LOST PERSPECTIVE 7
PAYBACK TIME
By Bellegeste
Author's note: Another short chapter, and more Beckett. (Just wait 'til I get going on the masterpiece 'Waiting for Snapeot'.)
CHAPTER 3 : DISAPPEARANCES
Snape: I was fine.
Hermione: I stayed with Professor Snape.
Harry: I chased the attacker.
Hermione: I called for help.
Harry: I lost him on the stairs.
Hermione: There didn't seem to be any staff on duty.
Harry: The Healers helped me check the exits.
Hermione: Professor Snape took some potion.
Harry: So I came back.
Hermione: He wasn't supposed to talk.
Snape: It was imperative that I inform the Healer of the breach in security.
X X X
…Harry reached the fire-door and crashed against it with all his weight, numbing his shoulder in the process. A whisk of grey shadow was disappearing downwards, its humanity distorted into unrecognisable whorls through the thick, toughened security glass. Harry caught his breath, spitting blood and dragging his sleeve across his face. The door took its time, yawning back with infuriating slowness, heavy, unhurried, its Self-Opening Charm not programmed for haste. As the gap widened, Harry slipped through and dived down the stairs, two bounds to the first small landing, clutching the banister to swing himself round the tight return, two bounds down the next flight… The door on this landing was still ajar, easing itself shut with no great urgency.
But the shadowy figure had gone. Further along the corridor two Healers in their lime green gowns were studying a chart, their heads bent over the clipboard, medics murmuring in subdued voices.
"Hey!" Harry shouted. They looked up, startled. One of them put a disapproving finger to his lips - it was, after all, the middle of the night. "Hey! Excuse me!" he called again. "Did someone just come down here? Have you seen anyone? There's some maniac on the loose…"
They rushed up to him, robes flapping. Anything was a welcome distraction from the tedium of the night shift.
"Maniac?" The taller of the two gave a flimsy laugh. "The place is full of them, laddie - this is St Mungo's, you know. You'd be mad if someone had Hexed your hair into licquorice laces… Or given you elephant ears…"
"Or had your eyes lacerated by Bowtruckles…"
"That reminds me - what do you call a man with a pin in his eye?" Tall guy went on, ignoring Harry.
"Ooh, don't tell me… think I've heard this one… wait a minute…"
"For Merlin's sake! Pop-Eye!" shouted Harry. "Now, will you please shut up and listen? My father's been attacked…"
x x x
Tall guy would check the far staircase, while his colleague alerted all ward staff to be on the lookout. Harry raced on down to the main entrance hall to warn the receptionist and see if anyone had left by Floo in the last few minutes. He desperately wanted to catch the would-be assassin. He'd show them. He didn't need molly-coddling or protecting. He could do this. No mere Death Eater was going to assault Snape and get away with it. Not if he, Harry, had anything to do with it. He'd bring the evil sod to justice and make him pay - he'd make them all pay – for ruining his Christmas, and torching his home, and hurting his father…
By night the hospital was hushed and spookily empty; it had an abandoned, derelict feel about it, scoured of its daytime bustle, free of the gloomy queues of outpatients and their anxious families, trailing from waiting area to treatment room to dispensary and back to 'Appointments'; free of the marching throngs of dutiful visitors, armed with cards and flowers, with platitudes and ersatz optimism; free of the chatting nurses with their sensible, soft-soled, flat shoes but laughing, off-duty eyes; free of the nameless cogs - the cooks, the technicians, the porters, the elves, the cleaners… And not a Healer in sight. Even the festive decorations had a lifeless, drab look about them. To Harry, as he clattered from floor to floor, the sterile, white wasteland was starkly post-apocalyptic. It felt as though the Last Battle had already come, that humanity had been wiped from the earth with an antiseptic cloth. But he was not going to let the Death Eaters win.
In the foyer it was business as usual. The surly night-watchman had noticed nothing untoward. He listened sceptically to Harry's dire warnings, fingering his wand, prepared to stun the ranting teenager if necessary, clearly convinced that the boy was a wandering inpatient, in need of medication or restraint.
"Oi, you. Move along there. We've got an a.f.a1. coming in any minute – multiple broom pile-up."
Harry realised he was getting nowhere.
He was about half way up the second flight of stairs, on his way back to Snape's room, when his legs gave up the contest and he surrendered onto the step with a sob of sheer frustration. How could he have let the man escape? From under his very nose? He'd almost had him. Had he somehow by-passed the wards and Apparated away, without going near the main entrance? Had he had a Portkey? The hospital security wouldn't be as rigorous as that of Hogwarts, or even Snape's cottage - and they had got through that, hadn't they? Was Dark Magic becoming that powerful? How could he go back and tell Snape that he'd failed?
Harry rested his head wearily against the banister; the sharp wooden uprights dug into his ear and temples, but he was too dejected to care. Go back? He didn't want to go back to furnish Snape with proof of his incompetence. He had wanted, so badly, to prove that Snape had been wrong in not trusting him to fight back there at the cottage; to show that he was worthy and capable.
And what was he going back to? Harry preferred not to think of what might have happened to Snape in those minutes before he had unsuspectingly opened the door, interrupting … what? An interrogation? An execution? More Crucios? He'd been a coward; he hadn't wanted to go into the room; he'd left it to Hermione. It wasn't fair; it was all too much; he was too tired for this. Why him? Why did these things always happen to him? Couldn't somebody else deal with it all? Heaving himself up, Harry began to trudge back up to the fourth floor, every step a precipice.
End of Chapter. Next chapter: PARTNERS IN SHOCK.
1 a.f.a. – air flying accident