Title: Dreams
Rating: G
Summary: After a horror filled night, it's the morning after and friends drop by to share news and cart our heroes to St. Mungo's
Disclaimer: This doesn't belong to me. I don't claim the characters. Don't sue, I don't own anything much.
A/N: My stupid computer 'died' and took with it all my files. Including the three chapters I wrote following the last I posted. I'm tired of waiting for it to cough up my files so I'm trying to rewrite the chapters. I'm sorry it's taken so long but I'm also having terrible exams. Anyway, here it is. Er. It's been a while since I wrote so please alert me if I deviate from what occurred in the story before. I'm too lazy to read everything again. :)
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Morning Come
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
"The curse of what" Harry asked, too puzzled to believe his ears.
"Of the Living Dead, Potter." Snape glared at having to repeat himself
"But how did he get cursed?" Harry wondered out loud.
"That's up to you to tell me," replied Snape shortly.
Harry sat down on the other side of Lupin and started playing with the shredded ends of his dark robe. "I don't know. I only know what I saw." He glanced at Professor Snape.
"My aunt, uncle and cousin were murdered last night. Lupin came to help but… it was too late. I don't remember much after that." He looked distractedly out the window. "There were some people who came. I… passed out and didn't see who. I only remember that they wore black," he winced at the thought that everyone in the wizarding world wore black and it was so unhelpful to remember that. "And they were yelling. Then I think I lost consciousness. No wait! There was a flash of green light. I think Lupin must've cursed them, since we got out of there alive."
"I already knew about your cousin's family. But those people…" Snape pondered. "You are sure you saw them? Before you," he narrowed his eyes, "passed out."
"Yes."
Silence reigned for a while as they both thought on what Harry had said. Professor Snape was wondering how on earth Lupin could have taken on a whole troupe of Death Eaters and yet escape relatively unscathed while lugging Potter around. And how was it that Lupin was the one who came and he hadn't even been notified of the presence of Death Eaters on the move? Surely Dumbledore would have asked for his input on their activities. He was after all their spy. He frowned and ran circles in his thoughts.
"Sir?"
"What?"
"What's going to happen to Lupin? He's a werewolf. How can he turn into a vampire?"
"There has certainly never been a documented case of such an occurrence," mused Snape, distracted. "I cannot say for certain." He lapsed into silence again, this time regarding Lupin's face as he wondered what would happen to the fatigued werewolf. If such a phenomenon did occur he wanted to be close by to study him. This was even better than watching a werewolf transform. Then he shuddered as he recalled the feral eyes of the creature that attacked him. Not again. He would invent a potion. A potion that would work like the wolfsbane, yes. He's never had such a chance before. Now he would -
"What are we going to do then?"
He glared as his thoughts were interrupted again. "You are going to go up to the Gryffindor dorm to sleep. I will remain down here. Now go." Scat, Potter.
"No. I'm staying here!" Harry insisted, climbing on to a bed and holding on to the sheets, daring Snape to pull him off and drag him to the dorms. And Snape was sorely tempted. But it was late, he was tired and the idiot boy was not worth fussing over.
"Suit yourself." He hissed and turning his back he stalked to the office Madam Pomfrey used when she had the care of the ward. He shut the door firmly, turned off the lights and settled down in the armchair to think and brood the night away.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
The Hospital Wing
Early Morning
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Harry was woken up by a muffled shout echoing down the empty hall. No tapestries cushioned the sound as Madam Pomfrey was of the opinion that they attracted too much dust and dirt for it to be healthy to have strips of decorative cloth hanging on the walls. Instead she took great delight in furnishing the wing with beautiful pictures. But none of the pictures were as interesting as the one Harry woke up to.
Down the hall was the office Snape had retired to late last night. Now its door was flung wide open and strange sounds accompanied the strange scene that played out before his eyes.
Madam Pomfrey was back in full force. She was pressing Professor Snape down on the little cot in the office with one arm and holding his robes open with the other. The blood had drained from Harry's face and puddled in his stomach before he realized that his Potions Professor and Matron were not making out in full view albeit their intimate seeming positions. Madam Pomfrey had a wad of cotton wool in her hands now and was busy dabbing yellow sticky ointment on Snapes abdomen all the while threatening to pinch her patient to make him stay still. Harry almost smiled when he saw the look on Professor Snape's face as he submitted to the administrations of the plump little woman.
He could have stayed there and gazed upon the pretty picture for hours enjoying Professor Snape's suffering and imagining Ron's face as he relayed the story to him. But suddenly his view was blocked by the appearance of a bright pink head of feathery hair half covering the face of a young boy with a pencil thin nose. "T-Tonks?"
