Hi guys, it's me. I'm very sorry for the wait but that's life you know? You have no idea how disproportianately long I worked on this chapter. Is disproportianately even a word? I'm trying to communicate that I worked far too long for far too little content. Right, thanks for all the reviews, favoriting and alerting, and I hope you enjoy another chapter of HPatEC (that's how I'm writing the title from now on, as the full title is too long for casual use.)
That said, have fun!
Regaining his bearings, Harry first noticed the surprisingly small amount of noise. He could hear the roaring of Fiendfyre in the distance, Max' groaning, and the shocked gasp of an as of yet unidentified woman. Also, although largely dominated by the roaring of the Fiendfyre, Harry could hear what seemed to be a war somewhere in the distance as well.
Harry lifted his legs off of Max before looking around. The first thing he saw was the stands. The stands, still filled with students and the other people who'd come to see the Third Task, were almost completely silent. And from what Harry could see, all of them were staring off towards the sounds of battle and Fiendfyre.
Adjusting his gaze to look at what was drawing so much attention, Harry finally realized the full scope of what Karkaroff had done to cause a 'diversion'. Half of the Forbidden Forest was burning, being devoured by Fiendfyre of an incredible scale. Harry saw multiple dragons and even a hydra, all made out of pure fire.
In front of the forest, a huge battle was taking place. On one side stood some of the Hogwarts professors, with Snape being the most notable, as the man was clearly in his element, along with some of the braver adult spectators and even a couple of seventh years. Harry wasn't all that surprised to see a young man wearing Hufflepuff yellow at the front of the battle. Cedric was obviously giving it his all.
On the other side, coming from the forest that was going up in flames behind them, came a swarming mass of Acromantulas off all sizes, and in incredible numbers. Even as Harry watched, a group of five Acromantulas tried to swarm the gentle giant, Hagrid. The normally docile man would have none of that though, ripping one of the creatures in half before bashing the other four with its remnants. Harry could be imagining things, but were those tear tracks running down the man's face?
The most notable fighters who were missing were Flitwick and Dumbledore. After a second, Harry spotted them at the point where Fiendfyre met as of yet unburned forest. They were weaving charms and creating enormous amounts of water in an attempt to contain and eventually defeat the Fiendfyre. They were being defended by McGonagall, who had conjured four medieval warriors to protect the two wizards of any Acromantulas.
Turning to the woman who had gasped upon spotting his arrival, Harry noticed that Sprout had been the one given the duty of waiting for the remaining Champions to arrive.
She was staring in horror at the sight of the bloodstained Max and the maimed Harry. Losing focus for a second, Harry tried to imagine exactly what the woman was looking at, and he then came to understand her shock, as the Potter brothers were probably quite a sight indeed in their current state.
By this point, more and more people in the stands were realizing that the final champions had arrived. They were now furiously whispering to their friends and those sitting around them, until the entire stands were staring and whispering furiously at what they saw in front of them…
Harry managed to force himself to his feet. Max remained lying on the ground, knocked out.
Raising his remaining arm, still holding both the Cup and his wand, Harry indulged in a second of feeling triumphant and victorious. Some part of him wanted to bellow something like: "VICTORY!" or "HOGWAAAAAAAAAAARTS!", but the logical and reasonable side of him triumphed. So, Harry turned to Sprout after a second of staring at the stunned crowd triumphantly.
Then, he turned to Sprout, "I need a Pepper-Up Potion and the idiot needs medical attention, stat!" Harry barked in the most commanding tone he could muster.
Sprout was pulled out of her shock by Harry's voice and she numbly pushed out one hand, in which she held a vial of Pepper-Up Potion.
Taking the potion and chugging it back as fast as he could, Harry thought fondly of the genius that was Albus Dumbledore. Clearly, the man had by this point deciphered a lot of what was going on, so whilst he had been unable to come to Harry's aid directly, he'd given Sprout orders to get Harry up and running as soon as possible upon his return, whilst trusting that Harry could deal with whatever Voldemort would throw at him.
