Chapter Fifty-Three
The year of 1979 did have a peaceful ending. Mary and Sirius spent Christmas with Mary's parents and they had a lovely time, not in the least place because aunt Muriel and uncle Carl had decided to spend the holidays somewhere else. Mary discovered that Sirius had been a real gentleman about the engagement: he had visited Mr. Woods the night prior to his proposal and officially asked her father's permission. When Mary asked him why, he explained that since there were so many traditions in her family, he reckoned that asking for her hand in marriage would be no exception. And indeed, Mr. Woods had appreciated Sirius for coming to him first, but according to Mary, it was a bit awkward. She had never heard about any family traditions concerning dating before and assumed this was simply her father's way to keep at least some control in her life, now that she had chosen to live in "that other" world.
Meanwhile, Jenna simply couldn't stop staring at Mary's engagement ring. She was absolutely thrilled that Sirius and Mary were getting married and had already persuaded her to be one of the bridemaids, simply by whining about it all the time. When Mary couldn't take any more of Jenna's nagging, she gave in and named her little sister a bridesmaid (which she would have done anyway).
Mr. Woods was absolutely thrilled about the engagement. Mary already knew that he and Sirius got along well and the engagement didn't change that. She had even spotted her father talking to his colleagues on Christmas Eve; he was positively boasting about his perfect son-in-law. Mrs. Woods was also happy for them, but Mary sensed that her mother was also fearing that she might have lost her daughter for good. One night, when the two of them were preparing dinner together, Mrs. Woods even said that it seemed only yesterday when Mary had gone to Hogwarts for the first time. "You really are all grown up now," she whispered emotionally before pulling Mary into a close hug.
But even though her mother felt that Mary had grown up too quickly for her liking, she was looking forward to organizing the wedding. She had even given Mary a large pile of Muggle bridal magazines with features on wedding gowns and reports on magnificent locations. It so happened that these magazines came in handy at tedious Order meetings. It had been months since anything exciting had happened. These days, the meetings were mostly about speculating what Voldemort could be up to and – sporadically - going on exploring missions.
Tonight, James, Fabian, Gideon, Peter and Zabini had gone to Canterbury to investigate a dilapidated house that was being used by Death Eaters to store a certain object. The Order didn't exactly know what it was, but it seemed to be of great importance, because there were always two (or more) Death Eaters present to keep an eye on the place.
Everyone else was at the Headquarters to study maps and books in order to discover more about the magical side of Canterbury and the possible connection to Voldemort. Remus was the only absent member; he was hiding out because of the full moon. Brice was assisting Sirius in deciphering a letter in an ancient writing. Dumbledore, Moody, Marlene, Edgar, Hagrid and Alice were studying Canterbury maps and Mary and Lily were taking a look at books on the magical history in that region. Or at least, Mary was reading a book called The Magical truth of the Anglican Church. Lily on the other other hand appeared to be studying Canterbury Magic through the Ages: 1400-1800, but was secretly leafing through a magazine on idyllic wedding locations. "Pssst Mare," she whispered.
Mary looked up from reading a paragraph on the magical background of the 16th century Archbishop Edmund Grindal. "What?"
"Look, if you rent this Scottish country house in May or June, the staff will be included for free!"
Mary shot Lily an incredulous look. "In case you hadn't noticed, my entire family are Muggles so Apparation clearly is not an option. I cannot possibly expect them to travel all the way to-" She shot a look at the magazine, "-Aberdeen. Merlin's Beard Lil, do you even know how far up north that is?"
"Hmm good point," her friend replied. She flipped a few pages and Mary was about to get back to her book when Lily gasped. "Look at this…"
Mary leaned in to take a closer look and she had to admit: that little and idyllic-looking 15th century chapel on the page looked absolutely amazing. Mary suddenly had a vivid vision of her and Sirius coming down those steps together while they were smiling and beaming at their family and friends; she could totally picture them getting married in a chapel like that.
"It's perfect, isn't it?" Lily asked, correctly interpreting Mary's expression.
"It's… Not bad," she replied, trying to sound a little indifferent.
"Not bad? Come off it! This is a dream location. And it's in Kent, go figure! Your family could crawl back home after the ceremony if they had to."
Mary looked at Lily and smiled. "Well, I suppose it looks quite nice. But I need to discuss it with Sirius first."
"Of course," Lily beamed. "But he'll love it too and-"
Clunk, clunk, clunk.
Lily startled when she heard Moody walking towards their side of the room. They could also hear his hoarse voice growing louder as he said: "That certainly could be possible, Albus, but in order to be sure, we need to know who was in charge around 1767."
