Chapter 4:
A Future in Medicine?
"Exaggerate the twist in the re-blooding charm." Instructed Mungo Bonham; Founder of Saint Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies, one of the greatest magical healers of all time even three centuries post death, and all around hardass.
"She's going to need a concoction of antibiotic potions. Even still, she is likely to suffer a massive, full-body infection and die." The shade informed him as the other shade of Regulus watched on in silence.
Despite his lack of healer training, Harry had actually gathered that much for himself. Trying to magically reintroduce blood into an unconscious woman when that blood had been drained into an unsanitary aluminum tray sounded like a recipe for a full-body infection to even the most medically ignorant observer. This begged the question, why did Mungo bother forcing Harry to learn to create air purifying wards prior to performing this procedure on Hestia while she was on death's door? Seems like a slight waste of time when time was of the essence.
All the same, the procedure was working. The switching charm variant taught to all healer-trainees was a macabre thing to watch as the thick, coagulating blood climbed up her body and into her wounds, returning to a lighter red as they passed through the minuscule de-coagulation charms Harry had placed around said wounds by painting them around the gashes with his wand. They must have also been re-oxygenating the blood as well, based on how many shades lighter it became. That particular medical spell was definitely worth the ten minutes it had taken to learn.
"BOY!"
Oh joy. Vernon had regained consciousness.
"Get your arse over here and use your stick to fix my leg this ins.."
"Silence him." Bonham ordered.
Harry silenced him.
"He is going to lose that leg." Bonham mentioned as an afterthought.
"You are going to lose that leg." Harry relayed the information to his squirming uncle.
It would have been funny watching his whale of an uncle tied down to the table screaming into the silencing charm, if he weren't naked and bleeding like a sieve out of his thigh. Harry had had the decency to conjure a blanket over him, as well as Petunia.
Soon enough, all of the blood that could be recovered from the pan was back inside of Hestia's veins and Harry used a flesh stitching charm - one of the few first-aid spells Harry had successfully learned from Hermione - to heal what remained of her wounds. They wouldn't actually heal the wounds so much as seal them to the point that it stopped the bleeding. It was more akin to a cauterizing charm, really. Each and every one of those cuts were destined to scar and there were quite a few on the unconscious woman.
"Your cousin. Did he ingest any of the vampire's blood?" Bonham asked.
Not wanting to be overheard speaking to dead people, Harry shook his head in answer.
"Then he is in no danger of converting to a vampire himself. And his wounds are superficial enough. Time to teach you the painless amputation spell."
Harry actually flinched away from the shade at this declaration.
Something most people don't know about healers is that in order to become one, to learn anything beyond publicly known first aid spells, requires a magically binding oath combining the classical Hippocratic oath with a hyper-fidelius charm fueled secrecy oath not to share the medical knowledge. It was literally impossible to learn healing magic without swearing to never cause harm in any capacity to another living being, not even in self-defense or against animal pests. You couldn't even steal the knowledge from a healer's mind due to the protections afforded by the fidelius.
Harry's disbelief must have shown in his expression, because the dark-skinned man elaborated.
"I am dead, Mister Potter. I am not bound by any oaths from life. I am free to teach you all I know of medical magic if I so choose. I've already taught you two spells that would have been impossible for you to learn without taking the oaths yourself, what is one more?" Bonham reasoned.
Oh. Harry hadn't suspected those two healing wards to have been esoteric healer knowledge. They didn't bring to mind the devastation a wizard could cause if they were able to use medical spells combatively. The painless amputation spell, on the other hand, does. As is obvious from the name, the spell amputates limbs and is painless. If that wasn't dangerous enough in a duel, because it is healing magic - aka, the lightest of light magic - most shielding spells, which are designed to block hexes, jinxes and curses, won't stop it. And dark shielding spells for blocking charms or healing spells are nearly non-existent.
And there are thousands of healing spells ranging from those as obviously dangerous as those designed to remove limbs, to those more subtle in their deadliness like artery clamping spells used in brain surgery. Can you say 'death by aneurysm'? It's a bit harder to pronounce than 'The power the dark lord knows not', but they're pretty similar in meaning considering the very believable claim by Albus himself that if Pomfrey could break her oaths, she could kick his and Voldemort's arses in a two on one duel. A speech he gave Harry when he asked why he let Pomfrey boss him around.
"Teach me." Harry hissed, barely above a whisper.
