Albus was startled from his paperwork by an explosion, which shook his house. Moving quickly he left his own study and tried to get into Harry's study, only to find the door jammed. Easily vanishing the door, he stepped over the upturned table and surveyed the scene.
A circle of ash surrounded Harry, who was lying on the ground covered in burns and blood. He rushed over to his young charge and carefully scanned him, revealing the boy was in no immediate danger.
Summoning a piece of debris, Albus concentrated on the landing room in Saint Mungos and muttered "Portus". He passed the portkey to Tonks, who had entered moments after him.
"This portkey will take you to Saint Mungo's, make sure Harry receives help. I will be along shortly." With a nod, Tonks took Harry and disappeared.
With Harry gone, Albus took the time to study the room. At the centre was a basic breastplate, which was clearly made of mithril. However, rather than the pure silver, the chest plate was pitted with dark brown spots and a large black burn mark.
It looked like Harry had been messing around with the breastplate, only to have it blow up in his face. The resulting explosion had done a good job at destroying the room, the only untouched furniture being the mithril desk, chair and shelves.
By looking at the ash coating the walls it was easy to find the perimeter of the shelves shield, as the wall suddenly went from pristine to damaged. Even the ceiling had not been spared, although the damage was less severe.
A quick cleaning charm removed the ash and then a reparo restored the room to order. With that done, Albus spun on his heel and apperated to Saint Mungo's. When he found Harry, the boy had gotten his face cleaned. The only issue he could see was the missing nose, which while bad, should've been much worse.
"Ah, Professor Dumbledore." The Healer, a greying blonde haired woman, exclaimed when she noticed him.
"Healer Fairfax." He replied, nodding his head politely.
"Are you here as Mr. Potter's guardian?" As she said this the woman glanced at Tonks, distaste clear on her face.
While there was no law preventing young adults looking after children, it was looked down on, especially in public. This was mostly because the heads of families wouldn't trust the livelihoods of their heirs to people they perceived as incapable.
"Indeed I am."
"Do you know how he got injured?" She asked, scanning for magical residue around Harry's wound.
"I wasn't there to actually see it, however I know it was a magically caused explosion, possible from a build-up of magic."
Healer Fairfax nodded and applied an impervious charm to her hands, then withdrew a cotton like pad and a bottle containing the essence of Dittany. She then poured enough of the potion onto the pad to make it damp, before gently dabbing the pad against Harry's nose.
Instantly the wound started closing and the bleeding stopped, she then took a Blood-Replenishing Potion and poured it down Harry's throat. Upon seeing Harry stir, Fairfax turned to him "Now, Mr. Potter, would you mind telling me how you received this injury?"
"Um… Well I was working on a project and it backfired… literally."
"I assume you aren't going to tell me what this project was?" At Harry's head shake she continued "Very well then, you will need to take a regrowth potion twice a day, once before breakfast and once before dinner. By this time next week your nose should be back to normal."
She went over to her desk and wrote out his prescription, before tapping it with her wand and signing her signature.
"I wonder, Healer Fairfax, if you wouldn't mind giving Harry a general check-up, since we're here anyway?" Albus asked after taking the slip and tucking it into his robes.
"Certainly."
It took less than five minutes for her to finish the check-up, which involved scanning spells and saliva and blood samples.
"You'll be pleased to know you have a clean bill of health, aside from your nose obviously. Although you do have a slight iron deficiency. As well as the damage done to your left arm, which is already on file and seems unchanged. Magic wise, you're far healthier than the average 14 year old. However physically, you have the body of a 16 year old."
"What do you mean 'you have the body of a 16 year old?'" Tonks asked in confusion
"When a witch or wizard's physical growth is influenced by the body's magical power, it will simply mean Mr. Potter will reach his physical maturity a few years earlier than his peers. I expect, Professor Dumbledore, that you also reached your maturity earlier than your peers?"
