Chapter 3: Death Smiles At Us All...

When Harry awoke again, she bolted upright, not knowing immediately where she was, as the room she was in was dark and poorly illuminated. Reaching for her cane and flintlock pistol, she was shocked when she came up with nothing and then realized what she was wearing.

"A… hospital gown." Glancing around in horror at what she was beginning to realize, she stood up and then blinked a few times, her eyes adjusting to the darkness.

She was back at Hogwarts.

The moonlight, that sick yet so inviting moonlight, bathed the infirmary in a soft glow as Harry stood there, eyes glancing back and forth as though a beast was about to jump through and attack her. The shadows of the room reminded her all too much of Yharnam, and the fact that she didn't have her cane or pistol made her anxious.

A few others were resting in the hall, she didn't know who, and she willed herself to stop breathing so fast and so hard, and once she had gotten control of her breath again, she sat down gently on the edge of the bed, and looked down.

Her skin, which, for the most part, had been hidden under the leather garb she had taken to wearing during her time in Yharnam, had seemingly grown quite pale.

Before, it was a healthy shade of white, freckles lightly sprinkled along her face and arms, but now? Now, she looked sickly.

Her skin was a ghastly shade of white, her freckles all but nonexistent as though she hadn't seen the sun in days, because she hadn't.

Whatever happened to her in Yharnam, happened to her here, and with a jump, Harry lifted the hem of her gown and nearly gasped as the ever-present but faint scars littered her body, the giant three gashes marking where the Cleric Beast had ripped her to shreds.

It seemed, that like her skin color, her deaths, and whatever else happened to her in Yharnam, left its mark on her here. But they were faint, not enough to be noticeable in the pale moonlight.

She laid down at this, trying to get a grasp on the new reality of her situation, and it took every ounce of her not to want to jump and slash and hunt through the shadows of the infirmary, and she found that she couldn't sleep.

Every slight movement, every slight creak of a hospital bed, the slow and steady breathing of the kid two beds down from her. Everything had her on edge, and she sat up with a huff, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, and standing up.

Her hand twitched, and she growled as it seemed to have a mind of its own. She smacked it against her leg, trying to get it to stop shaking, not from panic but from adrenaline, but it just wouldn't bloody stop.

"Stupid, stupid, bloody ha-"

"Miss Potter? What are you doing up?!"

Madam Pomfrey's voice cut through the soft sound of the room like a knife, and Harry cursed herself for not realizing the woman had walked in through her office. She involuntarily took a step back, before trying to get herself to calm down again. Madam Pomfrey wasn't a beast, wasn't someone who was going to hurt her.

She was the bloody Matron at the Hogwarts Infirmary!

Seemingly not caring about Harry being in an internal dialogue with herself, Madam Pomfrey walked up to Harry and helped guide her back to the bed, taking notice of how Harry jumped when the matron touched her.

"Miss Potter, are you alright?"

Harry nodded, choosing to let the matron guide her back to bed, and almost gasped in shock when Madam Pomfrey pulled out her wand and fixed up a potion for her.

Her wand! How had she forgotten about her wand?

She fumbled around the bedsheets a little bit as Madam Pomfrey made up some potions for her, and felt herself begin to panic slightly as she couldn't feel her wand.

"Umm… Madam Pomfrey? Did they… uh… did they find my wand when they found me in the corridor?"

The woman tutted, grabbing two potions and handing them to the young witch before she spoke.

"Yes, dear. They found it on you when they found you and Professor McGonagall made sure it made its way back to your dormitory."

Harry nodded, the panic that had jumped into her entire body now seeped away just as quickly, and she grabbed the two potions that Madam Pomfrey gave her and waited until the matron talked to her again.

"Now, how do you feel, Miss Potter? When I saw you yesterday, it took nearly three blood replenishment potions to get you back to stable levels. And your magic! Your levels were changing rapidly and drastically. Now, sit still, and drink those potions." The matron pulled out her wand and began to run a diagnostic spell on her, as Harry downed the potions the matron had given her.

