Saturday, June 24, 1995
Grey eyes locked with green as the hedges began reeling the Hufflepuff toward the maze wall. An expression of stunned disbelief was quickly followed by betrayal when Heather merely sneered at the older teen, sheathed her wand, and turned toward the large opening in the maze and the glowing Triwizard Cup.
Cedric hadn't said a word about the Potter Stinks badges, not even to make a show at school unity. He hadn't even said thank you for her tip off about the dragons! And he actively tried to hinder her progress in the Black Lake. He didn't do any of the work, merely followed her, and then latched onto Ron's foot, slowing her down. It forced her to pull herself, her own hostage, the Delacour girl's hostage - because she had seen Fleur cast the red sparks which they had been told would always remove them from the task and she refused to allow a child to suffer for her champion's mistakes, and another champion plus his hostage toward the surface. Then, once they were closer to the surface, he released her friend and used ascendare to launch himself and Cho out of the water and directly onto the platform, beating her tired self by a mere thirty seconds. Hufflepuffs were supposed to be loyal and hardworking, but she definitely didn't see it in Cedric. Why should she help him after he left her to fail?
Her angry thoughts accompanied her the final few steps to the plinth on which the cup was ensconced, and her hand reached out for it, almost unconsciously. She grabbed the cup, felt a tug behind her navel, and was pulled into the sickening lurch of portkey travel. She looked up slowly upon her rather inelegant landing, expecting to be greeted with the fickle cheers of her fellow students, excited for a Hogwarts win. But instead, she was alone.
Rows upon rows of large, light and dark grey stones resolved themselves out of the blanket of light fog and mist. Her brain scrambled to make sense of what her eyes were telling her. An almost hysterical giggle escaped her lips before she clapped her hands over her mouth to still the sound. Creepy location? Check. Creepy fog covering everything in its damp chill? Check. Little girl, all alone in the aforementioned creepy setting? Check. She finally recognized the scene as a graveyard and wondered what deity she had pissed off to have become the heroine - or was it a victim? - of a muggle horror movie.
She pulled her wand, unsure if the unexpected transport was part of the task, and began moving through the stones, always keeping the cup in sight, hoping it would transport her back to Hogwarts if she needed to make a quick escape.
Heather had just disappeared behind a tall headstone when shuffling footsteps and the grate of metal on stone caught her attention. She carefully peered out from behind the ugly monument, and was immediately hit with a petrificus totalus. She seethed, unable to move, as that abhorrent rat, Wormtail, bound and secured her to the headstone she had just been hiding behind. She couldn't believe the little rat was repaying her saving his life the previous year like this.
Once she had been secured, she felt the spell wear off, and attempted to remove herself from the bindings. Unsuccessful, she was forced to watch as Wormtail finished moving the largest cauldron she had ever seen onto a stand over a fire. He filled it with a normal aguamenti charm, though she scoffed quietly at the mere trickle of water emanating from the rat's wand. She'd known he was pathetic, but that was just sad.
The rodent-like man waved his stubby little wand again, and a bone she had not noticed lifted slowly into the air from her feet and leisurely floated toward the caldron. The liquid inside the cauldron was throwing off sparks though it had been only a few minutes since he began filling it. There must have been a potion already in the cauldron, or perhaps some other magic she was unfamiliar with had been cast on it, because she had never seen water throw sparks like that! Not even when under Seamus Finnegan's supervision, and he had a rather stunning proclivity for pyrotechnics regardless of what he was doing.
"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!" the rodent's voice quavered in the darkness.
The bone shimmered faintly before dissolving into a fine dust that glittered as it fell into the cauldron. The liquid turned a rather poisonous looking blue, though Heather was uncertain if that was a good sign or not because the faint throb of pain she had been feeling all year from her scar intensified, making her head swim.
"Flesh of the servant, willingly sacrificed, you will revive your master," the quivering had shifted from only his voice to his entire body as he raised a silver knife that seemed to glow in the moonlight. It slashed through the air, and then through skin, muscle, and bone as it cut his hand off cleanly at the wrist.
The potion was now a vivid red, likely owing to all the blood that had just been added. Her scar was now throbbing, pain ratcheted up another level, and quiet whimpers became the background as Wormtail's shambling steps came closer to Heather's bound form.
