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Chapter Fourteen: Determination of One, Impatience of Another.

Harry

They know. They know. Sweet Merlin, they know. Everything.

These words, repeated over and over in my fevered brain, are what keep me on the floor, huddled up in a small ball. I should run, flee, get out of here. They will turn against me now, they'll hand me over to the whitecoats, because they now know who I am. Nothing more than a freak.

Or maybe they won't hand me over, but even then, somehow, the whitecoats will find me. I know they will, they will, and then I will be tortured all the more for escaping. I know I'm being unreasonable, irrational, ridiculous. But the fear I feel when I remember all the torment and torture, screams and sobs, pain and more pain, and then think of it all happening again, a thousand times worse...it's enough to turn me into an animalistic creature, reduce my brain to rubble, make me abandon all shreds of human reasoning and rely purely on instinct.

And now my instinct is telling me to make myself as small as physically possible. Curl up in a ball and hope and pray that they'll all forget about me.

Harry, Harry, snap out of it!

I close my eyes and shake my head rapidly. I don't want to listen to anyone. Why can't they all just leave me alone? Alone, alone, alone! I realize that my hands, which were pressed against my face, are soaking wet from my violent sobs. A gentle hand touches my shoulder, but I don't trust it, can't trust it. I jerk away, screaming in terror. Someone gasps, a voice I recognize but can't place.

It's Dumbledore, Harry! Dumbledore, you can trust him, he won't hurt you. Please, please, please son, snap out of it!

The voice-my father, right?-is beginning to sound desperate, pleading with me, begging me to see that this man won't hurt me, that I'm safe, that I won't be harmed here. I can't trust it though, no, no, no. Voices can't be trusted. Ever.

Dark places, creepy places, voices whispering harsh words and threats, a scream, a choked, strangled sob. Hunkering down, hands over ears, rocking back and forth, eyes screwed shut. The voices don't like that, and they rise in volume, swirling around, sharp knives stabbing into my skin, a long tentacle wrapping around my throat, choking me, killing me...

...no, no, don't think of that place.

...water swishing around my ankles, screams rising into the night as teeth dug into my flesh, totally blind, thrashing around, a frantic scream. An icy cold filling my heart, suffocating me, drowning me. Rattles sounding in the dark, hisses of snakes echoing, and I understand their murderous intent perfectly, yet can't speak back. More teeth digging in, and I feel myself grabbed by the shoulder, spun around, and a lipless mouth crashed against my own, I was dying, dying, my soul leaving me...

...only to wake up, gasping, wired to a machine that generated a world of fear and terror.

Voices surrounded me, and I can't tell if they are real or imagined, I can't tell which school he was in, Hogwarts or that dreaded, dreaded place, I don't know what my own mind had come up with. Who was my friend, who was my enemy? I don't know. It was just like being back inside that tank.

I can trust no one, and yet...and yet...

I feel that there was someone I can trust. Someone I love? Or was it many someones? Or am I alone? I hear voices, yelling, arguing, yet couldn't make any of them out. Then a single voice breaks through. A single word, a name, spoken with hysteria and delight, and sheer and utter disbelief.

"Harry!"

My name. I'm Harry. Me, myself, I. I'm Harry. I'm not fully human, I'm an experiment, I'm a wizard, I'm dying. My most hated professor just found out, and I'm terrified of being found by those who turned me into this. Remember, remember. Now I remember. But is that a good thing, or a bad thing?

A scent engulfs me. Books, parchment, ink, magic, power. And salt. The smell of tears. Every nerve in my body is burning with...what? Love? Is that this mysterious sensation? Tears drop into my hair and two words repeat themselves over and over.

"You're alive, you're alive, you're alive, you're alive."

Hermione... I realize with a jolt. It's Hermione.

And just like that, I'm human again. Human, and feeling an aching sense of sorrow and remorse. She's relieved that I'm alive, she's happy, she's crying with relief. But on June tenth she will see my corpse again, cold and lifeless on the ground. And that time, I won't wake back up. So I say the only two words I can think of.

"I'm...sorry..."

"Wha-what do you mean?"

Maybe it wasn't the right thing to say. And then her arms tighten around me in shock. And that's when I realize that I still don't have a shirt on. And her hands are resting on my wings.