And so he did. It was actually a rather complicated spell, a level three medical charm. Level three spells are those that create three distinct effects, and so on for level four through one hundred. It numbs the area, severs the limb and cauterizes the wound. Mastering the wand movements was the only difficult part for Harry, as all three of it's effects were things Harry intuitively knew how to cause separately. Mungo had to judge his proficiency with the spell by sight and sound alone, as he had no way of testing it on inanimate objects. It only effects limbs, human or animal, not table and chair.
"I think you're about as good with it as you're going to get without hands-on tutoring. Time to remove that leg." Barnham decided. "Stun the man, then proceed."
Harry stunned his uncle with a quick stupefy and walked around to the edge of the table.
The master healer directed him on exactly what part of Vernon's leg to place his wand. He carefully instructed him on breathing techniques and body posture too, to help him relax and ensure no errant twitch of a muscle might make him miss the mark. You don't want to be tense or nervous when contemplating the prospect of removing a human limb after all. Not the Harry was nervous, noooo. It's not like missing the correct area could hit an artery and cause the patient to die by internal bleeding after the wound is cauterized. It's not like you could slice a nerve bundle incorrectly and leave a man in constant pain for the rest of his life. Why in the world would Harry be nervous?!
He probably would have cast the spell flawlessly if Daedelous Diggle hadn't barged into the room, slamming the last remaining door of the building against the wall.
"Mother!" Mungo began.
"Fucker!" Harry finished for the ancient healer when his spell severed the wrong leg entirely as he flinched at the noise.
Looks like Vernon would be living the rest of his life with zero legs instead of one. Actually, the angle of that cut looked completely wrong. He didn't have the anatomy of veins, arteries and nerves of the human leg memorized - as any actual healer attempting this spell would have before attempting such a spell - but that cut looked distinctly wrong.
"If we don't get him to a hospital in the next few minutes he is going to die." Mungo informed him over the howling laughter of Regulus Black. "And don't you dare try and appirate him in that condition."
Lovely.
"What the hell happened here!" Diggle yelled, his jowls - though tiny in comparison to Vernon's - jiggling with every syllable. "I went out for one drink! ONE!"
Ignoring Dumbledore's diligent devotee, Harry turned his wand to his throat and spoke a quick message for Sirius, before casting the patronus spell in a general southern direction.
"P-Potter?" Daedilus eventually asked before Harry could put his hood back up.
Harry turned on Daedelus.
"No time to explain. I've recaptured Number 12. Take Hestia and Dudley there. I have to take Vernon to the hospital. Force a few disinfectant potions down Hestia's throat when you arrive. After that, do as the pizza delivery boy instructs you." Harry told him.
With those admittedly confusing instructions out of the way Harry walked through the remains of the wall he'd crashed through a half-hour prior and wheeled the motorcycle into the dining room.
"Place your wand on the indent on the left side of the seat." Regulus instructed him.
Harry did so and a side cart materialized where one hadn't been before.
A few severing charms and a stunner later had an unconscious Vernon Dursley untied from the table and stuffed into the side cart. Barely. Probably should have used a levitation charm instead of trying to carry him.
Diggle had only just gotten over his horror at the scene and side-alonged both Hestia and Dudley simultaneous. Taking one last look at his dead Aunt whom he had rearranged into a sleeping position on the floor, Harry hit the throttle and flew out through the remains of the bay window, the two vanishing in his wake.
It was such a lovely night out. More than two stars were actually visible through the light pollution of Muggle England and constant overcast, making it a rare night indeed. There was a slight, cold, northern breeze to take the edge off of the rising spring heat and Corban Yaxley was finally put in charge of a platoon of Aurors to pursue an illegally charmed vehicle.
The platoon was split into two groups, one by broom and one by police patrol cars. Yaxley opted for the more relaxed position of riding as a passenger in the police vehicle. It was a position he picked on account of it being best suited to relay orders and organize his subordinates, and on account of the driver.
"Suspect spotted flying over Sheffield from Thornbury Hospital heading eastbound." The static-filled and barely legible voice came over the new model of magical radio.
The voice belonged to the witch Corban had personally put in charge of the broom-laden half of his team. A woman he hand-picked out of intentional cruelty and the knowledge that she would do absolutely anything he demanded without complaint.
"Thank you Auror Nymphadora." The driver answered before muting the com.
"He is heading for the M1 motorway. The enchantments on his vehicle are running low on power and he'll need to take to the road soon." Yaxley told the living experiment in the driver's seat.
