Warning: This chapter contains gratuitous violence, torture, a total disregard for moral fiber, yada, yada, yada. Please forgive typos I haven't proofread yet.
ECOTS
"Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
~ Douglas Adams
Chapter 64 ~ Why Hello Delores, Fancy Meeting You Here
ECOTS
April 22nd, 1997 – 11:42 p.m.
Magical exhaustion was a real thing. Fifteen minutes didn't seem like a long time, but after fighting two highly trained Death Eaters who wouldn't understand the meaning of the phrase 'hold back' if it hit the in the ass, she was well and truly feeling it. Her shields were growing shoddy, disappearing after a hit from a single spell instead of lasting against a deluge. Her brief, intermittent counterattacks were so weak she doubted they'd have taken out a six week old puppy let alone a meat-eating-follower-of-the-Dark-Tosser.
Well, to be fair, the could have been vegetarians for all she knew. They just seemed like the sort who invited small children to bonfires and roasted them instead of the marshmallows.
Tonks now understood too well why Moody was such a fan of shouting to 'finish it fast or you won't finish it at all.'
She also deeply regretted having made several wisecracks about his clear ability to please the ladies if he was going to live by that philosophy.
"Just stop moving and DIE already!" Alecto screeched.
Tonks hissed in pain as a poorly aimed diffindo broke through her shield and sliced her arm a centimeter deep. "Well which one is it? Stop moving or die?" she gasped, wand slashing to deflect a cutting curse. "Make up your mind Alecto. I'm not good at multi-tasking."
Alecto snarled. "You werewolf fucking half-blood CUNT!"
Tonks darted back. "No need to be jealous, Carrow! I mean I know wolves are hung like a horse, but I'm sure Remus knows some nice, single howlers to set you up with." As she fought she somehow feigned a frown, tossing out, "You're not set on an alpha though, are you? You aren't very shapely, but maybe if you took up some aerobics you score with one that was on the bright side of recovering from mange…"
"Bellatrix should have killed that traitor sister of hers when she had the chance!"
"Funny," Tonks quipped, "here I was thinking grandma should have tried some birth control before Bellatrix could pop out…"
A volley of curses so fast and furious sent Tonks stumbling back.
Her back smacked against a rocky outcropping, unable to back away or dodge further, Carrow and Avery advancing on her with malevolent smirks.
Tonks had just finished a mental prayer to God, Merlin, the Universe, Mother Earth, Darwin, Elvis, Space Aliens, and – just -for good measure – Fraggles when Harry arrived.
A purple spell blasted out of the night, slamming into Alecto Carrow's back.
The yellow-toothed sneer disappeared from the red-head rather abruptly as the force of Harry's attack tore her from her feet. She flew past Tonks on a remorseless wave of heat, slamming against the rocks with a solid thump.
The Confringo curse was unforgiving.
Avery erected a full-body shield charm she'd never seen, whipping around to see Harry barreling through the trees towards them. Death and vengeance the likes she didn't know Harry to be capable of poured from his wand as spell after spell was thrown at Avery's shield, a solitary roar herd in the night. "AVERY!"
Tonks slumped against the rocky outcropping, viney thorns digging into her back as her legs nearly gave out. Only then did she realize how close she'd been to passing out.
But now Harry was here, Alecto Carrow slumped against the ground. It was no longer two Death Eaters against one Phoenix. It was two Phoenixes against one Death Eater.
The odds had changed.
Tonks coughed blood and launched a spell at Avery's back, the wizard's shield undulating like a child's bubble blown from a wand, the shield hit by simultaneous attacks from both sides. Tonks weakly tried another, it barely making the shield bounce.
But Harry's cutting curse burst through, popping it like a manticore versus balloon match up. In the face of Harry's rage, the shield didn't stand a chance.
The curse struck Avery's arm directly.
The man screamed and spun, Tonks trying to cast an anti-apparation charm-
She was too late.
He was gone in a puff of black smoke, Harry screaming, "COWARD!"
Harry slid to a halt in front of her, heaving heavy breaths. Blood coated his entire body, dripping from his face, coating his shoes. Tonks couldn't tell where his blood began and the Death Eaters ended.
Her stomach clenched up. Any trace of the Boy-Who-Lived, of a teenager just struggling to survive, was gone. Now, in the deep shadows of the Forbidden Forest, Tonks saw only a blood soaked man, an agonizing despair warring within his eyes.
Those dark green eyes assessed her for a half second, before his attention was thrown towards the stout Death Eater on the ground.
His jaw set, fury etched in every line of his face. "Know any anti-apparation charms?" he asked her, voice colder than she'd ever heard.
Tonks heaved breath after breath, staring at the Gryffindor, at her fellow Order member, at her friend. His chameleon charm had fallen as well, the wizard covered in blood, not all of it his.
The things she'd seen Harry do to Amycus Carrow…she didn't even want to think about it.
Tonks nodded shakily, exhaustion nearly bringing her to the ground. Her wand moved in a series of complicated movements, the non-verbal spell the Ministry had created murmured within her mind, a jet of pink light flying out and hitting Carrow...
She wouldn't be escaping as easily as Avery.
Task done, Tonks slumped against the rocks, feeling like her legs were going out from under her. "Harry….is Regulus-" okay?
Only Harry wasn't paying attention to her. His face was contorted into a grim mask, Carrow groaning, starting to come to…
"Expelliarmus," he uttered, Alecto's wand flying into his free hand. Harry snapped it in half between his thumb and palm. Tonks gasped at the act, lightheaded as blood dripped down her fingers, slickening her grip on her own wand.
"Harry…"
"Unless you're about to die," he told damn seriously, "then not now, Tonks."
He snared Carrow by the back of her cloak, tugging her up to her knees and then a few centimeters higher, the witch unable to support her own weight and getting choked out by her own wardrobe.
Harry lowered his face near her ear, strangling the Death Eater with her own robes. "I'm going to ask you this only once, Carrow," he sneered calmly, too calmly. "Where. Is. Voldemort?"
Alecto sputtered, now awake. "You'll…never…know," she choked.
Harry just tightened the collar around the Death Eater's neck. "You think I'm playing?" he questioned. "Fine."
He dropped her callously back to the ground, Alecto getting a chance to gasp out only one breath.
Harry's wand had whipped out, a rope-like lasso shooting out its end and wrapping firmly around the red head's throat.
Then with a violent tug he started dragging her back towards the clearing, Tonks frozen, staring.
"Bleeding hell…"
ECOTS
April 22nd, 1997 – 11:46 p.m.
