Chapter 69

Lily arrived at St Mungo's together with Petunia and Dudley. After stepping out of the flames, they proceeded to the welcome witch at the reception and asked for Vernon.

"First floor in the Livingstone Ward, my dear" the welcome witch stated and they proceeded to the stairs.

When they entered the ward, Lily recognized James standing in front of an examination room.

"Do you know anything yet?"

James nodded and beckoned her over.

"It looks like it's more serious than anyone expected. The doctors said that the burn goes deeper than the skin. These people have aimed for his heart. If they would have had a little bit more time, it would have only been a black bunch of charred muscles."

Lily took a deep breath and turned to Petunia, who had her hand pressed on her chest and tears in her eyes.

"Don't worry Petunia. The healers will help him, I'm sure"

Petunia just nodded and the tears started to flow.

Lily had no idea that Petunia did really care for somebody besides herself. She was honestly concerned about her husband's well-being.

"The healers are trying to heal the most severe part of the burn now. He will have to stay over night but the chances that he will be able to leave tomorrow are not bad" James said as he recognized Petunia's crestfallen expression. "You will be able to see him soon"

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Kimberly was trying to hold on to Lady Tanya during their strenuous and bumpy ride, but soon she couldn't feel her fingers anymore because of the icy winter wind.

"How long do you think it will take until we get there? I have no idea how long I can hold on and you also have to be half frozen" Lady Tanya screamed against the roaring of the wind.

"I guess we should be there in about another two hours. We can't land because of Buckbeak. The ministry is after him and you can never be sure what the deatheaters are planning. When this woman finds out that that we're going to inform Dumbledore, they might be trying to stop us. I wonder how Lestrange knew that they were going to Diagon Alley anyway."

"I think we should be able to make it two hours longer. Albus should provide us with some hot beverages when we arrive" Lady Tanya replied.

When it suddenly started to snow, Kimberly screamed "Merlin's jewels! This has to be a conspiracy"

Within minutes, their cloaks were frozen and the two women felt like breathing ice blocks.

Desperately they were on the lookout for the towers of Hogwarts.

Just when Lady Tanya had the feeling she wouldn't be able to keep a firm grip on the slippery feathers of the hippogriff, Kimberly taped her shoulder and pointed at a little spot in the distance.

"We made it! That's the Astronomy Tower of Hogwarts"

Lady Tanya heaved a sigh of relief and wrapped her arms around the neck of Buckbeak. Although she was technically neither alive nor dead, her hands were so numb of the cold that she couldn't feel the neck anymore.

Soon, the rest of the castle came into view and Beaky became livelier. He stretched his long neck forward and went into a nosedive.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO" was all Lady Tanya could scream while she pulled herself back, afraid she would slide over the neck and fall.

Kimberly however let out a squeak of delight when she saw Hagrid's pumpkin patch coming closer.

The Hippogriff was aiming for Hagrid's hut and then the two not matching pair of legs connected with the frozen ground.

Unfortunately the ground was so slippery that Buckbeak was losing control. Instead of a proper landing he kept sliding and hit the sidewall of the hut with a thud.

Kimberly and Lady Tanya, however, were catapulted of his back and crashed into the rain barrel. A flush of ice-cold water swashed over them and soaked them from head to toe.

"Who's makin all the fuss out 'ere" Hagrid's booming voice came from inside and a second later the front door opened.

"BEAKY" he screamed as he spotted the hippogriff and stomped through the snow in a speed, nobody would have thought he was capable of.

Lady Tanya had found a way out of the heap of snow she had been stuck in and was now helping Kimberly.

Hagrid, however, had not even recognized the women because he was too busy examining the hippogriff for possible injuries.

"Hey Hagrid, could you give me a hand here?" Lady Tanya called and startled the half-giant terribly.

"Oh sorry. Didn' see there was somebody else" he apologized hastily and pulled Kimberly out of the snow with one smooth move.

It almost knocked all the air out of the potions mistress when her body crashed against Hagrid. It felt like hitting a stone wall.

"Yer need ter come in an warm up. Yer frozen" he stated as he recognized the desolate state the two women were in.

"We need to speak to Dumbledore immediately. One of the children has been abducted and we were cut off from the floo network" Kimberly said through chattering teeth.

"Come in first an then we contact 'im" he urged and pushed them towards the font door.

The two women knew that they couldn't withstand so they obliged and entered the hut.

A few moments later they both had a huge cup of hot tea in front of them and the fire warmed them instantly.

"I think it would be the best if we inform the two separately. Who do you want to talk to?" Tanya asked and wiggled her cold feet in front of the fireplace.

"It doesn't make a difference to me" Kimberly said. "But I think it would be better if I talk to Albus. If he finds out that you're here as well, you will be back in your painting sooner than you think"

Lady Tanya's eyes grew large and she nodded.

"Yes... I haven't even thought about that before. He mustn't find out about it as long as I'm here at Hogwarts. I know I will have to deal with it when we're back at headquarters but then I might have a better explanation at hand"

"Be careful when you talk to Severus. He is a very complicated man and he will not appreciate it when you don't come out with the important facts first. Don't ramble!"

