Chapter 29 - Full spectrum
Yet, the next day brought him even more confusion. He had made it to breakfast, which apparently Petunia had prepared for once, and aside from some very worried looks from all three of the Dursleys, nobody had said anything. And even more importantly, he had been wrong. Vernon, despite still looking rather pale whenever his gaze would meet his sister's, seemed to be perfectly healthy otherwise. No signs of sickness, no vomiting, no nausea.
This had thrown Harry for a loop. Was it not the curse after all? But then, why had he gotten sick then? And why had the Dark Lord? This wasn't making any sense.
Their silent breakfast was cut short by the doorbell. Petunia made her way to open the door, yet the high-pitched shriek that resulted would indicate that someone out of the ordinary was at the door. Again. Harry put down the butter knife and carefully made his way to the hallway to get a look.
"Madam Pomfrey? What?"
"Mister Potter," she said with a warm smile, quickly bustling past his aunt and over to him. "How have you been? I see you're already out and about? So did the potions finally stick?"
Harry couldn't help but smile. "Yeah. It's been a lot better lately. I haven't thrown up in over a week..."
"That's good to hear! Would you please sit down over here for a moment, I'd like to check you over, just to make sure."
Harry nodded and moved over to the couch in the living room, and the healer followed quickly, put down a bag, retrieved an assortment of potions, and then withdrew her wand.
As she went through the motions of casting all the spells she usually had over their last month at school, the frown on her face seemed to visibly soften.
"Indeed. It seems the symptoms have finally lessened. I expect at this rate, by the time you return to Hogwarts, you won't be needing the potions anymore."
Harry couldn't help but smile. He really was finally getting better. But something still wasn't adding up.
"Uh... Madam Pomfrey?"
"Yes?"
"Do... you have any other ideas what it could be? I... well I thought it was this curse I was hit with... but well..." he glanced around nervously, "Now, I'm not so sure..."
The matron sighed and gave him a pitying look. "I'm sorry. As I said before, I think it unlikely to have been caused by any curse at all. If it was, it would have been something the likes of which we have never seen before. What curse were you talking about?"
Harry shrank and threw a glance over at Iris, who was listening with curiosity. He really didn't want her to find out like this...
Looking down on the ground in shame, he admitted weakly "Uh... it was... Depulso."
This caused a gasp from Iris and a frown from Madam Pomfrey. "Depulso? That's not a curse-"
"Not the normal spell, it was somehow twisted, dark, I don't know... It pressed me against the wall..."
Her eyebrows went up. "Oh. Well, yes, that would be a curse indeed. But also, I don't see how a curse like this could cause the symptoms you have been experiencing... Why didn't you say anything about this earlier?"
Harry shrank into himself and looked at the ground, pointedly not looking at Iris in shame.
"Uh... because... well, it was Iris. But, he was controlling her somehow! It wasn't her fault!"
Her eyes widened and she turned to look into the shocked expression of his sister.
"I suppose... if it really was him... He could make even a first-year do something like that... The thought alone..." she muttered to herself, clearly distraught.
Harry cut in, desperate to change the topic. "But you don't have any other ideas then? What else it could have been?"
Madam Pomfrey frowned again, and then sighed.
"Your illness is sadly as mysterious as ever. Well, with all the symptoms you've been experiencing, and with how we have been able to treat it..." she trailed off, staring to a place far in the distance.
"It almost sounds similar to something that came up during my healer's training in 1957. Back when the seers in Cumbria sounded the alarm, they had everyone attend emergency make-shift lessons. Thankfully, those were never needed."
Harry perked up, however, she continued with a frown. "But that's not what this is, I'm sure. It was a muggle sickness. Well, not even really a disease, per se..."
The matron pondered this for a moment, and continued her musing. "That sickness needs some very specific conditions to manifest. I really don't see any way it could have been caused at Hogwarts, of all places. Especially only in one student," she said, shaking her head.