The freak nodded and morphed before his eyes. In a display of shape-shifting abilities that made Auror Nymphadora look like an amateur, which was all the more incredible considering he was a squib. His flesh outright melted like wax before a glass furnace and expanded as he went from a thin, clean-shaven blonde man to a pudgy brunette with a well-trimmed mustache.
"This is police chief Graham." The freak lied over the separate police radio with his new voice. "All units be advised, suspect in a child sex-trafficking case driving a Royal Enfield Bullet. He is heading eastbound towards the M1 motorway. Request backup from all units available from Sheffield to London."
A series of affirmative responses rang out from every Muggle police officer within distance. The real police chief of Sheffield, like every police chief in the United Kingdom, was on the Ministry payroll and in the know regarding the magical world. A necessary evil: one that ensured the cooperation of law enforcement and prevented any unintentional interference from the real police chiefs.
"How long until they can push a few dozen of you off the assembly-line?" Yaxley asked the driver.
The emotionless shell returned to his true, or perhaps favored, form and gave him the creepiest, most artificial smile he'd ever seen. Quite the feet considering how much time he spent around politicians and fellow Death Eaters.
"That is entirely contingent upon how favorably the Department of Mysteries find your report of my services." He said.
Yaxley nodded.
"We have our coordinates for where they expect him to touch down. Let's go." Yaxley ordered.
The police blockade was a thing of beauty.
Three entire lanes of vehicles, including a pair of armored trucks, blocked any access to the motorway ramp along with a few spike strips for good measure. The last was liable to do absolutely nothing, as any vehicle enchanter would be smart enough to charm the tires to resist punctures and deflation in general, but it paid to be thorough.
"Target will be touching down exactly where anticipated." Auror Tonks called over the magical comm.
Good. That would land him some fifty yards away; within perfect view of every single officer and Auror of the blockade. He would be easy picking as he approached. With Yaxley and his partner at the head of the formation, right next to the armoured trucks, most of the glory would be going to him.
Now all there was to do was wait. The second line of Aurors were placing masking wards, the kind used specifically in anticipation of magical shootouts. It functioned as a glamour covering a large area that made every spell appear as something mundane, like a gun or rocket, to the eyes and ears of any Muggle witnesses.
An entirely compensatory engine roar echoed into the night and above the tops of the next row of buildings a dazzling light show played out. The broom unit was intercepting whoever had stolen the vehicle from Number Twelve and forcing him to land.
He seemed to be holding his own against the five-member hit squad, a feat Yaxley wasn't sure he could imitate, but this was mostly due to the fact that even with the more cumbersome bike he was a far superior flyer to any of them and was literally flying circles around them while taking potshots. They were keeping a good distance. Smart.
But even with his resistance he did eventually touch dawn and, ignoring the confused mutterings of the police officers who couldn't make heads or tails of whatever the flying bike and spellfire appeared to them, Yaxley leaned through the window and took aim. The motorcycle rider, who wasn't even wearing a helmet under his hood, was impossible to get a shot at, what with him swerving between the bumper-to-bumper traffic leading up to the blockade. But Yaxley was nothing if not patient.
Patience did not payoff, as something long and cylindrical shot out of the Bullet's front end towards the blockade. A bright jet of flame was left in its wake as it soared above the traffic.
"That is an AIM-9 sidewinder air-to-air missile." The shapeshifter calmly informed him from the driver's seat.
That certainly raised Yaxley's eyebrows.
The illusion wards altered perception of magic used to match the closest Muggle analogue. Most offensive spells would appear as bullets of different calibers or grenades if they're particularly powerful. For a spell to appear as a missile usually fired from a goddamn jet meant it must be one hell of a piece of offensive magic.
There was just one problem. While it made sense for the mutant, who was still technically more Muggle than Wizard, to see illusions when watching a spell, the projectile flying towards the blockade looked an awful lot like a missile to Yaxley's eyes too. Yaxley was a wizard. Wizards are not affected by the wards.
That was an actual missile.
"Everybody down!" An exceptionally sensible police officer yelled as his contemporaries panicked and fled to cover.
Yaxley barely had time to duck back into the car as the missile struck perfectly between the two armored trucks and sent them flipping through the air. One landed in the ditch on the opposite end of the road while the other crashed against the car Yaxley had taken cover in with the force of a rampaging skrewt. The world became nothing more than a spinning mass of metal and floating shards of glass, which looked oddly ethereal in the flashing lights of the surrounding police cars and mind-numbing pain.
