Cult Potter
Wanda: I Think this is going to be my first story to break 100,000 words. That is a really exciting thought; I've never written anything as long as this and I consider this sort of writing to be a precursor to writing my own original novels. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter, and please, everyone review!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Chapter 24: Handing Out Miracles
"This is where you stay?" Sirius asked, dazed, as he looked up at the three story house at Number 4 Privet Drive. Two of the house elves opened the door and let the pair inside, revealing the revamped, modern and sleek new design of the interior. The walls had been repainted to a soft blue and gold, and the walls had been rearranged.
"Yeah." Edith said with a shrug. "Nice looking, isn't it? It used to be horribly generic, white picket fence and everything. After my uncle and company were thrown in jail, I thought I'd spruce it up a bit. It wasn't like I had much better to do."
Sirius glanced over at her. After being released from the Ministry, compensated for his stay in Azkaban and reuniting with his cousins Andromeda and Narcissa. The two women filled him in on the events he had missed during his stay in the living hell, and Sirius reconciled with Narcissa after learning about her split from Lucius.
"Beats the hell out of Grimmauld Place." Sirius muttered as he looked around.
"Huh?" Edith looked curiously at him.
"My parent's place." Sirius explained, his brows narrowing darkly. "Where I grew up. I couldn't leave that place fast enough. I think I'll sell that damn place when I have the time..."
Edith shook her head. The way Sirius talked about his parents reminded her of Vernon and Petunia. "Sure thing, Sirius. You can get that done first after you visit St Mugos."
"St Mugos?" Sirius said in alarm. "Why?"
"You were in Azkaban for twelve years!" Edith responded, befuddled that her godfather wasn't seeing the obvious problem there. "With Dementors! You need treatment for that."
"I'll be okay, Edith."
"Sirius, please." Edith turned around and gave him a pleading look. "There's no way you could walk off that kind of torture. And it is torture – psychological torture." Sirius opened his mouth to object, only to stop and consider that thought. "I want you to heal from this..."
Edith locked her fingers together. "It was my fault.."
"What? No!" Sirius surged forward and swept the young girl up in a tight hug. "What happened to me was not, is not, and never will be your fault Edith. I made a bad call and Crouch was the one who put me away with the soul suckers. Don't ever blame yourself for that."
Edith said nothing, instead leaning her head against Sirius's shoulder. Tristan barked in agreement and rubbed against her legs.
"Just promise me you'll go," Edith whispered, "Promise me."
Sirius's stubborn resolve crumbled at Edith's sad expression. He'd already failed her once before, surely he could do this to ease her mind? "Alright, little cat. I promise."
Edith smiled. "Thank you Sirius. Let's have dinner first."
The affair was long and sort of cute. Sirius, who hadn't had real food since being taken to Azkaban, had devoured three plates of rice and corn without stopping, while Edith giggled and watched. A lot of stuff ended up on the floor, to Tristan's delight and Missy the elf's frustration.
What Sirius didn't know is that Edith had given him a minor dose of Dreamless Sleep draught – both to ensure he rested long and well, and as part of her plan to have an outside night. As the older man nodded off, Edith had Missy teleport him up to the new guest bedroom, before stepping into the larger kitchen and making herself some coffee. Once the kettle boiled, she walked back into the living room and to her shiny new Floo entrance. "Hannah Abbott," she intoned, before tossing the fire in.
After a flash, her Hufflepuff friend appeared into the flames. "Hey Edith." She whispered to avoid waking up her kid brother Phoenix, who had fallen asleep on the couch after finally watching the whole extended Return of the King cut. "So we're on tonight?"
"Yes." Edith smiled slightly, having slung a large hand bag slung over her shoulder. It was full of bottled potions of varying strength. "I made some coffee for you. We'll probably be out for a while."
"Thank you," Hannah stepped through the green fire and emerged into the living room. Her just-past shoulder length heather coloured hair was tied back in a practical bun, a glittering hairclip holding it all up. She was dressed in a blue denim jacket, cargo pants and blue laced sneakers. While Hannah had been raised mostly in the magical world by her single mother thanks to her muggle father's death, she hadn't lost her connection to his world. She, too, had a bag slung over one shoulder.