"Heya, Harry!" The boy beamed at him and the features lit up as a bright smile stretched across Tonk's pseudo face. "Snape summoned us to take Lupin to St. Mungo's"
"Oh." I thought Lupin said St. Mungo's was too full, Harry thought bemusedly. Then he sadly about what had happened to Lupin. Full or not, St. Mungo's is going to have another patient.
"Harry?" Tonks voice spoke soft and mournfully in his ear. Harry jumped as he was enveloped by a very bony and thin body. "I'm sorry about what happened to your family." She drew back a bit and looked deep into his eyes, her nose almost touching his. "We would've been there earlier. But there were complications," her voice died down to a whisper and she looked left and right before shifting further into his personal space. "Headquarters was blown up." She nodded at him seriously, "while we were inside. In the confusion nobody got the alert that something was happening. Dumbledore is distraught. I've never seen him so angry before." She glanced over at Lupin. "Lupin's the only one we could spare to check out the disturbance in Privet Drive. We didn't know it was so serious," she said looking at him like she expected to be assaulted.
Harry didn't know what to say. He hadn't thought about Dudley, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon since last night. Which seemed like a dream. It was almost unreal now, the fact that they were dead. Here at Hogwarts, they had never been anything more than an unpleasant thought. He didn't feel the deep gut wrenching dread he'd felt last night at the thought of losing them. He smoothed a hand down his rumpled shirt and shifted away from Tonks' arms. "It's alright. I… I couldn't do anything either." Tonks' face crumpled up at what she probably thought was a hint of his guilt-ridden mind and he quickly distracted her. "Ron and Hermione weren't at Headquarters when it happened were they? And how did it happen anyway?"
"No, Hermione is staying at Ron's place, the Burrow. And we're not really sure how it happened. There was no magical signature, no trace of enchantment. That's why we weren't alerted. It was as if a Muggle had suddenly managed to see the place and decided to knock it down with a Bull Nap-er."
"A… a what?"
"You know, what they use instead of a Reducto curse." She looked uncertainly at him. "Arthur says Muggles use a… some sort of bull to knock buildings down. Only I never figured how they got the bulls to do it while sleeping…" She canted her head to the side, clearly picturing a scene in her mind.
Harry gave a start and almost laughed. "You mean a bulldozer!" he exclaimed.
"Yeah." She grinned happily. "Anyway, it's gone now. Nothing more than a pile of rubble. Sirius would be pleased," she said quietly. "Mrs. Black was screaming all the way through and now she's nothing more than a board of streaked paint and torn canvas." Her grin turned savage and obsessed as she was reminded of what had happened to Sirius' mother's portrait.
"Oh." He didn't know what to say to that.
"Hey, I think Victoria is done with Snape!" Tonks said as she bounced off the bed. Professor Snape was trailing behind Madam Pomfrey, his menacing stride slightly off as he drew his black robes more firmly around himself. Madam Pomfrey was clicking her tongue and bustling along towards them muttering as she walked.
"- how someone can spend the whole night and not know of being injured! Unthinkable. A professor too!" she mumbled. "Hello Harry, dear." She looked anxiously at him. "You aren't hurt are you?" She looked interestedly at his torn jeans and the rip in his T-shirt. Harry knew there was a lot of blood on his clothes, mostly from Lupin and the gashes he had sustained during the night the Dursleys died. He squirmed away as she ran her wand down his cheek healing the scrape the broken glass had caused.
"No, Madam Pomfrey. Nothing more than a few scratches and bruises," he lifted his shirt to assure her when he saw her eyes gleam with suspicion. "Tonks said you're going to take Lupin to the hospital."
"That's right. He needs a full checkup from what I've heard from Professor Snape. You'll be coming too, Dumbledore wants to meet you," she waved her wand to conjure up a stretcher and floated Lupin over to it before magicking it down the hall in front of her toward the fireplace in the office. On close inspection, the office didn't look quite as small as it seemed from down the hall.
Harry followed behind Snape with Tonks at his side. Madam Pomfrey reached into a pot sitting next to a clock on the mantelpiece and flung a handful of sparkly red Floo powder into the small fire burning merrily in the fireplace. "St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies!" she called out and stepped into the fire as the fireplace expanded magically to accommodate the stretcher that followed her inside. Then with a whoosh of green flames she was gone. Snape went next leaving Tonks and Harry to follow. The little office glowed green and red as they left before the fire died down to softly smoldering embers, leaving the wing cold and uninhabited again.
TBC