Whatever Madam Pomfrey had seen, it shocked her, as she let out a gasp and waved her wand, the results from the spell going away, and then she cast the spell again.

And again.

Seemingly not believing the results of the spell, she shook her head and walked back to her office, Harry gazing at her as she rummaged around in her office, before returning with a book and a dial of some kind.

She ran more tests, before she stopped, sighed, and began to speak.

"Miss Potter, I don't know how it's happened, but you're healed. It should be impossible, given how sickly you were just yesterday, but you're healed."

Harry knew, but she kept her mouth shut.

She didn't want to seem like a raving lunatic if she told Madam Pomfrey about what she had experienced in the room on the seventh floor, much less what she had experienced in Yharnam.

"Professor Dumbledore will want to hear about this, he was worried sick when he heard about what had happened…"

A soft glow of white, and what Harry assumed to be the Matron's patronus glided through the door to the infirmary, and laid back down on the bed.

She closed her eyes but she couldn't get the images out of her head, the Cleric Beast she had just killed reverberating in her head, its scream echoing in her ears. She claws, the beasts, everything about Yharnam had changed her life and it had left an imprint on her mind, and she knew she'd never forget what had happened while she was there.

And was she gonna go back? Ghernam had said that she needed to kill a few beasts but hadn't said anything else about her purpose in Yharnam, and it wasn't even night yet.

From what Eileen and Henryk had said, Dreamers such as herself fought and killed and hunted throughout the night, and were released from the dream when the sun rose, not when she killed a monstrous beast.

But she was here. Back at Hogwarts.

The door gently creaked open, and Harry lurched forward in her bed, her hand clenching on a cane that wasn't there, she relaxed slightly when she realized it was just Professor Dumbledore.

The old headmaster walked slowly towards her, but Madam Pomfrey reached him first, gently talking to him. His eyebrows rose a few times, and he stroked his beard for a little, but then he walked over to Harry, who was still sitting up in the bed she was in.

"Hello, my dear. Madam Pomfrey has informed me of what has happened, and I'm glad to see you recovered."

The headmaster sat down on a newly conjured chair, and plucked out a lemon drop from his pocket, offering her one, but she refused.

She wasn't hungry.

"Uhh… yeah. I feel better, and, I don't know what happened." A lie, but Dumbledore seemed convinced as he pulled out another lemon drop.

"Now, Harry, could you tell me how you got to where you were when we found you? You appeared unharmed, but were unconscious and became sick when we brought you here."

He talked slowly, but his voice held a power she knew few ever had, and the Hunter in her felt on edge just by being near him. Her eyes kept on flickering to his wand and the rest of the shadows in the infirmary, but she eventually spoke.

"I don't really remember if I'm being honest. I remember walking along the corridor on the seventh floor, before passing out, and when I woke, I was here."

Dumbledore paused at that, and she knew, just knew, that he didn't believe her. Just as she could sense the bloodlust within Gascoigne and the pure rage in thy Cleric Beast, she could just feel how Dumbledore didn't trust her.

But she kept looking down at her lap, hands folded demurely over it as she just waited for him to do something. But he didn't.

"Well… I'm just glad to see you alright, Miss Potter. Get some good rest, and I'll be sure to let your professors know about your speedy recovery."

He stood and began to walk to Madam Pomfrey. They exchanged a few hushed words and talked for a while before he began to leave.

She didn't know why, but it was Dumbledore of all bloody people, who had covered up her killing Quirrell, who helped her with the basilisk and Sirius, and so she blurted out, "I remember a room professor… it was massive and had so much stuff in it I could barely see over the piles…"

Somewhat shocked by her outburst, she felt herself blush slightly and looked back down to her lap.

"I see…"

And with that, he was gone.

Night eventually broke into Dawn, and soon there was a steady beam of light coming into the infirmary from the windows within. It was a pleasant contrast to the seemingly forever dusk and darkness of Yharnam, and she found she had quite missed the Sun, even if the weather in Scotland was slightly dreary.

