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Chapter 8

The battered group trudged on for three days. Harry was now lucky if he could walk for a whole hour while throwing up only every now and again, or dry heaving if he had nothing to give up. Hedwig couldn't fly anymore. Harry tried to heal her wings, but passed out after he finished, which was a sad thing because he wasn't able to set the bones correctly before they healed, thus crippling his bird from being never able to fly again. He figured out what happen the next morning and wept for his most constant friend in the past six years for ruining the bird's life. Hedwig for her part, took it in stride and felt like royalty. She was carried around everywhere, didn't have to hunt for food anymore, and was fed like she was a queen. However, she did miss flying, but tried not to let her master feel her want and longing for the air.

Alexia always looked like she was about to cry. Her master was extremely pale and sweaty, plus he was extremely sad for his owl which he felt he failed her. She also felt completely useless. She didn't know any useful spells, not that would matter if she did, for it would take her days to master just one. However, she was taking to Transfiguration like a duck to water. For however long it took her to master a charm, it took her half the time to master a Transfiguration. She also enjoyed the hexes Harry was teaching her, but they took even longer than Charms to master just one. At least she was learning something useful in case they ran into another Death Eater (though she had only mastered the Tickling Jinx).

Harry had also noticed that she had kept rubbing her left shoulder, and figured that she had landed wrong in the Malfoy fight. When he asked her if she wanted him to look at it, she paled considerably and adamantly refused. Harry couldn't blame her, if he screwed up so badly on his owl, think of what her would do to a human.

There wasn't a lot of talking on their walks. Harry would quickly go over the spell of the day and its wand movement's and pronunciation and let her practice all that she could. Harry wouldn't talk while walking or resting for fear of losing all of the contents in his stomach. The only time he talked was when he mumbled the instructions for his Apprentice at the start of the day. He led as best as he could, but he kept getting worse and worse. After a week at the rate they were going, Harry doubted that they traveled more than a few kilometers.

However, after a week and a half, the group's luck had brightened. The sun shone with warmth. Harry basked in the rays, feeling it work a magic deeper than anything he could comprehend. He felt marginally better and could tell that the day would bring about a break in their horrible week.

He was right too. After resting for the third time during the middle of the afternoon they heard clanking in the distance. Alexia was instantly in fear of more Death Eater's. Harry was positive that it was something else however. He had never saw any Death Eater associated with any type of metallic object on their person. Harry knew that this was their break. After a couple more minutes, they heard a type of grunting noise. After a few more minutes, it carried a certain tune. Almost like a military chant. Finally, after five minutes, they saw the glimmer of gold plated armor glinting in the sun. Soon emerged a small troop of goblins, all decked out in the gold armor and carrying spears as tall as Harry himself. There totaled forty in all, in a wedge shaped formation.

They halted once they were only a few feet away from the party as Harry pulled himself up along a tree. The head goblin addressed the group in a barking way, asking: "Whose in charge here?"

Harry responded with, "Who wants to know?" in a voice stronger than what he thought he could muster.

"Hornhand, captain of the 3rd Infantry of Gringotts-Great Britain."

"Well then, Captain Hornhand, I am leader of this... group. Felix... Long-Dursley at your service," Harry tried to bow in his position but could barely tip his head. He also had to chose Dursley for his last name because goblins would have certainly recognized the last name of Longbottom.

"Thank you for your kind offer Mr. Long-Dursley, but it looks as if you cannot even service yourself."

"Alas, my friend, you are correct," Harry knew that goblins were a proud race and had a natural distrust for wizard's. So he tried to act like the one person that could make him feel at ease-Dumbledore.

"I'm afraid I have no idea why I am under such ailments, and I fear that my poor Apprentice is beginning to worry," Harry explained as Alexia gaped at him for not only speaking to strange, ferocious looking goblins, but saying that she was now beginning to worry. She began worrying once they were taking a broom ride, and that was over two weeks ago.

"Apprentice, eh?" the goblin asked. Goblin's were fascinated with wizard culture, even if they didn't like wizard's. And having met a wizard in the middle of no where accompanied by an Apprentice which was extremely rare in the current time period they were in.

"Yes, I took her on a little more than a month ago, and I'm afraid that she hasn't had much time to learn proper of what I have been instructing," Harry said, trying to garner some form of pity without looking obvious.

"Aye, I can see that you are in pretty rough shape, any idea's on what it could be?"

"At first, I thought I was coming down with the flu, but I'm afraid that the symptom's have increased tenfold," Harry responded. The goblin didn't look like he took any information in. Harry figured that humans had different type of sicknesses from goblin's.

"Right... sounds bad," Hornhand shot back, "however nice it was talking with you, we are on official business. Perhaps you can help us out."

"My dear sir, your wish will be filled by the utmost urgency and diligence I can muster," Harry replied, hoping they had some miracle cure on them so that he could do whatever request they needed.

