A/N

Greetings all! I got a few votes and, so far, it has been overwhelmingly positive. So thank you all for that. Over a hundred and fifty people have visited my story, but only five have voted. How should I take that reaction? Is it so bad people run from it so fast they don't even vote?

It's a Walking Dead Crossover people, not an actual walker itself. Don't run! :p

Hopefully this chapter will get all the people sitting on the fence to choose a side and I can get a better handle on what the majority of people think. It is a little rough, but I plan on coming back and fixing all the little grammar mistakes and such. I might even get a beta. Praise FanFiction though, for their ability to replace old chapters with new, better ones!

Now, on with the story!

Previously, on Death, Decay, and Diffindo:

'The only thing that seemed similar to that thing was from one of the books he had swiped from Dudley…but no.…no…it couldn't be.

…could it?'

"That was a zombie" he said out loud. Yep. Just saying it out loud made him sound crazy. Zombies…those things from science fiction? That couldn't be true right? He glanced back at the lower half of the now confirmed dead corpse. 'He was cut in half' he thought.

Sighing, the young man ran his hand through his hair, his mind awhirl of thoughts.

"Bloody hell" he murmured, summing the situation up nicely.

Harry panted out ragged breaths as he leaned against the blood smeared wall. The effort it took to explore the level he had woken up on left him nearly exhausted. He hadn't felt this out of shape…well ever really.

"I'll rest….for just a couple…ah…a couple of seconds" he muttered quietly to himself. Harry had learned pretty quickly that sound was an enemy in the current situation. After his rather loud encounter with the…sigh, zombie man from 215 had ended; the scared wizard had only a few short minutes before he had heard metallic clunking and banging sounds coming from further down the hall. Marshaling his remaining energy, he had hoisted himself back on his feet and gone to investigate.

It was then that he found a door leading to a stairwell and, upon cracking it open slightly, spotted an additional three more zombies. With panic washing over his body once more, he quickly shut the door, paying enough attention to do it as quietly as possible. Pushing his back against the door, Harry had proceeded to pull every gurney he could reach and obstructed the stairwell entrance. Confident after a few minutes that the zombies wouldn't get through the door, the boy Savior cautiously investigated the rest of the floor.

Approximately forty-five minutes later found Harry panting from the exertion, leaning against the bloodied wall for support. Turning around, he leaned his back and head against the wall, closing his eyes as tried to comprehend all that he had learned.

First off, there were no other zombies on his floor, something he was eternally grateful for. Second, he was completely sure now that he was in a muggle hospital that was, apparently, abandoned. And with good reason too! Zombies. Everywhere most likely. Even simply thinking the word caused Harry to mentally scoff.

'This is just too weird' he thought with no small amount of incredulousness. The inferni at the Hrocrux cave were bad enough, but he had never heard of them eating people! Thinking back to the two bodies he had found in one of the abandoned rooms caused him to shudderat the brutality of it. The one male body had been laying atop some female body, a nurse from the clothes, with its head bashed in. Even that wasn't the worst part though, seeing as there was little doubt that the man had been eating the woman before he died….again.

The partially eaten hand inside the man's mouth was rather distinctive.

Several dry heaves later, Harry had concluded that there was no way in hell that he was calling them anything other than what they were, ridiculousness be damned!

That still left Harry in a quandary, however, and he really had no idea what to do. He knew he was on the 4th floor and that he needed to go down. He also knew that he was already exhausted from what little exploring he did.

Harry sighed in frustration before hunching forward and resting his hands on his knees. There was no way in hell that he was going to be able to go down flights of stairs and have the strength to deal with the zombies during his decent.

'I'm 17 and a wizard for crying out loud!' the teen bemoaned in his mind, 'I should have more strength than this. How long was I out?'

The young man was thoroughly disheartened at the lack of information he could find about…anything really. None of the documents in the nurses' station had dates, or any writing at all to be honest. In fact…is had seemed rather sparse, lacking some of the things necessary to caring for patients on their floor. Still, he wasn't an expert so he shrugged that thought off. A short time later Harry, feeling less winded, pushed off his knees and straightened his posture.

'What to do now….' He thought, continuing to consider his options. There truly was only one option, really. He had to get out of the hospital. To do so, he would have go down, traversing the, odds are because nothing could ever go right for him, zombie infested stairwell. Never mind the rest of the hospital, he sure as hell wasn't staying in the place people would have actively dropped off zombie victims. After all, every child knows. When you get bitten, you turn.

Harry glanced around again, looking once more to see if there was anything salvageable or useful to him. Once again, his gaze came up wanting. The only thing he had found that could be useful was a rather full sack of medication in a garbage can. Other than that, nothing else. All the equipment was useless to him and there hadn't even been so much as a single bottle of water or a packet of crisps in any of the rooms or draws he had searched. There hadn't even been a working watch! Harry narrowed his eyes as he turned to glare at the clock on the wall, the very much stopped clock.

