Disclaimer: I don't own Harry and company, except the ones I do own.
Chapter 21
After Sirius had told Amelia what they knew about Harry's condition and then went through the introductions again he asked Madam Bones if she could stick around for a minute while he checked on Rebecca and Tonks. After receiving a positive answer he and Cath went back into Harry's room.
Both of the ladies were holding one of his hands and Tonks was smoothing his hair. Neither of them seemed to even notice the newcomers to the room or the two healers who sat quietly in the corner.
He placed a hand on Rebecca's shoulder "How are the two of you doing? Can we get you anything?"
She smiled at him "We're ok. Thank you for handling everything. I don't think I could right now."
He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze "Thank Cath, she's the one who stopped me from losing it when we got your message." He looked over at Tonks who hadn't even looked up at them; she was still gently stroking Harry's hair.
"Tonks?" he got no reaction "Nymphadora?" he said quietly and still got nothing. He walked around the bed and knelt down next to her.
"Hey girl, you doing ok?"
She slowly looked at him for a second before looking back at Harry. "Yeah, I'll be ok." Her voice was so quiet he almost didn't hear her.
Sirius sighed "Are you guys ready for others to come in?"
Rebecca answered by nodding.
"We're going to have Ginny and Lisa come in first then Gabrielle with Hermione. I have a feeling that if any of them are going to break down when they see him it will be those four. Cath and I will be just outside the door if anything happens ok?"
She nodded again "Thank you Sirius."
He nodded back then placed a hand on Harry's leg "You get better Harry" he said softly "You still haven't taught me how to not burn my eggs and I'm getting tired of toast for breakfast." He gave the leg a gentle pat and took Cath's waiting hand again without even thinking about it as they went out the door.
He looked at Ginny and Lisa for a second "They're ready for everyone else now, go ahead. If you need some help with this let us know, we'll be just outside here."
They both nodded and entered the room, Sirius looked at Cath "Damn that girl looks mean with that sword on her back." before they turned back to the others and Madam Bones.
"How did they find him Amelia? Have you been able to find out if it's just them or was there someone else behind it?"
"We don't know anything yet, the only one who isn't in the infirmary is Gregory Goyle and he doesn't seem to know anything except that they were going to get Harry as revenge for what happened to their fathers.
"We have identified one of the dead, he's Walden Macnair's little brother. He was too young to be a Death Eater during the first war. We're still trying to figure out who the seventh person is."
Molly asked quietly "Was it Ginny who killed them?"
Amelia looked at her for a second "Yes."
Fleur went over to her "Ginny was magnificent. She took charge of the whole thing and led us when we attacked them. It was because of Ginny that none of the rest of us was injured."
Madam Bones was nodding "That matches what we were told by the witnesses. They said she had most of them on the ground bleeding before they even knew there was another fight happening."
"Ginny did that?" one of the twins asked.
"Oui, she did."
Sirius smiled at their expressions "I don't think you want to try your pranks on her anymore, do you?"
They both shook their heads.
"I think"
"She just"
"Received another"
"Lifetime pass on"
"Testing."
Amelia turned back to Sirius "Can I do anything here?"
"No, I think we can handle things, we'll tell you when something changes."
"I'll head back to the ministry and see if I can find out more, I'll let you know."
After he nodded she headed to the lobby and he turned to Bill.
"Can you stay by the door for a bit in case they need anything? I need to take care of something real quick."
Bill answered yes and Sirius went to the lobby still holding Cath's hand and went to find an empty room. Once they did Sirius fell to his knees and broke down. Catherine knelt down and wrapped her arms around him.
After about ten minutes he straightened up a little and wiped his eyes. "Sorry."
"For what?" Cath asked gently.
"I know you need me to keep it together but I…"
"It's all right Siri, you've been wonderful. I'm doing better with being here than I thought I would because you have my hand."
He gave her a small smile and took her hand again "Thanks. We should probably get back there."
She nodded and helped him back to his feet before leading him out the door.
When they got back they found Ginny in her father's arms and Lisa being held by her Aunt. Hermione and Gabrielle weren't there. They walked up to Bill and Fleur who were talking with Andi and Ted.
"You ok Sirius?" Bill asked.
"Yeah, I just needed a minute. How are the girls?"
Bill looked at them "I think they'll get through it."
Andi asked "How was Nymphadora?"