The silver knife flashed again, and she had a moment to recognize that the blood that should have been present from Wormtail was not there, which was a strangely reassuring thought. She had no desire to have any part of the rat come into contact with her, especially as she knew he was going to cut something from her as well. Their blood mixing? She would rather not.
She was proven correct when he dragged the knife down her arm, and captured the blood in a vial.
"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe," came Wormtail's voice, interspersed with sniffles as he poured her blood into the vile mixture.
Heather had to shake her head a bit and blink a few times to focus because over the rat's voice, she heard another voice that was unfamiliar say, "Blood of the host, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your progenitor."
Then Pettigrew unwrapped a bundle she had not noticed which sat near the cauldron and dropped what looked like the mutilated and deformed body of a child into the viscous liquid.
Again, she wavered, blinking to clear her vision when it appeared that the potion attempted to turn black. She saw several lights of varying degrees of intensity appear above the cauldron and then disappear within its depths before the entire contents turned blinding white and steam began pouring from it, spilling over the rim of the cauldron to mix with the mist still hanging heavy in the air.
A strange feeling of connection blossomed in her core as the cauldron melted away and what had once been a disparate mess of ingredients had coalesced into a bubble. A bubble which was now stretching and roiling in the air as the flayed-baby-looking thing inside was stretched and elongated in every direction, with horrible cracks, pops, and hisses issuing from the orb.
And then the bubble thinned and she could see the form inside taking on a more human mien. Limbs which had appeared too thin and too stretched returned to normal proportions. The concave torso in which every bone could be seen filled out. The serpentine face developed human features and hair began to grow from the top of its… his head.
The connection grew stronger while the pain in Heather's scar reached a boiling point. Just as the bubble began to melt away, revealing the male form, she passed out, limp in the bonds still restraining her to the grave marker.
Wormtail whimpered as the form he had cared for shifted from the familiar features of his lord, to a much more pleasing appearance. He expected his lord to be older, but the man standing naked before him couldn't be more than 30.
"Robe me," the man's voice ordered, sibilant hiss always present in Voldemort's speech now gone.
Wormtail quickly picked up the robe he had wrapped the homunculus in and draped it over his lord's shoulders.
The man sneered at the dirty, smelly robe which now adorned his new body.
"Wand," he ordered.
His magic was still fluctuating a bit, but once his yew wand touched his fingertips, it began to settle. He quickly cast a cauterization spell on Wormtail's arm, preventing the man from bleeding out, and ignored the pleading whimpers of gratitude as he quickly cast the spells required to clean himself and his robe and transfigure it into something more appropriate to his station.
Feeling much more comfortable, he inspected his surroundings. He could feel a draw toward the limp girl hanging above his muggle father's final resting place. He sneered at the thought of the man who abandoned him, but felt a surprising warmth toward the child who had previously only elicited anger.
As he moved toward the slumped form, the warmth grew, and when he reached out, his fingers unerringly touched the famous scar adorning the girl's forehead.
An unholy shriek issued from Heather's mouth and brilliant green eyes flew open to meet red as agony ricocheted through the teen's body. Voldemort felt the echoes of pain as her scream died away and she stopped thrashing in her bonds. The torment was replaced by a feeling of serenity, peace, and home.
Neither completely understood the feelings, never having had true homes of their own, but both felt the need to be near the other, and knew they would never be betrayed.
"Father?" Heather spoke hesitantly, shocked by the word that came out of her mouth.
"Daughter," Voldemort responded, caressing her face.
Wormtail whimpered at the spoken words, drawing both their attention. Heather sneered at the rat, and Voldemort raised a brow at the action, intending to learn more. He quickly stupefied the man who had assisted in his resurrection and released the girl in front of him.
He quirked a questioning eyebrow at the girl as he began carefully healing her wounds. He was having a rather sudden desire to crucio the now still and silent man behind him.
"He betrayed my parents," Heather said with a slight shrug, as much as she could manage while Voldemort was working so assiduously over her injured arm. "He owes me a life debt and yet brought me here and injured me though I saved him from death last year. He's a rat, literally, and will backstab anyone to keep himself safe. He is a liability to you and to me and he would not hesitate to betray us should someone more powerful, or better able to protect him come along."
"Unlikely," Voldemort said pointedly.
