Harry Potter and the Spirit of Revenge
Chapter Eight: People-Saving-Thing.

Please Read and Review. I'd like to know what I'm doing right (to keep doing it), and what I'm I doing wrong (to correct it).

Ministry of Magic
Holding Cells
Special Section.

Kingsley Shacklebolt wiped his brow. 'I can barely believe this…' he thought, as he maneuvered the unconscious body of the only other survivor of the Cemetery into a holding cell. 'Peter Pettigrew… alive…' He shook his head while he put the body into the rickety bed, adding a stasis spell, just in case the man woke up with any ideas of escaping, and also to try to keep him alive for as long as possible. Kingsley closed the magically reinforced door and stood guard outside.

He needed to notify Dumbledore of this. But he wouldn't dare to abandon his post, as his instruction from Madame Bones were very clear. Sending a Patronus with a message would be too risky. Both to send, as he didn't know if somebody would enter the place while he cast the spell, and for Dumbledore to receive, if he was not alone. No, he would have to deliver the message directly or by Floo.

He conjured a one legged stool, and sat. Should he begin to fall asleep, he would fall down, waking up instantly. (1)

St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
Room 12

Harry Potter rested peacefully, watched over by Aurors Proudfoot and Dawlish; while Fleischer and Mandrake (2), the two Aurors who had arrived with Dawlish, patrolled the halls.

The two men kept silent, but Dawlish was getting restless. Proudfoot silenced him with a glare.

St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
Room 12 (Astral Plane)

"Well, Spec. It seems you have made a big splash in the wo… What happens?" Deadman's cheery chatter changed in a moment to deathly serious.

The Spectre stiffened, rising his head as if following a smell. "Blood. Blood is being spilled as we speak." He disappeared instantly.

"Oh, joy." mused Deadman. "Now, how do I follow him?"

Little Hangleton Cemetery.

Madame Bones and Tonks collected and numbered their respective parchments, and bagged them carefully. "Now what, Boss? This is going to open a lot of canned worms."

"Yes." Madame Bones whispered, "At a minimum, the Wizengamot will be in disarray, while the Dark Families get the successors to their missing Heads of House." She waved a hand, encompassing the corpses littering the eerie peace of the Muggle cemetery.

Tonks smiled. "Well then, at least for a little while they won't be able to mess with any law they don't like."

"That wont last long, Tonks."

Several quick cracks broke the silence before the young Auror could answer, both Aurors assumed fighting stances, each one covering the other. It was not necessary. Three figures held their hands up. All six hands empty. "Director Bones." A heavily distorted voice addressed her.

The one in the middle bowed their head. It was difficult to even try to guess their gender. The Unspeakables uniforms were full of disguising charms, the only feature anybody could use to tell them apart was their height.

The Unspeakable continued, "Allow me to identify ourselves, I am Croaker, to my right, is Flyer, " the figure nodded slowly, "And to my left, Firestorm." A jerky nod from the third Unspeakable. "We will conduct the forensic investigation, Director, once you release it to us."

Madame Bones nodded back to Croaker. "I deliver this crime scene to you." she said ritually, "My preliminary observations have been recorded, my partner's too. We will add them to your team's according to the stablished procedure. We have followed the protocols to the letter, and the scene has been minimally disturbed. Except for Mr. Potter and a suspect currently in custody, each body present when we arrived is in the exact same position we found them."

Croaker surveyed the place. "Duly appreciated, Director Bones. We will soon have our own timeline of the events for your own perusal."

Three blocks away from Purge & Dowse, Ltd
(abandoned department store; actually St. Mungo's location)

Robert Green lay on a pool of blood. He had been mugged a few minutes before. He had resisted, and had been repeatedly stabbed in the gut. His hands clutched at his belly, trying to stem the flow of blood.

As he lay dying, a strange vision appeared in front of him. It was a young man, whose clothes were hidden under a long green coat. His face was pale as a ghost, what little he could see.