Harry didn't bother dragging her all the way back to the clearing. Pieces of her brother had been flung a considerable way into the Forbidden Forest, so that ought to be good enough. He threw her down in a pile of pink mush, leaves crunching. "If you think for a second I won't do the same to you…" he snarled through the smoke.
Alecto recoiled, on her hands and knees, staring at the severed fingertips in front of her face.
"What?" he asked with guile. "I thought you two might want to say hello. Seeing as how you're so unnaturally close and all." He'd heard the rumors Snape had said at Order meetings. He'd heard them. Now he threw the incestuous rumor in the bitch's face.
Alecto Carro lunged, only for the magical rope to jerk her heartlessly back. The Death Eater shrieked, a cruel flick of Harry's wand enticing the cords around her throat to begin slowly tightening, strangling…
Carrow gagged, choking, but her lips still curled back, blood spat at his boots. "You killed," she choked, "my," grabbing at the cords, "brother!"
Harry felt himself smiling. "Come now," he darkly drawled, "give me some credit. I did a hell of a lot more than just kill him." He crouched before the wandless bitch in the torn, broken cowls of the Dark Lord, whispering, "I tore his living heart out of his chest."
She lunged with an animalistic howl, a twitch of his wand sending the magical leash around her neck tightening and throwing her backwards. The witch struggled as the enchanted, ruthless ropes drug her across the ground before whipping around a tree trunk, binding her there. They tightened around her torso, locking her in place with a tension so tight it was a marvel it didn't cut her in half there and then.
All around them trees rose high, ash raining down from leaves being burnt by the small fires in the canopy.
Harry looked at her with eyes that held no empathy. A hollow feeling filled his chest. It was where Kally had been, but they'd killed her.
He was going to kill each and every single one of them.
"Now," he said calmly, not recognizing his own voice, "you're going to tell me exactly what you were doing here tonight. Then you're going to tell me where that half-blood master of yours hides."
Carrow struggled. "LIAR!"
Harry shrugged callously. "I never had much motivation to lie about blood heritage, unlike him," he told. "Mainly because I decided to not lead a group of blood thirsty, prejudicial psychopaths against the rest of the world, but you know…details."
"My Lord," she hissed, undulating like a worm against the bindings pinning her to the tree, "will kill you."
He tisked. "Promises, promises."
He heard twigs and leaves cracking nearby. Tonks had caught up. She hadn't looked good, and he felt guilty about that. He'd left her alone too long. He'd focused on revenge, on killing Carrow, on killing Bellatrix, for what they'd done to Kally and Sirius. His stomach dropped dangerously.
Harry fought the despair, shoving it deep down to handle at a later time.
Later he'd let the black wave of oblivion take him. For now…
He leaned in, the scent of burnt wood strong as he got close to the bark. The witch's dark eyes stared wildly back, ugly lips parted as she gasped, trying desperately to breathe.
"Your leader," he hissed venomously, "is a half-blooded, spineless coward who only spouted pureblood ideologies because he had an Oedipus complex for his near-squib mother and was pissed at his Muggle daddy for deciding he liked prettier pieces of Muggle tail."
The toad-like woman unleashed a howl loud enough to wake the undead and every arachnid in a five kilometer vicinity.
Harry just sneered. "Tell me where he is." Because horcrux hunt or not, whether he could actually kill him right now or not, Harry was going to find him, destroy his physical form, then trap the bastard's specter in a magical box until he could kill the rest. Crouch had done that to Moody in a trunk. He reckoned he could do the same, spirit style.
Either that or he'd simply find a basilisk and sweet talk it into petrifying Voldemort's specter until he was ready for him.
"Tell me," he repeated, "now."
Torn black robes clung to the Death Eater's short, stout body, flapping in a sudden breeze that spread the flames. "Never," Carrow growled hatefully up. "You'll just kill me anyways."
"Yes," he promised. "But how slow or fast it happens depends on you."
Tonks swore behind him. "Where the hell is Moody?"
A howl closer in the forest seemed to answer that question, both Harry and Tonks' heads whipping in that direction, wands drawn. Harry waited, listening, a werewolf clearly nearby. Shouts could be heard, echoing in the forest, Moody evidently not alone.
Apparently he was dealing with other, full-moon-inflicted problems.
Shit.
Harry turned back to the bound and tied Carrow, debating what to do. He couldn't, wouldn't become like them. He wouldn't turn into something Kaylens would have hated.
But he could do this.
With a flick of his wand Harry hissed, "Legilimency!" and he was in.
It didn't take long.
Barrier after barrier was encountered. None of it was Carrow's personal will. It was all Voldemort's doing. Important things had been protected. Harry didn't know how long he spent shifting from memory to memory in Alecto Carrow's twisted mind, a memory or two confirming the incestuous rumors, but every time he bumped up against a mental barrier he could feel the snake's signature all over it.
But he'd missed one.
Harry saw it like it was happening right in front of him.
It was only a flash of memory. A brickwork-laid building rose above him, two chimneys that looked more like smoke stacks sticking out the far ends of the three-story high edifice. Cracked windows flashed in the lightning of memory, rain pounding down around Alecto and Amycus Carrow as they slipped through the front door, the hinges squealing.
The floorboard creaked beneath their feet-
The scene changed.
Alecto was clearly on the second floor, in a dust-covered room. Through the high window a lone tree stood out in the rain, two nearly broken ropes being thrown around in a storm's mauling winds, a rotting piece of plywood batted about from the end of one side.
It had once been a child's swing.
The scene became faint, fuzzy-
A hiss could be heard, something heavy and serpentine sliding over her toes-
The scales felt smooth and raw against Carrow's exposed ankle.
Nagini.
Nagini stayed with Voldemort always.
The memory Nagini turned towards him, vertically slit eye somehow –seeing- him.
The forked tongue flicked out, the head firing forth like a gunshot –at- him.
It latched onto his face within Alecto's mind, blinding him from all but fangs and venom and a black forked tongue. Harry's head screamed in pain as he fought, seeking to go deeper, grasping at Nagini to tear her apart bit-by-bit.
The fledgling pieces of memory hit back. Unlike unblocked memories, unlike the barricades from others, this one fought back for everything it was worth.
Harry jerked himself out, slamming to the ground before Carrow, his chest heaving.
"Harry!" Tonks' hand fell onto his shoulder, the witch crouched alongside him, her wand drawn and aimed into the Forbidden Forest. She was shaking, exhausted. She also wasn't looking at him. She was tracking something, a shadow that moved from tree-to-tree. "Harry we're not alone."