'I wish I knew what time it was, even that would help!' he thought with agitation. There was no time piece functional at all! While it wouldn't help much, even knowing what time it was in the day could…help…..him…

His thought process slowed as he immediately connected several unrelated dots in his mind.

'I'm a wizard!' he thought excitedly while simultaneously slapping his forehead. Moving his wand hand in front of him, Harry cast the Tempus charm Hermione had forced him to learn one year. Harry looked on eagerly as the semitransparent letters and numbers flared into life in front of him. Less than a second later and Harry was frowning in deep concern.

00/00/0000

00:00:00

His spell hadn't returned any numbers. Well, that was incorrect. The spell had caused numbers to appear, but instead of the normal date format all the sections were filled with zeroes. He peered at the numbers for several seconds before swishing his wand, canceling the spell. Resolved, he tried again with more force.

"Tempus" Harry intoned again, causing his wand tip to glow with from the overcharged spell. The spell quickly formed in front of him again, still displaying the solely zero time and date. Frustrated, he canceled the spell once more before running over everything he knew, remembered, about the time spell. The Tempus spell connected to the Wizarding Time and Date Division of whatever magical governing body was present. The spell and intent was designed as such so that wizards and witches could know the local time wherever they were. In this case, being that he was in the states, the spell should have connected to the American Ministry in New Salem. Shunting his thoughts about possible problems in New Salem to the side, he then remembered the variation Hermione had taught him, the Tempus Domus spell. Tempus Domus was the spell magicals used to find the time where there primary home was located.

Harry, having been living at number 12 Grimmauld Place for the past few months after the war, quickly cast the Tempus Domus. The young man's alarm grew when the spell returned the same result, zeroes across the board. Harry knew of nothing that could block the standard Tempus spell.

'Err' he quickly amended in his mind, 'At least I don't know of anyone every trying to block it…'

He knew his magic was working, so that automatically eliminated one variable. The problem, Harry quickly realized, was that there were numerous reasons the spell could have failed. They ranged from magical interference to…errr other things….

Regardless, he couldn't figure out what was wrong with the spell standing here in a zombie infested hospital.

"Right…zombies" he said out loud, realizing that his Tempus spell mishaps were not the priority at the moment. His friends needed to be found. Then he could work on figuring out what was going wonky with his magic. Decision made, the Potter scion canceled the spell and picked up the medicine bag before turning and striding back into the demolished nurses' station. With a quick flick of his wand, all the items randomly strewn over the work tables were pushed off and into an already cluttered corner.

With a satisfied nod, Harry pulled his Auror standard issue shrunken trunk necklace from underneath his shirt and, after placing it on the newly reclaimed table space, canceled the shrinking spell. While the necklace may have been standard issue, the now enlarged trunk was decidedly not.

Despite Hermione's reticence over Harry joining the Auror training program, she still had at least one (read many) helpful insights. One of the greatest was her idea about the Auror issued trunks. Instead of accepting the standard three compartment emergency supply trunk routinely given to Aurors, she suggested looking into getting a custom trunk.

Harry had found the perfect one three days later in Diagon Alley. A six compartment, FeatherLight, live in trunk with working amenities, a small kitchen, a reading room complete with unending bookshelf, and three empty rooms for storage or anything else he desired. He was now thanking his second best friend in his mind repeatedly as he stuck his wand in the keyhole below the Potter crest before opening the Gryffindor red trimmed, ornate lid.

The second best idea Hermione had was to have a completely stocked potion storage compartment inside his trunk. With a smile, Harry began hunting pushing vials and full flasks looking for his PepperUp potion. His hunt was short as there was a great deal of vacant potion slots that needed no perusing. He had kept putting off getting the trunk refilled after a rather disastrous portkey incident. So many of his potions had spilled that he had to air his trunk out for nine days straight before having the entire interior repaired. The trunk maker was rather surprised that the whole thing hadn't blown up. Even the idea of not having something when he needed it didn't phase his smile when he found the four vials of PepperUpEnchanced that Ron had given him as a gift for getting into the training program. Procrastination may have led to him having a depleted potion inventory, but he simply shrugged the notion off. Nothing he could do about it now, anyway. A quick nip over to the Auror stockroom would replenish most of those he had lost. But he could get to that later.

Unstopping a single vial he quickly downed the magical concoction, tossing the empty container and the bag of medications back into his trunk. Before he had even shut his lid he could feel the effects of the potion on his system. He was energized again, though he knew it was only temporary. Planning ahead, he took the three remaining potions and put them in his front pocket before he re-shrunk his trunk and placed his necklace back over his head, tucking the trunk underneath his shirt.