"Indeed I did, much to the envy of my friends. Particularly when I was able to get into the muggle bars a year before them. I once entertained a vampire in one such bar, they were quite shocked to learn I wasn't of age -"
"Thank you, professor Dumbledore." Fairfax interrupted, much to the amusement of Harry and Nyphadora.
"Would it be possible for us to visit Lockhart before we leave?" Harry asked as they left Healer Fairfax's office.
"Certainly."
They took the lift to the 4th floor, then into the Janus Thickey Ward. Lockhart was in the first bed next to the door and initially looked fine, surrounded by cards and flowers.
It was only when the man turned to look at his visitors, revealing his cut and burnt face and missing right arm. The cut started from his temple, between the eyes, then angled down over his missing right eye and down to his cheek. Whatever had caused this damage had clearly carried on down, removing the man's arm right through his shoulder blade.
The burns followed the cut all the way down, although they favoured the right side, making the skin on the right side of his face look tight and disfigured. His wavy blonde hair had an uneven bald patch around his temple, Harry couldn't help thinking it was like a perverted mockery of his own scar.
"Harry!" Lockhart said happily, raising his arm and beckoning him over.
"Hello Gilderoy, I'm sorry I haven't visited before." Harry replied apologetically, feeling genuinely sorry as he had grown to like the man.
"No worries, after all I expect there were concerns about you appearing in public, what with Sirius Black escaping and all that! I heard he had been spotted near Hogwarts last month… nasty business." Lockhart suddenly got quiet and beckoned Harry even closer.
"Between you and me, I'm quite glad I wasn't there when Black showed up. Let me tell you, if you giving me a right beating when we first 'talked' was enough to tamper my ego, then getting thoroughly beaten by a girl in her first year was enough to kill it entirely."
"You do know Ginny was possessed by Voldemort right?" Harry whispered back, noticing Lockhart only gave a slight shiver at the Dark Lord's name.
"Yes, the Headmaster did mention something of the sort, which does make me feel slightly better. It would explain how the girl was able to use such dark curses." Lockhart mused.
"Actually, how did you get wounded, nobody has bothered to tell me."
"Ah! Well, you see I was taking my first year class to their next lesson, I believe it was Herbology, when we were attacked by Ms. Weasley. I remember thinking it was strange that she wasn't in class and was about to ask her why she was so late and alone when she attacked.
"It's only thanks to you that I was able to get a shield up in time to protect my charges, in fact if you hadn't taught me how to cast that shield charm then myself and my students would most likely have died in that first attack. As it is, I urged my students outside and tried to disarm Ms. Weasley, only for her to summon this fiery whip and strike me with it."
He raised his hand and mimicked a whip coming down from temple to shoulder, complete with a 'swoosh' sound.
"Next thing I know my face is on fire and my right arm is on the floor, then I passed out and woke up here a day later. Turns out it was a dark curse so what you see now is what I will look like forever, annoyingly it cut off my dominant hand so I'm learning to write with my left hand."
Lockhart waved a pile of muggle paper, which had his signature written over and over again. All of them looked sloppy, however the more recent signature was noticeably better.
He then drew back his robe to reveal his burnt shoulder and stump, where tiny red flames seemed to flicker underneath his skin.
"You notice the splitters of fire under my skin? Because it's dark magic the Healers can't touch it and while they remain my arm can never be regrown, I'm just glad the pain isn't too bad all things considered."
"Can I have a closer look?" Harry asked curiously, eager to have an up close look at a dark curse.
"Be my guess, I owe you my life Harry, if you want something done and it's in my power then I'll do my best to do it." Gilderoy said sincerely
Harry didn't know how to reply to that, so settled to walking around the bed to the arm.
His mage sight revealed the tiny flickers of flame had Voldemort's red magic, with the fiery exterior of dark magic. They were clustered around the man's magical veins and seemed to be leaching magic out of it. The veins had been seared shut where they normally carried on down the arm, much like how Mr. Filch had been unable to channel magic.
