What killed the cat
Part 5
The potion swirled in the cauldron, a yellow-orange iridescence that had taken four hours of tenuous work to make. It was brewed perfectly, the kind of thing Snape would avoid looking at to get out of awarding points to Gryffindor. The three of them were huddled around it, Harry had gone to the kitchen to get something to drink.
"All done," Hermione said with a tired but triumphant smile. "Could you pass me that vial please, Sirius?" she added, momentarily taking her eyes off of the concoction to point to a small glass container. He nodded and passed it to her. Later they would call this the pivotal moment on which everything hung.
Her hand, almost trembling with excitement, had managed to stir and add ingredients with complete diligence throughout the brewing process, not a slip or wrong movement could be found anywhere. So why was it that the vial dropped, sending small shards of glass all across the classroom floor, lodging themselves partially into Sirius' right leg?
Hermione gave a small curse when it happened, Remus held out an empty glass for her to use instead, ignoring her remark pointedly. She ladled it in while muttering a profuse apology, seemingly embarrassed. She had just brewed a potion that most full-grown wizards (including himself) could not and yet she was embarrassed. He almost laughed.
She put the glass on a desk and with Remus' help started clearing up. Sirius was still trying to coax a slither of the transparent substance from his leg, a steady drip of blood rolled down it. He didn't seem to notice, the pain was dull compared to the things he had felt before.
The hours had been spent in relative silence, Hermione asking for a little help every now and again. Now, when it was done, the entire room seemed to let out a breath of relief. It was as if they had been in black and white, and only now they had returned to colour.
Harry walked in then.
"The potions done." Sirius said, turning at the sound of the door.
"Hmmm." A pause. "What happened to your leg?" Harry asked while taking a seat at a desk. Hermione went across the room to throw away some extra pieces or dragon's liver.
"It doesn't matter," Sirius replied, "Did you get your drink?" He inquired, returning his attention to the piece of glass.
His expression became slightly disappointed. "There wasn't anyone there," he remarked, sounding slightly confused.
"Oh well," Remus - fighting back a yawn while wiping down a surface.
"I might as well not have gone down though, looks like we had some here all the while…" It was exactly four seconds before they cottoned on to what he was saying. Sirius looked sharply up from his bleeding leg, Remus abandoned the Quick-Cleaning Cloth and Hermione (who had been loath to touch the slimy dragon's liver and so had held her plate over the bin and watch it slide slowly into it) turned to shout 'No!' at Harry. All three of them were too late.
Harry held the potion up to his lips and took a sip. He screwed up his face, "This pumpkin juice tastes a bit odd…what?" he said, looking at the horror on their faces.
"Harry, that's the potion," said Remus quietly, how long would it take for the Dementor to arrive? A looming dark shadow cut off his thoughts. They were back to monochrome, the air in the room became chilled and silent apart from the strained breathing of Harry. Hermione stood apoplectic with fear staring wide eyed by the door at the figure which had appeared, painfully aware that it was closest to her. Sirius had closed his eyes, straining against some memory that no one else could see and Harry too seemed to lapse slowly into the past. The room became suddenly claustrophobic, the plate of dragon's liver fell to the ground with a resounding shatter.
There was no time to think, Remus shouted in the midst of pale faces about him, "Animum Chrouchis Emisisti!" and then "Expecto Patronum" in quick succession. First a jet of luminous purple light shot from his wand, and seemed to be absorbed by the Dementor, making the black robes momentarily purple. A silver mist followed, it hovered round the Dementor giving it an almost eerie glow. It stood firmly in place, slowly edging forward as the mist began to lighten. Remus tried not to panic, to notice the subtle manoeuvres of the Dementor towards Harry despite the Patronus that encircled it.
Harry began to choke, reaching for his wand to try and cast his own patronus, unaware that Remus had already endeavoured to banish the statuesque form towering above his fallen body. Sirius seemed to writhe on the floor across the room only Hermione and Remus could still stand. Harry lifted his trembling hand to it but just then his eyes caught sight of what was under the hood from his position on the floor. The almost translucent, wrinkled and scabby skin of the Dementor repulsed him, cold and disgusted he was unable to stop his gut from wrenching compulsively. Instead of the sickly smelling porridge-like substance he'd been expecting he vomited a vibrant orange-yellow liquid - all that was left of the potion.
At once the Dementor retreated from the silver light. Sirius disapparated, hoping that the potion rendered the Dementor unable to sense him as an Azkaban escapee. Hermione stood shuddering in the corner of the room, Harry wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and levered himself up. He walked shakily towards her along with Remus. Her eyes looked oddly glassy and her skin was an odd blue-ish colour.