"We both know that, but rats have tiny brains, and this one, one of the tiniest," Heather replied. "It wouldn't matter if they really were more powerful or able to protect him, just that he would think they could be."
"Your point is well reasoned, daughter," the red eyes regarded her approvingly. "But perhaps he can still be of use."
Heather shrugged. She didn't really see how a backstabbing liar could be of benefit, but she wasn't about to test the surprising leniency the dark lord was showing his erstwhile enemy. She had called him father, and he had responded in kind, but he was, after all, a man who had killed all his remaining family. Who was to say he wouldn't do the same with her?
Deciding if he was going to kill her, she'd rather he just get on with it, Heather allowed her Gryffindor side to take over for a moment and said, "Why aren't you trying to kill me? You know, like every other time we've come into contact since I was a baby."
"Why would I kill my daughter?" he asked. "You are mine to protect, not harm."
"Oh," she said lamely, wind taken out of her proverbial sails.
"From what little I could see and hear during the ritual to restore me," Voldemort began to explain, "It would appear that Magic had a larger hand in the process than I anticipated. My mind is more steady. My form is much improved from the snake-like monstrosity I became during the potentially ill-advised experiments I conducted in my youth. I have memories from events I know I never experienced," he trailed off for a moment before finishing, "though I will need to have words with Lucius about a certain book."
Heather smirked, thinking it would be nice to see the poncy blonde put in his place. He shouldn't have tried to kill her.
A sigh drew her attention back to the tall man, who was kneeling on the ground next to the insensate Peter Pettigrew. He had the man's left arm pulled carefully away from his body and was hissing at the mark branded on the flesh.
Heather couldn't understand the words, though she had just heard a snake speaking in herbology not a week prior. She watched, confused, as the mark shifted, the snake slithering around itself and disappearing into the mouth of the skull, which proceeded to fade into nothingness.
"There," he said, returning his attention to the girl. "The mark is now gone from those who are not loyal to my true ideals, and as this scum's mark has disappeared, proving you correct, my dear," he nodded in Heather's direction, "my plan for his use is set to implement."
She must have looked a bit skeptical, because the next words out of Voldemort's mouth were, "Do you doubt me so easily, daughter? Have I ever lied to you before?"
"Well...no, but you are fond of omitting," She finished with an impish grin.
"As you say," he agreed, "but this time, I think you will agree my plan has merit."
"I'm listening," she said carefully.
He conjured two plush armchairs in the circle of space where the cauldron previously rested and the two sat.
"My mark is gone," he began laying out his thoughts, "for those not loyal to my original ideals, while for those still loyal, it remains. They are fewer, yes, but those that remain are indeed valuable," his red eyes flashed with a hint of pleasure, obviously able to identify the bonds he could still feel.
"Okay…" Heather said slowly, not quite sure what was important about that, but willing to keep listening.
"I cannot fully heal your arm as you will need it when you return to Hogwarts," he continued, casting an episkey at the wound, just enough to finally stop the sluggish bleeding, followed by a numbing charm. "You will take this pathetic excuse for a wizard - how he managed to become an animagus, I will likely never understand -"
"I can explain that one," Heather interrupted.
"Later, daughter, later. It is unimportant now," Voldemort stated. "As I was saying, you will return to Hogwarts, Wormtail in tow, and tell your beloved headmaster that Wormtail was unsuccessful in resurrecting me. That he must have done something wrong because it failed, my weakened form died, and the mark completely disappeared."
Heather smiled, beginning to understand what would be happening, "You should make Snape's mark disappear if it didn't already," she stated, "otherwise Dumbledore will know I'm lying."
"Ah, good point," he said, nodding.
He hissed a bit more, waving his wand in strange patterns and then returned his attention to the girl in front of him.
"Now, as I was saying, tell them I am dead. It is far too public a space for them to keep quiet that Pettigrew has miraculously returned from the dead, and I will modify his memories to be in keeping with the tale of his failure," the dark haired man went on. "He will be arrested for my attempted resurrection."
"And once they have him under veritaserum," Heather interjected, "they can get the truth of who really betrayed the Potters, and Sirius will be free!"
"So he will," Voldemort said thoughtfully.
He had not anticipated that outcome, but clearly he should have. The escapee was his daughter's godfather. Ah well, he would have to see about getting the man on-side, now that he was back to his original goals. A task for another day.