Harry could only stare at Alecto, aware that he'd seen fragments of Voldemort's hide out, if he could only figure out where that was.
Overhead the forest burned. A flaming leaf floated down, striking the ground near their feet, Tonks snubbing it out with the toe of her shoe.
From the shadows something unleashed a snarl, the flick of a wolf's tail seen…
Tonks' fingernails dug into his shoulder blade, Harry grabbing her arm and starting to move, dragging her up-
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
The tell-tale pops of apparition began around them, a slithering, sinking sensation striking Harry in the gut as he threw his wand in the direction of the noise, seeing blurs of black coalescing into black robed figures in the clearing.
Alecto opened her mouth to scream to the Death Eaters-
Tonks slashed her wand, duct tape and a gag silencing her. Not looking Harry started to cast the decapitation hex, one of many he'd learned from the dark texts he'd nicked from the Restricted Section-
A cold, shaking hand fell over the one holding his wand, tightening. "They'll hear it if we kill her, Harry," urgently whispered.
Swallowing, teeth grinding, he tensely nodded.
As one he and Tonks both moved, using the cloak of night, the smoke from the fires, and thick tree cover to hide amongst the shadows so that new arrivals would not see them from the clearing. There was no point disillusioning themselves. With this much smoke in the air, covered in blood, they'd be seen moving amongst it.
Harry's scar began to burn.
He grabbed his forehead, a buzz filling his ears as he could barely breathe, barely think. He was barely able to stay upright as he looked through the trees into red, slit-like eyes.
"Harry Potter…."
ECOTS
April 22nd, 1997 – 11:58 p.m.
Harry was groaning.
He'd also stopped moving.
Tonks grabbed Harry and unceremoniously shoved him behind a tree. His back thudded dully against the bark, smashing several unlucky mosquitoes. Her heart was hammering, her stomach in nervous knots. Voldemort was here! A dozen curses of the verbal persuasion that surely would have earned her soap in the mouth for weeks at a time had her mother been around to hear them were hissed out.
The shadow in the forest moved, growling.
Tonks' wand jerked towards it, Auror eyes and reflexes following it as it stalked. Trying to defend them while remaining unseen was going to be impossible. She was also weakened from being double teamed, and she didn't mean in the fun way.
She was well and truly panicked now. They had the darkest wizard of all sodding time to the North, a hungry werewolf to the South, a hostile enemy tied up and gagged to the East, and a Mad Eye Moody loose in the woods.
Between the four options she reckoned they'd have the best luck with the wolf.
Unfortunately that wasn't even an option. Regulus was back there, in the clearing, injured.
He'd defected from the Death Eaters. He'd screwed up Smelly-Vort's first attempt to unleash a plagu-to-end-all-plagues upon humanity, and then they thought he was dead.
Tonks knew exactly what they'd do to him if they found him. There'd be lots of rearranged body parts and unforgivables involved.
Next to her Harry gave a pained groan.
They were well and truly penned in, things looking bleak, and Tonks wondered if the aliens or Fraggles had heard her pleas. She reckoned that God, the Universe, Merlin, and Darwin were probably rather busy.
Shit.
She supposed she ought to get used to this sort of thing if she were going to be hanging with Harry. This seemed like the kind of thing he did on a typical weekend, or hell, even a Thursday.
Harry's legs abruptly gave out, the wizard slumping against the tree, knees tugged to his chest, hands clutching his scar.
Tonks instantly crouched, smacking Harry repeatedly against the side of the face to get his attention. "Psst, Harry. Snap out of it mate. Case you haven't noticed," the shadow in the woods let out a guttural growl, the Auror wincing, "we've got a bit of a situation here."
Harry moaned lowly in response.
Mentally cursing cursed scars her hair changed to a dull gray-brown to hide herself as best she could, her skin shifting to match. "Harry," she hissed, "shift with me. Come on…"
The wizard managed a pained nod, breathing hard as if concentrating. Thick smoke curled around them, it starting to get to her lungs. Unfortunately the bubblehead charm was anything but discrete. If she cast it, Voldemort and his cronies would see the flash. Not to mention it was a loud spell. When cast it always sounded like a bubble popping.
Harry's scar suddenly sizzled against his sweat.
And then Tonks heard it: a hissing so terrible her ears practically bled. "Harry Potter...I know you are there…."
Fully changed, blending into the background, she chanced a glance out around the tree, peering towards the clearing.
Then promptly gasped.
Voldemort was there, long black robes sweeping the ground as he parted the flames with a disinterested flick of his hand, looking deep into the forest, searching. Two Death Eaters flanked him: Avery and Rodolphus Lestrange, both appearing murderous.
But that wasn't what caught her attention.
Tonks hunkered back and gaped like a goldfish, reaching out for Harry-
Her fingers stuck thin air. Tonks jerked her head to look-
Harry was gone.
ECOTS
April 22nd, 1997 – 11:58 p.m.
Harry could feel him. He could feel him in his fucking head, Voldemort's voice ricocheting around his skull, calling him, telling him it was okay.
It wasn't okay. NOTHING was okay.
Kally was dead. Sirius was dead. Fuck, even Dumbledore was dead, even if the Headmaster didn't already know it!
Harry was dimly aware of Tonks' moving, shifting around him, swearing. Heat pressed remorselessly around them, licking at his skin. There was growling in the woods. Death Eaters in the clearing. The dead body of the witch he loved in a ditch.
Everything had gone wrong. He was grabbing at his head, trying not to scream-
"Come to me Harry…I can feel your pain, your anguisssssh. I can make sssure you never feel pain again….I can erasssse it…."
Erase…
It hit him as if it were the simplest, most obvious thing in the world.
Harry was breathing heavily, suddenly understanding. He could erase it.
Within his mind Voldemort hissed, but it was too late; a resolute calmness had already settled upon Harry.
For the first time since he'd seen the green light claim Kalliandra he felt able to breathe.
Harry slammed his shields down, casting Voldemort out.
Then he jerked his head towards Tonks, seeing the metamorphmagus' attention firmly fixed upon the clearing and not on him.
He only felt a small stab of guilt, but nothing more.
His fingers wrapped around his wand and with a whispered word he vanished.
Then he mentally pled, "Fawkes!" not knowing how he knew, but just knowing….
Amidst the flames claiming the forest no one, not even Tonks, noticed another flash of fire. Fawkes had heard him.
Golden talons snared onto Harry, and with a jerk he was yanked up, out of the fray, abandoning Tonks alone in the forest.