"Well, I think I might be able to remove the magic. But even if I succeed it doesn't look like your arm can be regrown, since there is no way for magic to reach it."
"Even if you could only stop the pain it would be worth it! I highly doubt I will be casting much magic anyway, should I regain my arm."
Nodding, Harry placed his left palm over the stump, then willed mithril to spread from his gauntlet ring and under the man's skin. Gilderoy winced as the metal spread but Harry pushed on, the Voldemort's magic had noticed the mithril and he had to move quickly in case it escaped.
The mithril soon encapsulated the entire stump, which allowed it to wall of mithrilium to close the structure. The mithrilium passed straight through the bone and veins, as it had been cast to only interact with magic.
Sensing it was trapped, Voldemort's magic started attacking the mithril. Due to its dark nature, it would normally have torn straight through the mithril, if it wasn't for the Philosopher's Stone which healed the mithril quicker than it could be destroyed.
With a great tug, Harry started pulling the cage out of Lockhart's stump, which regrettably meant tearing open his wound. He quickly froze Lockhart with his wand and placed one foot on the bed frame, before tugging with all his might and wrenching the cage out.
The cage had taken what was left of Lockhart's damaged magic with it, which could've caused him even more damage if he hadn't gotten the mithrilium to heal whatever was left and it exited. The dark magic hadn't been restless and had gathered together into one solid writhing thing, which threw itself at the mithril.
Very carefully, Harry began shrinking the cage until the magic had nowhere to go, before instructing the Stone to suck the magic into itself. Inside the cage bright red fire leaped out of the mithril and started wrapping its dark red counterpart, until eventually the magic was completely under its control.
It felt like a spider wrapping up it's unfortunate victim, as the Stone then pulled the magic into the mithril and carried it all the way back to itself. The magic joined its sibling, which had been trapped by the Stone when Harry had first formed the Gauntlet.
The two dark fire spells had both been cast by Voldemort, meaning they had no issue with merging together into a mixture of the two. Harry could tell the Stone had been successful as it let out a bright glow and the small red band around the edges of the ring became more distinct.
Sometime during this a Healer had rushed over and would've tried to stop Harry if it wasn't for Dumbledore's intervention, however this didn't stop her tending to her patient the moment the magic had been removed.
As such his wound had been healed and cleaned by the time Harry had dealt with the magic, meaning the only noticeable difference from earlier was the lack of fire. Feeling drained, Harry collapsed into his chair and gladly took the Pepper Up offered to him by the healer.
"I don't know what you did, Mr. Potter, but you somehow completely removed the dark taint from his arm… But, regardless of how miraculous that was, I must insist you wait for me to give you the okay before you perform magic on my patients again!"
Despite the freezing charm being lifted, Lockhart had fallen unconscious during the operation. However before they left, Harry took the time to make a quick mithril necklace, which would cast an undetectable illusion over Gilderoy's face and make him appear undamaged.
Harry had finally decided to investigate the dementor's cloak, with Tonks watching from the side-lines. At first it appeared to be like a regular cloak, aside from the fact it refused to warm up.
"This is interesting." He mused, having activated his mage sight.
"What's interesting?" Tonks asked.
"Well, according to my mage sight, this cloak doesn't retain any magic."
"Right, you're going to have to explain that… In simple terms."
"Okay… so to start with magical retention is my way of describing how well an object holds magic. So wood and stone have high retention and gold has extremely low retention, then cobalt has no retention whatsoever. However, I can still see cobalt since it has a miniscule amount of natural magic inside.
"Now, depending on how high an object's retention is determines how easy it is to see through it, meaning cobalt might as well be clear glass while natural wood is like stained glass. Then you have magical objects, such as conjured materials, which are much harder to see through. It's actually impossible to see anything through my mithril.