"I won't have to go back to the Dursleys," Heather whispered in joyous shock. "I'm free!"
"Excuse me?" Voldemort began to glower at the implications of her words, though Heather's scar did not react. "You're free from what, my dear?"
"My awful relatives," Heather said. "My mother's sister, her husband, and son."
"You were placed with...muggles?" he intoned dangerously, standing to pace around the small clearing.
"Yes," she said simply.
"You. A known witch. Were placed with MUGGLES!?" Voldemort's anger exploded in a scream. "The wizarding world allowed my daughter to be sent to live with muggles?"
"To be fair, father," Heather tried to soothe the man's rising anger, "I wasn't your daughter then. And to be honest, if I had been, they probably would have killed me."
Voldemort was seething.
"You will not be allowed to return there," he said in a commanding voice.
"I'd love that," Heather replied, "but Dumbledore always sends me back because of the blood wards."
"Ah, yes," he mock-nodded, retaking his seat "he must protect his precious Girl-Who-Lived."
"Eh, well, he's not doing a very good job," the green eyed witch responded. "Sure the wards may have protected me from you… Which, will they stop you from entering now that you used my blood to return? Whatever… anyway, they may have protected me from you, but they never protected me from my family."
"Explain," Voldemort said in a low tone, brooking no argument.
"Umm…" Heather thought about where to begin, "Well, it would take too long to explain everything, so I'll just hit the highlights. I was found on the front step the morning of November 2nd in a blanket with a letter. I was promptly ensconced in the cupboard under the stairs which remained my room until I got my Hogwarts letter. I did all the chores around the house, including cooking and gardening, from the time I was five, and woe to me if I didn't finish them on time or to their exacting standards. Mostly I was punished by going without meals, but sometimes a hit with a frying pan if Aunt Petunia had one handy, or a couple strokes from Uncle Vernon's belt. Dudley liked to play Heather Hunting with his friends, and if he ever did anything wrong, he blamed me and I would get punished."
"Those despicable muggles," Voldemort quietly raged. "They will be taken care of...Eventually. But for now, we will make them serve our purposes."
Heather nodded. She didn't care so long as she didn't have to go back to them.
"Unfortunately," Voldemort calmed enough to begin plotting, "you will have to leave King's Cross with them. I'm certain Dumbledore has his spies. But you will provide me with the address and I will be waiting for your arrival. We will make the necessary...arrangements," he smirked rather evilly, "and then be on our way. You will NOT be staying there."
Heather was all smiles at his pronouncement, "That sounds just about perfect."
Voldemort smiled at her. A real smile. A smile that warmed her up from the inside. She returned the action, and he felt a similar warmth spring up in his core.
"Now then," he returned his thoughts to a plan to successfully hide his daughter under Dumbledore's watchful eye. "I will work on the memory modifications to this traitorous idiot, and you will return, and spread your story of my death due to Wormtail's failure. Once you are out of the old fool's clutches, make contact with my trusted follower, who has been stationed at Hogwarts this year," he ordered. "His name is Barty Crouch, and he will assist you should you need a break from the light idiots."
"I knew you had me entered!" Heather exclaimed.
Voldemort merely nodded as he continued. "I am certain you may have an idea of just who exactly Barty is."
Heather thought for a moment before smacking herself lightly in the head, "He's Professor Moody, isn't he?"
The man smirked, "He is."
"Well, thanks to him stealing from Snape to make his stupid polyjuice, Snape has been threatening me and my friends with veritaserum," Heather said.
"I can do nothing about that at present," he said; a rather enigmatic answer for him thus far.
"Okay," Heather took a deep breath, "I'm taking the rat back with me, telling Dumbledore that Voldemort is dead, Pettigrew goes to aurors, yay trial, and I make contact with Barty. Keep everything normal till school lets out, and you'll come get me from the Dursleys as soon as we arrive from the train."
"Exactly," he said with a smile. "But before you go, perhaps you'd like to watch me torture Wormtail a bit? And modify his memories of course."
"You bet I would," Heather said, a dark light appearing in her eyes.
And with that Voldemort levitated the still-stupefied man in front of their chairs, released the stupify, and lazily cast the cruciatus curse. Wormtail barely had time to open his eyes before he was screaming and writhing on the ground.