"…h..lp… …me…" Robert tried to beg, though even breathing required a superhuman effort.

The figure knelt next to him. "Have courage. Help has come." The figure touched Robert's shoulder, and a wave of relief coursed through his body. The pain receded, and Robert breathed deeply.

With infinite care, the lad picked him up, as if he was weightless. The world shimmered around them, and the last he knew, he was in what seemed to be the reception of a hospital.

St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
Reception

Suddenly, a man appeared in the Reception room, carrying a bleeding man, who, judging from his clothes, was a Muggle. The Welcome Witch jumped to her feet at the sight. "I don't know who do you think you are, young man; but unless you are an Auror bringing a victim of Muggle baiting, you have no right to bring Muggles here!"

The hooded man looked at her for a brief moment, and the temperature of the room dropped ten degrees, despite the charms that normally kept a constant and comfortable temperature.

A deep voice, hard as stone and cold as ice answered her, "I am the Spectre. You will take care of this man. His life is escaping with his spilled blood."

"But he's a Muggle!" the woman insisted, while the two wizards who waited for the release of the order prudently backed out as much as they could.

"A Muggle you say, as if his life was worth nothing in your eyes." The white eyes, glowing deeply in the shadows of his hood, seemed to promise swift and painful retribution. "The lives of those who attacked him are forfeit already. Will you add more?"

The witch relented then. She waved her wand to call for a Healer. The Spectre deposited the body on a Muggle-style stretcher, conjured silently and wandlessly, to the amazement of everybody present.

The witch explained the situation to the Healer. Unlike her, the man was not as quick to judge, and began to work immediately, pushing the strange contraption to an Examining Room. "I will need a Blood Replenishing potion, Sandra. Dilute it to half potency." He looked quickly to the Spectre. "Otherwise, on account of him lacking magic, the potion could kill him."

The Spectre nodded once, and vanished from view just as Deadman ghosted through the wall. "Dang it! Missed him!"

Hogwarts, Gryffindor Tower, Common Room

The Twins knew enough secret passages for the three of them to enter the Gryffindor Common Room without being noticed, completely bypassing the Fat Lady's portrait. Hermione even managed to get to her bed, still thinking on what she had learned.

She changed quickly to her pyjamas. Once in her bed, she had trouble to fall asleep. The images from the book turned around constantly in her mind's eye. Alternating with the images from the TV news segment about the razing of Vlatava.

The Banshee and the Spectre.

Her mind kept trying to find a connection between the two.

Sleep would take long to come to the young witch.

Ministry of Magic.

Though Shacklebolt had no way to know it, the man he wanted to talk to had been right in the same building.

Hogwarts, Hospital Wing

"Finally!" Madam Pomfrey exclaimed when she saw Director Bones enter the Infirmary, followed by Nymphadora Tonks. The two seemed a bit shocked.

"Sorry about the delay, Poppy." Madame Bones sat on one of the uncomfortable chairs available, while Tonks poured herself a glass of water. "We had to investigate a crime scene. Mr. Potter is now at St. Mungo's, and I want to check on him as soon as possible."

"I cannot argue with that. I had hoped to give you a full report on this, but Mr. Potter has priority. So I will just give you the summary." She breathed deeply, and pulled the sheet that covered one of the bodies. "This man is not Alastor Moody, as you can see. Unless I'm very mistaken, this is Barty Crouch Jr."

Tonks snorted without humour, tilting the glass a bit towards her. "Tonight, dead men walk and die, Boss!"

Poppy stared at her, "What do you mean? Who else?"

"Disregard that, Poppy. Part of an active investigation. Don't repeat that to anybody, please. And that goes triple for you, Novice Auror Tonks! Unless you´d like to take the night shift in Knockturn Alley for the next month. Is that clear?"

Chastised, Tonks lowered her eyes. "Crystal, boss. It won't happen again."

