Chapter Six

– THE DEATH EATERS –

For the fourth time, he woke up in his hospital bed, dazed.

With the one arm that wasn't completely bound, Harry fumbled around the bedside table for a while, groping around for his wand. Finally, his hand found a short, thin stick and he whispered, "Lumos."

A small light appeared at the tip of Harry's wand. Knowing this wasn't nearly enough light for him to see properly, he muttered a Light Localising Charm and simultaneously lamps, lanterns and torches all around the room were switched on, allowing Harry to see.

All the beds were empty and upturned; a few bits of furniture were reduced to splinters; the magical lantern hanging from the roof was swaying precariously; the wall had a huge hole inside it, which showed another room which didn't looking any better; nobody else was in the room – other than Ron, whose tips of his shoes were sticking out from under the bed and lying down in the exact same position he had fallen in when Thorfinn Rowle had knocked him out; it seemed, too, that Ron had been asleep through the destruction and ruination of the room. The words 'Severe Spell Damage' on the wall were tarnished and vandalised, written over with a message saying: MUD BLOOD SHALL BE SPILLED.

Highly disturbed, Harry muttered, "Diffindo," and pointed at his casts. Immediately, they ripped open and Harry began to slide out from the bed, feeling incredible pain in his left leg as he did so. As he staggered out of the bed, he saw a horrifyingly nasty burn that stretched from his thigh to his foot. Every step inflamed the injury.

"Ron – Ron – wake up!" Harry hissed, hopping awkwardly to his friend's side.

"…huh? Wh-what?" Ron mumbled blearily, getting to his feet. He rubbed his eyes and looked around. "What – what happened to this place? Where's 'Er-my-knee?"

"I don't know, Ron," Harry said quickly and he was suddenly on edge – the words on wall combined with the fact that Hermione, the only Muggleborn in their group, was missing alarmed Harry. "We need to find her."

"Yeah, you're right," Ron said, nodding, half-confident, half-apprehensive, and watched as Harry cast a Bandaging Charm on his leg.

"Harry," Ron said timidly. "Do you think you're allowed to use magic? You're the Boy Who Lived, but you're still a kid…"

"Yeah, but kids can use magic in life-threatening situations. I think this counts," Harry said darkly and they began to walk.

Together, Ron supporting Harry, they stumbled from the 'Severe Spell Damage' ward and passed several other wards with their doors swung open, labelled from anything like 'Minor Accidental Magic' 'Incorrectly-Applied Transfiguration' and 'Charms Gone Wrong', to 'Backfiring Hexes,' 'Unliftable Curses' and 'Permanent, Incurable Injuries'. The more they walked, the Bandaging Charm eased Harry's wound so he didn't need Ron's support, but he knew that later when the Charm faded, the pain would return. Messages similar to the ward Harry had been in were scattered all over the place. As they went down the hallway – the desecrated walls decorated with several once-impressive portraits of famous Healers now askew, vandalised and obliterated – Harry noticed that there was absolutely nobody else in these halls, and he and Ron were using the Wand-Lighting Charm to guide their way down the unlit corridor. Next to Harry, Ron looked slightly horrified by the wrecked and ruined place.

"Where's everyone?" Ron said, his voice quivering. "And why's everything destroyed?"

Harry shrugged. "Suppose it has something to do with that Thorfinn Rowle bloke who broke into our ward?"

"Maybe," Ron said and they stopped talking.

They arrived at a flight of stairs going downwards, and they sprinted down into a second floor labelled POTION AND PLANT POISONING. This floor, too, did not have anybody, but they heard a familiar tapping coming from behind them. Ron, overcome with curiosity, wanted to go near the sound and find the source, but Harry, sickeningly aware of what it was dragged Ron down the dark corridor. They ran past doors ominously named and darted down the stairs two steps at a time.

The third floor they arrived in was the same. MAGICAL BUGS was filled with empty, wrecked wards labelled 'Scrofungulus', 'Spontaneous Combustion Sickness' and 'Dragon Pox' and all sorts of strange wizarding illnesses Harry couldn't pronounce. One ward's door was unlabelled and locked and didn't look like it was opening anytime soon; it was the only metal door that Harry had seen in the hospital, and it was bound with chains and locks. Not wanting to go near it, Harry and Ron felt the déjà vu, running down the gloomy, dim passage, grabbing Ron's arm, and sprinting away from the insistent tapping.