Madam Pomfrey had kept her overnight, wanting to make sure her miraculous recovery was permanent, and Harry was fine with staying in the infirmary. She didn't really want to face the people of Hogwarts now, or ever, and she was quite content with just laying in the infirmary.

It was a quiet reprise from both Yharnam and Hogwarts with the tournament, and she wished she wasn't the girl-who-lived, and was just an ordinary girl.

But alas, that was not the case.

Madam Pomfrey released her from the infirmary, and Harry, not wanting to make herself look weird, left without a fuss, and made her way back to her dormitory.

And that led her to her current predicament.

Her face, once untouched and pale, now showed what had become of her in Yharnam, with faint scars littering her face and her skin pale as a sheet. She stared at her reflection in the girl's lavatory on the second floor, with Moaning Myrtle nowhere to be seen, but Harry just stared.

How was she going to face people now, with how she looked? How could she explain what had happened to her? Hell, she didn't even know what had happened to her, much less if she was going to go through it again.

But she was a Hunter. And a powerful witch. She wasn't going to bow down to the looks and thoughts of the people who had betrayed her twice, and who hadn't believed her for one second.

The thought that she had no one at Hogwarts now, save Neville and maybe Hermione, left her feeling hollow and empty, but she had been alone, minus the few sane people she had met along the way, in Yharnam, and Hogwarts was nothing to the beasts of the town she had found herself stuck in.

Another side effect of being a Hunter was that she was also surprisingly stealthy.

The students of Hogwarts, either ignoring her or not seeing her, didn't bother her as she made her way back to the Gryffindor Common Room, and it wasn't until she had made it into the lounge that she was noticed.

Neville, who must have been just about to leave, bumped into Harry as she entered the door and had almost attacked him, but only grabbed him, preventing him from falling.

"Oh… uh-uh… Hey Harry. I didn't see you there! I was just about to… head down to the Lake to do some stuff for Herbology." Neville, ever shy as he was, didn't offer an invitation, although she knew that's what he meant.

"Give me a second Nev, and I'll be right back down. Gotta get my wand!" Rushing slightly now, she made her way into the common room, avoiding the looks a few older students sent her way, and made her way up to her dorm.

Her four-poster bed, made and kept tidy as she normally did, was left untouched and no one was in the room.

Hermione must've been with Ron, Fay was with whoever, and Lavender and Parvati were off gossiping or staring at boys or whatever.

The shadows in her room were more pronounced than in the common room, and she paused involuntarily in the doorway as she scanned the room for any threats that weren't there.

Walking slowly to her bed, she looked around for her wand, beginning to grow anxious when she couldn't find it. A note was on her dresser, and after she had almost rummaged through her entire room, the note read: Your wand, Miss Potter. Make sure not to lose it again.

Furious now, she felt her strength bleed into her movements, and her bed frame creaked under the pressure her hand had on it, and she forced herself to calm down. Taking deep breaths, she was about to head back down when a familiar groan brought her out of her focus.

A group of messengers, clumped together and pulling at her pants, held up her wand expectantly as they glanced up at her, their groans and moans filling up the silence of her dorm.

"Uhh… thanks?" She grasped her wand slowly, almost as if she didn't believe what she was seeing, and the messengers almost seemed pleased with themselves before going away.

Now definitely in shock, she just glanced at where the messengers had just been before a thudding downstairs broke her out of her stupor. She glanced up but noticed no one was there.

Her bed, however, was all messed up and with a few waves of her wand, it began to fix itself and she left once her area was once again tidy.

Neville, who had been waiting by the door, lit up when he saw her, and with that, the two of them began to make their way down to the lake once more.

Neville, who was currently once again knee-deep in the water of the black lake, held some sort of plant in his hand as he held a small book in the other, reading and muttering about.

Harry, who was watching him with an amused smile, sat propped up against a tree nearby and was fiddling with her wand as she thought about what had happened earlier.

