this time he had been working under old Augustus Pine in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. To say that the atmosphere there had been similar to that of an all-male Quidditch changing room would have been to understate matters considerably.

The smile which came unbidden with these happy memories rapidly faded as, for the umpteenth time, he reached for his tiny pipe only to have a hovering Madam Pomfrey clear her throat in a rather pointed fashion. Huffing again and once more shifting around in the flimsy wooden chair, he tried to find a position which offered some relief from his aching back. Quite why it was that Dumbledore had always been allowed to conjure his own comfortable armchairs whilst he had to suffer in this flimsy piece of rubbish provided by Poppy was beyond him. Well, no it wasn't; he knew perfectly well that she didn't like people cluttering up her ward, cluttering it up and therefore did everything in her power to dissuade visitors. Still, giving an old man like himself such an uncomfortable chair was a little too underhand for a fellow Hufflepuff such as Poppy Pomfrey, he mused.

A particularly loud snore jerked the old man out of his reverie. Looking at the two beds in front of him, he could see that Percy continued to sleep in that unnaturally still manner of his. On more than one occasion, Massingbird had actually put a finger under the young man's nose to check that he was indeed still breathing. The particularly nasty hex that he had been hit with, Astillatus, had almost killed him. It worked by splintering the ribs, thereby causing massive damage to the heart and lungs and it was rare that anyone hit with it survived. Fortunately, though his lungs had been shredded, Percy had received little damage to his heart. It had proved to be a hard battle to save him, nonetheless.

Moving his gaze to the other bed, he located the source of the snores. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Poppy at his side with a small smile on her otherwise careworn face.

"You can hear the good it's doing him, can't you?" she said.

"He does seem to be enjoying his little nap, yes" answered Hieronymus, placing his hand on top of Poppy's. He felt her tense up and looked up at her again.

"This wouldn't have happened had Dumbledore been here! The very idea of sending young children out into..."

"Poppy," he interrupted firmly, "it was no different the last time around against Voldemort or, for that matter, when Albus and I were working against Grindelwald. You are a caring woman in every sense of the word, my dear, but this young man is exactly that: a man."

At this she seemed to be somewhat mollified and they both looked back at the peaceful face of Ron. Even in his slumber he could be seen to reach up, rub his hair and frown. He was almost too tall to fit comfortably in the bed and had seemed to fill out in the shoulders recently to Madam Pomfrey's eye. Hieronymus was right; Ronald Weasley was indeed a man.

She patted her friend on the shoulder before moving to the beds to check on the brothers. Both of them had been kept under sedation in order to let their bodies heal. In her ample experience, young men were never the best of patients: they were always too interested in the food, the nurses and the sympathy for her liking whilst demonstrating a reckless indifference for the medicines, physiotherapy and bed rest. Besides, their wounds had taken them to the very brink of death and the scars would be as much mental as physical.

When Drinkwater and the remaining Weasleys had found Percy and Ron, they had been shocked by the scene of carnage that had met them. They had fought their own battles, but were astounded by the scale of the skirmish and by the fact that the two brothers had accounted for nine Death Eaters on their own. A pale faced Charlie had levitated Percy and headed back to the Link Gate with all haste, accompanied by the Twins. It had taken vital minutes more to magically locate Ron by way of an innocuous tracer spell cast on his armour. When Bill had seen Ron lying beside the last Death Eater he had collapsed to his knees and vomited. Drinkwater felt no better than he did, but her training and experience won out. Knowing that there was still a chance for Ron, she had thrown all caution to the wind and apparated back the stone circle, arriving just there ahead of Charlie.

There they had administered the potions that had saved the brothers' lives from a bulky chest carried on all such missions. Never had Drinkwater seen anyone come back so far from the brink of death.

Bubastis Bitterman had drowned in his own blood, another victim of the Astillatus hex.

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As the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors made their way up the steep slope of the volcano, Harry and Hermione were careful to keep a close watch over Iain Knatchbull. Jerry and Bob were ahead of them and scouting the flanks, but quite why they bothered was beyond Hermione. She could see that the terrain was as flat as a pancake: there wasn't a scrap of cover as far as the eye could see. The bright sunlight also put paid to the possibility that an enemy could be nearby, concealed by a Disillusionment charm. In the direct rays of the sun, the mottling of the light caused by this charm served only to call attention to the caster as opposed to concealing them.

They had only been travelling for five minutes before Jerry had taken the place of Iain. One look at the dilated pupils of his eyes and it was patently obvious that he was suffering from a concussion. Harry had enjoyed more than his fair share of these in his life and had every sympathy for the big man. A concussion combined the dizziness of an inner ear infection, the fatigue of a bout of flu and the nausea of food poisoning; never a good combination in anybody's book.

They were unsure as to how to act around the man on account of him being quite unlike other Hufflepuffs they had known. For a start, he was the least friendly of the three Aurors. It wasn't as if he was stand-offish or anything, but he only lightened up when he was dealing with his two friends. As far as they could remember, he had never really talked with anyone apart from them.

Furthermore, he scared them. Whilst they had yet to see any display of violence beyond the seemingly habitual horseplay between him and Bob, he gave the impression that he was not only ready, but also looking for a fight. Hufflepuffs weren't supposed to be like that; broadly speaking they were loyal, generous and friendly. Of course there were a wide range of personalities that could be seen between them; that was true of any of the four houses and could be seen on a day to day basis. There were some people in Gryffindor who could be viewed as craven cowards if one wasn't familiar with their personalities: Neville Longbottom was the perfect example.