"She's in shock I think. She didn't even glare at me when I used that name."
She looked at the ground for a second "Can I talk to you for a minute?"
They walked down the hall a ways with Sirius still holding Catherine's hand. When they stopped Andromeda looked at their hands then back to them.
"Are you two together?"
Sirius looked down at their hands and received a squeeze he had a small smile when he looked back up. "We're giving each other some strength. She's holding me up right now."
Andi nodded "I think I need to tell you about something but I need you to stay calm until I explain it."
"She's in love with him isn't she?" Sirius asked.
Her eyes got wide "How do you know?"
"I saw the same look she gets when she looks at Harry before. James used to get it when he looked at Lily."
Andi let out a breath "She's talked to me about it; she won't do anything because of his age and she thinks that he and Lisa are going to get together."
Sirius motioned towards some chairs and they all sat "From what I've seen Lisa has found a brother that doesn't annoy her, the Harry she wants is the one he is when Tonks is around."
They sat silently for a minute before he spoke again "He's sixteen by law now so next year he's legally an adult in the wizarding world, it's only two years before he becomes one in the muggle world."
"So you're saying that she should go out with him? No matter what that paper says he's still really fifteen."
Sirius shook his head "You've spent a lot of time with him lately, if you didn't know better how old would you say he is?"
She thought about it for a minute "I wouldn't be able to say. His body doesn't say the same thing as his eyes or the way he talks. He looks like any other teen unless you look into his eyes; they're older than he is."
"He's seen and done too much to be a kid anymore Andi, no matter how much he wants to be one. I wish more than anything that I could take him back and give him a happy childhood but I can't. All I can do is try to help make him happy now. He loves his life with his Mum but he's really happiest when Tonks is around. Watch him next time the two of them are together, that's when he's at his youngest. All the rest of the time he's an adult who's just trying to make it to tomorrow."
She stared at him "You are saying that they should start dating."
"No, I promised I wouldn't interfere in is love life in any way and I won't. What I'm saying is that if they were to start dating I wouldn't be opposed to it. I'm not the problem with them getting together though."
"Rebecca?" Andi asked.
"No, she loves Tonks so much she turned her office into another bedroom for her and has a chair at the table that no one besides Tonks is allowed to sit at." He smiled a little "She was the only one that the wards around the house had been altered to let apparate in until I was bringing Cath by. Cath is the reason they were altered for me. No, I think she would welcome them dating."
He was silent for a second as he stared down the hall at the door his godson was lying behind.
"The problem is Harry. Other than Tonks and his Mum who else has he let in? No one is as close to him as they are and he still tries to keep some distance from them. He's afraid of being hurt again and has put up barriers to help him cope if it does happen."
Andi was staring at him again "How do see that? He seems to let them in on everything he does and even what he's thinking and feeling."
"I recognize it. Until a couple of days ago I was doing the same thing. I wouldn't even let Remus back in because it would hurt to bad when it was all taken away from me again."
She looked at Catherine and smiled a little "I take it you're the reason?"
"I don't think so; I think there are three people that Sirius and I can thank for helping us. Rebecca and Harry told us about the talks they have when he wakes up from his nightmares. They told us that it started with Tonks talking to him the first night he was at her place."
She gave Sirius' hand another gentle squeeze and received one in return "Those talks seem to help a lot when you wake up in cold sweat."
The door to Harry's room burst open with Hermione and Gabrielle being pushed out by a healer causing Sirius to jump up and run to them.
"What happened?"
A pale tear streaked Hermione answered "He started to bleed again, they made us leave."
Sirius pushed the door open a little and looked in. Rebecca and Tonks were standing against the far wall holding each other with fear on their faces.
The healers were pouring dittany on Harry's wounds; it looked like it wasn't working. Sirius heard one of the healers say they were going to need more.
Shutting the door he spoke "Fred, George, find another healer and tell them they need more dittany quickly. I want it here before they need it."
The twins took off running as Sirius started moving everyone else away from the door. "We need to clear the way just in case, I don't want them to have to wade through us if they need to come out."
He looked at Bill and spoke quietly "Can you keep everyone calm?" Bill nodded and said yes "I'm going to go see Rebecca and Tonks."
He went through the door with Cath and walked close to the wall to stay out of the way of the healers. One of them looked like he was going to run them back out until Sirius spoke.
"There's more dittany on the way." The healer just nodded.
