J. K. Rowling owns Harry Potter

Chapter Fifteen

Sheer instinct of obedience, on top of a fragile emotional state, already had Mark opening the door for the police officer outside when he realized that actually, the police had absolutely no power in the magical world. By the time it hit him that it might have been a good idea to prearrange answers for the inevitable questions, it was far too late.

"What happened to them?" the officer asked, once he had radioed for backup and an ambulance.

"Er - I…" Mark was lost for words. A clever and convincing lie to explain how he had come to be in a room with a dead woman and two people sitting on the floor did not come easily to mind. He was confused, scared of saying the wrong thing, and far beyond his endurance limit. He needed his house, his bed, and his mother.

The officer seemed to understand some of this, and something in his face softened. "Never mind. Just sit here and relax. Do you want us to call your parents?"

As Mark nodded, he noticed the officer give a little start; just then the barman said, "Actually, the three of us were just about to leave. We'll be going now."

Mark was quite bewildered to see the officer nod smartly as the barman stood up, offered his hand to Gran (who looked very confused as well) to help her do the same, and beckoned to Mark to follow him outside. "Good day, sir," the barman said over his shoulder as he shut the door behind him.

"What on earth - ?" Mark began, but the barman cut him off.

"Quickly, quickly!" They had hurried out of the alley, retrieved their long-forgotten packages from the pavement as an ambulance pulled up beside them, and set off returning the way they had come with only a few backward glances by the time the barman finally answered him.

"I used a Confundus Charm to confuse him for a while. I'm sure his boss'll be right pleased with him," he said with a hint of a wink.

"And where are you taking us now?" Gran inquired sharply, apparently annoyed by this inappropriate display of humor.

His expression turned grave. "Saint Mungo's," he said. Seeing their incomprehension, he explained, "The wizard hospital, to look in on your friend."

"Do they have a phone there?" Mark asked; now that the officer had mentioned it, he really wanted to call home.

They continued in subdued silence. Mark's chest was a constricted bundle of anxiety and exhaustion, and every time his mind returned to the room they had left, he found himself blinking back tears. The mental image of Alec writhing on the floor blended with the vision of his grandmother tied dead to her chair, producing a cocktail of misery and horror he could not shake loose.

He had not paid attention to their route, and only noticed that they had returned to the Leaky Cauldron when they were already inside. "Why are we here?" he asked.
Gran shook herself and looked around in confusion, and he knew she had shared his reverie; this comforted him slightly. "We'll go from here with Floo Powder," the barman said. "Leave your things here."

He watched in bewilderment as the barman shook a bit of powder from a small jar and threw it into the nearby fireplace, whose flames instantly roared up into a bright green. "You'll put the powder in the fire, step in, and say 'Saint Mungo's,'" the barman said. "Say it clearly and keep your arms in. I'll go first. If you're not there in a minute, I'll come back."

Mark wanted to tell the man to wait, but he was already following his own instructions, and a moment later had vanished into the flames.

He and Gran looked at each other for a moment, then he took some powder from the jar. "You can't -" Gran said in alarm.

"Watch me," Mark said grimly, throwing the powder in the fire and stepping in after it. "Saint Mungo's!" he called, and he was spinning in the flames, which were pleasantly warm, past other fireplaces that whizzed and blurred across his line of vision, until he landed in a brightly lit room and stepped out of the fire, blinking and disoriented.

A bustling scene surrounded him: men and women in lime-green robes made rounds of the room in a very official manner, asking questions of the people sitting around in what Mark took to be a waiting room. Some of the people sported some very strange complaints; he might have been amused by or interested in these were the circumstances different.

The barman stood waiting for him; when Gran came through the fire a few seconds later, they set off to a reception desk a few paces away, where the barman said to a bored-looking receptionist, "We're here to see…" He turned to Mark. "What's your friend's name?"

"Alec Whitby," Mark supplied.

The receptionist raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

"They brought him here a few minutes ago, he's my age…" Had something else gone wrong now?

"Oh, him. Is that his name?" she said, noting something on a piece of parchment on her desk without seeming to care very much. "Well, you'll be lucky if he's still alive. Fourth floor, ward forty-three. Next!"

The next few minutes were torture, standing outside the ward waiting for word from the doctors (supposedly called Healers), who were trying all means of saving Alec's life. Gran and the barman had gone off to find a phone, but Mark would not be made to step away from the ward until he could be certain that Alec would be all right. Instead he spent the time sitting in the hallway, worrying about Alec, wondering where the witch who had brought Alec here had gone and whether his parents (and Mark's own) had been informed yet, replaying the events of the alley over and over in his mind, and fighting an increasingly losing battle against the sleep that tugged at his drooping eyelids…

He was lying in a warm bed, very comfortable and unsure of where he was. He was very sleepy, and had no wish to open his eyes. He listened, instead, to the voices arguing around him, one of which he picked out as his father's.

"I told them! I told them it was too dangerous and they said no it's fine! She said it! She can be a martyr if she wants and give her life to fight evil but I'm not letting my son -"

Everything flooded back to him like a wave of nausea, and he sat up and looked around frantically. "Alec! Where is he? Is he -"

He cut off, startled. He was in the hospital ward, but many more people than expected were present: his parents and grandmother, the pink-cheeked woman who had brought Alec, a Healer near Alec's bed, and three others he had never seen before, but who had to be Alec's parents and brother. At his sudden shout, all of them turned to face him.

"Mark!" Mum cried, rushing over to strangle him in a hug. "Oh, thank goodness! How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine!" Aside from being worried about Alec, Mark had no interest in discussing his condition or the day's experiences with his parents or anyone else. "What about Alec? Is he all right?"

He tried to read the room. Alec's mother seemed to have recently been crying, but as she had just lost her mother, this was only to be expected. Dad's pugnacious expression had changed to one of concern, and he exchanged a look with Mum, though the pink-cheeked witch whose name Mark did not know still glared angrily at him.

"Mark," Mum began slowly, doubling Mark's anxiety in an instant.

"What happened to him?" he shouted. Unable to wait any longer, he leapt out of the bed and ran to Alec's side.

Alec was still unconscious, but breathing steadily now. "Will he wake up?" Mark asked the Healer.

"We believe he will make a full recovery within a few weeks," she responded, smiling.

Relief swelled inside him, beautiful and calming. Everything would be fine… but why did his parents look so concerned, watching him nervously for his reaction?

His eyes traveled downward, and everything became clear. Alec's left hand rested on his blanket, but his right…

Alec's right hand was gone, neatly amputated at the wrist.