Harry wanted to argue again, but she continued. "Put it out of your mind, Mister Potter. Even if we never figure out what it actually was, what is important is that you're back in good health, isn't it?"
~V~
Iris was once again riding around the plains aimlessly, mostly doing pointless quests, and chatting with Moo. She had tried her best to take her mind off things, but too many unsolved mysteries were occupying her thoughts. After checking up on Harry, Madam Pomfrey had accompanied them to Diagon Alley to do their shopping. Sadly, they hadn't run into any of their friends there. But they had run into someone else. Or more like, Harry had. And it had been none other than the bashful author of their questionable Defense books, who apparently also happened to be their new Defense teacher. And somehow, Harry had made the front page of the Daily Prophet from that encounter. She still had no idea what to think about that. Or her new Defense teacher in general. She supposed anything was better than a Dark Lord in disguise, but then again, from her first impression, that statement was likely to be tested in the coming year.
Thinking back to Harry, she frowned again. He had finally come clean about the dreams he had been having. Iris wasn't quite sure which was more worrying, the fact that Harry seemed to be having dreams as the Dark Lord, or the fact that he seemed to be planning on performing some sort of ritual to come back to life. And the biggest mystery was their strange shared sickness. It had to have something to do with what happened, it had started right after, and both of them apparently had eerily similar symptoms. Even if the Dark Lord's seemed to be even worse than Harry's. Well, that is, if Harry's dreams were actually well... real.
Whatever it was that had been ailing them both, she had a sinking feeling that it had something to do with her. Even if only for the fact that she didn't have any symptoms. And it also hadn't been her spell, as Harry had already pointed out, since Vernon had remained unaffected. But she had no idea where to start.
[Irisistible]: How are you supposed to figure out a problem when you have no idea where to even start looking?
[MOOnSpiraC]: Just Google it.
Iris blinked.
Well, if Pomfrey had been onto something and the origin really was in the Muggle world...
[MOOnSpiraC]: Just don't input anything that they can use against you.
Of course.
She minimized the game and opened Firefox, proudly displaying the logo of the search engine. But what on earth could she search for?
Well, how about the symptoms? She shrugged, and input vomiting, nausea, and after pondering for a few seconds, added hair-loss.
The results quickly came in, and she started looking through them. The major one seemed to be food poisoning. Well, that seemed unlikely. Neither of them had eaten anything while they had been there? Wait No, they had! Snape's potion! But she had taken that as well, and she didn't have any symptoms either...
Frowning, she kept looking. Another frequent one seemed to be drug interactions. But that was unlikely for the same reason. She kept looking, but other than the flu, diabetes, and other related conditions, she didn't find anything helpful at all. It seemed like this avenue of research was a dead end.
But maybe she was going about it the wrong way? Pomfrey had mentioned a sickness that had similar symptoms, as well as treatment. She had also claimed that it was all but impossible for that to be caused at Hogwarts. But she had already had her fair share of experience with impossible.
What else had she mentioned?
Well, something about seers in Cumbria.
Typing that into the search box only brought back a basic geography lesson, and tourist information. With what she had said, she guessed some sort of incident had happened there, so she added that as well.
This resulted in a load of newspaper reports about shootings, drug abuse, and other unrelated things. There had to be something here, but it still felt like she was missing something.
Hadn't she mentioned a date as well? Well, not really, she had only said that she had done her healers training back then, 195-something. She couldn't quite remember.
Shrugging, she typed in 1956.
And funnily enough, the first result was from 1957. She clicked it and a Wikipedia page opened up about something called Windscale, and a fire which had apparently happened there. What on earth could a fire have to do with-
Then she froze, as she read the first sentence.
The fire of October 10th, 1957, at Windscale (now called Sellafield) was the worst nuclear accident in the history of the United Kingdom, and one of the worst in the world, classified at level 5 out of 7 on the International Atomic Energy Agency's Disaster Scale.
A nuclear accident? Here, in the UK? What? She had only ever heard about the one in Chernobyl...