Then again she wasn't entirely alone; she had the Death Eaters and man-eating werewolf after all.
ECOTS
April 23rd, 1997 – 12:08 a.m.
Harry moved like a wraith through the castle, avoiding detection by all but Moaning Myrtle. The ghost girl didn't hit on him, or even try to engage him.
She took one look at the blood-soaked wizard that had burst in and shrieked, diving straight down into her toilet.
Well hell, he'd found a Myrtle deterrent. Harry couldn't care less.
All he cared about was whether or not he'd get to tell Kaylens about it.
His heart lurched.
He'd never moved so fast.
Harry navigated the labyrinth beneath the castle like a man possessed, the Chamber of Secrets somehow darker than remembered. It was darker because she was dead, because the enchanted sky overhead revealed the last moon she'd ever seen, because it was the worst night of his life.
A furious flick of his blood-encrusted fingers sent his mattress flipping over. The echoing crash was ignored, but the small, hidden box spell-o-taped beneath it was not. Harry pushed a burst of magical will at it, and it flew into his hand.
Harry tore it open.
Now the glimmering, golden time turner hung from between his fingers, Harry looking at it with cold, calculating fury. His fist shook. If he screwed this up, if he failed her again….
He loved her.
He'd get her back.
Dumbledore's time turner only went back in full days.
Harry only needed one. Yet he hesitated. Stiff, unmoving, he stared at the dangling chain and tried to think. He remembered Hermione's rules of time travel too acutely. She'd drilled him on them after their misadventure third year, and amongst them only one stood out.
He would never get another chance.
Harry was going back in time because he had seen Kaylens' die.
Thing was, what he'd actually seen was a burst of vicious green light explode where she'd been.
She'd been disillusioned at the time.
Then he'd seen her laying there, dead.
But what he'd actually seen was her laying there, unconscious.
Harry hadn't checked. He'd never shoved his fingers to the underside of her wrist, never pressed them against the soft skin of her neck, where he so often kissed, to see if her heart still physically beat.
Regulus had never confirmed the worst.
There hadn't been time to check her pulse, to call it.
Because of those facts he could go back and change it. He could change it all and still follow Hermione's rules of time travel. Sirius' death had been irrefutable, confirmed as he'd fallen through the veil. There was no questioning that. If Harry went back in time to try to change it the timeline would be screwed, because if Sirius didn't die then Harry never would have gone back in time to begin with. It was a sick and twisted cyclical loop.
But Kally…Harry just thought she was dead. He knew she was dead, but because it wasn't confirmed, because he hadn't been close enough to check…
If he somehow changed it, if he somehow knocked her unconscious and left her exactly where she had been, then in the original timeline he would still think she'd died. It would not change the actual timeline.
It was just like with Buckbeak.
They'd heard the executioner's axe. They'd known Buckbeak was dead, yet hadn't seen it.
Then they had saved him.
He could save Kally too. This…this was something he could change.
And he would.
What was more he already knew how.
Harry abandoned the Chamber of Secrets. It would not do to appear there when himself and a hex happy, paranoid-as-fuck Mad Eye Moody occupied the same space. A purposeful, calculating hate crawled through him. It drove him. He'd fix this. He'd fix all of it or kill himself trying.
And he'd take every single Death Eater down with him.
Once more he moved like a wraith in the night. The full moon's silver rays shone down on him. Harry stalked past where he, Moody and Tonks had laid out their mandrake leaves to dry, the things peacefully sitting there, oblivious to what was happening.
Harry made it across the grounds and broke into Hagrid's hut – the giant hadn't returned until just before he'd had sex with Kaylens so he knew it'd be safe - then stood there. He stood there awkwardly within the familiar, homey-looking-hut. All the furniture was still bigger than him, everything extremely fluffy. It spoke of peace.
Harry felt nothing of the sort.
He tossed the timeturner around his neck, Fawkes' talons sunk ruthlessly into his shoulder. It was just enough to hurt, to pointedly warn him that he better not fuck this up. His familiar knew what he was doing and understood why, the phoenix's words echoing Harry's head.
'You're a sap.'
Harry just grimaced. "I know."
Then he gave the time turner three turns back and the entire world changed.
The clock ticked back.
It was April 20th, at 12:08 a.m.
Kally was alive.
ECOTS
April 20th, 1997 – 12:08 a.m.
Fawkes took the letter and flew.
Harry stood back from the window, the shutters blowing in the April breeze, and waited.
Madame Pomfrey did not disappoint. She showed up in mere minutes, barreling across the grounds, Fawkes leading the way. Never once did she think to question the validity of the request. Harry had seen enough notes from Dumbledore that he could replicate the handwriting well enough. Even had he been bad at forgery, Fawkes' presence would have been all the convincing she'd need that his forged note was a real request from the Headmaster.
It wasn't.
Blunt force trauma injury, Poppy. Hagrid's Hut. Come quickly.
The mediwitch burst into Hagrid's Hut, took one look at him and made a strangled noise. "I should have known it was you, Mr. Potter!" Fawkes dropped the bag of supplies she'd brought onto the floor with a clack. "It's always you. What have you gotten into this time? The Headmaster-"
She was talking as she bustled towards him, her wand out-
Harry took an abrupt step back, aware of how he looked. Blood covered him from head to toe, matting his hair so it stuck up in even more unnatural directions than normal. His clothing was so encrusted it actually cracked when he moved. But Madame Pomfrey wasn't here for him.
With a flick of his wand the school healer's wand leapt out of her hand and launched across the room, Harry caught it without a smile. A flick of his wand sent the shutters battering shut and the door squeakily slamming closed, locks irrefutably clicking into place.
The school healer froze. "Mr. Potter…"
"Please," he stated with a calmness he did not feel, "call me Harry." He grimaced humorlessly. "Reckon after this you'll have earned the right to call me whatever the hell you want."
She her ground. In that moment, disarmed and alone with a blood-covered student, in the middle of the night, locked in a hut, Harry saw all the proof he'd ever need that she had once been a war medic.
"I'll take it under consideration," she stated glibly, eyes narrowing. "Now where are you hurt?"
He met her gaze without lie. "I'm not."
Her eyes flashed, head jerking to look around the small hut. "It's Dumbledore! Where is he? What has he done to himself thi-"
"Nothing," he uttered. "Dumbledore's fine, probably sleeping in the castle."
Her eyes darted between he and Fawkes. "Then what is that infernal bird doing here?"
Fawkes squawked angrily.