Since her second year, Hannah had been taking an exclusive potions course relating to healing, lead by the medi witch Poppy. The witch happily referred to Hannah as a protege, the most talented kid she'd seen in a generation. Her predecessor in that department was Alice Longbottom.
Edith lead her into the kitchen and handed her a mug. Hannah drank it with three sugars, which was probably the only thing she and her best friend Susan Bones argued about. How are your teeth not falling out? Susan would complain. How do YOU enjoy your coffee so bitter? Hannah would retort.
This would go on for a while.
"Stay and watch the house for me, okay Tristan?" Edith scratched her loyal familiar between the ears. "They generally don't let animals into the hospital. Make sure Sirius stays asleep, okay?"
"I will. Take care, Edith." Tristan nuzzled her hand. "Just use your discretion...there's only so much trouble you can take on at once."
"When have I not?" Edith asked with mild sarcasm. Hannah snickered, and the two girls walked out into the cool summer night. The redhead stretched slightly, enjoying the breeze against her face. "I love this kind of weather."
"So do I," Hannah admitted. "So, what's Sirius like?"
"I'm not sure yet. He's good at making jokes, but he's still worn out from Azkaban. I'll see more when he starts to get better." Edith responded. "Remus will come over once he finds another steady job. Susan's aunt offered to help him out with that."
"There's the bus. We better go," Hannah said. Both girls broke into a sprint, making it to the stop just before the errant transport vehicle could get away from them. Neither girl had their apparating licence yet, and the Knight Bus only moved to wizard locations.
After a twenty minute drive, the girls got out at their destination. It was the nearest and largest hospital in the Little Whining area. Edith lead the way through the double doors, Hannah looking a bit awed as she took everything in.
Edith examined the map, before muttering, "Fourth floor. That's a place to start." The two put a quickness to their step, hoping that if they looked concerned, the adults would simply assume they had a relative somewhere in the building.
Once stepping out of the elevator on the third floor, Edith's eyes widened in surprise.
"Duncan?"
Her first muggle friend, who looked more haggard than she had ever seen him before, jerked up in surprise at his name. There were dark circles under his eyes, and three of his fingers were wrapped up in bandages. "Edith," He gasped, springing to his feet and running over to her, giving her a hug. Edith winced and took a small step backwards before placing her hands on his shoulders.
"Duncan, what's wrong?" She whispered. "What happened?"
"My mom was driving-" Duncan babbled, "-she'd been laid off – stupid bastard didn't want her position going to a woman – she'd had a drink – some guy was going the wrong way – went through a guard rail – she's hurt really badly, Edith!"
"Shhh, shh..." Edith whispered soothingly, gently rubbing circles on his back. "It's okay, Duncan. It's going to be okay." Duncan took a few deep breaths and nodded shakily.
"Is your mother here?" Hannah asked. "Take us to her."
Duncan lead them down three doors before nervously knocking. Edith and Hannah cast a mild Notice-Me-Not spell over themselves before the door opened. The nurse holding the handle looked pityingly at Duncan, which was universally a bad sign, before leading him into the room.
Rosemary Fields had certainly seen better days. Two of her arms were up in splints, having been broken in three places by the crash. Her ankle was also broken beyond repair. The doctors were talking quietly, saying she would likely loose the ability to use either of her hands.
"I can't loose her, Edith," Duncan sobbed. "She's my mother..."
Edith put a hand on the boy's arm. "Duncan. Shh. Do you remember my private school?" Duncan nodded timidly. "It's a special school. Only some people go there...because only some people can do some magical things." Gently she brushed stray hair away from his face as he looked at her in faint hope. "We can help your mother. Hannah."
"The only breaks are in her arms and foot." Hannah said, having cast a basic medical scan on Rosemary. "There's blood loss, but nothing she can't recover from on her own. Honestly, I think the worst of it is in her liver...it's taken a beating."
"Can you fix it?"
"The bones, yes – that was the first thing we learned after healing skin. The liver, I can only help to a certain point...I'd need more experience to heal it entirely." Hannah's expression became distressed at this.