When they reached the ladies Sirius and Cath just separated and took up position on each side while wrapping an arm around them. None of them said a word as they watched the healers work.
It was only another couple of minutes when the door opened and two more healers came in with bottles in their hands and joined the other two at the bed.
After another ten minutes, one of the healers stepped over to them.
"We've gotten them to close again and gave him the rest of the restorative. We're going to start bathing the wounds in dittany every hour to try to prevent them from opening again. We've never tried it before so we aren't sure it's going to work but we don't want to just do nothing because he can't take any more blood loss."
"What do you mean he can't take anymore?" Sirius asked.
The healer sighed "If he loses anymore blood we'll lose him. He can't have more restorative for at least twenty four hours. That's why we're going to try bathing the cuts every hour."
A pale Sirius thanked him before leading Rebecca back to her chair and putting Harry's hand in hers while Cath did the same to an almost comatose Tonks.
"Rebecca, we're going to let the others know what happened. Can we bring you anything?"
She shook her head "I need Harry back. We need to go shopping for Tonks birthday dinner. He says he has a new recipe that she's going to love and needs the ingredients."
He put his arms around her and took a couple of breaths to control himself. "He's going to come back. He's not about to miss her birthday is he?"
She shook her head again "He's been looking forward to spending the day with her again. I think he misses just wandering around with her."
Tonks showed some signs of life for the first time as she started to cry "I miss those walks too."
Rebecca seemed to come around a little when she heard Tonks voice. She looked at Sirius "I think we'll be all right, thanks. If the healer says its ok you can let the others start coming in again."
Sirius nodded and turned to the healer who spoke before him.
"It's alright if they start coming in again, please just let them know that they'll have to leave if something happens again. We can't afford to take the time to answer questions if his wounds open again."
"I'll make sure they all know it. Thank you." His hand reached out and found the feeling he was starting to miss.
The two of them walked out the door and into a flurry of questions. Sirius noticed that the O'Connell's and the twins were gone and there were two more adults there. He assumed it was Hermione's parents since they had their arms around the crying girl.
He held up his hand and everyone started to quiet.
"They were able to close his wounds again and gave him some more potion. They're going to try bathing the cuts in dittany every hour to hopefully stop them from opening again but right now they don't know if it will work. If something happens in there again they need you to leave the room quickly and hold your questions until they're done. We can start going in again now."
He looked at Gabrielle and Hermione and spoke gently "I know you didn't get your full time in there but I'd like to ask you to let Andi and Ted go first and then Bill and Fleur. I want to have some adults with Rebecca and Tonks right now to help them. I'll make sure you get your time with Harry after Bill and Fleur ok?"
Both of them said yes and he thanked them before turning to the mentioned adults and drawing them off to the side before speaking quietly.
"They're both in shock really bad right now. Could you see if you can get them to talk a little? Try to draw them out of it if you can?"
Ted was the one to answer "I think we can do that. Now what aren't you telling everyone?"
He looked at Cath who nodded "Harry can't have any more blood replenisher until this time tomorrow. If he bleeds anymore he'll die and both of them know it." He wiped the betraying tear from his eye.
Bill put a hand on Sirius' shoulder "If you need to take care of something again go ahead, we can handle things here for a while."
He smiled "Thanks, I think I'll be good for a bit longer." He looked at Cath "How are you doing?"
She gave him another squeeze "I'm ok, I've got my hand." He smiled and squeezed back.
"How about we see if we can find everyone something to drink?"
They started walking towards the lobby as Andi and Ted went into the room. Sirius noticed that Hermione was being held tightly by the new woman with the man rubbing her back and made a detour for them.
"Are you all right Hermione?"
She shook her head "I'm sorry I ask so many questions."
His eyes widened a little "What?"
"I'm the one who started asking questions when they wanted us to leave. I'm sorry, I don't really know when I start doing it, it just happens."
He gave her a smile "Its all right Hermione, I wasn't trying to chew anyone out or anything. The healers just wanted everyone to know that they'll answer questions after they help Harry is all. Don't think you need to stop asking them."
He looked at Cath "I think I could have avoided a lot of detentions if I'd asked more questions in school. Like who's the prefect on duty right now. That one alone might have given me twice as much free time."
She smiled at him "I had ways of finding out when you were going to pull a prank and made sure I was on duty when you did it. I loved giving you detention."