Great man, Dumbledore.
Feeling the steam shoot out of his ears, Harry could feel the fresh energy coursing through his body.
Harry called for Hedwig with his mind whilst thrusting the Cup into Sprout's hands.
"Do not lose it, do not let it get damaged, and do not surrender it to anyone but me or Dumbledore! Are we clear!?" He barked aggressively.
Getting a half-nod from Sprout, Harry turned to the stands once again, even as Hedwig was rapidly approaching.
Knowing that he had a few seconds where he couldn't do anything but wait for Hedwig, Harry cast a quick Sonorus upon himself.
"Well? Why aren't you cheering?" Harry asked faux curiously, before thrusting up his hand to catch the passing Hedwig's tail feathers.
Now racing towards the battle and the Fiendfyre, Harry cursed his lack of a second arm, because had he had one, his current position would have been perfect to take out large amounts of Acromantulas with relative ease.
Instead, Harry had to rely on conjuring and controlling large icicles without any help of physical direction. It was a taxing and inefficient task, so Harry abandoned it almost immediately, preferring to save his energy for the Fiendfyre he'd be fighting in half a minute or so.
Harry and Hedwig rocketed over the battlefield in seconds, Harry watching on in awe as Snape took off over 30 spider legs with a single spell whilst Cedric had apparently conjured a claymore, with which he was now deeply penetrating the Acromantula ranks.
Now approaching the position of the anti-Fiendfyre team as Harry'd dubbed them in his mind, Harry let go of Hedwig's tail feathers, performing a beautifully executed shoulder roll to take the sting out of his landing before popping up on his legs next to Dumbledore, with Flitwick on Dumbledore's other side.
Dumbledore looked down at Harry for a second, his eyes growing dim and sad when he spotted the frozen stump that had had an arm attached a mere hour ago.
"Are you able to help, Harry?" Dumbledore asked, unsure if Harry had enough power left to be of use.
"Yes." Harry responded curtly, not willing to mince words in the current situation.
Focusing for a second, Harry managed to form a decent corporeal Patronus which he fired off towards the stands, before mentally giving Hedwig some orders as well.
That taken care of, Harry focused on the fire Dumbledore and Flitwick were containing.
Harry his wand in its holster before closing his eyes, lowering his head, and raising his single hand.
Harry started breathing in deeply, and upon the third breath, icy vapor was coming from his mouth when he expelled his breath.
Fearing he'd deepfreeze his allies if he used this kind of magic so close to them, Harry created an slab of ice before using his Iceman based sky travel to get up above the forest and face the fire head on, instead of from a corner like Dumbledore and Flitwick were.
Then, hail and snow started forming out of nowhere, forming a tight cyclone around Harry.
It grew and grew and grew, until Harry had formed a veritable maelstrom of snow and ice.
Harry started flexing and relaxing his fingers, causing the maelstrom to tighten around him before loosening again.
He was almost ready…
~~~~Scene Break~~~~
Rachel was sat next to Hermione, with Ron on Hermione's other side.
The three Gryffindors had watched on incredulously as the Forbidden Forest had suddenly started burning, and huge beasts made of fire had started consuming even more of the forest.
Only seconds before, they'd been cheering Max on as he got steadily closer to the Cup, having witnessed Harry take to the air a couple of seconds before that.
Dumbledore had immediately set off with Flitwick, Snape and McGonagall in tow. Although the wizened old wizard had taken the time to exchange a few words with professor Sprout, who'd moved up to take a position directly next to where the winner of the Tournament was supposed to appear.
Then, a horde of Acromantulas had come from the rapidly burning Forest, assaulting the small group of teachers.
In response, a wave of adults had answered the call and had moved to go and fight the humongous spiders.
When almost all of Gryffindor and portions of the other three Houses had stood up to fight as well, the threesome included, Madame Maxime had taken the lead, bellowing that anybody underage was hereby forbidden to go and aid in the fighting.