Lily shot an alarmed look at Mary and tried to pull the magazine out of the book, but she was a second too late. Moody had already picked up the book, causing the magazine to fall out and land on the floor with a dull thud, right in front of Moody's feet. He bent down to grab it and frowned when his eyes (both of them) looked at the article. "What's this?" he grunted. "'Let's do it Kent Style'? What has that supposed to mean?"
"Eh…" Lily had gone as bright red as the sweater she was wearing and Mary was biting her lip to prevent herself from bursting out laughing. There was something terribly funny about hearing Moody say: "Let's do it Kent Style". The entire room had gone quiet and Mary could feel they were being watched. When she looked up and met Sirius's eyes, she smiled but he did not return it. In fact, the look he was shooting her was rather reproachful.
"Were you reading this?" Moody asked Lily as he threw the magazine back onto the table.
"Yes," she replied with a guilty look on her face.
"I assume you must have had a very good reason to do so, young lady."
"Well actually," Lily started timidly, but she got interrupted by Mary who remembered her mother showing her a picture of the Canterbury Cathedral. "There's a feature on the biggest cathedrals in that area and we were studying it for clues," she said quickly while flicking through the magazine until she had found the right page and held it up. "See?"
Moody shot her a piercing look, but Mary stared back confidently without blinking. She had recently discovered that it's much easier to look at Moody when you're staring at the very spot between his normal and magical eye. After a tense moment of silence, Moody grunted, picked up Lily's book and lumped back to his seat at the other side of the room.
"Thanks," Lily mouthed, looking relieved and shooting her a grateful look. Mary smiled at Lily when she suddenly realized that Dumbledore was standing next to them. He took a closer look at the article. "A magnificent cathedral with an impressive history that is also very suitable for baptisms and funerals. Or weddings," he added as an afterthought.
Mary and Lily looked up apprehensively, but Dumbledore did not look angry. On the contrary, he was smiling at them with twinkling eyes. "Of course, were you looking for a more idyllic place in Kent… I happen to know the priest of that very chapel and could arrange a nice discount."
He winked at Mary and this time, she was the one who turned red. How in Merlin's name did Dumbledore know that they had been talking about that particular chapel? How was it that he always seemed to know everything? Mary opened her mouth to explain that they were just looking around, but before she could have said anything, they heard a loud crack: Zabini had just apparated in the middle of the room.
Something seemed to be terribly wrong. Zabini was bleeding badly and only managed to stay up for a few seconds before he collapsed on the floor. Everyone got up fro their seat, but it was Edgar who got there first. He rolled an unconscious Zabini onto his back to examine him. When Edgar pulled back part of Zabini's robes, everyone gasped. His injuries looked very serious. Dumbledore crouched down on the other side of Zabini and shot Edgar a concerned look. "Do you think you can get him to regain consiousness?"
Edgar wiped his brow. "Not sure, but we have to try. Mary, could you help us with this?"
Mary stepped up and kneeled down next to him. "What do you need me to do?"
Edgar reached for his wand and ushered her to do the same. "Zabini is bleeding internally into his abdomen. If we can stop the bleeding, he might come around before we have to transport him to St.Mungo's. But mind you, all three of us need to cast the spell at exactly the same time or it will lose its effect."
"Alright," Mary nodded before also pointing her wand at Zabini's stomach. She could feel several pairs of eyes on her and felt very nervous. She had never healed someone with these kind of serious injuries in public before. What if she made a mistake and Zabini would die right in this room? Would she be held responsible for that? But before Mary had more time to think about the possible consequences, Edgar had started to count down and she was going to have to focus.
"Three, two, one, go!" Edgar said.
He, Dumbledore and Mary cast the spell at the same time. The candlelit room was suddenly bading in a bright violet light by the flash that erupted from the three wands. The charm seemed to lift up Zabini for a brief moment before he softly came back down on the floor. Edgar signalled Mary and Dumbledore to break off the spell and they lifted their wands slowly. A few seconds later, Edgar did the same thing.
The violet light disappeared at once. Zabini remained motionless for another moment until his eyes shot open. He was breathing heavily and immediately put a hand on his abdomen, groaning. Mary shot a worried look at Edgar. "Did it go wrong?"
Edgar shook his head. "We merely stopped the bleeding, we didn't cure him. Sean, can you hear me?"
Zabini groaned. "Water."
Dumbledore conjured a goblet out of nowhere and gently poured the water into Zabini's mouth, who was having trouble swallowing it down. Most of the water that entered his mouth gushed back out, drenching his already soaked robes even more. "They… caught us," Zabini panted before attempting to sit up straight. Edgar pushed him back gently. "You need to stay down," he said gently.