Madame Pomfrey did not seem to care. "Stop trying to burn my patients in the hospital wing," she sated firmly, "and I'll stop calling you infernal."
With a flap of his wings Fawkes abandoned the bed post where he'd been perched, putting as much distance between himself and Poppy as he could get before landing on his shoulder. Harry lazily reached up a hand and patted the talon, both in comradery and suspicion. Different Fawkes or not, he still didn't trust the sharp claws near his flesh.
"Actually," Harry drawled, "this one is mine."
Madame Pomfrey's stance shifted slightly. To most it would have been unnoticeable, but Harry didn't miss it. She was preparing herself, getting ready to fight, to flee if needed. "Alright Mr. Potter," she said sternly, "then do explain what exactly it is that I am doing here. If you don't, I reserve the right to begin flinging vases at your head."
Despite himself, despite the dire situation, Harry snorted. "Won't hold it against you." Fawkes screeched, and it was not a friendly sound, both the humans wincing. "Can't speak for this one though..."
At that Fawkes trilled. 'Tolerating the presence of witches who threaten you. Amazed that natural selection hasn't offed you.'
Harry snorted. "Not," he quietly muttered out of the side of his mouth, "for a lack of trying."
Madame Pomfrey eyed him as if he'd lost his mind. "Excuse me?"
"'Scuse me," he said, oddly polite for someone looking like they'd just went on a murderous rampage through the Ministry of Magic. "Was talking to him." He jerked his head towards the phoenix, Fawkes drumming his talons along his shoulder as if to make a point to the healer.
Mentally he could see Madame Pomfrey already filling out the Janus Thickery Ward's paperwork for him.
Harry ignored this, took a deep breath, then slowly leaned back against Hagrid's dresser. His hands barely propped him up. His arms vibrated with exhaustion, but he ignored this, keeping his dark gaze levelled on Pomfrey. "I need to know how to save someone from blunt force trauma." He knew how to save Kaylens from the killing curse. In fact, it was unbelievably easy.
What wasn't was the damage she'd sustain as a result.
He wouldn't, couldn't go back just to see her die in a different way.
The school healer's eyes shone with alarm. "Mr. Potter, exactly whose blood is that?"
He scowled. Carrow. "No one that'll be needing it."
Then he explained.
He explained all of it.
At some point Madame Pomfrey took a seat at Hagrid's oversized table. She didn't seem surprised. No. She just stared at him with a strange sort of calm.
The silence was maddening, so he broke it.
"Can't help but notice," he drawled, "you don't seem taken aback. Would have thought you'd be threatening me with institutionalization by now."
She scoffed derisively. "The Janus Thickery Ward is reserved for the mentally unsalvageable. You, despite your best efforts," she shot him a meaningful look, "still retain your faculties. And Headmaster Dumbledore already informed me that, at some undesignated point in the near future, that we may have time travelling guests in the form of yourself, Nymphardora and that bloody insane Auror." Her eyes instantly narrowed. "Is that blood theirs?"
When explaining, Harry may have left out the part where he tore the still living heart straight out of Carrow's chest. "No. A Death Eater. There was…splatter."
The witch hissed a breath, holding out her hand in silent request for return of her wand. "And I suppose you'll want me to keep your presence here clandestine?"
"Naturally."
"So your plan is to, in three days' time, to disillusion a rock or a log, throw it in front of Ms. Kaylens to absorb the Killing Curse, and to then heal the subsequent injuries?"
Unbidden the image of her limp form, golden tresses fluttering in the fire's heat, came to mind.
His mouth went dry, heart pounding. "More or less."
She adjusted her sleeping robes. They had little stethoscopes decorating them. "The Killing Curse has often been used by dark wizards to break through wards or to batter down doors, Mr. Potter. It can leave craters in streets. I would think this was something you'd already be aware of."
"Thought crossed my mind," he relayed, "when I saw the dirt flying. Ergo, the blunt force injury inquiry."Not to mention he'd seen images of his parents' home after Voldemort had been blown up.
It'd been leveled. A gaping hole took up one whole side of the edifice.
It was cold testament to what a misdirected Killing Curse could do.
Fawkes reassuringly clenched his talons upon his shoulder, trying to soothe him. Harry mentally sent a wave of thanks to the crotchety phoenix.
Madame Pomfrey looked only slightly less crotchety.
"You realize that such healing requires years of training and the use of copious potions and supplies. How do you propose to-"
"Better get started then," he suggested flatly.
Then he saw it: something he never wanted to see where Kaylens' death was concerned. Sympathy flashed in Madame Pomfrey's eyes. "There is no way to anticipate the internal injuries, Mr. Pot-Harry. What you're asking of me is to teach you how to not only run diagnostic assessments on someone, to determine what is internally wrong, but to also fix each and every single individual organ whilst under wand fire." Her lips pursed. "That is no easy feat."
"Then teach me to stall," he pled, desperate. "Teach me to keep her from bleeding to death."
And to Harry's utmost shock, she actually did.
That evening found them both still wide awake, wand pointed at a practice dummy she'd nicked from St. Mungo's on a quick side trip. Apparently the school healer had a whole stash of emergency portkeys back and forth to and from London, in the event a student became so grievously injured that they'd require immediate surgery.
In all his years at Hogwarts he'd had no idea.
Harry's cleaned brow furrowed, hair still damp from his shower, the wizard attempting to concentrate. "Audrere," he muttered at the lower left limb, blood oozing out of it.
It promptly caught fire.
Madame Pomfrey yelped as the dummy burned, whilst Fawkes hopped closer to- nuzzle the flames. The bird looked happy.
The phoenix looked considerably less happy when Pomfrey doused it with water.
Harry about threw down his wand. "I'm never going to get this!"
Smoke coiled out of the hut's windows, the things opened the moment they'd figured out that he had incendiary tendencies when it came to healing spells. Suffocating in the hut would not be ideal.
Pomfrey blew her bangs out of her face, adjusting her hat. "Cauterizing burns a wound to seal off the spurting blood vessels, Mr. Potter. For that it requires heat. Over-searing is quite a typical reaction amongst early Healing students."
As if to counter that argument the dummy sparked, a tongue of fire writhing up from the cut-off jeans of the dummy.
Pomfrey frowned. "Setting them fully on fire is less common…"
Harry groaned.
They worked late into the night, Harry eventually getting the cauterizing spell down. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't painless. In fact, it was quite crude, and Pomfrey assured him that were he to work with a conscious patient that they'd surely pass out from the pain alone, but it would do the job.