That had lead to near mutiny, but the French headmistress hadn't budged.
So, everybody had watched on at the distant battle taking place for a few minutes, until the enterprising Weasley twins had offered to modify the screens that had been showing the Champions earlier, to let them project the battle instead.
A spontaneous collection of Galleons had rapidly gathered the redheaded duo their requested 50 Galleons, at which point they'd done their thing in half a minute, after which everybody had started watching the screens anxiously.
Then, just as everybody had started to realize exactly how badass their teachers really were, and how terribly terrifying Hagrid, the peaceful half-giant, really was, a furious whispering had started up and everybody had switched their gazes to where the winner was set to appear.
Because there, the Potter twins had arrived. Harry had been holding onto the Cup, but something looked off about him, whilst Max was almost completely naked and he looked as if he'd been bathed in blood!
Then, when Harry had gotten to his feet, it had become obvious that the thing that was off about him, was him arm. It was off. Literally. The wound had been completely covered in a thick crust of ice and Harry's arm had clearly not made the Portkey trip with him.
Harry had risen the Cup towards the stands in a taunting fashion, he was obviously the winner of the Tournament, and then he'd turned to Sprout, demanded something from her, chugged down a potion and taken off towards the battle and Fiendfyre.
Sprout had called for two sixth years to carry Max to the Hospital Wing, where Madam Pomfrey was already hard at work treating those who had taken severe injuries in the war with the Acromantulas.
Meanwhile, Harry had arrived next to Dumbledore, and after a brief conversation, he'd shot off a Patronus. Then he'd obviously started to gather his strength, and Rachel knew he was preparing to go head to head with the enormous Fiendfyre.
Just as Harry was taking off again, to go face the fire head on, his Patronus, which appeared to be some kind of wolf, had appeared in front of Rachel.
"Owens, what I need you to do, if you feel that you can, is to go to the far side of the Fiendfyre, and try to weaken it. I don't care how you do it, but Fiendfyre is still fire, and by that logic I am counting on you to be of some help. Draco and Neville will escort you." The Patronus spoke, before running up a few rows, where it started speaking to the boys in question.
Hermione and Ron were both looking on with baffled expressions, as Rachel still hadn't told them about her elemental control.
"Rachel what's going on?" Hermione questioned anxiously, one hand still lingering near her mouth where she'd been biting on her nails.
Before Rachel could answer though, Ron gasped in awe, staring at the closest of the projection screens incredulously.
Rachel and Hermione looked up as well, and were surprised to see that this specific screen was now showing a thickening maelstrom of ice and snow, inside of which glimpses of Harry Potter could be spotted.
As Hermione's attention was taken up by what was happening on the screen, Rachel almost let out a startled shriek when someone tapped her on the shoulder, but a hand was slipped over her mouth before she could.
The hand was removed and Rachel turned around ready to reprimand whoever had given her such a scare, only to come face to face with Neville Longbottom and Draco Malfoy, whom had somehow managed to get from a few rows in front of her, to the spot immediately behind her.
"Don't yell, we just want to know if you're going to need an escort or if you aren't able to do what Harry asked of you." Neville asked calmly, trying not to alert Ron or Hermione, who were both focused on the screen, where Harry had by now been hidden from sight completely, his vortex of cold to thick and fast to allow any sight of the young man that was positioned inside of it.
"I -" Rachel tried to answer, only to realize that she had no clue what she was about to say.
Could she do anything to help out? Against Fiendfyre? It seemed so unlikely… Then again, Harry had always proven to be correct when estimating the extent of her abilities. But she'd have to get through a huge battle and she didn't really trust Draco or Neville. Ron wouldn't be of any use due to his panic fear of spiders and Hermione wasn't the ideal person for a full battle scenario either.
What kind of Gryffindor would she be if she didn't answer when called upon? She had to try at least!
"If you've got a way past Madame Maxime, then let's get moving." Rachel answered once she'd made up her mind, before following behind Harry's friends as they slipped out of the stands.