They had obviously failed to keep their reservations to themselves as, the next time they stopped for a rest, they were buttonholed by Bob. Harry happened to be looking up as he struggled to empty his boots of the small stones which had found their way into them as soon as they had started to move up the slope. At a nod from Bob, Jerry had called Iain over and struck up a conversation, drawing his attention to distant landmarks. The small Hufflepuff, in the meantime, had moved rapidly over to the two Gryffindors.

"What the hell d'you think you're playing at?" he hissed at them.

"I beg your pardon?" Hermione said indignantly.

"You're both looking at Iain as if he's a mountain troll and you're not doing a good job of hiding it either. He's got enough on his plate what with seeing double and all and doesn't need you two looking at him as if he's some sort of circus freak. What are you about?"

"We...it's...nothing," stammered Harry.

"Nothing bad, he means," added Hermione hastily. "It's just that he's a bit different from other Hufflepuffs we've known; he's a bit, you know, scary," she said, biting her lip.

At this observation Bob seemed to calm down a little. He looked down at his feet and began picking skin from his lower lip, yet another bad habit of his it seemed.

"Look, I don't have time to baby you two at the moment; Moody wanted you along on this mission and I can see why; that's not what I want to say. It's just that you're causing a distraction and that's never a good thing. Let me tell you a little about Iain and see if I can't set you straight about him.

"He never wanted to be an Auror; in fact it was probably the last thing he ever wanted to do with his life. The reason he is here today is that Jerry and I had our hearts set on going into Auror College. Jerry actually did some post graduate work so he could wait for Iain and me to finish our N.E.W.T.s at Hogwarts and apply to the Ministry of Magic at the same time. That was fine by me, of course, but I could see that something was bothering Iain and it took me nearly a year to wheedle it out of him.

"Everyone looks at him and sees a huge bruiser, but that's not him. He wants to coach Quidditch and he wants to do it at one of the schools in Europe that take it seriously. We all loved the game, but Iain and I didn't want to carry on with it after graduating. Knatchbull was a good beater but not quite good enough to play professionally. That never bothered him, though, as long as he could coach the game. He loves Quidditch and he loves working with kids," he added with a quick frown followed by a smile.

"Knatchbull's a grumpy sod because he's doing something he doesn't enjoy: he feels trapped. A little bird told me that you had your heart set on being an Auror, Harry. Let me give you a piece of advice; think long and hard before you do commit yourself to it as it's a crap life."
He laughed when he saw the look on Harry's face.

"Puddicombe and I have already decided to resign when this round is over - that's if we survive, that is. Don't get me wrong; what we're doing is important and worthwhile, it's just that we hate it! Imagine, really try to imagine what it is to be an Auror, Harry. You eat whatever's available wherever you happen to find yourself, so you can forget about the top scoff at Hogwarts. More often than not you're in the field which means you're kipping in a muddy ditch or some windy field – never conducive to a good night's sleep.

"Putting aside the non-existent creature comforts, have you thought about what it means to take orders? Think about it, Harry; really think about what it means to have to take orders from some tosspot like Scrimgeour. If you don't do as your told you'll either be out on your ear or up on charges for disobeying an order. Their Right Honourable Members of the Ancient and August Wizengamot of Great Britain and Northern Ireland would have your bloody guts for garters if you abandoned your post in time of conflict. That's strange seeing as half of them are probably in You Know Who's pocket," he added rubbing his face.

"Aurors are soldiers - we technically have little liberty and definitely have practically no social life. We have to accept orders for the duration and are obliged to return to service in times of need. It is not the romantic world of the schoolboy's fantasy in which you duff up the inept, moustache-twirling baddie before receiving yet another medal from the Ministry of Magic. People die and they do it with alarming regularity!

"Jerry often quotes a Muggle comedian that he likes. I think he's German or something 'cos of his weird name; Graucho Marx, was it? Never mind, the point is that he once said something along the lines that he would never want to be a member of a club which would accept him as a member. Well these days the Auror College will accept anyone who has two arms, two legs, all their own teeth and can turn up sober. There's a high mortality rate, sure, but that's not the problem. Applications have pretty much dried up now, which is exactly what happened when You Know Who was kicking around the last time. There are too many bloody fence-sitters in the world if you ask me!" With this said Bob let out a deep sigh and started picking at his bottom lip again.

"We're sorry, Bob," said Hermione.

"Er, yeah...we're really sorry!" echoed Harry. He looked troubled and Hermione didn't need to read his mind to know what the problem was: Bob had given Harry food for thought.

"Come on you lot," called Jerry from further up the slope, "no skiving off! We've got to make the crater by midday!"

Bob scampered up the slope to his position on the flank of the party while Iain lumbered down to rejoin Harry and Hermione. Giving them a sour look, he indicated that they should be on their way with a single jerk of his head and a grunt.

After just a few minutes of climbing over the gritty surface of the slope, Harry made a big show of leaning over to speak to Hermione behind Iain's back.

"Hey, Hermione!" he called in an overly-loud whisper.

She didn't understand what Harry was up to and made frantic nodding motions with her head, as if to warn him that the big Hufflepuff was walking between them and could hear anything they said. He wasn't to be put off, however.

"Hermione," he continued in the same stage whisper, "how many Hufflepuffs does it take to boil an egg?"

Jerry laughed as, upon hearing Hermione's squeal, he whipped around to find a smiling Knatchbull with his arms wrapped around an upside down Harry.

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In a bed dressed with crisp white sheets, a boy with short red hair opened his eyes.

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