One flip, two flips, eight flips later and Yaxley was crawling out of the twisted mass of metal in time to see the man in the motorcycle drive straight through what little remained of the blockade. As expected, the spike strips failed to puncture his tires.
"Potter?!" Yaxley yelled as the hooded and concealed driver drove right past him at well over a hundred kilometers per hour.
The man actually looked at him as be barreled past, green eyes meeting black, and Yaxley knew he had correctly identified him. As if there were any doubt as to who would have retaken Grimmauld and rescued his Muggle relatives.
"All Aurors, be advised." Yaxley called over the communicator specific to the Aurors which wouldn't be heard by the police officers. "Suspect is likely Harry Potter. Capture him alive."
A smattering of unbelieving chatter answered his claim. After all, Harry Potter was dead, wasn't he? Well, Yaxley had yet to see a body and that sure looked like the boy under the hood.
The few vehicles left unaffected near the rear of the blockade took chase and followed the unknown rebel up the ramp and onto the motorway. The broom brigade flew close behind them.
Yaxley turned to the wreckage that had almost taken his life to see that it succeeded in taking that of his partner. What a waste of potential.
"Nymphadora!" He yelled to the sky with a sonorus-enhanced voice, fighting back the wince in his voice from moving his broken arm.
The pain from breathing hinted at possible broken ribs too, so he used some basic first aid spells to bind his arm and chest. A numbing charm later and he was in good enough shape to continue the chase.
Auror Tonks landed beside him and he wrapped himself around the woman as he sat behind her. Now this was a broom made for comfort!
"After him!" He ordered. "But keep your distance. For all we know the tail pipe has a tomahawk missile shoved in it!"
And she obeyed, kicking off the ground the active warders flying close behind to keep all potential magic within the glamour spell.
He noted an amorphous, scorched shape emerge from the flaming death trap he himself had barely escaped from and realized he had under-estimated the living alchemical experiment.
Even with the magic allowing the motorcycle to fly long since drained, the crotch rocket was a powerhouse in terms of speed. It didn't handle quite as well as his firebolt, but his talent for broom flying translated surprisingly well for playing out his Evil Kenevil fantasies.
"Pull over or you will be fired upon!" A speaker from a nearby polic vehicle commanded.
Harry looked in the rearview mirror to try and make out the adorable speck that was trying to give him orders but he couldn't quite spot it. Only a few seconds later, after releasing the throttle and dropping down a gear, did the vehilce in question materialize from his blind spot.
With a twist of his wrist and a complicated s-motion Harry summoned a fire whip at the end of his wand. With one exaggerated swing he cut clean through both tires of a candy red SUV and sent it reeling towards his pursuers.
He didn't have time to turn around and appreciate the end result, but he could hear it just fine. If it was making as much of a spectacle as it sounded like, then now was the right time to activate the invisibility function of the motorcycle and slip away.
The power runes that allowed the vehicle to fly were separate from the ones for invisibility, just like with Arthur's Ford Anglia. But which button was it?
"Silver dial on the left." Regulus' shade called from behind.
Harry ducked beneath a semi and hit the dial. He was now doubly hidden, but as with any mobile hiding place Harry was forced to go where it went and switching to the a617 freeway wasn't part of his plan. Nor was being found.
He felt it before he saw it. Something magical, but twisted and unnatural was vaulting directly towards him, and despite his rudimentary, at best, magical senses he felt the thing's presence like a chill going down his spine. Then he spotted it in the mirror. A pale, naked form twisted to inhuman lengths, as if somebody had turned the arms and legs of a person into clay and stretched them both to twice the length of the body. A body charred, gashed and embedded with bits of metal as if he had been in a car crash. It's inhuman movements and deformed shape was nightmare fuel.
"What in the everloving fuck is that?!" Regulus screamed when he finally caught sight of it.
It was nearly upon them, its impossibly long limbs allowing it to run on all fours at speeds surpassing the 80 kph Harry was cruising at in order to be able to swerve between the much slower vehicles. Time to fix that.
He hit the throttle and ducked his head as he drove under the long cables and metal beams of the semi to reach the other side. He only now noticed the long line of metal boxes being driven along this particular route. Must be a rush for Easter deliveries. At least he wouldn't have to get any more civilians killed today.
Unless you counted the truck drivers themselves, but it wasn't as if they were vital member of Britain's economic structure or anything like that.
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