Draco and Neville led her to the closest exit, leading her behind the stands, before taking up a light jog towards the battlefield.
They didn't get far though before a shout stopped them, " 'Old eet right zere!"
The trio paused, looking back to see Maxime rapidly advancing towards them.
"You are not of age and I 'ave already made eet clear zat all students who are not of age are zo remain in ze stands." Maxime spoke angrily, her emotions making her accent even more noticeable to the point where it became very hard to understand her.
Draco answered, "When the time comes and the call is sounded, it is not age, but ability that matters."
Maxime frowned, "Very well. All zree of you?" She asked. At Draco's nod, Maxime sighed, "Bon, be careful et bonne chance."
With that, the French Headmistress turned back to go and keep an eye on the stands, whilst the boys started to jog again. Neither noticed Rachel's puzzled expression.
"What was that about?!" Rachel shouted incredulously, keeping pace with the running boys, the battle between Acromantulas and humans rapidly growing closer.
"What?" Neville asked, not bothering to look back, instead staying focused on the battle in front of them, and their intended destination, which was the side of the fire where there wasn't a huge vortex of ice and where Dumbledore and Flitwick weren't trying to install a protective barrier.
Before Rachel could respond though, Draco spoke up, "We'd best go around the right side of the fight, it'll get us closest to where we need to be and we won't be flanked that way."
Then, as Rachel tried to speak up, a loud roaring sound broke her concentration, and everybody paused what they were doing to stare at the source of the noise incredulously.
~~~~Scene Break~~~~
Harry felt it. He was ready.
With an almighty roar, which rang across the grounds and made everybody look at him in awe, Harry acted.
The maelstrom that had been swirling around him exploded into an enormous wall of ice and snow, which flew right at the enormous Fiendfyre that had been battering against Dumbledore and Flitwick's arcane barrier.
With an enormous bang, and an explosion of steam, the opposing forces collided.
Harry felt a physical jolt as his attack was met with an equally unstoppable force.
Fire and ice met in an incredible battle, with salvos of ice impacting against the Fiendfyre, which had now morphed into a huge dragon, with an army of smaller creatures surrounding it.
A large Pterodactyl of Fiendfyre broke through Harry's formidable defense and Harry winced in pain when its wing managed to graze his armless side.
Half a second later the creature had dissolved, it's inherent magic no match for the arctic conditions surrounding Harry.
Harry growled in frustration as he kept pouring power into the blizzard he was controlling, whilst not gaining even half an inch against the Fiendfyre.
It was just Harry's luck that he had to face Fiendfyre on the Hogwarts grounds. It was one of the relatively few places in the world where Fiendfyre could grow to its full power.
You see, Fiendfyre was of course created by a wizard or with. And as long as the caster of the spell had more power left in him than he'd put into his Fiendfyre, he would be able to control and even stop the fire. This was what made Fiendfyre so dangerous. The caster had to know when he'd invested exactly half of his reserves, and stop the spell before that time.
For to stop the spell, it took exactly as much power as there had been put into it so far. This in and of itself was not what made it dangerous. A sufficiently powerful wizard could easily overpower an opponent using Fiendfyre as long as he used a counter that was equally or more powerful.
Fiendfyre's true power laid in what happened when a caster lost or deliberately gave away the control. Then Fiendfyre would grow semi-sentient and start drawing from ambient magic to suck up more power and grow both warmer and larger.
And Hogwarts had the highest amount of ambient magic of the entire British Isles!
Harry continued his battle against the Fiendfyre. If he could just keep the fire contained until Dumbledore and Flitwick could cast some greater water spells as well, they should be fine.
He wondered how the battle was going, and what Rachel was doing right now.
~~~~Scene Break~~~~
Rachel stared in awe as Harry went toe to toe with the Fiendfyre, fire and ice meeting in an incredible battle.
It was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen, as fire and ice collided and formed clouds of steam that billowed up from the confrontation.
