Earlier
'What. An. Idiot.'
These words kept reverberating around inside Harry's head as he reflected on his latest meeting with Doctor Cullen.
'You may as well have said the words, "Hey, I've worked it out, you're a vampire". He's probably going to come and kill you in your sleep.'
Harry thought about locking his door but then realised that a locked door was hardly going to stop a vampire on a rampage. He laughed at his own stupidity.
"Idiot," he said aloud to the empty room as he threw himself back down on to his pillow. It had been at least three hours now since that discussion and Harry couldn't relax. He was certain that Doctor Cullen knew he was the reason the windows had open earlier despite the man's insistence on the faulty latches; the window hadn't opened since and it was just as windy as it was before.
Why was he suddenly losing control? He hadn't had any bursts of accidental magic from anger in years, and suddenly now, when it was most important to act like a Muggle, his magic was betraying him. He couldn't pretend to be normal when windows were suddenly flying open by themselves in his presence, and he hadn't missed the brief look of fear that crossed Doctor Cullen's face when it had happened. The only question was whether the vampire knew that it was magic.
Harry assumed not, as he was quite sure that Doctor Cullen lived separate of the magical world, having given no reaction at being the doctor of The Boy who Lived. Harry let out another sardonic laugh at his old title.
"If only they could see their hero now," he scoffed: lying in a hospital bed in the middle of America with no idea what was going on at Hogwarts.
The sneer dropped from his face as he thought of his school. That was what was driving him insane: not knowing. It was just like when Ron and Hermione were with the Order before the start of their fifth year, while he was holed up with the Dursleys, chased by Dementors, and nearly getting expelled. But this was worse; this time he had no contact at all with his friends and he couldn't bear it.
Harry stood up in frustration and stormed around the room.
"Curse this stupid hospital and its stupid doctors," he muttered as he kicked the foot of his bed. "Curse that stupid construction site," he kicked it again, harder. Ignoring the pain in his foot, he raged on.
"All because of those stupid Death Eaters I have to deal with this. All of this rubbish," he cried, throwing his arms out at his surroundings. "Stupid vampires asking me questions every second. I'm sick of it!" With this, Harry kicked his bedside table so hard that it was tipped clear of everything on top, including a plastic cup full of water one of the nurses had left him. It clattered to the floor, spilling its contents all over his feet. This just made him angrier.
"That's it, I've had enough! I want OUT!" A wave of magic erupted from Harry with his rage as another blast of cold air rushed into the room. The windows flung open once again, this time with such force that they smashed against the walls, raining broken glass onto the floor. More glass fell from the ceiling as the light fittings shattered one by one, plunging the room into darkness.
When the magic surged out of his body, Harry had collapsed to the ground in agony. Breathing heavily and still seething, Harry reached into his pocket for the Elder Wand and was just about to disapparate when he stopped.
What was he doing? Every time he cast magic he felt like he was being electrocuted. The sheer pain that coursed through his body was excruciating, spreading down his spine and out into his limbs. What had happened to him? Was this just the effects of utter and total exhaustion, or was this something more sinister? Just holding his wand he could feel his magic tingling painfully in his hand, itching to be released.
Apart from not wanting to experience the pain again, Harry had no idea what the situation back home was. For all he knew the Death Eaters had reign of the castle and he'd be apparating straight back into their clutches. The same applied to the Ministry. He just needed some way of knowing what to do.
Harry dropped his wand on the floor and landed back on his bed with a soft fwump. Grabbing fistfuls of hair, he scrunched his eyes shut and tried to supress the desire to cry out in frustration. A true feeling of hopelessness had settled on his heart, made worse by the fact he was now freezing from the cold air that was blowing through the room.
Sitting upright, Harry looked around the dark room. The only light he could see by was the soft glow from the hallway behind the frosted glass of the door and of the streetlight outside the window. Looking at the mess he had made, he frowned. Why hadn't anyone come to check on him? It had to have been impossible for all of the breaking glass to go unheard by any of the doctors or nurses, but not even a cleaner had poked his head through the door to see what had happened. They were clearly understaffed.
Deciding to investigate, Harry let out a heavy sigh and stood up off the bed. The broken glass from the lights above crunched beneath his feet as he made his way over to the door. He put his ear against the small gap between the door and its frame only to hear silence on the other side. He opened the door just enough to poke his head out and turned his head to look left and right down the corridor but saw no one.
'That's strange. I thought there was always supposed to be someone out here on their rounds.'
Mentally shrugging to himself, Harry brought his head back into the room and shut the door softly before resting his head against it. Now he had to come up with a way to explain the mess when someone did bother to come and find him. Steeling himself for a long night, Harry opened his eyes and noticed the door was glowing with a strange white hue. He raised his hand up to the door and was alarmed when it formed a shadow, telling him that whatever was creating this light was in the room behind him.
He reached into his pocket to find his wand before he remembered he had dropped it beside his bed. Cursing himself quietly, Harry turned around.
What he saw made him equally thrilled and terrified.
In the middle of the room hovering about a metre above the floor was a silver lynx made of light.
A patronus.
Kingsley.
Harry stared wide-eyed at the glowing creature, not even daring to blink in case it disappeared. This was what he had wanted, what he needed so as to plan his escape. Still hardly daring to believe it was real, Harry approached it slowly and stopped when it began to speak.