Voldemort cycled through a few of the more painful curses in his repertoire, the one that peeled strips of skin from him earning an almost gleeful look from his new daughter. He didn't take out all his frustrations on the snivelling rat though, he had to be able to heal him enough that nothing would be suspected when Heather returned to Hogwarts.
After a few short minutes, far too brief to have fully sated his anger, he stopped and began patching up his ex-servant. Only once the man was in no danger of death and looked as beat up as being on the run for a year might have made him did red eyes lock with watery hazel and begin the process of altering Wormtail's memories of the evening. A few obliviates removed those memories which were most damaging, and some stealthy legilimens completed the modification.
He summoned the cup, pinned his daughter with a sharp stare, to which she nodded, and tapped the cup, turning it into a portkey back to the school. As he looked up from his task, two small arms wrapped around his waist and he petted the fiery red hair hiding his daughter's face from his sight.
"Thank you, Father," the girl whispered.
"You are most welcome, Daughter," he replied.
She let the tears dry on her cheeks in preparation for her upcoming act, and as soon as Voldemort's confundus hit the rat, she grabbed his unaltered arm, smiled at her father, and snatched the cup, portkeying back to school.
She landed sprawled over the splayed form of Peter Pettigrew. Dumbledore was standing nearby, along with Minister Fudge, "Alastor Moody," and the tournament judges. As soon as they noticed her, she was surrounded.
"What happened?" Dumbledore demanded.
"It was him, Peter Pettigrew!" Heather said, hysteria in her tone. "I don't know how but he got me entered in the tournament and must have used his animagus form to tamper with the cup after Professor Moody placed it in the maze."
"What?" Fudge was clearly baffled by the unexpected appearance of a man thought long dead.
"He was muttering about resurrecting Voldemort, that he would finally be rewarded after giving Voldemort my family's location when I was a baby! He was their secret keeper and he framed my godfather, Sirius Black!" Heather continued her manic explanation, mentally enjoying the looks she was receiving from the polyjuiced Barty and Dumbledore's increasingly tight features as he tried to hold onto his grandfatherly mask.
Fudge spluttered, "but he was a Death Eater, and he killed Peter, how is Pettigrew even here?"
By that point, someone had managed to get a message to the aurors and Amelia Bones strode up.
"I would be interested in hearing that answer myself," she said, snapping her fingers.
Two aurors placed magical suppression cuffs on the cowering man who had just begun to recover from the confundus.
"Sirius Black is not now, nor was he ever a Death Eater," Heather said confidently. "I tried to tell Minister Fudge that at the end of last year and he refused to believe me," she sent a glare to the man who was nervously twiddling his lime green bowler hat. "Peter Pettigrew here is a rat animagus and he's the one that blew up the street and killed those muggles so he could frame Sirius. Then he spent the years between handing my family's location over to Voldemort and last year hiding as the Weasley's pet rat. He escaped at the end of the year when Fudge tried to have my innocent godfather kissed by the dementors."
Amelia was now glaring daggers at the minister, who had begun to sweat profusely.
"And somehow he got me entered into this blasted tournament all so he could kidnap me tonight in an attempt to resurrect Voldemort," Heather rolled her eyes, both at the absurdity of Pettigrew's so-called attempt - though really she was thinking of his pathetic casting, and at the flinches coming from every witch and wizard within her hearing. Honestly, the wizarding world was stupid to be afraid of a name. The taboo was long gone, and she was sure her father wouldn't be using it again.
"But really," Heather continued, "he must not have had a very good plan because what he did? Well, it definitely didn't work. All he managed to do was melt an enormous cauldron. And he didn't secure me very well because I was able to get out of the bindings and managed to trip him right next to the cup, which brought me, touching him, back here."
"And what exactly did he do, Heather?" Dumbledore questioned, trying to regain control of the situation. He was certainly not happy with the direction the events were taking.
"Well," Heather made sure to keep her eyes off in the middle distance and did not make eye contact. She wasn't entirely sure why she was avoiding it, but it felt right, so she kept doing it. "I landed in this creepy looking graveyard and he tied me to one of the stones. He got a giant cauldron ready and said, 'Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!' and levitated a bone into the cauldron. I don't know if it was the right bone or not. Then it was 'Flesh of the servant, willingly sacrificed, you will revive your master' and he cut off his own hand!" She gave a theatrical shudder, but continued. "But then he cut my arm and took some of my blood and said 'Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe.'"