Striding with purpose back towards the stairwell, Harry removed the makeshift barricade he had erected with the gurneys and stared at the closed door. Psyching himself up, with his wand in an offensive position and potions in his pocket, Harry Potter threw open the door prepared for anything as he began his search for his friends.

Upon opening the door to the stairwell, Harry had expected to see the three zombies from before. Instead, he was only greeted by a mostly dark series of stairs. Still rather wary, but accepting his good fortune quickly he proceeded down the stairs, wand first.

"Lumos" he intoned, causing his wand tip to glow. In the confined space, much of the darkness and shadows vanished under the light from his spell. Pausing for a few seconds to examine the stairs, he was happy to see that, for at least the next two flights, there were no obstructions present. Taking a quick look back towards the hallway that lead to where he woke up, he looked back down and proceeded on his downward trek.

The first three flights had been exceptionally clear, given the state Harry had found the rest of the hospital rooms in. There were only a few objects, none larger than a garbage can, strewn about the stairs. What bothered Harry, however, was the fact that he could hear the soft sound of someone running into something a little further below. Harry pondered heading back up to the third level door and forcing it open, intent on avoiding what he assumed were the zombies at the bottom of the next set of stairs. He desperately wished he could apparate down to the ground level, but with his magic acting so weird and how drained he felt from using a simple lighting charm, he decided against it. Choosing to press on, the battle hardened wizard steeled his resolve before leaning over as far as he could over the railing.

'Yep….there they are….zombies.' Harry though with trepidation. The three blighters had indeed been what was causing the thumping sounds he had heard. He also grimly noted that what they were bumping up against appeared to be a massive amount of equipment and beds. In short, an impassible barricade at present. Harry cursed his luck silently. The only upside of the situation was that the zombies were all faced away from Harry's current position and were fairly stationary. That and they didn't seem to be attracted to the light being emitted by Harry's wand. Perhaps they were blind? How DID zombies find their prey anyway?

Derailing the superfluous train of thought, he leaned back from over the railing and began forming a plan. Harry, after a brief debate, concluded that the most effective way to deal with the three zombies would be severing charms aimed directly at the head. Since they were faced away from him and down nearly a whole flight of stairs, he felt confident he could either: A. deal with the three from range or B. get away if things went sideways and pear shaped.

Quietly as he could, Harry moved down the last several steps left before he came upon the level 2 landing. Now fully facing the zombies, he could see that they were already banged up quite a bit. Even more proof that his earlier zombie assumption hadn't been so ridiculous after all. The stainless steel medical pole sticking out of the back of the left most zombie was a …*cough* dead giveaway.

Smiling at his internal pun, Harry pointed his wand at the head of the left most zombie. Making sure of his aim, he cast a quiet, yet moderately powered Diffindo.

The situation deteriorated immediately when his wand light winked out just as the spell was cast.

'Shit!' Harry cursed in his head. How could he forget, casting a spell with Lumos still active canceled the light spell! Now, plunged into darkness at the bottom of a zombie stairwell, the young wizard hastily backtracked as best he could in the darkness.

"Diffindo!" he cast again, causing the area to become illuminated for a brief second as the spell left his wand tip. As he watched the spell move through the air, he noted that it had again become more translucent right before it hit the zombie, which had turned towards him! The small amount of light was gone again and Harry was plunged back into darkness. Hearing the moans of the creatures coming closer and closer the Auror trainee decided to saturate the area with as many spells are he could muster.

Seventeen flashing Diffindo spells later saw Harry casting the light spell again, wand pointed to where he last heard the moans. He let out a long sigh as he observed the state of his 'enemies'. At least one of his spells had successfully cut deep into the skull of the two closest zombies, dropping them back to their eternal slumber. The third, being the first one struck, had its head nearly severed from the next. Harry was too grateful that he'd been able to kill all three to worry about his off target barrage of severing spells. He was just about to start figuring a way to remove the barricade when he felt his strength leave him suddenly.

'Damn, that didn't last long.' Harry thought morosely, fumbling all the while with his pants pocket. Eventually he was able to retrieve another vial of PepperUpEnchanced, immediately uncorking and downing the entire thing. Once more, Harry felt a rush as the potion went to work inside his body. After the initial feeling subsided, he debated his choice of moving the barricade. He really didn't want to spend another night in the hospital….and he had no way of knowing how much stuff actually blocked his path. There was a distinct possibility that he could exhaust himself and his PepperUp supply and not even be able to reach his target.