"Harry?"
Harry couldn't breathe. Kingsley's deep voice filled the room, resonating inside his skull. He had been starting to wonder if he would ever hear a magical voice again.
"I'm hoping this has found you, Harry, and that you're not – wherever you are you need to return. I need you to apparate directly into my office before 7am. If you don't, we may have to assume the worst. 7am, Harry, to my office. Speak to no one else." The voice faded into nothing and the lynx evaporated, plunging the room into darkness once more.
It took Harry a while to remember to breathe. They'd found him. They had actually found him. Harry wanted to laugh and punch the air in triumph. Finally he had a plan to follow, something that he could actually do to get home again.
'What time is it?'
Turning around from the spot where the patronus had been, Harry searched for the digital clock that had been on his bedside table. He spotted it lying face down on the floor in the puddle of water that he had spilled in his rage.
'Uh oh.'
Harry rushed over to it and knelt down to pick it up, but he knew it was broken before he'd even turned it upright. Staring at the black screen, he cursed his own stupidity and set it back down on the table. Now how was he supposed to know the time? There was no other clock in the room and his own watch had stopped working after jumping off the dragon's back and into the water after escaping from Gringotts. His only hope was that there was one somewhere nearby out in the corridor.
Harry made his way quickly back over to the door and had a brief listen at the gap again. Hearing nothing on the other side, he opened the door and looked out into the hall. He saw nothing down to his left, but when he turned to his right he saw a small analogue clock in the distance, too far for him to read from the safety of the doorway. He'd have to venture out into the main hospital.
Just as he was about to step out of his room, a doctor came around the corner with his head looking down at a clipboard. This was the only thing that prevented him from seeing Harry fling himself back into his room and close the door. He didn't dare move until he heard the doctor carry on past the door and his footsteps disappear down the hall.
'That was too close.'
He had to figure out a way to find out the time. If it was well before 7am then he could wait a while longer at the hospital until it was more pressing for him to leave, and if it was after seven… well he would worry about that if he had to.
He knew that Doctor Cullen had last visited him at about 7:30pm and that was only a few hours ago. Harry scoffed at his realisation. What was he worried about? 7am was hours away. He still wanted to know the exact time though for comfort's sake.
Walking out into the hallway was too risky, so Harry cast his eyes around the room to see if he could find anything that would help him read the clock from his doorway. His eyes came to rest upon the Elder Wand lying on the floor by his bed. There was probably some spell that existed that would tell him the time but of course he didn't know it. Hermione probably would. Thinking of his friend made his head hurt.
Harry walked over to the wand and bent down to pick it up. He knew what he had to do, not liking it one bit.
'Well if I can't get to the clock, then I'll just have to bring the clock to me.'
Crunching his way back over the broken glass to the door, he poked his head out and gave the corridor a once over. Satisfied that he could neither see nor hear anyone in the vicinity, he pointed the wand down to his right, braced himself for the pain that was sure to come and whispered;
"Accio clock."
The clock leaped off the wall and sailed down the hall towards Harry, who had fallen in the doorway but managed not to cry out. Quickly snatching it out of the air, he fell back in to his room, shut the door and collapsed against it, breathing deeply. The pain didn't take as long to subside this time, and when it did Harry finally got to look at the time.
10:43pm
Harry instantly relaxed. He still had over eight hours until he had to be in Kingsley's office. Tossing the clock onto his bed, he made his way over to the now permanently open window and looked out into the night.
He remembered vaguely that it had been night time when he arrived in America; that brief view of where he landed had told him that much. That meant he had been gone for about 24 hours. Harry sighed and rested his arms on the window sill. Anything could have happened in the space of a day; his current situation was proof of that. So much had transpired in the hours since he had defeated Voldemort in the Great Hall. He reluctantly let his mind look back at the last thing he remembered; the sheer terror on his friends' faces had been clear, lit up by the first rays of the morning sun that streamed in through the enchanted ceiling.
'Wait…morning…'
Harry's eyes snapped open. Yes, it had been morning at Hogwarts when he left. But, it had been night time when he arrived in America. How did that –
'Idiot.'
He had completely forgotten about the concept of time zones.
Harry spun on his heels away from the window intending to get back to the clock, but he turned too quickly on top of the broken glass and his feet flew out from underneath him. He threw out his hands to catch himself and cried out in pain as shards of glass cut deep into his palms. Gritting his teeth in both anger and pain, he ripped the tiny daggers from his hands which were now dripping blood and threw them to the floor. Carefully pushing himself back up on to his feet, he scrambled over to the bed and picked up the clock again.
10:48pm
What time was it in London? How many hours behind was he here in Forks? He didn't even know what part of the country he was in, east or west. He prayed that London wasn't any more than eight hours ahead or else it would be after 7am.
He discarded the now bloodied clock back onto the bed and made his way around the room a little more carefully than before to look for anything the doctors might have taken off him. He picked up the soiled jumper that Doctor Cullen had showed him that morning; he didn't want to leave any trace of himself behind. Despite the fear and anxiety, Harry had no other option left. He had no idea how he had managed to apparate such a distance before, and all he could do now was pray he could do it again. Casting his eyes one last time around the room, he pulled the Elder Wand out of his pocket, and thought about his destination.
'Kingsley's office, London.'
Harry turned on the spot and with a crack and a scream he was gone.
