Chapter Thirteen

She must have been awfully tired, because she slept right through the rest of the night. In fact, she slept right through the sunrise, too, and she didn't witness the fact that the potion she'd made was quite successful.

In fact, Daphne didn't wake up until she felt someone poking her shoulder. It was annoying, but when she opened her eyes to see a rather severe Clare standing there staring back at her, she smiled.

The other Slytherin had already seen her share of the fight with several scratches on her face that were already partially healed, though she didn't look too worse for wear. Her black hair was a bit tangled, of course, but that wasn't any real cause for alarm. When she was satisfied that Daphne was awake, she stepped back, giving her friend room to stand.

Daphne was getting rather tired of climbing to her feet, but it was easier this morning. The pain and stiffness was still there, especially in her right leg, though she did her best not to favor either of them. "Clare--" She started.

But the other girl grabbed her shoulders and gave them a good shake, and Daphne responded with wide-eyed surprise. "If you ever give me reason to think you're dead again," Clare began, then proceeded to leave the threat open as she wrapped Daphne in a tight embrace. This was quite odd for Clare, considering the other Slytherin never had been exceptionally affectionate. "...Just don't, okay?"

When she was finally released, she could see Professor McGonagall, now herself again, standing there with her arms crossed. Daphne reached down and shook Michael.

He grumbled and tried to bat her hand away, but she persisted. For one thing, he looked rather uncomfortable in the odd position he'd found himself in--one arm fallen behind the chair she'd been residing in, and his face resting on that. She figured he must have lost all feeling in that arm by now. She shook him a little harder, and he cracked one eye open and groaned.

"Five more minutes," he mumbled.

"Sorry, darling," Daphne said in a terribly falsetto voice, "but the pancakes are getting cold."

His eye slit open again. "I haven't had pancakes in four months," he muttered. This was punctuated with his stomach growling softly, which Daphne couldn't help but chuckle at. Clare, too, looked a little amused, even. He slid into a more upright position and finally stretched and stood.

"Looks like it worked," he said ever so observantly as he looked Clare up and down, and Daphne had to grab her arm as the look on her face turned absolutely poisonous.

"Mr. Corner, do compose yourself," McGonagall said sternly.

Daphne smirked to herself as he flushed and tried to fix his hair, noticing their former professor for the first time.

"Oh, Professor, this is for you," she said, fumbling around in the pockets of her robes for Snape's note. Finding it, she waited for the professor to walk over and take it. McGonagall undid the seal and unfolded it, her eyes skimming quickly down the page. Daphne wanted to ask her what it said, but she held her tongue. She wasn't on buddy-buddy terms with McGonagall even with all they'd been through together. Michael, too, looked uneasy now that it was daytime and there wasn't a Death Eater in the room to shout at, but the look on his face screamed that he was doing everything he could to not ask. It was Clare who broke the silence.

"Who's that from?"

"Professor Snape delivered it last night," Michael said with such bitterness that it surprised even Daphne.

McGonagall continued reading it, and while her face was almost as impassive as Snape's, there were times that she smiled and times where she frowned.

"I can't tell you who it's from specifically," the professor said. "However, I can tell you that while things aren't looking exceptionally good, they aren't looking bad, either. I know it's not a lot, but hopefully it is, at least, encouraging."

"I honestly can't believe it took you two this long to fix things," Clare grumbled at Michael and Daphne as she plopped down into one of the chairs. Daphne noted that the flowerpot she'd been in was very badly broken and the terra cotta strewn across the room as if it had been kicked or thrown. That, however, was Clare for you.

"Hey, we did our best," Daphne said before Michael could say anything to get himself slugged. To this, Clare said nothing, but she crossed her arms and looked away.

McGonagall stepped forward, rolling up the parchment and holding it in two hands. "Is there anything you'd like to tell us, Miss Rivers?"

"Do you want to know why everyone left without sticking around to look for survivors?" she snapped. "Do you want to know why Potter got together everyone he could and just took off like he did? I was there. It was horrible."

Daphne and Michael were watching her, waiting for her to continue. But McGonagall shook her head, interrupting. "The loss of Free Will. It's all here in the letter. It's in Voldemort's--" Everyone shuddered, though less so than they might have a year prior-- "power to use a gathering of witches and wizards as a channel to... broadcast a spell so powerful that it would destroy the ability of a wizard to decide things on his own."

"He'd kill anyone that wasn't a Pureblood," Clare added. "Millions of them. Using puppets. You see why it was so important that we didn't waste any time."

Daphne stared. She felt so helpless... Should He be successful in casting that spell, she'd become a weapon. Unable to stop herself from killing... Perhaps Half-bloods like Clare and Michael. "Professor," she asked weakly. "Is there any good news in that letter?"

"They found some of the others," McGonagall replied, her mouth looking painfully stiff as she said it. Whether she was trying not to frown or not to smile, Daphne couldn't say for sure.

"Who?" Michael immediately asked, and he was chorused by Clare, who was also looking very concerned for the legendary Queen of Frostbite.