Dumbledore looked pleased momentarily, but his face fell dramatically at Heather's next words.
"And then he dropped in this really gross looking baby thing, and the cauldron exploded. There were little tiny pieces of that bone, Pettigrew's hand, and that baby thing everywhere around him. It was disgusting. I had just managed to get free and ducked behind one of the monuments or I'd be covered in that stuff," she said with disgust.
She heard someone say 'that's horrible' but didn't know who. One of the aurors who had arrived with Amelia was using a dictaquill to record everything she said, so she focused on that for a moment before offering the final blow to Dumbledore's plans.
"And then the dark mark on Pettigrew's arm started moving around and the snake went into the skull and disappeared," she finished with a bit of triumph. "I know the mark stayed when Voldemort was dead before, but it's gone. I really think he's gone for good this time," she said happily.
"Now, Heather," Dumbledore began in that annoying grandfatherly tone, disappointment shining in his eyes, "I really think you shouldn't speculate on things you certainly don't know anything about, my girl."
"But, Headmaster, sir -" Heather tried to protest.
Help came from an unexpected source and she watched carefully while projecting a mask of curiosity toward the man who began speaking.
"The mark is fully gone, Albus," potion master Severus Snape stated as he rolled up his left sleeve. "You know I was spying for Albus, Amelia, and the mark disappeared not even an hour ago. Completely gone," he said, showing off the unmarked arm. "I can't even feel a residual magical trace."
"Interesting," Amelia said while Dumbledore was failing to hide the glare he aimed in his spy's direction. "Was there anything else you can tell us, Heather?" Amelia directed the attention back to the Girl-Who-Lived.
"Oh, well," Heather tried to look a bit sheepish. "I sort of ran around the graveyard trying to get away from Pettigrew for a while. He kept trying to cast the cruciatus curse on me and other spells I didn't recognize, but I was too fast and too good at hiding behind the stones or dodging out of the way." And she decided to take the opportunity to throw a little more dirt on Dumbledore, "I'm really good at running and dodging stuff, you know," she said in a conspiratorial stage-whisper. "My cousin and his friends like to chase me around the neighborhood and throw stuff at me, and my aunt and uncle sometimes try to hit me if I don't get all the work done fast enough."
"Heather, my girl," Dumbledore cut in sternly, "you should not say such horrible things about the family who loves you and raised you. How could you tell such lies about them?"
"But, sir, they do!" She half-yelled.
"We'll come back to that later," Amelia said, "but we need to finish this investigation first."
"Yes, ma'am," Heather said respectfully. "So anyway, I was getting tired and got close to the portkey, and, well, I just thought maybe since he didn't do a very good job with any of that other stuff, that maybe he wouldn't have thought to stop the portkey being two way? So I tripped him and here we are!"
"I see," the head of the DMLE said.
"I was right," she shrugged.
Amelia pinched the bridge of her nose, much the same as a certain potions professor was doing in the background. She couldn't quite figure Snape out, but she'd have to think about him later.
"She's still injured!" One of the aurors called out, seeing some blood trickle from her arm.
"I'll take her to the infirmary, Albus," Barty-as-Moody said, stomping over.
"Yes," the headmaster responded distractedly.
Once the two were safely away from the crowds, Barty turned a considering eye on the teen.
"Hi, Barty," she said cheerfully. "Hope you didn't forget to take your potion in all that commotion. Hate for something to happen to you this close to the end."
Barty immediately took a swig from the hip flask he carried.
"He's back, isn't he?" he asked once assured his disguise wasn't about to fail and leave him vulnerable to the authorities.
"Of course," she responded flippantly. "Sane, and much more physically appealing."
He gave her a strange look at that statement.
"What? You can't tell me you actually liked the snake-look…" she questioned.
"Well, no, you're right," he decided.
"Anyway," Heather continued as they made their way through the empty halls, "He's removed the mark from those that weren't loyal, hid Snape's to help prove my deception, and he'll be calling soon."
Barty nodded, "Here's your stop."
"So it is," she said and lightly entered the infirmary and submitted herself to Madam Pomfrey's tender mercies.