That's all he cared about.
The next spell they worked on, after some forced sleep – Pomfrey pulled a Moody and hexed him in the back, forcing six hours on him, Harry finally awakening to find her smugly smirking like the grindylow that caught a first year – was a diagnostic spell.
Unfortunately Harry was 'utterly hopeless' at it, and Pomfrey abandoned any and all attempts to teach him that on the grounds that 'Kalliandra would lose her head.'
They moved on, a simple spell to detect internal bleeding taught. It took four and a half hours, but eventually Harry got, "Intus invenimus sangus," to glow red if there was internal bleeding and green if there was not. Granted his spell was not precise. A healer could use the spell to figure out exactly which organ was bleeding. With his spell, Kaylens could be bleeding from her pinky and it'd still glow red.
It was better than nothing.
Pomfrey still looked extraordinarily uneasy.
Then she taught him the spell that had personally saved his life. "Artificilais spiritus," he repeated, watching absolutely nothing happen to the dummy. He tried again, with the same results.
Then again.
"Not good enough!" Pomfrey snapped.
Harry closed his eyes, imagining Kally's lips, imagining her panting, gasping against him-
After that casting the spell somehow worked.
The last spell they worked on was the stall. It was a generalized battle spell Pomfrey had personally created and used in the wizarding war with Grindelwald. It slowed all bleeds, even if it didn't stop them. The only side effect was blood clotting. Something called an embolism could happen if the person was left alone like that for too long. They had to get hospital care, get the bleeds treated, and then receive an anti-coagulation potion.
All he had to do was picture Kaylens laying there, golden hair blowing in the wind, her limp hand splayed lifelessly out, a wand he didn't know she had clutched between her fingertips.
That was all it fucking took.
He mastered it on the first fucking try.
Problem was, Madame Pomfrey pointed out that all of this was purely theoretical. Practicing on a dummy and actually performing it on a real, living person were two very different things.
A cold, dark part of Harry's mind both heard and understood that. Cutting jade eyes met Pomfrey's kind blue, his mouth drawing into a firm, hard lie. "So I could have done all of this for nothing?" he grated, aware of the answer before she even spoke.
"Yes. The only way Healers ever fully learn the effectiveness of their spells is in the field, on actual patients." Seeing his expression, she hastened, "It's not ideal, Mr. Potter, but even magic cannot be a fix-all for everything."
In that moment Harry knew what he had to do.
He also knew that Madame Pomfrey sure as hell wouldn't like it.
Grimacing, he addressed her calmly. "So you're saying that in order to guarantee I know how to do these spells, that I'd have to perform them on a real person first?"
Adjusting her bun, she offered a firm grimace of her own. "Indeed, Mr. Potter."
"That case…I'm awfully sorry about this. Expelliarmus!" His wand flashed, the spell lancing out and knocking Pomfrey back into Hagrid's sitting chair, her wand flying into his hand. Harry's rough and callused fingers curled around it, looking at her apologetically as ropes flew around her, binding her there.
The look she shot him promised disturbingly creative hexing the moment she got loose.
Harry didn't have time to feel bad about that. He summoned one of her portkeys – a Muggle pen - to Mungo's out of her pocket, offering her a rough smile. "See you in a few."
With that he clicked the pen, his bellybutton tugged backwards, Hagrid's hut disappearing.
ECOTS
April 21st, 1997 – 8:32 p.m.
The hem hem made Harry's skin crawl.
The collegiate with the light brown, shaggy, long hair had been waiting within the Ministry of Magic's atrium for the better part of an hour. He'd been studiously taking notes on the Fountain of Magical Brethren, muttering to himself beneath his breath on the symbolism of the golden witch and wizard's wands being held high amidst the house elf, goblin and centaur. What the piss poor security failed to notice – after all, what did he care? The student didn't actually want inside the Ministry of Magic, he just wanted to take notes on the impossibly insulting fountain in the entry atrium – was how the student's gray eyes followed the hem hem sound like a predator.
Beneath a fringe of light brown hair Harry had spotted the squat, toad-like woman waddling in pink robes towards the Floo network. He hadn't thought it was possible, but she'd gotten squatter, her ass fatter.
The student shuddered, then made a mental note to not hex her in it. It'd probably bounce right off the toad and back at him.
He also made a metal note to obliviate himself of the memory of seeing her fat ass. He had no desire to recollect that bit of this mission.
Harry flattened his hair over his scar – that something he'd not been able to change with morphing no matter how much Tonks had coaxed– and followed.
It wasn't difficult. The atrium was fairly empty given the late hour. It was also unsurprising that this bitch had stayed late, obviously having no life to hurry home to. Harry moved purposefully towards the Floo on her left, pausing and pretending to search through his cloak's pockets for his Floo-powder, listening to her shrill command as she stepped into the flames.
Fucking hell, even the sound of her voice made his ears want to curl up inside his head and die.
Harry abruptly changed Floos and followed, repeating her words, "The Leaky Cauldron!" and stepping seamlessly out of the cauldron's fireplace, seeing Dolore's robes sweeping out the door to London. Dust billowed up around him, and Harry again flattened his hair in an attempt to make it stay.
Then he followed, disappearing into the evening Muggle London foot traffic. The air was crisp, biting at his nose, breath misting slightly in front of his face. For April it was cold, the Muggles wearing light overcoats and fashionable hats.
Umbridge's upper lip curled in disdain as she tried to slide through the masses of Muggles without coming into physical contact with any of them. Harry deeply considered tripping her into a particularly smelly looking one, then thought better of it. The innocent Muggle hadn't done a thing wrong, and getting smacked in the face with the living toad would be unnecessarily cruel.
Harry watched the buildings, looking for a break in between them, calculating his timing….
People were notoriously unobservant. If getting hunted down by dementors the previous year in the middle of Little Whinging had taught him anything, it'd taught him that. So an assault might get noticed, but might not.
He had ways around that.
Harry picked up the pace, catching up with the overweight, stout witch far too easily. A large group of chattering twenty-somethings bustled past, clutching Styrofoam cups of coffee in hand, a mocha scent left in their wake as they swept past, boisterously shouting about the latest film.
Harry seized the distraction and pretended he'd been jostled. He bumped up against Umbridge's back with an oomph and fake apology, his hand smacking against her arm, a wandless word casting a silencing charm upon her.
As she was turning a cold look at him, opening her mouth to undoubtedly inform him how low he was on the hierarchical scale compared to the likes of her, Harry saw the realization that she could not speak cross her amphibious face.
