Summary: The war is over for everyone but Harry. He is still fighting just to survive, but he won't make it on his own. Just when he's given up, help comes along.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, but I do own my imagination which takes me on wonderful adventures.
Chapter 9: Live Magic
"So, Harry, how are you feeling?" asked Poppy, switching to practitioner mode on her visit the following weekend. "How's your range of motion?" She removed the bandages and proceeded to manipulate his shoulder to check the healing of the bullet entry wound and the dog bite.
"My shoulder is still a bit stiff and my arm is slightly sensitive to the touch, but overall, much better. My headache also seems to be gone."
"I expect another week will take care of any residual pains," she predicted, rewrapping the arm and replacing the shoulder sling. Switching topics, she asked, "What have you both been up to this week?"
The three moved in to the dining room and settled comfortably around the table on which all the notes, books and other research materials were spread out. Additionally, there was a large basket containing the six crystal globes containing the completed scans.
"I have been working on learning more about myelin and what can cause its breakdown," Harry offered, passing around his notes. "Yesterday, I discovered that insufficient amounts of nutrients, in particular, Vitamin D, as well as calcium which helps transport it through the blood, can contribute to the demyelination of nerve fibres and spinal cord. More specifically, lack of the vitamin inhibits the repair of the sheath. I found that so interesting that I am planning to research additional problems caused by the shortage of other vitamins and minerals. I made a list of those I wanted to check, but that's as far as I got before I went to sleep last night. I was planning to pick up from there next. I would like to see if there is an underlying cause for my inability to absorb enough – assuming that is the problem."
"And you, Severus?" the Medi-witch asked.
"I have been studying pheromones: their production and dispersion and what might cause any change in their composition or their purpose," Severus added. "The endocrine and immune systems are both involved. The hormone is produced by the endocrine system within the apocrine glands and the immune system is responsible for regulating their use. I am currently cross-referencing the interactions between the two systems."
"Well, I think you both have some promising leads. It might be beneficial to trade subjects just as we did with the scans. New eyes on the topics might offer changed perspectives." Both Harry and Severus nodded their agreement.
"Harry, I'd like to run a few blood tests on you to determine if you are in fact suffering from vitamin or mineral deficiencies or hormonal imbalances. Let's start with that, okay?"
"That's fine with me," Harry said, holding out his arm for Poppy.
"There you go," she said a few minutes later, pressing a cotton ball into the crook of his arm. "I am also going to analyse some of your hair follicles," she said, pulling out a few hairs. "Often, we get more definitive results regarding vitamin or mineral deficiencies that way. I think it's important to take care of this now. I will come back next weekend with the results. In the meantime, let's continue our researching and preparation. By next week, Harry, your arm should be well enough to do the live magic scan. Severus, I am leaving you the task of finding a crystal that we can use."
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Poppy arrived in time for lunch the next Saturday. As they sat down, she began, "I have the results of the tests, but I will hold off on the results until we know for sure if your magical relay system is deteriorating. That way, we won't 'force' a conclusion. So, after we eat, we will attempt the live magic scan. You were able to get us a quartz crystal, Severus?"
"Yes, I got the largest and clearest one I could find. I have set up a chair for you and affixed the quartz, non-magically, to a staff to keep it stable and more comfortable for you to use, Poppy." She nodded.
"How will this work?" asked Harry.
"We will go out to the lawn. I will cast the live magic flow reading spell on myself and direct the active scan through the quartz. Then I will watch you perform the spells as Severus dictates them. We will want to see spells from different spell classes that would produce a variety of results. I also think that each spell should be performed multiple times for comparative results but not immediately after itself. There should be two, or even three, rounds of spells with each round performed in a different order. But first, let's decide which spells to use."
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After the meal, they cleared the table. Severus produced a sheet of parchment and a quill.
Harry pre-empted the discussion by saying, "We can only use spells that will not be cast on anything living. I don't want to hurt anything and since my magic is unreliable, I won't take that chance."
"Fair enough. We have plenty of other options from which to choose."
After a bit of discussion, it was decided that duro (modifies), evanesco (banishes), orchideous (conjures), wingardium leviosa (levitates), locomotor (moves), accio (summons), confringo (explodes), protego (shields) and ebublio (wraps), would be used. Rocks would be used as the focus for all the spells except orchideous which would be conjured from the air and protego for which Severus would throw some balls at Harry.
They moved out to the lawn near a grouping of rocks by the lakefront. Poppy cast the vision enhancing spell on herself, sat down and directed the scan through the quartz. One at a time, Severus named the nine spells, waiting for Harry to perform it and giving him a few moments of rest after each before moving on to the next one. He then repeated them all in a random order for an additional two rounds.
A few hours later, Poppy lowered the staff with the quartz and chanted the counter charms. She pulled the memory and placed it into an unbreakable vial. "That's it, let's take a break here and tomorrow we will take a look at the results in your pensieve, Severus."
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"Here you go, Poppy," Severus said, walking into the sitting room after breakfast the next morning while carrying his pensieve. "I cleaned it with normal cleanser to make sure there was no magical residue in it that might interfere with the results."
"Good thinking. Okay, that's it," Poppy said emptying the vial in which she had stored the long silvery memory strand of the live magic session into the bowl. "Before we go into the memory, I just want to give you an idea of what to look for. Each family of spells has its own colour range on the spectrum. The closer it is to the dark colours, the higher the difficulty level of the spell. This is how the staff knows which spells to teach in which year. For example, a barely-there pink-coloured spell would be taught in first year, while an intense red would only be learned in the final year. Additionally, a more intense colour indicates a stronger casting of the spell. Ready?" At their simultaneous nods, all three touched the basin and entered the memory.
The first thing Harry noticed was that everything seemed to be drawn in neon colours. His skeletal structure came across as a silvery white. His circulatory system showed up in pink. The nervous system appeared in blue. The internal organs were green. "Is that my magic core?" Harry asked pointing out a glowing gold ball in the centre of his chest.
"Yes, and you will be able to see the filaments stretch out in a minute. Ah, here we go," she said as Harry attempted to accio a rock a few metres away. As he was doing so, thin strands of golden light stretched out from the golden ball towards his wand hand. From there, a beam of pale blue, almost white, light left his wand and headed toward the rock. Harry noticed a flickering quality to the beam.
"Freeze," called out Poppy a moment later and the image froze. "Enlarge 500%." The image zoomed in. "Look at that," she pointed. There was a section of filament that was decidedly thinner and paler than the connecting sections. The spell could be seen weakening as it thinned. "Resume quarter speed." They watched as the thinned area thickened and regained the normal colour and the spell returned to full strength. Then a new area faded and thinned out until the strand broke and the spell was interrupted. "Reduce to 100%. Resume normal speed."
As the memory played out, Poppy continued to enlarge and shrink, speed up and slow down the images. It became quite clear that the sheathing on Harry's magical relay system was the main culprit behind his casting issues. It was late afternoon when Poppy finally retrieved the memory and replaced it into the vial.
"Okay, so we know what is happening to my magic. Now we just need to figure out why it is happening and how to fix it."
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A/N: I have had no medical training. All my information comes from various internet sites that I have summarized and streamlined for the average reader. I apologize for any mistakes I may have made and would appreciate being notified about anything that needs to be fixed.
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