Zabini nodded before looking back at Dumbledore. "They took… off guard, stunned us all… Got blindfolded... and transported into… into the house." Zabini spoke as quickly as possible with a jolting voice, gasping for air occasionally.
"Easy Sean, take your time." Dumbledore spoke calmly, but he was looking very concerned.
"Tortured.. us... I could…. Dis-disappar-ate… But others.. badly hurt…" Zabini stammered with difficulty until he suddenly stopped talking at all. His breathing faltered quickly and his eyes started to roll back in his head. Mary instantly realized they would lose him within minutes if he didn't get transported to St.Mungo's right away. She looked up at Edgar in alarm and noticed that he was thinking the same thing.
"That's enough, Albus," Edgar said abruptly. "He needs to go to the hospital right now or he'll be too weak to survive the journey."
Dumbledore nodded, but when he and Edgar attempted to heave Zabini onto their shoulders, he suddenly regained consciousness, noticed Moody was already organizing several people to apparate to Canterbury, and seized Dumbledore's arm. "You… go too.. Not just Death… Eaters, also Vol-demort…"
Edgar and Dumbledore exchanged glances before putting Zabini back down. They started to discuss who would be going to St.Mungo's with Zabini instead of Dumbledore, but Mary got momentarily distracted when she looked over her shoulder at Moody's group of volunteers. She wasn't the least surprised when she noticed that Sirius was one of them, looking pale and stressed but with a determined look in his grey eyes. Mary saw that he had put an arm around Lily, who – besides crying – was arguing with Frank.
"You cannot go," Frank was saying. "You're pregnant, it's way too dangerous."
"Try and stop me," she replied stubbornly, her green eyes glinting dangerously.
"But Lily," Frank persisted. "James wouldn't want you to endanger the baby."
"Who are you to say what he is thinking!"
"All I'm saying…"
"He's my husband and I want – no, I have – to go."
"Frank," Sirius intervened when their friend angrily opened his mouth. "You're not going to persuade Lily no matter what you say, so give it a rest. It's her decision to make, not yours."
"But-"
"He's my husband," Lily said resolutely. "End of discussion."
Mary wasn't sure if this was such a good idea. The truth of the matter was that she agreed with Frank and would have liked Lily to stay at the Headquarters, along with Alice. Mary also knew that besides James, she was the only one who could persuade her friend, but before she could make up her mind, Edgar called her to him. "I need you to come to St.Mungo's with me. You're the only other person here who knows how to transport a heavily injured body by Apparation and that way, Albus can go to Canterbury. We'll meet up with the others as soon as we've taken care of Zabini."
Mary nodded and crouched down on the other side of Zabini to grab him by the arm. "Alright. Do we Apparate to the main hall?"
"No," Edgar replied urgently. "It's best if as few people as possible will know about this. There's a new ER-unit in the back building. We should take him there."
Mary shot a doubtful look at Zabini, who had just lost consciousness again. "Is he going to make it?"
Edgar shrugged. "He might be too weak to survive the Apparation, but if we do nothing, he'll die for sure. On my count: three, two…"
Mary shot one last look over Edgar's shoulder and met Sirius's eyes. He looked more worried than she had ever seen him and she mouthed "Be careful". He gave her an understanding nod. The last thing Mary saw before she disapparated was how Sirius turned back to Dumbledore and Moody to hear the final instructions.
The first thing Mary noticed when they apparated in the St.Mungo's ER-unit, was that it was a lot bigger than she had expected. In fact, it looked more like an entire hospital instead of just another department. And by the looks of it, Zabini had survived the Apparation. At least, he was still breathing, even if it was in a very unsteady way.
"Come on," Edgar said. "Let's put him on this stretcher."
When Edgar and Mary were carefully placing an unconscious Zabini onto the strecher, a few Healers came running towards them. "Edgar!" a chubby wizard with long blonde hair and a sweaty odour called Winchelsey cried. Mary groaned inwardly. She had only met this man once before, on her first day as a St.Mungo's-intern; he had been staring at her chest and legs instead of her face the entire time. Needless to say, Mary didn't like him very much. But Edgar did, or so it seemed. He was positively relieved to see Winchelsey. "Walter! I didn't know you were on duty tonight."
Winchelsey merely shrugged and shot a hungry look at Mary. "Switched shifts with Cortez. So what have we here?"
Edgar filled Winchelsey in on Zabini's condition and Mary had to admit: the chubby man may have been a git, but he happened to be an excellent Healer. Within minutes, Winchelsey had given clear instructions to his team and sent them off to take care of the patient. While Edgar and Mary were watching Zabini being led away to the HR, she had – for the first time that night – the feeling that he would make it after all.