McGonagall looked at both of them with a frown, silently telling them to control themselves before she continued. "As you well know, Mr. Smith, Mr. Macmillan, Miss Bones, and Mr. Thomas are here with us now. Miss Granger, Mr. Boot, Miss Spinks, and Mr. Finnigan are with Professor Lupin and several other highly capable adults. The younger survivors that you two," she said, gesturing to Michael and Daphne, "brought in are now in a hideaway house. They are, suffice to say, perfectly safe for now."

"What about Cho and Anthony?" Michael interjected again, the look on his face starting to fall into desperation, and Daphne decided that he must have been starting to have a bit too much anxiety, because he usually wasn't this excitable.

"What about Pansy and Draco?" Clare added, also looking uncharacteristically upset.

"If you will all just silence yourselves for a moment," McGonagall replied, looking annoyed. Her glasses were slipping down slightly. "It seems that within the last twenty-four hours Miss Weasley, Miss Lovegood, Mr. Goldstein, and Mr. Potter have been seen outside of Cornwall."

"But what about Cho?" Michael nearly shouted.

McGonagall gave him a cold look that would even put Clare to shame. "Cho Chang and Pansy Parkinson have not been seen lately, but I advise you, Mr. Corner, to control your temper and do your best to not assume the worst. It's possible that like Mr. Macmillan found himself a week ago, they've been momentarily separated."

"That's right," Clare said quietly. "Macmillan, Weasley, and Lovegood all got separated from us... Somehow Potter managed to contact Weasley. He had... a shard of mirror. That's how they found us again, and that's when we ran into the Death Eaters..." she trailed off.

"So, they're chasing You-Know-Who around the entirety of the British isles trying to keep Him from casting the Free Will spell?" Daphne surmised.

Clare nodded. "It's like... It's like he was playing a game with us... With Potter. I think that perhaps he was planning on separating us, but I don't know why."

"Does it really matter what this plan or that is?" Daphne said and all eyes turned to her. "He's going to end up killing us all. That's what's important, aye? So we should focus on the bigger things first instead of the details. Perhaps we can find a pattern in their movements."

"This isn't a time to panic, Miss Greengrass," McGonagall reminded her calmly.

"I'm not. I'm not. It just seems like there's a pattern. I mean, Macmillan's said that some of the Death Eaters are taking to leaving people unable to cast magic, but alive. So... do you suppose He is... Saving them for later?"

"It could be. But you'd think they'd pick something other than a bloody plant," replied Clare.

"It's actually perfect if you think about it," Michael said, and Clare rolled her eyes at him. "They'd know exactly where you were. That Death Eater didn't count on you poisoning him, though, so he was probably under the weather a bit."

"Was Susan silenced before or after you were changed?" Daphne asked

"After. But I don't see--" Clare trailed off as Daphne shook her head.

"I'm trying to figure out if She's a Half-blood or a Pure-blood."

Michael and Clare both shot their mutual friend a Look, seemed to realize they were actually agreeing together on the fact that Daphne was nutters, and hastily looked away.

"I don't see any reason to bring Blood into it," Clare muttered.

"No, no, just listen, you two," Daphne said with an exasperated sigh. "The only two who were substantially altered or hurt were Clare who's a Half-blood and Dean Thomas... Also a Half-blood."

"But Bones can't speak!" Clare replied irritably. "What good is she as a witch if she can't talk to do spells?"

"I'm sure whoever cast it on her knew how to remove it, too," Daphne replied darkly. "Not only that, but they left Granger for dead, too, and you know she's..." She almost said Mudblood. Somethings, even in times such as they were in, were hard to forget not to do.

"Right, so what about Smith? He's a Half-blood, isn't he?" Michael asked, looking at her disbelievingly.

"I can't say I know exactly what they were planning. They might have planned to incapacitate him, too, but ran out of time. At present Potter's got Chang who's a Pure-blood and Weasley, too... I don't know about Lovegood, but I seem to recall she's a Pure-blood..."

"Anthony's not," Michael added quietly.

"Pansy is," Clare murmured.

"Not only that, but the two that were kidnapped were Draco and Ronald Weasley... Both Pure-blood sons."

Michael and Clare said nothing, both seeming to be very interested in the floor.

"It stands to reason that there is a pattern behind this."

McGonagall almost smiled at Daphne, her mouth twitching slightly, but she never made it all the way there. "Excellent reasoning, Miss Greengrass."

Oddly enough, Daphne didn't feel too thrilled about her assessment. At one point in her life, Blood really did mean everything. It was a question of status; a natural state dating back farther than anyone could possibly remember. How it had come to pass that her two best friends were both Half-bloods, she couldn't recall. However, she hated the fact that what she was saying seemed to be hurting them, and she had no idea what to say to make it better.

Finally, she settled on, "I'm not going to let anything happen to either of you." ...She hoped that sounded final.

She didn't know if her words quite had the intended effect, but it seemed to shake everyone out of their silence. Michael seemed to accept the fact that less-than-Pure-bloods were being targeted, because the first thing he said was "Anthony's still out there then."