The shock lasted only a second, then action resumed as human and Acromantula reengaged and the three students continued to run.
Then, they arrived at the battle, and a large Acromantula came scuttling at the threesome, who were now on the very outskirts of battle. It appeared as if the humans had gained the upper hand and were now slowly exterminating the Acromantulas, but that was of no use to Rachel and her escort, as they had to beat their opponent first.
Draco and Neville acted simultaneously.
Whilst Neville dug a hand into the small leather pouch that hung by his side, Draco slashed his wand whilst shouting "Incisura!"
A bronze coloured spell shot from Draco's wand and straight at the large spider, which leapt aside, but didn't manage to completely evade the spell as it cut off the two front legs on the creature's right side, effectively slowing it down.
Neville pulled out what he'd been looking for, and after tapping the purple orb he was holding with his wand, he threw it at the Acromantula, catching it on its still unharmed side.
The bulb exploded on contact and a yellow fluid came sloshing out, covering the Acromantula's flank, where it immediately started smoking as the acid started eating away at the spider.
The spider shrieked in agony before Draco finished it off with a Bombarda to the head.
Rachel had barely managed to pull her wand by the time Draco and Neville had finished their opponent off.
"Come on!" Neville shouted, before leading the small group onward, towards the Forbidden Forest.
No other spiders engaged the small threesome, who were perfectly content to keep to themselves.
"How did you do that?" Rachel asked incredulously, not understanding how the two boys had moved so smoothly, disposing of a Class 3 Dark Creature without even blinking.
Draco ignored the Gryffindor, but Neville looked over his shoulder with a small grin, "Never underestimate the importance of Herbology." He joked with a slight smile.
The threesome had gotten as close to the Fiendfyre as they safely could, and Draco and Neville turned to Rachel expectantly.
"Right, uh, give me a second," Rachel spoke, only now realizing that she still didn't know how she was going to do this.
"Guard my back." She muttered before turning to face the Fiendfyre.
~~~~Scene Break~~~~
Harry groaned in exertion as he kept forcing all he had into his battle with the rampaging Fiendfyre. Since the beginning of his attempts to force back the fire, he'd gained maybe half a foot, but he'd used over half of the energy the Pepper-Up Potion had restored to him, to gain that small amount.
He had no idea how the battle was progressing, but he sure was hoping that some more people would start to add their own spells soon. Harry was taking up all of the energy the Fiendfyre had, so any additional attempts at extinguishing the fire should be enough to overexert the Fiendfyre and weaken it more significantly.
It was a good thing that Harry was the perfect defense for Fiendfyre, because had there not been a water elemental to combat this Fiendfyre, Hogwarts would have had a major problem. Harry found it curious that Hogwarts had stood for over a thousand years with such a gaping hole in its defenses.
But, this was not the time to think on that. He had to keep his focus on maintaining a continuous stream of ice, snow and water to extinguish the fire.
And then, Harry felt it. The fire was losing power.
With a deep groan, Harry forced even more power into his attack, he could only keep this up a couple of minutes, but he could feel a significant difference now. He was gaining an inch every few seconds. He had to push on!
~~~~Scene Break~~~~
Rachel could hear an Acromantula shrieking and Draco and Neville shouting at each other, but she didn't look behind her. Instead she remained focused on the Fiendfyre she was supposed to fight.
But how? Potter had never had her face Fiendfyre! They'd done all kinds of creating and controlling her own fire, as well as deflecting or channeling somebody else's fire spells, which had been difficult to really test as Potter hadn't had an easy time casting fire spells for Rachel to take control of. Other than that they'd handled dragon fire and Gubraithian fire, which Harry had acquired via Dumbledore. But Fiendfyre was on a completely different scale! How was she supposed to control something that was sentient!?
It was just like Potter to do something like this! 'Oh hey, there's this huge fire danger and I expect you to help. I did waste my time training you after all, but if you can't, that's fine to.'