Apparently, some sort of runaway reaction had caused a fire; it wasn't a power plant like Chernobyl, but some sort of reactor that was used to build atomic bombs... She scrolled down and read a bit further.
Despite major opposition, the project's leader decided to have expensive air filtration equipment installed in the reactor's chimney just prior to the incident. During the fire the filters served to capture about 95% of the released airborne radioactive particles, and arguably saved most of northern England from becoming a nuclear wasteland.
Nuclear wasteland... Was that why the seers had warned about this? Because of what could have happened?
But as she kept looking, she couldn't find any reports of any sort of sickness. But, well, it looked like it had ended up being a lot less dangerous than it could have been, and Pomfrey even said that her training was never needed...
Scrolling further, she found a final section comparing it to similar incidents, which claimed that out of all the nuclear accidents, only Chernobyl produced any casualties. Well, yeah, she had of course heard about the infamous disaster, but she didn't really know much about it. Curious, she clicked the link leading towards the article on said topic. She scrolled through most of the article until she found a section labeled Human Impact.
And there it was. Acute Radiation Syndrome. Nausea, vomiting, and in some cases, even hair-loss. Well and apparently, also skin burns when it was really bad, but she hadn't noticed anything like that. The onset could be anywhere from within minutes, up to hours after exposure, depending on the severity. The article claimed that the reason for the illness was the destruction of large amounts of DNA. She didn't know much about that, but maybe that would explain why the healing potions didn't really work? Maybe they just... fixed the body... but not the DNA? The cells would keep dying, and the potions would keep fixing them, until they were replaced with healthy ones...
She had no idea if she was on the right track, but too many things just seemed to fit here. But it still left the major question of how.
Causes: Exposure to large amounts of ionizing radiation over a short period of time.
What in the world was ionizing radiation? She had of course heard of radiation in association with nuclear accidents and radioactive materials, but she didn't know much about it, except that it was, well, dangerous. Clicking on that link as well, quickly provided an answer. Ionizing radiation was the term for all types of radiation that was strong enough to... sort of knock electrons away from atoms? And apparently, that would somehow break molecules apart as well... was that how it was destroying DNA?
Looking through the page revealed that apparently there were four major types of ionizing radiation, Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Neutron? Who came up with these names?
Three of which were apparently very high energy particles of sorts, but she got curious reading the description of the Gamma one. This one was just electromagnetic radiation, and consisted of Gamma rays, X-rays and ultraviolet... light...
Her eyes got stuck on a picture displaying the whole electromagnetic spectrum, with the familiar section of all the colors of visible light being dead center. And the marked upper section of ionizing radiation was beginning dangerously close to the visible spectrum.
Slowly, a sinking feeling of dread started settling in her stomach. But it couldn't be that, could it?
She hadn't even used her light there, and it had never done anything like... like this.
But slowly, there was a memory niggling at the edge of her awareness. True, she hadn't used her light, at least not consciously. But there had been that moment, those dreadful seconds that had felt like hours. And she faintly recalled seeing colors while it happened. Now, she might have just imagined it, but thinking further, she remembered the same thing happen when Malfoy had cast the tickling jinx on her. And back then she'd been able to see it clearly. How her light had gone out of control.
Was it possible that the Cruciatus curse had somehow caused it to go even beyond what had happened then? Maybe even beyond the visible spectrum?
But that would mean-
She finally managed to tear her eyes away from the screen and threw a pained look over at Harry, who was lying on his bed.
It had been her fault after all.
~V~
After that revelation, Iris couldn't really find it within her to enjoy the rest of her summer. The Dursleys had stuck to their deal, and pretty much treated them as if they weren't even there, which was just fine with Iris. She had requisitioned the laptop for her and Harry's personal use, in order to keep chatting with Moo. But even that was only helping so much. At least, Harry was almost back to full health. She had no idea how she'd be handling the situation if he still was bedridden.