Lady Tanya rolled her eyes and nodded. Although she new Kimberly was right, she just hated it to be lectured.

"We will meet here in an hour. That should be enough time to give them the most important information and I want to be back at headquarters tonight. Sirius might need us. This whole situation is extremely fishy and I doubt that this is the end of it yet" Kimberly said firmly and put her shoes back on before she seized the jar of floo powder.

"She is right" Lady Tanya said to Hagrid, who had just finished taking care of Buckbeak. "This looks very fishy. Would you mind to have a look over the grounds for something unusual?"

"Don' worry. The dragons still guard the castle, but I will keep me eyes open fer ye" the half-giant replied and his beetle-black eyes twinkled happily.

Lady Tanya then took a bit of floo powder from the jar and proceeded to the dungeons.

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Zara groaned and tried to open her eyes slowly, but unfortunately it didn't make any difference. Where ever she was, it was pitch black around her and extremely cold.

She sat up on, as much as she could feel, was a stone floor, and stretched out her arms in all directions.

Determined to find a door, she slowly crawled forward and after 5 steps, she reached a dank stone wall. Zara followed the wall, but couldn't find a door.

The young Ravenclaw had no idea, how long she had been crawling around in the darkness. It felt like hours and her hands and knees were cold and numb.

She said down somewhere in that cold empty room and sobbed into her hands.

The last she could remember was the malicious smirk of Lucius Malfoy. Bellatrix Lestrange had taken her to an old and ramshackle mansion, filled with deatheaters, but without a sign of Voldemort.

She had placed her inside a large room, without any furniture, in the center of a circle of hooded deatheaters.

Then an older version of Draco Malfoy had stepped forward and called "Oh here she is, our precious little pledge of security"

She had flinched terribly when he had touched her cheek with his cold hands.

Zara had known that there was no way out for her then. Not the slightest gap had been between the bodies with the hooded cloaks and any attempt to break through the circle would have been the sentence of her death.

Her heart had been pounding in her chest as if it was about to burst and her hands had been shaking terribly, as Lestrange had pointed her wand at her and Malfoy smirked "Take her away"

She had the distant feeling that she wasn't in this mansion anymore. When they had arrived there she had recognized all the trees around it and even inside the smell of trees and wood was present everywhere.

Here she could smell the sea. The salty scent of the ocean infiltrated her cell and she swore she could hear breakers when she listened hard enough.

While she was sitting in the dark, she wrecked her brain to find out, where she could be. She knew it wouldn't help to scream for help. No living soul in here would try to help her. All she hoped for that someone would come and bring her some food soon and maybe a light. She hadn't eaten anything since the ice cream at Diagon Alley and she had no idea how much time had passed since then.

She cowered on the wet stone floor; her cloak tightly wrapped around her and was on her way to fall asleep when she suddenly heard a noise.

Her head perked up and she listened. At first she thought it was just some rats but then she recognized it had to be footsteps.

Whoever it was did not come closer and she cried out "Hello?"

When she received no response, her exhausted body sank back on the floor again. Then she felt a tickling sensation on her left cheek and moved her hand up to her face.

As soon as she felt several hairy legs crawling over her arm, she screamed in utter terror.

A spider! A large hairy spider had just crawled over her face. She had to get out of there. NOW!

Without further ado she dashed forward and started banging against the wall, screaming on the top of her lungs for help.

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Lily was sitting next to her sister in front of the hospital room where the healers still tended to Vernon.

"He has to survive! He has to survive!" Petunia muttered constantly, like a mantra while Dudley was just looking around for some distraction.

Then, after what seemed like eternity, one of the healers left the room and addressed Petunia. "Mrs Dursley, I assume? Your husband is in a very serious condition. Mr Weasley here told me that he was attacked in Knockturn Alley by an unknown fiend and I have to confess that I have never seen a burn mark like this before. We could determine that this burn went very deep, but fortunately for your husband it didn't reach the heart. On the other side we couldn't determine the whole range of damage and your husband is still unconscious, but you can visit him now"

Petunia nodded mutely and went inside.

"Do you want to go and see your father or would you rather come with us to the cafeteria" Lily asked and Dudley mumbled "Cafeteria"

Petunia sat down at Vernon's bedside and took his hand in hers. His normally red face which matched his choleric nature was now white as marble.

His breathing was shallow and jerky; the stout body limb and bathed in sweat.

Another healer was standing by his side and changed a compress soaked with a foul smelling liquid on Vernon's chest.

"What monster did that to you?" Petunia sobbed as she recognized the awful burn mark. "Please Vernon come back to me"

She had no idea if he could hear her or not; his eyes remained firmly closed and he didn't move.

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"I'm hungry. Let's see if mom has something to eat for us downstairs" Ron called and rubbed his stomach.

"That's all you can think of - food! Honestly, Ron, one of our friends is missing and you worry about that. Anyhow, Sirius has told us to stay up here until further notice" Hermione scolded her boyfriend.

Harry was sitting next to Kayla and Kelsey on his bed, while Ron and Hermione were bickering on the other one.