"Are you all right?" Harry asked, laying a hand gently on her shoulder. She stooped shaking but her breathing continued to be laboured as she nodded vigorously, resulting in a light-headed feeling and an honest belief that the floor was vibrating on her part.
"I feel a bit weird, I'm sure it'll wear off soon," she said with a small smile, gratefully accepting a small piece of chocolate from Remus.
Remus began casting cleaning spells around the room, getting rid of the dragon's liver and pieces of shattered china around the bin. It was half an hour before Sirius returned, he was expecting some kind of search party and so came in the form of Padfoot, thankfully the Ministry had not been alerted (which lead Sirius to ponder how the Dementor would have told the officials if it had sensed him.) There was a moment when they all just stood there, unsure of what to do. And then there was a moment when Remus knew what had to be done, despite his reluctance. Remus hated going to St. Mungo's.
-=-
Everything there was so very white, it made your eyes hurt as soon as you entered the building. The whole place stank of disinfectant potions and there was general air of pity lining the faces of the medi-wizards who worked there, because if you were in St. Mungo's then something was wrong. Everything there seemed so sterile and untouchable, clean and dirty at the same time because of all those sick people lying in beds with their pale and gaunt faces, staring at the endless white of the ceiling and wondering just how high it was. Some of them couldn't turn their heads so they never saw the walls, or the other bodies either side of them in neat, orderly rows; some of the patients were put into isolation or padded rooms or cast with charms to disable them so that they couldn't hurt themselves.
Everything there was still and quiet, even in the most frantic cases the medi-wizards took on an unnatural calm in the face of death; their hands gloved in a glistening substance to keep them clean, masks over their identical faces so that all you could see was their eyes. He only ever met ones with sad eyes, big and wide and sympathetic in a way that made him feel patronised. He knew that all medi-wizards weren't like that, it was just the way they viewed him because they knew.
His first visit had been the worst. His father had burst through the double doors, cradling his limp form in his arms, blood spilling from the wound on his shoulder while his mother sobbed desperately, almost as if she could feel the pain for him, gasping for breath with which to cry out his name over and over in anguish. He would never forget the way she said his name that night and whenever she spoke it again, it always sounded the same to him, whether spoken in joy or anger, it always sounded as if said in desperation.
His head lulled from side to side as his father ran to the main desk where the receptionist talked in a calming voice while his father quickly rattled off a tale about young boys wondering in the woods and werewolves at the full moon. He handed his body over to a strong medic who reassured his father they would look after him, his mother clutched desperately at his hand and gave it a quick squeeze before his father pulled her back. The medics said they needed to be given sufficient space. As the medi-wizards took him through a partition to a bed he caught sight of his mother's tear streaked face with a hand holding up a red silk handkerchief to her eyes, his father putting his arm around her in comfort while Remus was carried to the other side, after that he fell unconscious.
He felt for the silk handkerchief in his pocket, it was shabby now, like his cloak and robes. He had taken it from his mother's vanity table after she had died, it was one of the only things he kept. He walked to the main reception.
"I'd like to see a Mr Bartholomew Crouch, please," he said clearly, fighting back the memories. It was so easy to remember everything here and get lost in the past. The receptionist nodded and tapped her wand on to a piece of parchment.
"You do realise," she said, "that he is in the Department of Soulless Bodies and therefore unresponsive?"
"Yes," replied Remus.
"Reason for visiting?" she droned.
"He's an old acquaintance of mine," he lied easily, he had known the question was coming. When he had visited his mother they had asked the question every time, no matter how often he visited or how used to his face they became, the receptionists always acted as if they did not recognise his face. They somehow remained detached as if it were all a dream and that they didn't really see so many people die.
The receptionist nodded and gave him a reference number for Crouch's room along with a password and some directions he did not need. He walked to the room, not sure what to expect, surely if the spell worked there would have been some kind of headline in the Daily Prophet? Perhaps they were keeping it quiet or didn't check such stable patients regularly.
When he got to the room there was only 10 minutes left of visiting time, he spoke the password clearly and the door creaked open. Their lying on a plain bed was the body of Crouch - just as soulless as after the Dementor had kissed it. It was at this point that Remus began to panic.
Miles away Hermione began screaming at Harry.
-=-
A/N: Ahh, the end of another chapter. I appear to have lost the comedy in this, sorry, I'll try and find it somehow. I'm painfully aware that I put a lot of unnecessary description in this, this was to avoid confusion over various aspects in the plot. Anyway, if you've read it then please review!, I'll try not to make the next chapter quite so wordy.