"You knew each other in school?" Hermione asked.
Sirius chuckled "We are probably the two biggest reasons that it took so long for James and Lily to get together. I kept them apart by pulling pranks with James and Cath did it by catching us and convincing Lily we'd never grow up."
Cath spoke next "We should have just went into an empty class room and hexed each other to bits; it would have let both of us have more sleep. I was always running around that castle trying to find them in the middle of the night. They had a way to just appear in a spot that I had just looked in."
"I think you can be let in on our secret now. You can't give me detention any more. Hermione, would you do the honors of telling the real secret to sneaking around Hogwarts?"
Hermione smiled "James had an invisibility cloak."
Cath's jaw dropped "How do you know that?"
"Because Harry has it now and we've used it a lot."
Her Dad cleared his throat "Do I want to know why you were using something that I'm assuming makes you invisible?"
Her Mum answered "It's not for that, but you still don't want to know. I've heard all about it so you can relax."
Sirius asked Hermione for some introductions and received them. When she introduced Catherine she said "I'm sorry I don't remember hearing your name before today."
Cath gave her a sad smile "I haven't been in the country since Harry was born."
"Can I ask why?" Hermione was a little hesitant.
Sirius leaned in "Do you want to talk about it? I could tell them if you don't want to."
"No, I think I can do it." She looked at Hermione "The last time I was in this country I was a couple of floors up from here with these scars being healed and having just lost my brother. My parents took me to South America because I wasn't really sane anymore.
"By the time my mind had started to settle a little I had been gone for over two years. Then I found out that I had lost my best friend by the same people who had killed Oran and I started losing my sanity again."
She leaned on Sirius for a moment "Siri wrote to me a few days ago and told me about Harry, I had always figured that he had died with Lily and James if he was even born. When we talked on the floo he offered me a chance to come back and meet Lily's son. I arrived two days ago.
"I think seeing those eyes again has helped me move on a little. It's helps to know that something of her is still around and even more so that it's Harry." She finished.
Sirius smiled as he looked at the people coming into the hall seeing the O'Connell's and the twins carrying some tea pots and cups. One of the twins had a familiar looking box under one arm.
"Special blend?" he asked when they got close.
"Do you think I'd bring anything else for the lad? I won't have him waking up to hospital tea if I can help it." Conner answered as he looked around "We need a table though."
Molly who had been coming to find out where her sons had been heard this and quickly conjured a table for them.
Amanda thanked her and the two ladies seemed to take over setting everything up and Molly started heating the tea pots. Lisa came over and opened the box, she slowly started to put biscuits onto the plates as tears started to flow again.
Richard Granger looked at everything going on and said "Doesn't the hospital have a cafeteria or something?"
Conner grinned "I had enough hospital food to last the next three lifetimes when my Amanda was going through cancer treatment. No, these are the lad's biscuits that he baked this morning, he'd never let me hear the end of it if all of you had to eat hospital biscuits."
Sirius and Cath each took a cup and went into Harry's room.
"Rebecca, Tonks? Conner and Amanda brought some tea and biscuits. Would you like some?" He asked when he was next to Harry's Mum.
She looked up and smiled "Yeah, that'd be nice." and accepted the cup.
He looked at Tonks and smiled a little to see that she was responding better as she too accepted the offered cup.
"We've been having an interesting conversation about some dating possibilities." Rebecca said.
Tonks smiled "It seems that Rebecca doesn't think to highly of cradle robbing."
"I'm just saying that I think Harry might need to wait a couple of years because you just aren't quite old enough for him." Rebecca said with a larger smile.
Tonks laughed softly "He'd be a very old man if he waited for that."
Sirius looked at Andi who looked resigned "It was the only thing that got through to her. When I said it Rebecca said that it would be nice if the two of them got together, it would make it easier for her to play with his underwear."
Sirius chuckled as Tonks blushed.
Rebecca leaned in close to him and whispered in his ear. He nodded "Do you need anything else?"
"Thanks. I don't think so."
He nodded as he stood "We'll be back in a bit then." He looked at Harry for a second then found that feeling in his hand again and turned to walk out the door to find Amelia waiting for him.
"Sirius we need to talk."
He nodded and they walked down the hall a bit before she started again.
"We've found out that they weren't alone in the attack. We still don't know who else is involved but we know there are only four of them. I've got some Aurors in the lobby that I want to leave here until we catch them."