Rachel could just imagine the pretentious prick's smug grin when he ended up saving the day. Well she wasn't going to just let that happen!
She'd show him!
Sticking her hands out to the fire determinedly, Rachel first tried to control the fire, to stop it from expanding further. She managed to gain control for just a second, when the fire started fighting her. Well not exactly. The fire she had under control was behaving just fine, but it was as if some kind of darker thing was fighting her for the control.
That had to be the Dark Magic that changed Fiendfyre into the semi-sentient being that it was! Perhaps she could separate them?
Tentatively, Rachel kept her left hand aimed at the Fiendfyre, whilst pointing her right hand away from the fire and up into the sky.
Slowly, a small but steady stream of fire started draining away from the Fiendfyre, instead moving to the sky where Rachel was pointing at, where the fire then disappeared as there was nothing for it to burn there.
Smiling confidently, Rachel tried to increase the amount of fire she was channeling per second. To her unpleasant surprise however, her attempt failed as she could feel the Dark magic blocking her.
Frowning, Rachel poured more power into her channeling as she did her best to weaken the Fiendfyre further.
Bit by bit, Rachel managed to force the dark consciousness back and gain more control over the Fiendfyre, sucking increasing amounts of fire away and letting it die out by casting it into the air.
The heat of the fire was pleasant for her, and now that she had managed to wrest a decent amount of control from the still sentient Fiendfyre, Rachel allowed her gaze to wander, looking to where Dumbledore was now controlling multiple small tornadoes to send chunks of Fiendfyre into the sky, where they were crushed out of existence by McGonagall, who had arrived to help by now, and who was using two large conjured slabs of earth between which she extinguished the fiery creatures Dumbledore threw into the air.
Looking over her shoulder, Rachel noticed that the battle between wizards and Acromantulas had mostly ended. The last couple of Acromantulas were being executed and a large amount of the people who had been previously fighting the giant spiders were now busily transporting people to the hospital wing, or coming to add their own water spells against the Fiendfyre. Things were finally looking up.
Glancing back at her own work, Rachel nodded contentedly at her progress before allowing her gaze to wander again. Looking up into the air, and to the other side of the Fiendfyre, where it was at its strongest and about thirty feet high, Rachel wasn't all that surprised to see a wall of ice, water and snow pummel into the Fiendfyre that was being pushed back and down at the same time.
Rachel let out a relieved sigh. They'd be fine now, the Acromantulas had been defeated, Harry and Max had returned from wherever the Triwizard Cup had brought them, and the Fiendfyre was finally being extinguished.
Thank god the year was almost over.
~~~~Scene Break~~~~
Harry let out a relieved sigh when Dumbledore's Patronus came flying up to him.
"Harry, we're sending people in to take care of the last pockets of fire, you've done well." The phoenix spoke before disappearing.
Absolutely exhausted, Harry finally stopped feeding his wall of water in all its forms, finally making it disappear to grant Harry an idea of exactly what the situation was.
The fire had been forced back, and there were no large Fiendfyre creatures running around any longer. A fire crew of 20 or so wand-wielding wizards were marching into the smoldering remains of the Forest to take care of the last hotspots and Harry could see Draco and Neville on the other side of the burned piece of forest. Owens appeared to be with them.
Muffling a tired groan, Harry slowly skated down to the ground. He stumbled off of his slab of ice and could feel his legs wobble beneath him. He was spent. There were no reserves left. He'd been exhausted when he'd escaped from the graveyard, the Pepper-Up had gotten him back up to just tired, but now he was dead on his feet. Never in his life had he been as battered and drained as he was right now.
And the worst thing was, he wouldn't be able to rest just yet. He had to talk to Dumbledore about the events that transpired in the graveyard and then he'd have to make sure that his shoulder wound was stabilized in a more reliable way before he would finally be able to rest up.
Looking around, Harry spotted Dumbledore talking to Snape, who nodded curtly at something Dumbledore said before briskly marching off, whipping his cloak dramatically.