"Do what you can. That will be enough for now," Edith said calmingly. Still gentle, she pushed Duncan to sit down as Hannah slung her bag onto the ground and took out the various potions she would need, the first being a painkiller.
Rosemary blinked as the potion hit her system, surprised as the pain she had been experiencing for hours drained away. Dazed, she raised her head to see two teenaged girls flitting around her like miniature angels. The redhead lowered the gurnery and opened her arms, splashing some red on the sheet. Rosemary yelped, but it seemed that none of the doctors saw what was happening to her.
Then the heather haired girl stepped forward, pouring a strange coloured and smelling liquid into her arm. That girl then procured a small stick, just short of the length of her arm, and muttered something. A soft glow surrounded Rosemary's arms. The woman blinked, stunned, as the strange bend that had been in her limbs slowly righted itself. Once she was done with one, the heather haired girl flitted to the other side and repeated the process as the redhead waved another stick over the red cut.
I'm hallucinating, Rosemary thought in shock as the massive deep cuts melted away before her eyes. It must be the morphine...
The heather haired girl seemed to be in charge, murmuring instructions to the redhead as she leaned over the woman's various injuries. Gently setting her arms down out of the gurnerys, the heather girl walked down to her ankle. The doctors were reacting now – sputters of astonishment and confusion rang through Rosemary's ears as her son leapt out of her seat, hovering at her side, eyes wide with joy and hope.
Heather hair looked severely down at the ankle, snapping her fingers and giving the redhead another instruction, who walked over to a bag and pulled out a different vial from the one she had been given, since it wasn't the one that was needed.
Finally, Rosemary recognized the redhead as Duncan's friend Edith. The heather girl took the new vial and waved her wand. While she couldn't feel anything, thanks to the painkiller, the entire destroyed ankle bone was vanished. Heather hair asked for quiet so she could concentrate. Edith waved that stick again, and stepped forward while the other girl looked intently down at the foot, working with great focus.
Edith took another vial and walked up to Rosemary's side. "This is for your liver...drink it." She instructed, her voice quiet but firm, carrying an unspoken authority that didn't belong to a fourteen year old girl. Because of it, Rosemary nodded slowly and swallowed as the redhead carefully poured the drink down her throat. It tasted absolutely vile.
"Mother is the name of god on the lips of all children." Edith told the older woman, those startling green eyes half lidded and serious. "Alcohol is bad for you, Miss Fields. It's poison. You can't keep drinking it. Your son needs you more than you need it."
Rosemary's eyes flitted over to her son, who was outwardly sobbing with joy as the baffled doctors looked between the woman and their charts. Edith stepped backwards and joined the heather girl, who made a noise of satisfaction as she stepped away from the ankle.
Rosemary sat up and stared. Her foot was straight again. Tentatively, she raised her hands and squeezed them experimentally. They responded perfectly, if slowly thanks to the muggle and magical painkillers she was under.
"You can go home now, you two," Edith said simply. "Take care of yourselves."
Duncan tackled Edith in a hug, babbling joyfully and senselessly. Rosemary found herself smiling, which surprised herself. When was the last time she saw her son smile?
...When was the last time she made him smile?
Rosemary's smile slipped. She remembered when she first drank alcohol. She had lost her husband, and fell into a deep depression. She had taken one glass on a recommendation to try and stave off the pain...but it had only made it worse. She had forgotten her baby, forgotten how much he still needed her.
Well. Not anymore.
The Angels sent you, Rosemary thought, wishing she had worn her cross as Edith and her friend vanished from the small room. That's why you were here. This was a miracle and a scolding. I'll do better. No more for me. I swear it on my dear David's grave.
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"How are you holding up?" Edith asked Hannah, who was shaking her head.
"I'm fine." Hannah said, unscrewing her coffee mug and drinking more. "I'm so glad I could fix her. God, look at these hallways..." She looked around at the other impaired, damaged people in the ward. "I can keep going, Edith – can you?"
"Of course," Edith promised with a small smile.
Their next target was a young girl, also having suffered from a car crash that killed the driver. This time, the spine was damaged; she would be relegated to a wheelchair with muggle medicine. Edith had to temporarily clear the room in order for Hannah be able to levitate the victim; in order to reach the spine. While she hadn't broken as many bones as Rosemary, the healing took just as long due to the care needed.