Sirius was shaking slightly "Find them fast, I don't want to go back to that place."
"What do you mean Siri?" Cath asked.
It was Madam Bones who answered while staring into his eyes. "He means that if we don't find them he will. Sirius you need to stay here, I really don't want to have to explain to Harry why I arrested you."
"I've had enough of these people coming after him and if I have to I'll kill all of them so that he can have some bloody peace." He was growling.
Catherine turned his face towards her with her free hand "Give her a chance Siri the attack didn't happen that long ago. You've seen it yourself; everyone is looking to you right now. You need to stay with them, not go after these people. Didn't you just tell Harry's Mum you would go get something for her?"
He was looking into her eyes and his breathing was getting calmer "Yeah, she wants me to pick up Tonks present from Harry."
"Why don't we let Amelia set up her Aurors while we go and get it?"
He nodded and let her lead him towards the lobby, when they reached Bill they told him they'd be back and left.
Bill turned towards Madam Bones "What's going on?"
She sighed as she saw every face turn towards her. "We know they weren't alone now, there are four others involved but we don't know who yet."
Bill looked in the direction that Sirius had gone "Shite, we need to catch him."
Amelia grabbed his arm "He's going to Rebecca's house to pick something up for her, that's all. He'll be back in a few minutes."
"Are you sure?" Arthur asked "He has a tendency to run after the people who hurt the ones he cares about."
"I'm sure he's going to be back in a couple of minutes and he'll stay here with Harry. I'm posting some Aurors outside the hallway until we catch them." She looked at Ginny "I don't want anyone trying to find these people, let us do that."
Ginny slowly took her hand off of her sword and Molly came up to her and said something in her ear to which she shook her head.
"If there's more out there then I'm going to keep it on."
Molly just looked at her husband who nodded back.
"All right dear." Molly said before going back to Arthur.
Bill looked over at his youngest brother and Hermione who were talking quietly, from the looks on their faces it wasn't going to stay that way for very long.
When he got to them he had Beth Granger beside him.
"What's going on?" Bill asked.
Hermione sighed "Ron's mad at me because I'm not going to go back to Hogwarts this year."
"Yeah well both of my friends are just leaving, how would you feel?"
"I know how it feels Ron I felt the same way when I was told that Harry wasn't going to be going back. Ron all we do is fight, if I go back then we'll both be miserable because we won't be talking to each other because were mad. I don't want to fight with you all the time."
Ron looked at the ground "We don't fight all the time."
"Because Harry usually stops us, without him there we won't stand a chance at being nice to each other. I'll always be harping on you to do you're homework and you'll always be doing something to irritate me. We just can't help it Ron."
Ron chuckled a little "I'm going to have to do my own homework, aren't I?"
Hermione smiled "You know you can Ron, you might even get better grades if you're not spending so much time trying to get me to do it."
"So have you decided on a tutor or school yet?" Bill asked.
Hermione nodded "I've found a tutor, but I can't say who it is yet. If you read the Quibbler on Monday you'll be able to figure out who it is."
A hand on his shoulder made him turn and see Andromeda standing there.
"It's you're time."
"Thanks. How are they?"
Andi smiled "If my daughter starts to slip back ask her about when she's going to be old enough to date."
Bill's brow furrowed "I thought she was old enough now."
"Rebecca thinks she needs a couple more years for the guy she wants. Trust me it will get her out of her slump."
Bill just nodded afraid that if he asked any more questions he'd just get more confused and headed into the room with Fleur.
Cath and Sirius came back in carrying a large gift wrapped box and went straight into the room only to come back out with a grin.
He looked at Catherine "Who should we take with us?"
Cath looked around "Warrior girl and her friend, that way I have some help while she holds that poker on you to make sure you don't peek."
He nodded and went over to Ginny and Gabrielle who were talking together and whispered something to them before going to his cousin and whispering to her. When she nodded he walked over to Molly and Arthur.
"We need to borrow these two for a little bit to do something for Rebecca." Seeing the look on Molly's face he quickly explained "It's nothing bad I promise. Tomorrow is Tonks birthday and Harry had something planned as part of his present. We want to finish it for him is all and they can't get into any trouble for it."
Arthur put his hand on his wife's shoulder "That will be fine, just please be careful."
"We will, I promise." With that the four of them left the hospital together.