"Have you seen a Half-Goblin running around these part's?"

Harry's eyebrow's rose in surprise at how easy the request was and that it confirmed his suspicion's. "Half-goblin, you say? Why, I don't know if the paranoid little blighter was a Half-goblin, but he did mention that his name was Hogsnot if that's any help," immediately after mentioning the goblin's name he heard hisses from the rest of the troop's.

"That would be the one we are looking for. Is there any other information that we should know about?" The head goblin asked, keeping his cool unlike his soldiers.

"Well, he had a sack of gold and was being chased by a Death Eater. He kept thinking I was going to steal his gold after I saved him from the Death Eater." The goblin's gripped their spear's tighter at hearing that he was being chased by a Death Eater.

"That gold was stolen from our branch. How long ago was this?"

"Oh, I'd say a week or week and a half," Harry answered. The goblin finally let some emotion slip by as he looked a little crestfallen. Harry pointed them about how far in the east he found him. Then asked, "Excuse me if I come off rude, but I scratched your back, and perhaps you can scratch mine?" Harry could almost see that he was pushing his luck with that as Hornhand bristled.

"Like what?" Hornhand grounded out between clenched teeth.

"Well, perhaps, you have some medicine to help me get to where I need to go?"

"Goblin medicine would only kill you," the goblin snapped out. Harry's head hung with that. He thought that his break was falling through until he was shocked when a goblin did something he thought he would never see- compassion.

"Here, wizard, take this Portkey to Gringotts and have one of the wizard's there make another one immediately to this location for us." Harry could see a slight kindness in the goblin's eyes, despite the 'wizard' comment.

Harry quickly reached for the goblin's hand and pumped it as hard and fast as he could muster, which wasn't a whole lot. "Captain Hornhand, expect to see some extra gold come your way for your kindness." Harry said gratefully.

The goblin pulled out an official Gringotts Galleon and gave it to Harry. "I have it activated for thirty seconds. Make sure you're both touching it."

Alexia wasn't sure what to do, but Harry told her to hold on to her belongings and to make sure she's touching the coin as Hedwig gripped Harry's shoulder so hard that blood began seeping through, though Harry could barely feel it in his grogginess.

Harry leaned over to Alexia and whispered, "I doubt I'll be conscious when we arrive. Ask for Bill Weasley or demand for me to be taken to Hogwarts. Under no circumstances am I to go to St. Mungo's. Got it?"

All she could do was nod before she felt a pull from behind her naval as colors blurred.

Harry awoke to the blaring white walls of the Hogwarts infirmary. His head was pounding, as was normal for the past week in a half, though it did feel better. His stomach didn't feel as queasy as usual and his head had finally quit spinning. While pulling himself up, he didn't notice the three people in the room with him.

His apprentice was standing there, looking fearful. She had no idea what to tell anyone. It was obvious that her master was fearful of gleaning too much information of their whereabouts, which made it really hard to convince Bill Weasley to take them to Hogwarts. It only happened as she collapsed in fright and tiredness on Bill's feet in tears that he finally agreed to take them to Hogwarts. Since then she had constantly told a Professor McGonagall that she didn't know her master's last name and that she was his apprentice. For some reason, McGonagall wouldn't believe her.

McGonagall was also in the room. She hadn't left the duo alone for the two days that they had been there. She reluctantly agreed to help them out as long as she got the truth when 'Master Felix' awoke. Her worries weren't alleviated when Poppy Pompfrey had said that they had a Metamorphmagus in the bed. They had no way of knowing who this person was.

Harry finally noticed McGonagall, Alexia, and Madame Pompfrey standing around him. He let out a dizzied moan and greeted them by dry heaving over the side of the bed. Alexia rushed to his side to rub circles on his back that she had begun to do when he started getting really bad.

"Hello Professor," Harry said in a weary voice, surprising McGonagall.

"Forgive my manners, but who are you?" She asked with her lips in a very thin line.

"What are you talking about?" The truth was that after spending a week at Alexia's he had forgotten about his disguise.

"It seems," Pompfrey jumped in, "that you have a magical disguise on. Most likely from being a Metamorphmagus and keeping a foreign profile for too long. Thus, resulting in magical poison." Harry had no idea that a wizard could get 'magical poison.' It did make sense now why they couldn't recognize him, and Alexia looked shocked that from what she could understand that she didn't really know who her true master was.

Harry screwed his face up and tried to relax his features, which was harder than he thought. It took him ten minutes to coarse his features to change back and gasps from both Pompfrey and McGonagall had alerted him that he had succeeded in releasing his form. He could immediately feel a difference. It was like letting out a breath of air you had been holding for a year. The release, though, made Harry pass out with McGonagall and Pompfrey rushing to him to try and get the magical residue out of all of his bodily tissue plus to stop him from toppling out of bed, and a sad, confused look on his apprentice's face.