On the second-last floor, there was someone there. In the CREATURE-INDUCED INJURIES floor, all but one of the wards were empty. With the dim light their wands cast, Harry and Ron saw a skinny, topless man feebly crawl from a door classified as 'Untreatable Creature Bites'. The man, whose ankle had a strange, red, triangle-shaped bite mark on it, was muttering unintelligible things and twitching sporadically

Harry made his way towards the man slowly, maybe to ask if he was okay, when Ron grabbed his arm and pulled him back. Ron looked at Harry like he was mad. "Harry, that man's been bitten by a Terrapine! You can tell by the triangle bite. Don't go near him, Harry."

"What's a Terrapine?" Harry asked, only half listening.

"They're wild creatures, Terrapines," Ron said, looking worried. "If they bite you, you get loopy and pretty uncontrollable."

"Then why can't I go near him?" Harry asked.

"Well," Ron said, looking a bit uncomfortable. "There's this legend that if a Terrapine-infected person touches you … you go round the bend too!"

Harry felt like this aversion to these infected people was not at all different to how other wizards and witches treated werewolves. "Well, yeah? Fine, then. We've been too distracted – we haven't even found Hermione yet. Do you think she's not even in this hospital?"

Again, they had no answers, so Harry across the room, Ron following (though looking very apprehensive as he sprinted over the moaning, murmuring victim of a Terrapine's bite). As they descended down the fourth flight of stairs, they heard screaming and shouting and Harry sped up.

Down he went along with Ron, the constant tapping following close behind, and they stopped on the last step, watching the horror unfold below. Harry felt a sick feeling as he realised what was happening. In the spacious, wide lobby, dozens of cloaked, masked figures were standing in a circle, floating unconscious people, some bleeding and bruised, some fine, with their wands, laughing jubilantly. Obviously, these cloaked people were jibing and chortling unpleasantly as they abused and attacked the floating, sleeping people, knocking them into walls or smashing them into chairs. Most of the victims were children – and one of them was Hermione–

Ron, furious, began to dart out when Harry yanked him back, dragging him back up the stairs and back into shrouded darkness. The Terrapine-diseased man was absent, scarily.

"Ron, we can't, there are two of us, there are fifty of them–"

"They have Hermione–"

"I know, we just have to plan something–"

"THEY HAVE HERM–"

"Quiet!"

"I'm not going to be quiet, they have Hermione–"

"Shh, someone's coming–"

And indeed, from the top of the winding staircase, they could hear accumulating footsteps pounding against the floor from the far end of the corridor. Drawing out their wands, they were about to cast spells at the direction of what seemed to be a mass of dozens of people–

"Ron! Harry!"

The voice of Mrs Weasley came from the midst of the moving crowd, and it sounded like she squeezed through the throng of people raising their wands – "Move, move, it's my sons!" – and she appeared, short, plump, kind-faced, and waddled her way to them.

"Mum," Ron said exasperatedly as she pulled the two of them into a tight hug.

"Mrs Weasley," Harry said quickly, "what's happened? Where're the lights? Why are there people downstairs abusing other people?"

"It's been awful," Mrs Weasley said, close to tears. "I – we –" she said, gesturing to the front row of the three-dozen people behind her that Harry looked at closely for the first time; there was Mr Weasley, Fred and George, Dumbledore, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Lupin and a black, shaggy dog, "– came to visit you in your bed, and we left for the night, and in the morning, Ron and Hermione desperately wanted to stay of course, so we were all in the tearoom, waiting for news on your progress. It was shocking when the lights all turned off – and imagine our shock when we found out there were ex-Death Eaters in every hospital ward, disguising as visitors! Well, they're not really Death Eaters – they're just purists who want to stir up trouble, they're the ones who've been doing those attacks these past two months. There was chaos, the Death Eaters casting hexes and curses everywhere and taking all the Muggleborns downstairs into the ground floor and forcing everybody else in the fifth floor. We thought they'd taken you two as well," Mrs Weasley wailed. "We couldn't find you – oh, you were in the Spell Damage floor, weren't you? We couldn't go outside the tearoom for fear of the Death Eaters, and they couldn't come out because of fear of Dumbledore."

Mr Weasley stepped forward, patting his wife on the back as she sobbed. "Yes, Molly's correct. We were in a right state, pushed back into the tearoom while we waited for the Death Eaters to leave. We can't contact the Ministry, because the Death Eaters have turned all the Scrying Bowls and Floo Network connections off. We can't Disapparate, make a Portkey or send an owl obviously, because the only way to do that is to get to the lobby, which is free of enchantments. Thought that's where the Death Eaters are playing with their food." Mr Weasley looked loathing as he spoke of the Death Eaters, which Harry had read were Lord Voldemort's supporters.

"That's why we've decided to counter-attack," Lupin said, stepping forward. Remus Lupin, werewolf, had been one of the best professors Harry had ever had, and he felt reassured, even though Lupin looked as shabby as ever.