She had thought that the messengers were stuck in Yharnam, but it seemed that whatever had happened to her, had come over to her world at Hogwarts as well. They had also grabbed her wand, seemingly storing it so that they could give it to her when needed. It made her question the nature of the messengers, but she was mainly glad that she had her wand back. Her scars were another thing as well. While they have been highlighted to her, and stood out across her skin, Neville had made no comment on them. So they either weren't there now, or were too faint for him to see unless he had been closer to her.

Her wand thrummed in her hand, seemingly realizing that she had been without it for quite some time. It made her think back to what Ollivander had told her when she first got her wand, that it chose the witch or wizard, not the other way around. It hadn't made sense to her then, but she now understood.

Whatever changes she had undergone due to her transfusion, she was now more sensitive to magic and her overall surroundings. It made her more attentive, and she was glad she was somewhat alone at the Black Lake, as it made for a quiet scenery, where she could simply enjoy herself, and not be overwhelmed by the noise of the Great Hall.

But it also brought up more questions.

If the changes that had affected her, as well as the messengers, were real, that meant Yharnam was real as well. In that case, how would she get back? Could she even go back? Did she want to go back? If she could go back, and did end up back in Yharnam, could she come back to Hogwarts?

It all made her head spin, and she was somewhat glad that Neville was more than content to just mess around with whatever plant he had brought down to the Black Lake, her thoughts and troubles going unnoticed as her friend stood in the shallows of the lake.

A branch cracking startled her out of her stupor, but it was just a rabbit. It had been hopping along, but when she whipped her head towards the hit, it had taken off in the opposite direction, running away.

She stood at that and watched as it hopped away, disappearing into a bush before stopping, seemingly unaware of her watchful gaze.

That was one good thing, she supposed. Along with her added strength, she found that her senses were increased tenfold; she could hear and see farther and more accurately than before, and she could tell when people were looking at her or when they were walking behind her. Her reflexes, which had been good before, now allowed her to anticipate things quicker than she had ever before, almost as if it was-

Her train of thought rapidly halted, and she remembered what she had been thinking about that day in the seventh-floor corridor.

"Desperately needing a way to defeat a dragon…"

Neville, who had been writing something down in the book he held in his hands, looked up at her curiously and spoke softly: "Did you say something, Harry?"

She watched as he cocked his head to the side, and figured it was worth a shot.

"Say, Neville, come help me check something out?"

The two of them made their way back to the seventh-floor corridor, and Neville trudged along with his odd plant in hand and bumped into Harry's back when she stopped in front of where she had found the door all that time ago.

In the place of that silver intricate door she had entered so long ago, now stood a blank stone wall, and she huffed irritably when nothing happened.

She let Neville sit down opposite the wall on a bench, and he began to mess with his plant and notebook as she stood there, hands on hips, wondering how she could that bloody door to come back.

"Uhhh… Harry? Not to be that guy, but.. what are we doing here? There's nothing here in this corridor." He glanced around somewhat nervously, before settling his gaze back to her.

She turned back to him and began to speak: "Before my.. accident, Neville, I was walking back from the library, when I was uhh… when I found a door. A giant silver door and I was um… trying to find it again, you see." She pursed her lips as he chuckled nervously, wringing his hands in his lap.

"Harry… they uhh, they found you on the third floor… that's what everyone said." He stood up again, looking as if he had found some unknown courage that was deep down within him.

"Everyone's been worried about you Harry… well, really just Hermione and I, but we're worried! You were… sick!" He seemed to be somewhat upset, and Harry made a way to put a hand on his shoulder, but he continued with his tirade, wanting to get his point across.

"And then now you're better, but you've been acting weird, and now you're talking about some… some strange door? There's no strange door on this corridor, Harry. Now, I need to-"

He had begun to make his way back to the stairs, to presumably the greenhouses, when he stopped dead in his tracks and stared behind her.