"And others," Clare added, though by now it seemed like everyone was so scattered, no one knew who was still in the fight and who was out of it.

"Keep in mind," McGonagall offered (And Daphne got the feeling that what they were saying was all rather redundant for their former professor), "that they are merely incapacitating these wizards. After the initial attack, there haven't been any killings."

Daphne nodded, but it didn't seem to mean anything to her. Then Michael practically shouted, "Finnigan is a Half-blood. They cast the Imperius curse on him instead of Terry."

"That doesn't make any sense, though," Clare said. "Because everyone knows that Potter's a Half-blood, and he can throw off the Imperius Curse."

"The question, then," McGonagall noted, "Is what does He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named plan to do with the Half-bloods and Muggleborns?" They all looked at her for a moment, and she again offered what might have been a smile but probably wasn't. She held up the letter. "Well, I can't tell you everything that's in here. But if you figure it out on your own, it's not really my problem, is it?"

"This is probably the first and the last time you'll ever hear me say this," Michael said, running a hand through his hair and grinning wryly. "But… I don't feel like thinking about it. Right now, we promised a kid who's just had a rough night canary creams in Diagon Alley. I think it's time we fulfill our end of the bargain."

Daphne couldn't help but feel a little relieved that someone had made the suggestion. She was too tired to really want to come up with theories on what He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wanted with her friends. Even if she didn't like kids much, they still owed Emma and Matthew this much. "Yeah, let's go see him now."

Clare raised an eyebrow and shook her head. "No thanks. I'll stick around here for the meantime. There are still too many loose ends," she added, implying just how foolish she thought it was to take a walk for fun down Diagon Alley now. However, Daphne and Michael ignored her, shrugging.

"If I hear anything that I can tell you, I'll let you know," McGonagall said. "For now. I believe I will check on my other students." Apparently professorial mode didn't end that easily. She swept out of the room, followed by Clare, and Daphne turned to Michael.

"So, shall we?"

They found out that Matthew had been moved to a more comfortable room so that the staff of the hospital could clean up the room he was in the night before. It hadn't exactly been destroyed, but the walls had been torn and were in pretty bad shape. In any case, Michael and Daphne found the boy in the children's ward of the minor magical injuries division. He was sitting up, looking hollow-eyed and a bit bruised, but otherwise in pretty good spirits.

He bounced to his feet when he saw them, and Daphne noticed the bandage around his hand. He didn't seem to care, though, instead calling them. "Mikey! Daffy! Did it work? Are they okay?"

Again, she got the impression that he was far too perceptive for a little Muggle boy.

Michael crouched down as Matthew came tearing across the room, nearly knocking the older boy over. It seemed the Ravenclaw wasn't that bothered by what must have been a frightening run-in with the little werewolf the night before. "They're fine. Both of them," Michael told him.

Matthew looked a bit disappointed, looking past Michael to the door. "Where are they?"

"They had some other things they needed to do," Daphne responded diplomatically.

"Aw, I wanted to see what the plant lady looked like," Matthew said, and Daphne suppressed a giggle. Plant lady. Then Matthew looked to Daphne. "Hey, you're walkin'. Are your legs better?"

Daphne nodded. They did feel better. It was still a little painful to walk, but not nearly as bad as it was before. The bruises around the breaks were already almost gone, in fact.

Matthew, of course, lit up like a Christmas tree. "Does that mean we're going? Can I see the Plant Lady first? What about the kitty? Did mom send me any clothes? 'cuz all I have is this hospital thing. They gave me soup for breakfast today!"

Even though he was a cute child, and he's proven very useful and clever, he was still a kid, as the questions kept coming Daphne couldn't help but feel a little disgruntled. Did he even take a single breath through all that? And he was just jumping around from subject to subject without a single cohesive word. Luckily, Michael seemed to have parsed all that. Matthew had climbed onto his back for a piggyback ride, and apparently Mikey was feeling generous enough to humour him. Daphne was glad Matthew wasn't trying to climb aboard her own back, because even though he was small, she doubted she was strong enough to hold him.

"You can see them after we get back. Your Mum gave us clothes when you came, remember?" Michael replied, glancing over his shoulder. Matthew wrapped his small arms around Michael neck and apparently commenced to squeezing, because Michael looked a little… funny for a minute before he was able to free up a hand to adjust the hold around his throat. "Now, you have to walk on your own and put your clothes on, and then we can go out and have a walk."

Matthew pouted from behind Michael's right ear, and Daphne was hard pressed to not snicker. "You can play horsie, too, then," she added, grinning slyly at Michael who seemed resigned to his fate as pack animal for a small werewolf.

At that point, a young mediwitch entered and blinked in surprise at Daphne and Michael. She was holding a bundle of children's clothing. "Hi Matthew," she said, smiling from behind thick-framed glasses. "I brought your things." She glanced expectantly to Daphne and Michael, and they slipped out of the room so that the nurse could help him get dressed.

"Makes you want to have one of your own, doesn't it?" Michael asked, smirking slightly, but she wasn't quite sure if he was wholly joking or not.