Harry did his best not to slouch and to walk properly towards Dumbledore, but he couldn't stop his feet from dragging over the ground tiredly.
Dumbledore turned around and spotted Harry, and Harry could see the old man frown worriedly before hiding any signs of worry or uncertainty behind a determined expression.
"I believe our discussion is best had in the Hospital Wing, does that sound alright to you Harry?" Dumbledore asked, cutting straight to the chase, something Harry could appreciate.
"I'm only telling the story once, I'll want Draco and Neville there to serve as both friends and bodyguards, when done I will be allowed to rest, people will behave instead of interrupting me after every sentence and I want to rest up in peace and quiet so you will send other injured people on to St. Mungo's. Also, I won the tournament so I do expect an eventual official ceremony as well as the prize money that is rightfully mine." Harry spoke slowly, making sure not to forget any details and to enunciate clearly, even if he would have preferred to just slur a tired 'Lemme rest,' before finding the nearest soft and sufficiently large horizontal surface which he would then proceed to lie down on after which he would sleep for a long, long time.
Even as they spoke, Harry and Dumbledore walked slowly towards the hospital wing. They would have moved faster, but Harry was having a difficult enough time to stay upright as it was, he did not want to factor in more speed in the currently incredibly difficult equation of moving without falling.
"Of course Harry, though I'd be much obliged if you could give me a short summary of what happened, time is of the essence in these matters after all." Dumbledore prodded gently, and Harry knew the old man was right.
"Cup wasn't were it should be, Max managed to tag along with the Portkey. Brought us to a graveyard. Stunned because fat lump hindered my reflexes. Woke up to sight of Voldemort and Wormtail, the prior is restored to a body. Used blood of enemies, skeleton of father and arm of Wormtail. Summoned Death Eaters. Gloated. Explained theory about Max surviving Halloween '81. Approached me, made offer to join his ranks. I faked acceptance. He Legillimencied me. I fooled him. Begged for right to torture Max. Received it. Tortured Max with cutting spells, used this to weaken his bonds without being spotted. Crucio'd Max for a nanosecond, made him break bonds. Used element based distraction to gain some seconds. Dueled Voldemort whilst moving to Cup. Lost my arm to near-invisible cutter. Barely escaped Voldemort's Fiendfyre, arrived here, got Pepper-Up, came to help you. That's it." Harry summarized, trying to sort out the clutter of events and summarize them in a logical way.
Harry and Albus arrived at the hospital wing. Dumbledore directed Harry to one of the more isolated beds on the far side of the wing before speaking, "I will assemble everybody who should hear your testimony. It will take a couple of minutes. I'll make sure to send Draco and Neville this way. Just rest here for a while Harry."
At Harry's tired nod, the old Headmaster marched off again, his wand already drawn and the Patronus charm half on his lips. Harry closed his eyes and let his head fall back with an annoyed groan, "It's really no good advertizing for Hogwarts when your Headmaster doesn't so much as shrug when you tell him you lost an arm whilst fighting a Dark Lord."
Harry snorted when an errant thought popped into his head, "Still, it could be worse. Tonight cost me an arm. At least it didn't cost me an arm and a leg."
It was a testament to exactly how tired Harry was that he laughed so hysterically at his own bad pun.
Done. Let me know what you think, I'm seriously considering rewriting this chapter as something about it just feels off, so your input is very important for this one. That said, I don't have that much else to say, I'll be undergoing surgery next week and I've got a huge essay coming up for college/university, so there won't be an update any time soon, sorry to disappoint. One more time: Please review!
That's all from me,
Oh no wait, one final thingy: In the bold text thingy in the chapter before this one or the one before that, I made a joke about being godlike for moving past the Cup = Portkey bit, that was a JOKE people. Seriously, they need to make some kind of way that allows you to clearly display sarcasm and other intonations through text. That would be awesome.
So, now that I've got another big block of text down here, I might as well repeat it one final time: Please review!