Bones nodded once and turned to Poppy. "Let me check on him." She cast a few charms on the body. "Polyjuice. That means there's a chance the real Alastor Moody is still alive." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "This night keeps getting better and better…" she hissed.

"Oh, that's what I thought too. All these men were disguised as Seventh Year Slytherin students." She waved at the other bodies. "I'm sure there was more Polyjuice involved. Unlike with Severus Snape and Igor Karkaroff. Those two were actually themselves."

She passed a stack of notes to Tonks. "These are my findings on each one."

"Thank you, Poppy. I apologize again. Go to sleep. May I use your Floo to get some help to remove them to the Ministry lab?"

"Of course. Just warn them to not touch their left forearms, those snakes are quite nasty, and they don´t like it when somebody tries to pull them off the flesh." She paused at the threshold, "Please, could you let me know about Mr. Potter? I'd rather wait to know before retiring."

"Yes. He was in bad shape. I sent him to St. Mungo's with two of my people. I'll go there as soon as the bodies are removed."

"Thanks."

London, A Dilapidated House.
A room far from the street.

Two career criminals poured their loot over a crate. Wallets, bills, watches, and assorted jewellery. Even one of those new portable phones!

A single candle tried futilely to cast some light in the dirty room, but the only thing it did was to illuminate a very small area.

"Not a bad haul for two hours of work, don't yah think, Raffy?"

"Yeah, but that last one punched me!" Raffy rubbed his cheek, where a bruise slowly spread, turning black.

"And I made him a few new navels, so? You got your revenge, didn't yah?" Joey opened a bottle of beer, passing it to Raffy and taking another for himself.

"Yeah, you sent him straight to Hell, Joey!" Both men laughed

"Not the first, not the last, Raffy!"

"Wrong." From the shadows, a new figure coalesced. A cowl almost hid his ghostly face in the darkest shadows, while a green cloak fell down over his shoulders like a shroud. His cold voice made the candle light grow dimmer. "He lives still. And your time on Earth grows short. For tonight, it will be you two who will enjoy Hell's hospitality."

Joey pulled his switchblade, the same he had used before the same movement, he stabbed the standing figure right in the heart. A cold laughter followed, while Joey tried to pull the blade to attack again. He couldn't. it was as if the switchblade was a strange sort of Excalibur, set not into stone, but in flesh.

He couldn't even release the blade.

"So willing are you to spill blood? So be it."

A few drops of blood fell down to the garbage covered floor. A moment later, the blood flowed freely, as if the edge had cut a major vein. But the figure didn't fall. Joey pulled harder at the blade. The man didn't even sway. It was as if he was a statue, but his lips opened in a predatory smile.

Raffy decided it would be best to simply flee. But the door was jammed. And his hands stuck on the handle. The Spectre stood impassible, as blood flowed freely from his chest. Soon, the floor was completely covered in thick, warm blood.

Joey screamed.

Impossibly, the blood kept flowing.

No human body could contain so much blood!

Author Notes:

(1) I'm not sure where did I read about this trick. It was a safety procedure at a factory that used some quite volatile substances. An employee was supposed to watch over the mixing machine, and stop it should it's temperature rose too much of if there was some other warning sign. But as it was a very boring job, the men eventually fell asleep, and the mix exploded. The solution was to give them a stool with a leg at the center. They could rest their feet comfortably, but would fall down should they succumb to sleep.

(2) Aurors Fleischer and Mandrake are a little homage to Michael Fleischer and Tom Mandrake. Fleischer wrote the Spectre's run in Adventure Comics, beautifully illustrated by the late, great Jim Aparo (collected as Wrath of the Spectre), and his stories practically codified the Spectre's behaviour for decades to come. Tom Mandrake drew almost all the issues from the 3rd volume of The Spectre, written by John Ostrander. Mandrake did an outstanding job in drawing the most grotesque scenes possible for the title. The scenes set in Hell are amazingly detailed, for example, and he has a great talent for drawing regular people, heroes, villains and monsters. His illustrations of Hell are quite disturbing.