Hermione

I had been jolted out of my slumber by arguing voices and frantic screams. I had run into Madame Pomfrey's office to find one of the best and worst scenes I've ever seen. Harry had been rocking back and forth, curled in a ball, eyes unfocused and screaming his head off. But he had been alive.

I had immediately screamed his name, and run towards him, throwing my arms around him and ignoring everyone else in the room. He had stopped screaming, leaned into my embrace, and took a deep shuddering breath. And then he had whispered two words.

"I'm sorry."

Sorry for what? I had thought. What is there to be sorry for? He's alive, alive, alive. Harry's alive. I thought I'd lost him. I thought that Harry, my best friend, my confident, the light of my life, was dead. But now he's here. Living, and breathing, and Harry. What was the cause of his guilt? We should be rejoicing together.

All this flew through my head in less than a second.

"Wha-what do you mean?" I had stuttered.

And then I had realized two things. The first, Harry had no shirt on. Naturally, this caused me some embarrassment. But that thought was immediately wiped from my mind by the next thought. My hands were resting on his back. But it wasn't ordinary skin I felt. No. It was feathers.

And so now I sit here, my arms still wrapped around his too-thin torso, my hands placed over what was definitely feathers on his back.

"What is this?" I ask.

He takes a single breath, shaky and uncertain, readying himself. And then, with a whoosh, the feathers rise and slip from beneath my fingers, and he extends a pair of jet-black, enormous wings.

"I-I-You-How-" I stammer, sitting back on my feet, hands on Harry's shoulders, not taking my eyes from my friend, who was both deadly and beautiful, elegant and dangerous, a demon and an angel. How had this happened? Had Harry always been like this? Or did it have to do with the summer?

"I was...kidnapped by these...scientists over the summer and they-they-" He stops, unable to complete the sentence.

"-did this to you?" I ask, saying what he can't. It's then that I realize that he's covered with scars of all kinds, large and small, crooked and unnaturally precise, scars made from cuts, scars made from burns. Some unusual circles that looked like they were made from...electrodes? And then, on his left arm, a tattoo of what looks like a date, or an identification number.

"Merlin, Harry," I whisper, before throwing my arms around his neck and pulling him closer "I'm sorry. I'm so, so, sorry. Those...monsters...they just...I just want to..."

He laughs softly, nervously, before wrapping me in a hug of his own, his wings mirroring the action so we are encased in a canopy of feathers. "I do too, Hermione. Believe me, I do too."

I hear a soft cough and Harry and my heads whip around, noticing for the first time that we're not alone. In the room with us are Professors McGonagall, who is the one who coughed, Dumbledore, and Snape, who looks even paler than usual and slightly sick. And then the door swings open and Max Martinez stumbles in, eyes bleary from sleep and hair frizzing.

"What's going on...Harry!" she exclaims, head spinning to look in the once-dead-now-alive-and-apparently-an-experiment boy in the eyes. "You're alive! Are you okay?"

"Mostly."

"Good."

At my questioning look, asking without words why she's not more surprised at Harry being alive, she shrugs.

"I've seen weirder," she states simply.

That's right. According to her, she was imprisoned by the same people who took Harry. Which, if she's telling the truth, most likely means she's been changed in some way as well.

I stand, pulling Harry with me, and look him in the eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Yes, Harry," said Dumbledore, whose eyes are shining with sadness. "We can help you, my boy. Why didn't you tell us what happened to you?"

"No one can help me," Harry says coldly, angrily, though not at Dumbledore. His right hand encircles his left arm, gripping the tattoo so tightly that his knuckles turn white.

"Harry?" I whisper, startled at his quick change in mood.

"You didn't tell her?" asks Max, clearly surprised.

"Tell me what?"

Harry pales and looks at the ground. He clearly doesn't want to tell me, he's scared, terrified. How can any one secret cause so much fear at telling it?

"I-I'm-I'm-" He takes a deep breath, and faces me, sorrow and pain reflected in his eyes. "I'm going to die. And I can't-I can't stop it. I can't do anything about it." His breath hitches and he falls to his knees. "I have to say goodbye to all of you...but I just...can't. It hurts too much. I just want to live. See my sixteenth birthday. Is that really too much to ask for?"