"Thanks a bunch," Edgar told Winchelsey as he patted him on the arm. "Come on, Mary, we have more to do and we better hurry if-"
"Not so fast, Edgar," Winchelsey interrupted. "I need to make a report of the insertion."
"What? Since when?" Edgar frowned, looking disturbed, and Winchelsey rolled his eyes.
"I know, ridiculous, right?" he chuckled as he scratched his round belly. "The Ministry came up with it last week. From now on, Crouch wants to know everything about patients who have been attacked and admitted, and the people who brought them in."
"Hang on," Mary suddenly said. "Do you mean you're going to report our names?"
She regretted having opened her mouth one second later when Winchelsey started to eye her with a keen expression on his face. "Well yes, love," he replied with a snigger. "That's the whole point, isn't it?"
Edgar sighed impatiently. "Well, we have no choice. Give me that bloody form and I'll write something down. Can we leave after that?"
Winchelsey nodded. "Of course. It's all up to the Ministry from there."
Edgar nodded, took the roll of parchment and a quill from the Healer and started to fill out the form as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, Mary tried to ignore Winchelsey's intense gaze that, once again, seemed to be lingering on her chest. She accidentally-on purpose flicked her hair over her shoulder and made sure to show her engagement ring in the process. With success, because Winchelsey suddenly said: "You're engaged now, aren't you, love?"
"Yes," she replied absent-mindedly, thinking of Sirius. She was feeling more worried about him by the minute. Would he be fighting Death Eaters at this very moment?
"Lucky devil that guy!" Winchelsey sniggered. "Smart move, though. With a girl like you…"
He started to hum the familiar tune of "A girl like you". Mary suddenly felt annoyed; as it happened, Sirius adored that song and would sometimes sing it to her. She now really started to wish Edgar would hurry up with that form. Mary suddenly noticed that she was subconsciously drumming her fingers on the desk on – to her horror - the beat of "A girl like you". Mary desisted at once and avoided Winchelsey's eyes. She felt immensely relieved when Edgar finally said: "Done." He passed the parchment over to her and after quickly skimming it, Mary also signed the form and handed it over to Winchelsey. "Thanks love," he grinned.
"Right, we're off then. Talk to you later, Walter," Edgar said as he started to walk off.
"Bye," Mary mumbled before quickly following him, more than eager to leave Winchelsey and his hummed version of "A Girl Like You" behind. The trouble was that the merry tune was now stuck in her head, contradicting her worried and depressed state of mind. As soon as they had left the hospital through the back door and were standing outside on a deserted parking-lot, Edgar said: "Right, now off to Canterbury."
Mary nodded. "I think it's best if we apparate to that nearby group of trees and bushes first."
"Agreed," Edgar replied and disapparated without another word.
When Mary materialized next to him behind two large poplars, she noticed he was already staring at the distant and deteriorated house on the other side of the lawn. Flashes of red and green light from the windows illuminated the usually dark environment. Edgar crossed the lawn and approached the house as silently and unseen as possible. Mary followed and when they were standing close to a piece of splintered wood that used to be the front door, Edgar put a hand on her shoulder. "Ready?"
Mary gulped. To be honest, she wasn't all that sure if she was. Nevertheless, she managed to smile at Edgar. "As ready as I'll ever be."
A grin flashed his anxious face. "I say, let's go and have some fun."
He turned and blasted the wrecked piece of wood apart, jumped through the door and by doing so, ended up in the middle of a fierce battle between Moody and two Death Eaters. Mary witnessed the scene for a moment as she was hiding behind the doorpost in an attempt to estimate the situation. Several Death Eaters and Order-members were duelling, but Mary couldn't see Voldemort anywhere. Or Dumbledore for that matter… Were they fighting out their own duel somewhere else? Right when Mary decided that it was best to assist Frank, who was currently warding off different curses at a time, she could hear two screams coming from upstairs. Lily. And Sirius. Mary felt her stomach crinch with worry and fear. She had to do something, now! She gripped her wand more firmly, jumped out of her hiding spot and stormed up the stairs with just one thought on her mind: whoever had had the nerve of hurting her boyfriend and best friend, was about to regret it. Mary was going to make that Death Eater pay. He or she would never spent another Azkaban-less day in their life, not if she could help it.
End of Update
A/N: Two notes:
-
HR Healing Room (instead of OR, of course)
- The Troggs – A
Girl Like You: a famous sixties song that deserves more respect than
being hummed by a smelly and annoying Healer. If you want to listen
to the song (recommended!), I'm pretty sure YouTube could help you
out. Oh, and sorry for that cliffie. I'll try to update again soon,
promise! -Mara