One fifteen minute healing session and a potion later, and the girl was up and doing a cartwheel to the overjoyed astonishment of her parents and brothers.
Hannah was in her element. She was calm, she was focused, she directed what she needed and what had to be done with a calmness that matched Edith's when plotting a potential world takeover plan. When she couldn't heal someone entirely, she took huge swaths of their pain away.
An older man, the sole caretaker of his beloved but simple child, had despaired that she was going to get lost in the system after he died, because he was bleeding internally. Then two strange girls only he seemed to see appeared in his room. One waved a stick over his lungs, and ten minutes later he was breathing without his machine, and a later MRI revealed that the holes in those organs had been mysteriously sealed up.
A twin was panicking because his brother had been shot on the wrong side of town, and was clinging to life. The doctors was afraid to operate because the bullet was close to his heart. Then a heather haired girl appeared, put a hand on his brother's chest, and gently coaxed a drink down his throat. Then her red haired friend stood by his side as the bullet floated out of the body on its own, the injury closing like something out of a Wolverine movie.
His brother would spend the next week bragging that he was going to change his name to Logan.
A star figure skater was at her lowest point, considering euthanasia. A rival had ordered a hit on her, breaking both her legs. Torn away from something she considered an irreplaceable part of her life, she didn't see how she'd be able to go on. Yet again, the two strange girls appeared. One of them gave her a disgusting drink and then cut her legs open – painlessly! The heather girl poured something strange into her legs. The star skater was astonished, when the wounds closed before her eyes (she must have been hallucinating) she could feel her toes. She stood up – and found her legs were perfectly in tact.
She would later ask her boss to chart a routine to "You Raise Me Up" for her return performance.
Edith and Heather determinedly made their way across the floor, stopping at every room not in the midst of surgery. They assisted children, adults and old folk. Eventually, they exhausted themselves, had healed twenty six critically damaged people, and had been working without stop for nearly eight hours. They only noticed this when Edith glanced at the clock at the end of the hall.
"That took longer than I thought," She panted.
"Well, we don't have any assistants." Hannah said, leaning heavily against the wall. "We've used a lot of magic."
Edith smiled back at the jumping, cheering groups that were still in the hall. "It's worth it."
Hannah nodded in agreement. "We should probably get back now." She murmured. "We don't want to get caught."
"Yeah...how dare we help little kids walk again." Edith muttered, before giggling slightly. The two girls scampered into the elevator and made their way out of the building. "Do you think Sirius will be suspicious if I don't wake up on time tomorrow?"
"Call it stress." Hannah said as they walked towards the bus stop. "Or nightmares. Or maybe insomnia. Plenty of reasons. And I don't think he'd be too upset if he discovered why you were out."
"Considering what he told me, he'd be a bit of a hypocrite if he got on my case about sticking to the rules and laws. He, dad and Remus used to play jump rope with them." Edith remarked with a small laugh, tucking her hair behind her ears.
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Edith and Hannah returned to the house as the sun was just peaking out over the horizon. Stepping carefully through the door, Edith let out an enormous yawn. Hannah soon echoed her. "It really is contagious." Hannah chuckled weakly.
"Head home, Hannah." Edith said, squeezing her friend's wrist.
Hannah smiled. Just before she left through the Floo, she glanced back at the leader and said, "We did good by those people, Edith. I'm glad."
"...So am I." Edith said softly.
Once her friend had vanished, Edith stumbled up the stairs, supported slightly by Tristan as she made her way to the Master Bedroom. "Shoulda installed an elevator," She joked.
"I don't see how that is feasible, Edith." Tristan deadpanned.
Edith collapsed on her queen sized bed, falling asleep almost immediately. Tristan let out a small wuff, both out of fondness and amusement. He hopped up onto the bed and pulled the blankets over his master, before lying down by her side and going to sleep himself.
End Chapter
Edith is building up some good will towards magic, even before she reveals herself. I love how she sets this stuff up ahead of time...I feel like we need more smart, sneaky protagonists in books, like Code Geass. (still need to watch that, sounds awesome)
Read and Review please!