I'm numb. He's dying. He may be alive for now but soon, before his sixteenth birthday, he will die. I shake my head stubbornly, no. He won't. I won't allow it.

"No," I say. I kneel on the ground next to him and take his cup his face in my hands, forcing him to make eye-contact with me. "It's not too much to ask for. And you know what? I'm going to get you your wish, Harry. You will live. I won't let you die on me. I promise you that."

He looks at me and smiles, half-sadly, half-hopefully. "You'll try? You'll really try to help me?"

"Of course."

"And how will you go about doing that Miss Granger?" Snape asks. "I doubt there's ever been a situation like this before."

I lift Harry's arm and trace the tattoo. We have till June tenth to find a cure for this.

"Well, Professor, there's a first time for everything. We could use your help, Merlin knows how many potions will be involved." His fingers twitch, probably itching to get started on the project. The twinkle in Dumbledore's eye is going full-force, Harry looks cautiously optimistic, Max is unreadable, and McGonagall seems to be crying.

"We will beat this," I murmur, and then I pull him into a hug again, running my fingers through his feathers. I don't know if I'm lying to him or not. I don't know if it's possible to save his life. But he's beaten impossible odds before, he's cheated death. Once when he was merely one, and then again, mere moments ago. I have to believe he can do it again. Because if I don't, I won't be able to go on.

It is when I am pulling away to wake up Ron and tell him the news, good and bad, when it happens. Out of the corner of my eye, I think I see a shadow unattached to a person or object.

But when I turn my head to take a closer look, it's gone.

They're going to try to beat this, hmm? I think, moving over to sit behind my desk, crossing my fingers, the fake appendages that aren't truly mine, in front of me. With a flick of my wand I lock the door, needing some time alone to consider the new developments.

The Hogwarts staff know, and it won't be long before Dumbledore's little Order do as well. So does that Mudblood, so it would be logical to assume that the red-headed brat will soon. I sigh, drumming my fingers against the desk. It's taking all of my self control not to snatch away the boy now. Valuable time is being wasted, time in which we could learn how to extract magic from wizards and give it to muggles, time in which we could learn about the boy's Medium abilities. And of course, time in which we could learn of the boy's mysterious ability to fend off the killing curse.

But there's also a more personal reason for wanting the brat under my control again. I miss The School, miss hearing the tortured screams of the subjects. And there were so many tests I wanted to do on Potter, tests involving magic that I couldn't do before, a Cruciatus or two (or hundred) spells to test limb re-growth, spells that broke every bone in the body and healed them again, over and over, potions that set the body on fire, literally, then grew the skin back so quickly that the subject didn't die and the fire never ran out of fuel, so many tests that I am itching to try...

But no, we had to let the subjects escape on purpose, had to see how they reacted in a school setting, when people could easily discover their secrets. That's why I was here, to observe and record, to make sure everything was going according to plan. And to run a few tests dealing with the mind, potions slipped into the food that would amplify the bad memories, induce nightmares and hallucinations, convince the subjects they were going mad. It was great fun to watch them jump at the littlest noises and flinch from their friend's touch.

Still, I think, twirling a cursed knife around in my stubby fingers, I was greatly looking forward to one specific test once Potter was back in my grasp. That Iggy boy, his eyesight had been healed. I had been careless, used a method that could be healed by magic.

This knife would destroy his sight forever, wreck it beyond repair. And I'm really, really, really looking forward to destroying those emerald green eyes. I sigh and replace the knife, get up, stretch, and leave the office. Wearing someone else's skin really takes a lot out of you. And I was getting very sick of pink.

A/N: *Dramatic music* So...this chapter was written sort-of spontaneously. The Umbridge-thing wasn't gonna be revealed until later, but then I thought it'd be interesting to write her point of view on some of the events, thought 'what the heck' and added it. Hermione and Ron also weren't going to find out about the expiration date or wings, but I thought that it'd be interesting if they tried to reverse the date, and brought them into the equation. Now, a lot has happened and it's only mid-September in the story. There is going to be a brief cool-down period where not a lot happens, I'm warning you now, the next chapter will be mostly filler.

As to what exactly that entails, most likely Medium training, the school's reaction to the fact that Harry is alive, and more scheming from our least-faveorite toad. And maybe some Harmony if you're lucky...

-Winged Quil