"This is how Dumbledore, Mad-eye and I can see invisibility cloaks, since we can see the magic of the cloaks. Even my Cloak isn't perfect because in high magic atmospheres we can see the 'blackspot' where magic moves around it. Because everything has magic, meaning as long as I can use my mage sight I can always see regardless of light level.
"However, the dementor's cloak has a ridiculously low retention, however it's like a sieve, magic will pass right through it. Meaning as far as my mage sight is concerned, the cloak is completely undetectable… I wonder if this is a result of being on a dementor for merlin knows how many years, or if it was made that way…"
"But, that doesn't help you if you can still see the actual cloak…" Tonks pointed out.
"No, but if I can combine its power with my dragon-skin coat then I would have invisible detection which even Mad-eye couldn't detect." Thinking about the possibility of combining his cloaks got him excited "Oh! Then if I take the properties of that modified cloak and apply it to my trench coat, then I could permanently leave it on over The Invisibility Cloak and hopefully expand the dementor cloak's field to cover anything inside it.
"Then, if I wanted to go invisible I could activate the two cloaks and disappear entirely, without needing to take my trench coat off like I currently have to."
"Sounds good, but is there a way to take enchantments off something like the dementor cloak and put it on something else?"
"Well… theoretically with alchemy anything is possible, I would simply be transmuting the properties of the cloak into my coat. That isn't really any different from taking a pile of silver and a wooden candlestick, then swapping them into a pile of wood and a silver candlestick."
Tonks only had one way to reply to that "Nerd."
A week later Harry received a letter from a beautiful cyan and orange bird, which Dumbledore identified as a kingfisher. Next to Corvus the bird looked tiny, despite the fact it had easily carried the letter.
'Dear Harry,
I never got to thank you so very much for helping me yesterday, it seems like I will never stop owing you at this rate. Thanks to you my daily pain is gone, even if the Healers say my arm is beyond repair. However now that my magic isn't being leached, I've been allowed to leave which brings me onto the reason I wrote this letter.
Through my connections I have gotten 3 Quidditch World Cup tickets, I would be thrilled if you and a friend would like to attend with me. Should you agree, then we shall be leaving on the 23rd of August, staying at the campsite overnight and then watching the match on the 25th.
The tickets are for the press box, which will provide the best view of the match, including the possibility of meeting the players after the game as well as allowing you to forge valuable ties to reporters.
There will also be numerous events on the run up to the match, including the world famous 'Den Persson Cirkus'. Of course the most renown attraction is the marketplace, where traders from all over the world set up shop for the week.
Hope to see you see,
Your obedient servant,
Gilderoy Lockhart.'
Harry silently handed the letter to Dumbledore as he tried to work out if he wanted to go.
"Well Harry, the choice is yours. I have no problems with you going, as long as you promise to stay with Nyphadora."
With practised ease, they both ignored Tonks changing her hair to bright red and making an annoyed huff.
"On the one hand, I've never been that interested in Quidditch… but maybe a professional match will be more interesting. Also the pre-game events do sound really interesting, I guess it wouldn't hurt to go."
I wasn't sure when I wanted to upload this, since I uploaded last week. However I decided to upload it today to fix my schedule, meaning the next chapter will be in 2 weeks.
Things I think need explaining in this chapter:
- The reason Harry had to go to St Mungo's will be revealed in the next chapter, and the reason only his nose got damaged was because of the shield charm cast by his mithril Cuff Earrings which he had to take off for his duel against Tonks.
- Lockhart's life debt is just Lockhart feeling indebted and not a magical life debt that forces him to do anything.
- 'The dark magic in Lockhart joining its sibling' For those that need a reminder about what happened over a year ago, when Harry and Quirrell were fighting for the Philosopher's Stone Voldemort cast a different dark fire spell around the Stone. Harry used his mithril to protect his hand when he picked up the Stone which inadvertently made the Gauntlet.
- 'Den Persson Cirkus', basically Swedish for 'The Persson Circus', in reality it was named after Markus Persson, but in universe it was just a random Swedish wizard with the same surname.