"The children are all upstairs back in the fifth floor," Mrs Weasley said, and Harry thought he heard the stern parent in her rise up again. "All the adults" – she waved at the collection of curious wizards and witches listening in into the conversation, most of which were strangers to him "–that weren't taken by those hellions are here. Go to the tearoom and wait for us to return."

"No!" Ron yelled immediately. "Hermione is there, me and Harry've got to help."

"I think you should listen to your mother, Ron," Lupin said. "I understand you have concerns about your friend, but as grown wizards we are much more adept–"

"That's never stopped us before," Ron fiercely said back. "Harry's done and defeated more than half of you, and he's not even of age–"

"Ronald, you listen to me–" Mrs Weasley began, but Mr Weasley held up his hand, silencing everybody.

His face was pale as he spoke. "They – the Death Eaters, the riot-makers – they're quiet."

Indeed, when Harry strained his ears, he couldn't hear the sound of chaos and crashing and happy laughing as he could before.

"They've heard us – and they're coming," whispered a Healer at the back.

And sure enough, sparks and jets of lights streamed from the staircase, shooting frenziedly of the tips of the swiftly-advancing pack of Death Eaters climbing up the stairs. Screaming, Molly jerked Harry and Ron out of the way and into a room called 'Acromantula Attacks' and locked it magically with her wand, Ron howling and pounding on the glass door.

Harry looked through the see-through glass, saw Lupin cast a Liquefying Hex onto the staircase and saw many Death Eaters fall, yelling out, onto the floor below. Mr Weasley flicked his wand at the direction of the enemy and left a dozen Stunned, letting Sirius, in his dog form, leap and bound at several of the rioters and bite them hard in unconventional places. Dumbledore smoothly waved his wand in a sweeping arc, blasting all in the crossfire to one side of the wall and left stuck there by the force of the magic.

But it wasn't all going well for the defending side. Some Death Eaters had flown up instead of using the melted staircase The horde of terror swarmed and a young, barely-of-age pink-haired woman was completely frozen as they swamped onto everybody, and Fred Weasley was the subject of, first a Disarming Spell, then a fierce Blasting Curse at his leg. Kingsley Shacklebolt was forced to retreat as three Death Eaters forged ahead in his direction. Jets of lights flew back and forth, and a long-haired, blue-eyed young adult with a dragon tooth earring – who must've certainly been a Weasley – ducked for cover as a particularly bright green one soared over his red head.

Ron was desperately trying to unlock the door – 'Alohomora – Alohomora – ALOHOMORA!" – and Harry, coming back to his senses, told Ron to back off, pointed his wand at the door and said, "Expulso!" and the door exploded, shattering the wood into a million dusty pieces. A Death Eater dangerously close to the door when it had blown up had been caught in the eruption and now lay under a thin layer of dust.

Stepping over him with Ron close behind, they hurried off, Harry having to Disarm an attacker to avoid being hit by a green jet of light. Explosions erupting and shouts and screams resounding behind them, they hastened to where the staircase had once been, a puddle of what looked to be liquidised wood lying at the bottom.

"The drop's too far," Harry said truthfully; the distance between the edge of where the former staircase was and where it was now was too long to be safe, and Harry didn't fancy falling into the pool of bubbling, unpleasant melted wood.

"We can hover," Ron suggested desperately.

"Neither of us are powerful enough to do an Air Suspension Charm, and we're both too heavy to use Wingardium Leviosa on," Harry said, thinking that this was one of the many situations with Harry and Ron where they both wished Hermione were there.

"Don't be so negative, mate …" Ron said, frowning at the drop.

"Hold on," Harry said, thinking of a Charms lesson they had had about counter-charms. "Coagulas!" Harry said, pointing his wand at the bubbling pond below them, which slowly reformed, rising into the air and solidifying, congealing and thickening. As it did, Harry felt his stomach drop as the Bandaging Charm he had cast on himself maybe a quarter of an hour ago was now quickly going weaker.

The second the staircase had remoulded, the two of them rushed down, immediately shooting down the few confused Death Eaters at the bottom who had been unable to levitate themselves upward.

What was levitating were all the Muggleborns, all of them still asleep. Immediately, Harry and Ron began muttering, "Descendo," and pointing their wands at the slumbering, hovering people and watching as they fell earthwards and woke up from the force of their fall. As they woke, Harry quickly recapped what was happening to them and they ran up to join the fight. When Ron had cast the Descending Charm on Hermione, he couldn't help but notice with a grin that Ron made the effort to also gently whisper "Arresto Momentum," so Hermione's fall was less forceful.

"What's the – the awakening spell or whatever?" Ron asked absent-mindedly as Harry was using Descendo on the last few people.