Her eyes widened like a frog choking on a fly, the witch clearly going for her wand-
Harry smirked a vicious smirk and marveled at why the universe had decided to waste magical powers on the likes of her.
He then faked a trip, body checking her into the alleyway with a shouted apology-
The toad-woman tripped on an overturned garbage bin, fumbling for her wand-
Merlin the toad was pathetic.
Harry pretended he was trying to help her, knocking her behind a dumpster as he 'tripped' again. It pushed them both out of sight of the Muggle-covered street. Umbridge's mouth was open in a furious howl-
Harry already had the return portkey pen in hand, callously clicking it right as he grabbed her arm.
There was a tug behind his belly button and the world spun.
It tossed them unceremoniously down in front of Hagrid's hut.
Harry slammed facedown against the ground, his shoulder smarting, but he didn't hesitate. He rolled, wand already out and aimed at Delores Umbridge's throat. "Don't," he threatened, spitting out a clump of grass, "even think about it."
The toad looked stricken, as if unable to believe that this vagrant – a pathetic Muggle in her mind – had abducted her. Her flat lips curled silently back-
Harry's hair instantly shortened, revealing his tell-tale scar as it turned back to black. His skin tone lightened, eyes brightening to their typical green.
Umbridge opened her mouth and began spitting as she silently tried to yell.
"Since you can't talk," Harry grunted, shoving himself up on his elbow, never once removing the tip from the pudgy flesh of her throat, "blink twice and we'll count that as comprehension."
The woman's chubby fingers wiggled near her cloak's lower pocket, as if considering trying for it anyway-
Screw it.
"Stupefy!"
Her head snapped back and struck the ground with a resounding thump.
As Harry Potter clambered gingerly to his feet, he couldn't help but think how much easier it was when she couldn't talk.
ECOTS
April 21st, 1997 – 10:55 p.m.
"I really wish you would reconsider this approach, Mr. Potter," Madame Pomfrey said sternly.
Harry leaned back in the oversized chair, folding his arms behind his head as he stared at his two captives. One he felt some amount of guilt about, while the other…
Well the other was making him wish he'd paid better attention in transfiguration class. In particular, to the human transfiguration component, because he'd rather like to transform Umbridge into an actual toad so he could feed her to some Slytherin's pet owl.
He wouldn't feed her to Hedwig; it'd probably give Hedwig indigestion.
The fantasy put a cold, cruel smile on his lips. "For you, Madame Pomfrey," he stated flatly, "I've reconsidered. Regrettably the universe and past events have conspired to convince me that the world would be better off without this one."
Umbridge groggily began to 'come to.' Pity, it'd been so nice while she'd been quiet. He'd had a good hour to plan, strategize. He'd come up with a plan for Madame Pomfrey, and one for Umbridge, both of which would suit his end goals.
If Hermione ever caught wind of the kinds of things he was doing whilst in possession of a timeturner she'd surely castrate him. She'd get off prosecution for the crime too. She'd probably come up with some kind of incredibly detailed defense, justifying that the world was really better off if he didn't have a dick left attached, on account that the wizarding world didn't need him breeding.
His chest jerked. If Kalliandra didn't live, didn't survive, he sure as hell wouldn't be breeding. Not ever. He didn't want to so much as ever touch another witch ever again.
Fawkes preened in the corner, and Harry tried to mentally calm himself down.
Umbridge made another sound, silencing charm removed, her eyes blearily cracking to lock onto first Madame Pomfrey, who was still bound to the chair, and then onto him.
He grinned at her like a jackal. "Welcome back Delores," he said far too casually, examining his nails, "have a nice nap?"
Umbridge practically snarled. "Abduction of a Ministry official? They'll have your wand for this, this time, Potter!"
Harry stopped the incredibly interesting scrutinization of his nails and eyed her over them as if she were no more than one of those brain eating amoebas found in muddy waters of the Americas. "Only," he told honestly, "if they catch me."
With that he shoved back his chair and stood, wand in hand, his fist clenched around it. He stared at her and debated what to do first.
Her sort were the kind that would execute Kaylens just for being born the way she was, who would torture children simply because they were born to the wrong family. He knew this with certainty, because he'd seen it.
While Umbridge had been unconscious he'd wrenched open her eyelids and used legilimency on her.
The things he'd seen had made him sick to his stomach. Hell, it churned just thinking about how she'd callously hurt those Muggle children, all because they'd been too noisy for her liking when she'd been on an evening walk.
Their crime had been playing outside, at a Muggle park, and laughing too loud.
She'd Cruico-ed more than one.
She'd 'accidentally' killed another. The kid had had a congenital heart defect and died from the pain.
She hadn't cared.
And the entire time, the entire friggin' time she'd smiled.
She'd smiled as if she'd enjoyed it.
No. Harry wasn't going to reconsider this. In fact, he was going to flat out enjoy this. He purposely did not look in Madame Pomfrey's direction, the mediwitch's hard gaze following his every maneuver. "Madame Pomfrey," he stated with far more respect and calmness than he'd ever afforded Umbridge, "think you can coach me through this?"
Umbridge's head turned so quickly her neck fat jiggled. "You're helping him!?" she demanded. "I'll have your wand for this too, Poppy!"
Madame Pomfrey now was eyeing Umbridge as if she was nothing more than the fungus responsible for athlete's foot. "Surely even you are not dumb enough to threaten the only person in the room trying to help you?"
"So you are helping him!" Umbridge roared.
"Judging by her verbal comprehension skills," Harry bit, "I'd say the answer to your question, Madame Pomfrey, is yes." Umbridge was definitely dumb enough.
The mediwitch let out a heavy sigh. "Mr. Potter, must you always insist on antagonizing the mentally unstable?"
"YOU ARE THE ONES THAT ARE UNSTABLE! I –WORK- FOR THE MINISTER! I CAN HAVE YOU BOTH DETAINED AND THROWN TO THE DEMENTO-"
Harry rewarded the outburst with a hex to the foot. It snapped loudly in the hut, Delores screaming in pain as a deep gash welled up with blood, spilling across the plastic tarp covering Hagrid's floor. He might be losing his grip with morality, but after breaking into his friend's home he certainly wasn't going to get the blood of someone like Umbridge all over Hagrid's floor.
There were some lines one just did not cross, and trashing his friend's place was one of them.
Delores' continued to howl, screaming and spitting through clenched teeth, seething, "AZKABAN! You imbecile! Our world's LEADER-"
"Which one?" Harry asked, feigning confusion. "Apologies, but it's so hard for me to tell. Are you talking about the latest in a long line of incompetent Ministry figureheads or the pureblood poser better known as Riddle?"
