But his task was not finished. Despite everything, it would be too cruel to leave the people living within the former ward-wall totally undefended. He left the basic home-wards for them, their soft colours and delicate tangles actually pleasing to the eye. And there was only one thing left, the hardest and most important part of all: the blood wards. But with the blood's owner so close and handy, it became the easiest thing to do.
He wove the wards tighter around himself, allowing no strand out of his reach. And then, an embracing motion later, all the wards were transferred to the blood's owner—
And Harry returned to his own body with a choked gasp.
Ardila's gaze lingered on him and the alien feel around her remained, but her eyes had stopped glowing. Still, it all had been a most jarring and disorientating experience, not to mention frightening.
She took a step towards him, and he took a step back. Her gaze became sharper, more searching, and he looked down, taking yet another step back and behind Jerry.
The next moment, she was directly before him, capturing his right hand on her own and guiding it towards the centre of her chest. Seemingly uncaring of his desperate struggling, she put the palm of his hand flat against the centre of her ribsage, directly atop her beating heart.
He stopped fighting, going limp with a shudder and a stifled whimper. The heartbeats ensured him that she was still human, and it somehow soothed him without losing the surreal quality of the experience. He was not about to lock gazes with her any time soon though, even when she murmured her apology to him, admitting that she was always rasher and harsher in her ward-dances. Presently he just wanted to go anywhere, anywhere but here, and lost the wards wound around him that were making his skin tingle even now.
His wish was fulfilled, partly.
They took the 'teleporting merry-go-round' again, but not to the Forest-home as he had hoped. Instead, they visited various places which he could neither glimpse nor count, just to make the wards there recognise and take a bit of the blood wards surrounding him. The only bright news in the whole unexpected, surreal, uncomfortable experience was Ardila's assurance that he would never have to go back to Privet Drive Number Four again, added by the offer to try the family's other lodgings when the holidays came.
But perhaps, seeing that he was not totally convinced and mollified, Ardila then offered a cook-out in the Forest-home.
Above all, it was what made him perk up. He only had one objection to that.
"What about the rest of them though?" he grumbled, waving vaguely at himself.
The first and last warning he got from Ardila was a sound of agreement, before she raised her right hand and the remnence of the blood wards imploded into his body. Pain burnt his eyes.
But afterwards, his glasses-aided vision felt blurry.