"Rennervate," Harry said, accidentally waking up someone mid-flight, "though you could just wake her up with true love's kiss."

"Shut up," Ron whispered, his ears going red, but he imitated the Charm anyway and Hermione's eyes burst open, and it only took her a split second to take in her surroundings.

"Ron – Harry – the Death Eaters are here, they're not acting on You-Know-Who's orders, of course, but they're stirring up trouble all the same–" Hermione began but Ron shushed her.

"We know, Hermione, it's fine," Ron said gently.

"No, no, it's not," Hermione said immediately, sitting upright quickly. "Look at Harry, I can see you're in pain, Harry, that Bandaging Charm wouldn't have worked."

Harry stumbled over to the two of them. "Then what do you suggest, Dr Granger?"

"I'm not a Healer or anything," Hermione said, blushing deeply–

"You're probably better at magic than half the Healers here, Hermione, you'd be a nutter to think otherwise," Ron said kindly.

"Thanks, Ron, but I'm really not that great," she said modestly, still red, and turned to Harry. "Hold out your leg. Okay, so basic spells: Realleviate, Castus Conjuro and Infernull," she said, flicking her wand three times. "Better?" she asked Harry.

"Yeah, loads!" Harry said truthfully; with each spell, the pain had lessened slightly. The first spell had deadened the pain, the second had plastered his leg with a cast, much stronger than Harry's Bandaging Charm, and Harry had not seen what the last one had done, but assumed it also mollified the burns in his skin.

"Why didn't the Healers do that in the first place?" Harry asked.

Hermione's blush deepened. "Oh, of course they did, and much more than I could ever do. Your pain at first was probably unbearable, but you passed out before you could experience it. I just did some more, and it's overkill, really, too much magic on a living being can do much more harm than help, oh, I really shouldn't have, you can tell I was very reluctant to do so, but you looked in so much pain … I bent the rules, I guess. The thing is, you're alive and well, and Merlin's pants, I've just performed underage magic, oh, my goodness, I'm going to be expelled and–"

Ron laughed and put his arm around Hermione's shoulders. "Hermione, stop worrying. Come on, we'll check out the fight, see if it's done or whatever."

As Hermione and Ron both began arguing whether Hermione should be worrying or not, Harry bit a smile as he walked behind them. The three years they'd known each other had been full of fights and arguments and temporary estrangements, but there had always been something between Hermione and Ron. Harry thought it would've taken much longer for the two to realise it.

The momentary relief was short-lived as when the ascended the flight of the stairs, they saw the skirmish was still continuing. While many witches and wizards were passed out and there was a bloody pool in which lay an unrecognizable mangled mess of a person, many were still fighting on. A notable duel was between Kingsley Shacklebolt who was joined by Lupin, against the man with the long, twisted face called Antonin Dolohov. Dolohov cast a fiery stream of jet-black but Lupin deflected it with, by the concentrated, determined look on his face as he clutched his wand with two hands, lots of focus and effort. Kingsley Shacklebolt was about to cast a spell at the occupied Death Eater, but Dolohov noticed and immediately flicked his wand upward, the jet of black fire destroying Lupin's shield and sending the werewolf backward into a wall, and resuming the one-on-one duel with Kingsley.

Harry cast his eyes onto Dumbledore who was defending his self from a masked Death Eater with familiar, white-blonde hair. Dumbledore blinded all in the vicinity with his incredible white globe, as radiant as the sun, sprouting from his wand tip. The Death Eater shielded his eyes from the luminosity and Dumbledore switched off the light and slashed the mask off the Death Eater's face, revealing the one underneath to be Lucius Malfoy, the father of Draco Malfoy, who mutually loathed Harry.

"Ah, Lucius," Dumbledore said softly, while Malfoy's furious spell easily ricocheted off Dumbledore's shield. "I've always questioned your taste in entertainment – entering a defenceless hospital full of sick, injured people and then forcing them all into one room for half an hour while you tortured their friends? Oh, how unpleasant. I may have been infected with vanishing sickness and I so wish I have been, so as to vanish from your cowardly presence. Tell me, does your master approve of what you're doing?"

Malfoy opened his mouth, his expression savage and looked just about to answer Dumbledore's question, when something hissing, snakelike and cold resonated through the whole corridor, and, by Harry's guess, the entire hospital.

"No," said the voice, creepily quiet but incredibly loud at the same time. "Lucius's master certainly does not approve of his weak actions. Eternal rainclouds? Messages written in blood? How childish. No, I certainly do not agree with my followers' actions."

Harry shuddered, for it was the voice of Lord Voldemort.

A/N: Hi. Recently, I've changed some chapter names and edited the chapters, so some things will be a tiny bit different. :)