"-find a place to store my plant…"

She turned around triumphantly and watched as the familiar outline of the door began to emerge from the stone, dust falling around it as it presented itself against the plain stone where it had been hidden within. Its silver design decorating the wood it rested upon.

"It must open when you need it…"

She whipped around to see Neville staring slack-jawed, and she grabbed his arm and pushed inside.

"See! I told you so!"

At this, he snapped out of whatever daze he was in, and looked around, mystified by all of the piles of stuff that was surrounding the path they were walking on.

The room itself was largely the same, piles upon piles of items decorating its space, with small paths maneuvering through the piles. However, some things were different.

As opposed to the IV stand that had shown up in the room, the same one that had sealed her fate, was gone. Instead, in the small clearing where the IV stand had once rested, there was now a small table with multiple pots and bags resting upon it, and as the two Hogwarts students approached it, Neville broke out into a faster walk.

"Blimey Harry! These are… are magical pots, only sold to rich Pureblood families! And this fertilizer! It's super rare to get a hold of students, and Professor Sprout only lets the seventh-year students use it for their NEWTS! How… how is this possible?"

Neville, who had gotten out of his excited rambling, turned to Harry expectantly and she kind of shrugged.

"This is the room I was talking about Neville. I was coming back from the library and then… this door just opened."

Something in her tone must have given away that more had happened, but Neville didn't press anymore and instead just gathered up the supplies they had found, and looked around a bit more for other supplies. She let him wander off, content to let him satisfy his curiosity, and she also began to wander off, trying to find any hint or clue of the IV stand and the book she had found earlier.

This proved more difficult of a task than she thought, as the room just seemed to go on and on and on, and she doubted it was possible to fully explore the entire area in a day, much less in however long she and Neville were gonna be in there.

She continued walking along the stone makeshift paths and eventually found herself by a bird bath, one made of old stone and one that sat alone in a small opening, with nothing next to it.

Curiosity spiked somewhat, due to the sheer randomness of the sight, she slowly approached the stone structure and when she approached it, she found a strange blue fluid filling it when she stuck her hand out, she was pleasantly surprised to find a small grey hand sneaking out of the liquid, and barely didn't jump when a group of messengers poked out of the basin, moaning and groaning at her.

She looked backward towards where she thought Neville had been but looked back towards the messengers when they began pulling at her hand which was resting on the edge of the bowl. One dipped down once more, and she was shocked to find her worn trifold cap in its hands, when she pulled it out, she was amazed to find that it was her actual out from the outfit she had been wearing in Yharnam.

"You guys are amazing…"

They chittered and chirped at her, but when she gave them back that hat, they dropped it into wherever they were attached to, and they looked back up to her expectantly.

"Do you… do you guys have any books on Yharnam?"

One of the messengers dived again, and when he returned, it was with a large book, one caked in dried blood on the cover, but one that also seemed rather old.

The messengers, who carried it with no problem, stared as it sunk dramatically into her hands, its weight almost resulting in her dropping the bloody thing. She sat down once she had grabbed it again, sat with her back against the basin, and propped the book onto her legs.

"The… blimey, The Scourge Of The Beast? What a jolly name for a book…" She flipped it around a fair bit, inspecting it, but there was nothing. No author, nothing on the back. She opened the first page gently before Neville burst into view holding a rather large pot and his plant.

Harry, who was about to begin reading, shot up, holding the book in her arms and standing in front of the birdbath, shielding the messengers from his view. But he… didn't see them?

She knew they were still there because she could still feel them groaning and chittering behind her, but Neville made no notice of them and instead focused on her and her book.

"Geez, Harry. You're turning into Hermione…" He chuckled at that, before adjusting the pot in his hands, its weight causing him to shift his legs to better prop it up against his hip.

Harry, who had been waiting with a bated breath, felt herself involuntarily relax as Neville quipped at her, and began to walk towards him.

"Shut up, Neville." She joked back, and she cocked her head towards the exit and began to walk there when Neville stopped her.