"Hermione, you are right as always, but I'm hungry too" George exclaimed and Fred continued. "So I think one of us should go downstairs and bring some food up for the rest of us."

Although it sounded very bold, as most of the Weasley twins' comments, Hermione had to admit that the idea was good.

When she heard the loud rumbling in Ron's stomach for the second time in 5 minutes, she knew that he wouldn't stop complaining until he was fed.

"I don't think I can carry all the food, so would you please help me?" she asked Kayla and together they headed for the kitchen. They were about to pass the library when the Gryffindor prefect recognized a puddle on the dark stone floor.

"Kreacher must have spilled water in there" Hermione said as she pointed at the door. "It's flowing under the door."

"Let's see what a mess he has made" Kayla suggested and pushed the door. "Although I doubt it was Kreacher. I have never seen him cleaning before"

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked when she saw that the door wouldn't move. "It seems as something is blocking it" Kayla panted and pushed harder.

With the help of Hermione, the door finally swung open and the girls stepped inside. The puddle was even bigger inside and they both immediately recognized it wasn't water.

The mahogany-haired girl knelt down to have a closer look and gasped "Hermione, that's blood" The prefect pushed Kayla out of the way and closed the door.

Behind it was Kreacher.

"Oh my god! This is awful!" Kayla screamed as the house-elf's head rolled in front of her feet

Alerted by the scream the boys were running down the hallway and rushed into the library.

"What happened? Did anybody get hurt?" Harry called when he looked into the shocked faces of Hermione and Kayla.

"Someone has killed Kreacher" Hermione said quietly. The smell of blood and the sight of the head in front of her feet made her feel sick.

Kelsey helped his sister to a chair. Her tan face had a slightly green touch and she was shaking.

"Fred and George, please go and fetch Sirius" Harry called and the twins left in a hurry.

"I know he wasn't a pleasant guy, but who would do that?" Kelsey wondered.

Hermione glared at Ron accusingly and said "Who has threatened to hang his ugly head over the fireplace?"

"Don't make yourself ridiculous, Hermione. Do you really think I would chop his head off? And besides, I was with you and the others the whole time. I couldn't have done it even if I wanted to." Ron said enraged.

"He's right Hermione. I can't believe you would accuse your own boyfriend" Harry exclaimed as he listened for the return of Fred and George.

The Gryffindor prefect smiled at Ron apologetically and he pulled her into a warm embrace. "That was a bit too much for you today I guess. Made your superbrain go all haywire" he chuckled.

At this moment they heard somebody sprinting up the stairs and Sirius rushed into the library followed by the Weasley twins.

"What did these two nuts just tell me... someone beheaded my house-elf?"

"I'm afraid so" Harry replied and pointed at the body and the detached head of Kreacher behind the door.

Sirius picked up the enormous battle axe that was lying next to the body.

"I assume this was the weapon" he stated the obvious. "Someone must have taking it from the wall. It was only for decoration and I had no idea it was that sharp"

"What are we going to do now?" Kayla said meekly. "Is there somebody we need to inform about the murder of a house-elf?"

"No, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement doesn't really care about the death of house-elves. We won't need to report it" Sirius assured her. "But I would still like to know what happened."

"I doubt that one of us could have killed him. Most definitely he was dead before we returned from Diagon Alley." Harry said.

Fred, who had seized a blanket from one of the closet covered the body and said "I can't imagine that anyone who lives in here could have done it. What is going to happen with him now?"

Sirius stroked his chin and replied "He was a very strange fellow. A long time ago my brother told me he wanted his head to be hung on the wall next to one of my mother's portraits."

"This is disgusting" Ron snorted and tried to avoid to look at the heap under the blanket.

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Lily was sitting at the table in the cafeteria together with James and Dudley. She looked still very pale and had refused everything but a cup of tea.

"Dear, you need to go and see Poppy today; why don't you floo to Hogwarts real quick while we wait here for you" James suggested with a concerned voice.

"This might be the best idea." Lily said and wiped a bead of sweat off her forehead.

Dudley didn't pay attention to the conversation of his aunt and uncle. He was totally occupied with the huge piece of chocolate cake on the plate in front of him.

Lily kissed her husband on the cheek and left.

James glanced at the boy next to him, whose face was covered with chocolate. He would have rather accompanied his wife than to baby-sit this wanna-be wizard.

"You eat like a pig, you know that?" said a girl with tan skin and blond hair, who was sitting on the next table.

Dudley choked on his piece of cake and gulped down a whole glass of pumpkin juice before he retorted "Shut your face"

"Oh you're a real gentleman" she taunted and smacked mockingly.

"Girls!" Dudley growled and continued to eat.

"When you meet somebody for the first time, you should introduce yourself properly." she lectured him, totally ignoring the fact that he obviously wanted to be left alone.

"I'm Jessica and I'm visiting my sister Alex, who's here with dragon-pox. And who are you?"

"I'm Dudley Dursley and I'm visiting my dad who has been burned by a crazy monster"

Jessica gasped and said "Really? Is there something... left ... to visit?"