Umbridge undulated wildly in her chair. Harry would have been momentarily concerned about her weight breaking it, but then he remembered that Hagrid was truly larger and that if it could handle his weight, then it could surely hold hers.
Blood from her bleeding foot splattered in intricate patterns across the tarp, and he was glad it was there. It saved one of Hagrid's duvets from being ruined.
This time Harry had planned ahead.
He'd taken Hermione's advice, actually, and prepared. He'd made a mental list of goals. He'd made a list of items he'd need to achieve those goals. Hell, he'd even mentally rehearsed all possible outcomes – granted every single one had invariably ended with Delores Umbridge transfigured into a flea and stomped upon, but hell, he'd still rehearsed. Hermione might actually be pleased.
Not that he could ever tell Hermione about this. No. If he told her about this little escapade she'd probably sedate him with a tranquilizer dart. Her parents had been dentists, so she probably knew how to get ahold of that sort of thing.
Plus there was that lingering fear that she actually would castrate him, and if Kaylens survived this there were things he planned to do with her that'd require that particular appendage to still be attached.
"Harry," Madame Pomfrey clipped, still maintaining composure despite the uncomfortable circumstances, "you cannot torture the woman just to practice healing. It's-"
"Unfair?" he crouched down in front of Umbridge, never once looking away. "I understand Madame Pomfrey, but I need to practice on someone, and if you'd seen the kinds of things she'd done to Muggles that I've seen, you'd probably be getting next in line to give it a go."
Umbridge instantly stopped shouting, ugly face contorted in pain. "You can't prove a thing, Potter. The only thing you've done here today is prove that you're as unstable as I always knew you were. Must have been your head injury…"
At that last statement she looked at his scar.
Fawkes let out an angry screech in the corner.
"I want to thank you, Umbridge," Harry said conversationally. "You're making this easier. Here I was, worried I wouldn't really enjoy it." Then he rested his wand on his kneecap, casually pointing it directly at her torso, before callously uttering, "Reducto."
An explosion of red light lit up the hut, the blasting curse hitting Umbridge at point blank range. She flew backwards in Hagrid's chair, the seat shattering into pieces as it hit the far wall.
Harry winced. That'd take forever to piece back together, even with magic.
Well, hell, maybe he'd send an anonymous note to Hermione and give her that project. Mrs. Weasley always had emphasized the importance of delegating after all…
Harry stood, approaching Delores Umbridge like a curious vulture. She lay on the ground, twitching, and he slowly began assessing. He made sure to stay at least two meters back, because that was the approximate distance he'd be from Kaylens.
If he couldn't do this two meters away, then he couldn't do it.
His heart lurched.
"I hope you've thought this through, Harry," Madame Pomfrey stated with impeccable calm for someone who had blood splatter on their robes.
"Madame Pomfrey," he said respectfully, "given she's sicked dementors on my cousin and I, tried to get me expelled for underage magic she forced me to commit, attempted to use an unforgivable on me, and tortures and kills Muggle children she finds annoying in her spare time so as to preemptively cleanse the gene pool yes, I've thought this through."
The mediwitch's eyebrows shot up. "Harry are you sure?"
"Dumbledore's taught me legilimency," was his reply. "So I'm as sure of that as I am of you sitting there."
"Harry you can't kill her."
Watching her bleed, he seriously considered how easy that would be. It'd be a lot easier to just let her die, to let her bleed out.
Regrettably that wasn't his plan.
"I'm going to fix her, then obliviate her Madame Pomfrey. Nothing more, nothing less." Tilting his head, he added, "Actually, I think I'll make her forget she's witch entirely. Seems fitting." Umbridge screamed, prompting him to spit, "What? We can't leave you free to harm anyone else. So it's either that or let you die. Your pick."
"Filthy Muggles! You're a blood traito-"
"Actually," he drawled, "I'm a half-blood. Just like that snake leader of yours, so technically that just makes me comfortable in my skin. Explains why ole Tommy Boys looks so stretched though. Think they make a cream for that?"
In his head Fawkes laughed.
With that he flicked his wand and summoned a chunk of chair that had impaled itself into her arm. Instantly it began spurting, the….he thought he remembered Pomfrey calling that the brachial artery? Didn't matter. Something was spurting so he probably ought to fix it.
He flicked his wand and cauterized it, steam rising from Umbridge's flesh as the witch screamed.
"What now?" he asked Madame Pomfrey, almost conversationally.
"This is a colossaly stupid idea, Mr. Potter."
He twirled his wand in a Tonks-like fashion. "Best kind."
For a moment Pomfrey went quiet, as if thinking it over. Then the mediwitch let out a heavy sigh. "Check for internal injuries, Mr. Potter."
"You're helping him!" Umbridge burst, her toad-like lips flapping. "The Minister will have the dementors kiss you for your crimes!"
"Shut up," Harry stated calmly, leaning forward. "Because believe me, Umbridge, you really want me to learn this."
He spent the rest of the evening practicing on her, with regrettable success. Regrettable because she survived the laceration to her liver, the spleen bleed, and the kidney bleed. According to Madame Pomfrey those were considered 'solid' organs and were prone to bleeding profusely from blunt force trauma, and could kill a person within minutes.
Harry didn't give a rat's ass about that.
Eventually Harry obliviated her. He obliviated her multiple times. He obliviated her so much that he doubted she'd remember how to feed herself, let alone her own name.
Then he used Madame Pomfrey's portkey back to London, but instead of taking Umbridge into St. Mungos he dropped what was left of her off in front of a Muggle hospital. EMTs dropping off another patient found her, and as he watched from the shadows he saw them rushing her in, assuring her moaning form that she was going to be just fine.
Let her survive Muggle surgery. Maybe, just maybe, she might actually learn to appreciate Muggles, or, as she preferred to call them, those 'evolutionary-dead-ends.'
Harry didn't care about her fate. The only thing he cared about was the fact that Umbridge, despite the gravity of her injuries, had survived over an hour to be dropped off here. His fixes hadn't been clean, they hadn't been painless, and they weren't permanent.
But Umbridge had survived.
It meant Kally would have a chance.
For the first time in three days Harry Potter felt the vice on his heart loosen, another sensation rising in him: Hope.
The clock ticked past midnight.
It was April 22nd.
Today was the day that Kalliandra Kaylens died, and her boyfriend was going to change that.