But what else could he do? Expending magic to open the door to the third level felt like it would be a waste. How could he get down to the ground from the third floor? No…his best bet now would be to go through the second floor and try to climb down then. Even if he, merlin forbid, fell, at least from the second floor he could survive easily enough. He glanced towards the door leading to the second level.

'Well, no sense in waiting' he though as he walked over and placed his left hand on the bar release. Muttering a Lumos, Harry his wand aloft in front of his body as he slowly pushed the door open. The pause of a few breaths were all Harry needed to see that the immediate area around the door was in a similar state as his floor had been. More importantly, however, there was no sign of zombies. Holding his breath, he strained his ears listening for any sort of sound. Hearing nothing, he moved forward, only opening the door as much as he needed to in order to slip past. Allowing it to click softly shut, Harry cautiously advanced further into the hallway.

As with the hallway on the 4th floor, this floor had both open and shut doors along with enough blood to be consider paint. One notable difference was the placard on the ceiling pointing down hall. Only needing a quick glance, Harry recognized the symbol for Emergency Exit. Holding his wand out further forward, he took in the surroundings as far as the illuminated wand allowed him too. Moving his wand around to get a better view of his environment, he concluded that it was safe to move forward. Safe….well…zombie free at least.

Continuing to walk down the damaged and bloody hall, Harry picked up his pace as he got closer and closer to his objective. Light made its way in through the slats on the window at the furthest end of the hall, allowing him to discern that the Emergency Exit was actually a fire escape, which still suited Harry perfectly. He wanted to escape…and a fire escape could just as easily double as a zombie escape, after all.

"Nox" Harry whispered as he came within feet of the open fire escape, sunlight providing enough illuminations for him to see. Twenty steps away from salvation Harry sucked in a breath when felt his foot collide with something on the ground. Looking down he froze when he could just make out the mutilated leg of another body in the shadows. Raking his eyes over the leg, he saw that it connected to a body sticking out from beneath a pile of clothes and equipment. Paying close attention, he stayed as still as possible, waiting to see what might happen. Just as he was about to continue on, he saw the rotting leg move.

Wasting no time, Harry's body flooded his system with adrenalin causing him to shudder and feel cold. He quickly bounded the rest of the way to the open window, not bothering to waste his limited magical reserves to kill the zombie. Throwing his leg over the windowsill and getting his footing on the ladder, he heard a loud crash that caused him to look back…a grave mistake.

Harry had to put one arm up to keep the zombie at bay. He was nearly nose to eaten nose with the creature, its upper body sticking partially out the window with him. He gave was startled when he felt disgusting cold hands grab onto the arm he holding back the nightmare with. Giving a loud, alarmed yelp at the unexpected contact, Harry reared back, trying to put as much distance between the zombie and himself. In doing so, he lost his tenuous footing on the ladder and was immediately introduced to gravity.

The THUD that followed his landing on his side was less painful than the THWAK that accompanied Harry's head hitting the concrete, dislodging his glasses. The sound seemed to reverberate inside Harry's head, causing his vision to turn blurry and begin to swim. He moaned, mostly in pain but with some irritation. Reaching up, he pressed his hands on his head to try and alleviate some of the throbbing. In doing so, he felt something moist on his hand. Bringing it close to his eyes, he inspected it only to see blood all over his fingertips. Still disorientated and concerned about the blood, Harry almost didn't hear the sound of footwear crunching on gravel off to his right. Frantically, he began patting and searching the ground looking for his glasses so he see what was approaching. Feeling his fingers brush over the rims of his eyewear, he hastily grabbed them and slipping them on.

As his focus started coming back slowly, he was able to discern two men, both holding guns. Guns that happened to be aimed right at him.

"Estás bien?" one of the men called gruffly before hoisting his rifle up a bit higher, "Es usted poco?"

The injured wizard nearly cried when he heard them speak a different language. Harry shook his head in an effort to show them he couldn't understand. His movements instantly caused his head to pound even worse than it had and the outer edges of his vision began to darken. In his last moment of consciousness, Harry was only able to weakly get out a single word.

"Help"

A/N

So yeah, chapter two! I am excited. Harry got out, we learned a few things he possessed, and mystery is abound! Who are the two men? What will happen next?

I don't know what the update schedule is going to be like. I tried but can't pin down any definitive time table for chapters. Remember the poll on my profile page! Or, if you don't want to use the poll, just review with your answer. Poll will close on the 15thof November.

Read and Review my happy readers! Remember, constructive criticism makes stories better while praise makes authors' hearts glow! Reviews are like our candy, after all. You wouldn't turn a child away on Halloween with no candy, would you? Same concept applies here!

Shout out to AnarchicMuse for being the first to review. Thanks a lot! Your comment was much appreciated.

And again, to uoduck, for giving me some pointers. Go check out his HP/WD crossover and other stories!