-1Chosen

Chapter Five

"Mister Potter, can you hear me?" A voice said.

Should respond… tired. Let me sleep.

"Mister Potter, it is clear that you are awake. Can you hear me?"

Nod. Just nod. Then they'll leave us alone so we can sleep.

Harry managed the nod.

"Mister Potter, you must remove your shields and wards before we can operate." The voice.

He's mad. No shields. Just a crazy dream. Keep sleeping.

Eventually there was an angry scoff and the sound of retreating footsteps.

Good. He's gone. Sleep time is now.

"SOMEONE, COME QUICK! TAKE A LOOK AT THIS!"

Blissful darkness. Sleep, how I have missed you.

-------------------------------------------- Hours Later---------------------------------

There was fabric. Soft cotton fabric. It was all he could see. He thought he could feel his head, floating a few feet above the bed. Everything was soft and tingly, as if he was being smothered by a few thousand cats. Fragments of his recollections started drifting back.

'Hermione…broom…wreck… Abnormal bone growths?' he thought. He tried to sit up, only to find that up was behind him. He was sleeping on his face because of the bones. Harry rolled and sat up. The haze in his mind was dissipating.

He wasn't up long before a nurse entered the room with a tray. A glass of water, one of those magical plates that summons whatever food you want and a tiny vase with a few pretty flowers in it.

"Have a nice rest Mister Potter?" she asked in the most polite tone of voice Harry had ever heard someone use.

"Yes, I did." Harry responded with a smile. "Do you know where they put my glasses?"

"Bedside table. Call if you need anything. I imagine one of the doctors will be around shortly to check on your status."

Harry nodded while rummaging around for his glasses. By the time he had them on, she was gone. He shrugged and decided to get up. He wasn't particularly hungry at the moment, so he left the plate for later.

He found the bathroom, used it and returned to his bed. He was still drumming his fingers on his chin to decide what he wanted to eat for lunch when the door swung open. Or, more accurately it exploded inwards. Harry saw masks and black robes. He sprang into action, and pushed over his hospital bed, to use as cover. He found his wand on the bedside table, turned and dropped to the floor, narrowly avoiding a deadly jet of green light.

"Hello again wee Potty. Up for a game of Hide and Seek?" Even behind the mask, Harry knew who it was. There was no mistaking the voice of Bellatrix Lestrange.

Bellatrix cast another spell and the bed was launched backwards. The armrest clipped Harry near his left ear, and the bed sailed past him into the huge bay window. Harry was shocked that it actually broke. He expected the glass to have been unbreakable.. Despite the disorienting pain, Harry leapt to his feet and fired off a disarming charm. Bellatrix dodged it, but it hit one of the Death Eaters behind her, causing two more to fall over in a chain reaction. The doorway had forced the Death Eaters to bottleneck, making them much easier to hit. Harry needed to hold his ground so they couldn't advance into the room and spread out.

"Avada Kedavra!" one Death Eater shouted. The spell missed by a mile. Bellatrix intentionally elbowed the Death Eater in the face and snapped "Our orders say we are to take him alive, you dolt!"

Harry was firing every spell he could think of to defend himself. Anything that he remembered using in a duel before…. And most of the stuff that had been used against him. So far he'd used everything from stunning spells to Jelly Legs.

Bellatrix was smirking at him though. Harry didn't like it at all.

"3...2...1..." she counted off.

"CRUCIO!" ten voices cried as one. Though half of those missed, the five that hit were enough to make him scream with agony.

He cast the next spell that came to mind, hoping against hope to end the pain.

"SECTUMSEMPRA!" he shouted.

Clearly not what anyone expected. Bellatrix was out of the range of the spell, and so was another Death Eater that Harry recognized to be Macnair. But the other eight were not. At thigh height was a flaming line of magic that would cut through anything it touched. A few Death Eaters dropped to their stomachs and let the curse soar over them. Three tried to jump it. One ducked behind the wall, as he was still out in the corridor, and one… one stood there dumbly with his wand trained on Harry, not dropping the Crutatius curse.

Several things happened. The Death Eaters who dived all escaped unscathed, except for Rookwood whose feet were too high and he lost most of his shoe and a piece of his foot. The Death Eater who ducked behind the wall was also unscathed. Narcissa Malfoy jumped too early, and lost both of her feet at ankle level. Mulciber jumped precisely at the right time, and completely avoided the deadly spell. Goyle, who stood there dumbly lost both of his legs straight through the center of his femur. And Crabbe. Crabbe tried to jump. He did okay too, except that he landed on Rookwood, causing him to topple backwards and land on the spell he just managed to jump over. It separated hi head from his shoulders, thoroughly spraying most of the Death Eaters with blood. His corpse landed on top of Flint, pinning him to the ground, as flint weighed nearly a hundred pounds less than Crabbe.

Bellatrix and Macnair had fired spells in response to Harry's. Harry, still screaming from Goyle's Crutacius, did not dodge. Two disarming spells hit Harry straight in the stomach, and he sailed backwards… Straight through the now glassless bay window…and down.