"Huh… what an odd bird bath. My gran had one of these in her old garden… such an odd look." He slowly approached the basin, and Harry followed, trying to not act like she could see the odd grey creatures staring at her.

"Yeah… it is. My aunt has one in our backyard as well." Neville looked up to her at that, and then he shrugged, and turned around. He must have known she didn't like talking to her relatives, and took what she said as her way of asking them to leave.

Harry was glad he understood, and made her way back to the path to the exit of the building, before giving one last wistful look to the messengers, before turning around, and making her way out of the room.

The silence of the library was a welcome change from the sheer loudness from the Great Hall, and after breakfast, and after Charms class, Harry had taken her new found book and made her way to the library.

Madam Prince gave her a once over as she entered, and when she saw Harry's book, and that it wasn't stolen, she let Harry pass without a word.

The nook she had found was near the back of the library, offered her slight shelter from the people of the library, and she let herself begin to the read.

The book she had found, was more of a history book if anything in its first half, and a biology book in its second. The first half covered Yharnam, Old Yharnam, the sickness that the people had contracted and the hunts that resulted therein. Its second chapter, however, covered the beasts people would turn into and even had diagrams of said beasts.

However had written book was detailed, and was more than likely a Hunter. But all in all, it was an interesting read. She continued going over it, when a sudden thunk broke her out of her spell.

Hermione Granger, with a stack of books nearly the size of her torso, stood in front of her, hands on hips and gazing expectantly.

"If I had realized you were going to read, I would have brought these books here, and not to the library…"

"Uhh… sorry?" Harry winced at that, but Hermione just huffed and sat down, and began to spread out her books, one of them partially reading "Magical Creatures" on the binding, and she felt herself sigh.

"Hermione… come off it. I'm not gonna die, and if I lose in the tournament, then I lose. Victor Kris is the best Qudditch seeker in the world, and a skilled duelist at that. Same with Diggory to a lesser extent, but he's also good at Transfiguration. And Delacour is a master at Charms. What chance do I have against them?"

"But Harry! You can't just give up! I know you're a powerful wizard, and while they'll try not to let you die, people have died in the past due to this tournament! You're lucky it's a dragon, and not some other horrid beast like a Nundue…."

And with that, it was like a lightbulb went off in her head.

She sat up, shutting her book with a grin, and stared at her book. "The Scourge Of The Beast, ehh…" Hermione wrinkled her nose at the sight of her book, and she cocked her head at it.

"Harry, why can't I read your book? What language is that?"

Letting her hands come back over her book, Harry shot out the first excuse she could find. "Umm… Professor Moody gave it to me with a translation charm to help me with the tournament. When I met with him, y'know?"

Shrugging to herself and turning back to her book, Harry glanced back down to her book, and let herself revel in the epiphany that had washed over her: The dragon she was put up against was just that… a dragon. A powerful magical one at that, but it was still… a beast. And she, a Hunter.

She suddenly realized what the book had given her wasn't a curse, but a solution to her problem.

How to kill a dragon? A terrifying, fire breathing, claw crushing, teeth-sharp-as-knives beast? With a Hunter, of course…

Coarse paper that applies bolt to weapons when rubbed.

Invented by Archibald, the infamous eccentric of the Healing Church workshop. Artificially recreates the blue sparks that are said to surround darkbeasts.

Unlike the other strange weapons created by Archibald, this one was favored by many hunters, in particular those who had even once laid eyes on a darkbeast.

-text from item "bolt paper"

Hello! I apologize for the lateness and shortness of the update of this story, I've had a bit of a rough go of things lately with school, and just haven't felt all that motivated recently. However, I forced myself to write this chapter, and while I'm not entirely happy with it, I like how it turned out near the end, and hope you do as well! Also, I greatly appreciate the feedback you guys have been giving me, and I hope some things in this chapter answer some of your guys questions. Thanks!

P.S. plz rate and review

P.S.S i'm not Miyazaki or from soft or Rowling, so none of this belongs to me lol