She had also finally admitted what had happened to Salem, if only to Moo. Of course, she hadn't said anything about the ritual, but after the tenth time of Moo asking after Salem, it had just slipped out that she had been run over. That little tidbit seemed to have put a damper on their conversations.
Therefore, Iris had spent most of the rest of that summer practicing spells, and reading ahead, for the lack of anything better to do. Of course, she was still exchanging letters with Tracey, Neville, Susan and Theo, but some part of her still felt apprehension about that. What would happen when they got back to Hogwarts? Should she even still be around them? Or would they even want to be, if they knew she was basically a walking nuclear disaster waiting to happen?
Some part of her wished she knew where she could get a Geiger counter or something, just so she could feel a little less uneasy about herself, and her light. But apparently, those things didn't grow on trees. So she was stuck feeling like she was walking on eggshells around Harry. Iris had kept the usage of her light to a minimum, only producing the exact colors whenever she needed to cast a spell for practice. And she had no idea how she'd handle it once she met her friends.
That was how she found herself now on platform nine and three-quarters, looking around in apprehension, both hoping that her friends would and wouldn't show up. Also, what was taking Harry so long?
Looking around the platform, Iris' gaze swept in a circle. He had been right behind her, before she had entered the barrier...
Oh. There he was. And apparently, accompanied by Ron.
"Hey, Iris!" said boy called out, as the two of them made their way over to her.
Unsure if she should be getting too close, she gave an awkward wave.
"How was your summer?" came the curious query.
He really was starting off with the easy questions, wasn't he?
"It was fine, I guess?"
That caused him to frown, but she cut off the inevitable reply. "What about you?"
"Oh, just the usual, really, mostly stuck at home with my brothers. And Ginny, I guess, whenever she wasn't at Looney's house."
"Iris!" came a shout from behind her, followed by something impacting her back.
A mop of brown hair passed into her vision as someone wrapped their arms around her and a familiar grinning face appeared on her shoulder. "You're so tall!" the brunette gushed, then added cheekily, "Well... taller, at least."
Iris squirmed awkwardly, both wanting to be as close and as far as possible. In the end she settled on a smile. "Hey, Tracey."
"Soo... what have you been up to?"
Yeah, those questions weren't getting any easier.
"Plotting to take over Slytherin house again, or just Magical Britain this time?"
Iris groaned. "Good to see you too, Theo."
Masterfully evading any further questions into topics better left untouched, she made her way onto the train and started looking for a compartment. Harry had decided to split from them, and had gone looking for Hermione. Iris was just fine with that, she had been seeing him pretty much 24/7 for the last two months anyway. After several entire train carts full of students and not a single empty compartment, she decided to give up and just pick the first one with some remaining space. And as luck would have it, the next compartment only contained two students, one of which was very familiar.
"Neville!" Iris said happily, "Want some company?"
"Hi Iris, Uh... sure?"
She smiled, and moved to take a seat next to him, and looked across at the other occupant of the room. At least this one seemed completely absorbed in her newspaper, not even noticing their entrance, so it was just as well.
Tracey followed into the compartment, and after stowing her trunk, eagerly plopped herself down next to Iris, and Theo shrugged and took a seat next to the unknown occupant. Said girl seemed to finally notice their presence, slowly lowered her upside-down magazine and silver-grey eyes found their way into Iris' gaze.
"Hello, Iris Potter."
Iris blinked. "Uh... hello?" Who was this strange blonde girl? Also, why did she know her name? Had they met somewhere?
Said girl gave her a shy smile, and then returned to reading her magazine the wrong way around. What was up with that?
At Iris' continued look of confusion, Neville spoke up. "This is Luna Lovegood. We're uhm... Well we met a few times as kids... Well, some years ago."
Nope, didn't ring a bell. Maybe she just knew about her because of Harry? Or maybe Neville had told her?
"So then. Let's talk about the summer!"
God damnit, Tracey! She had almost thought she had managed to evade that topic.
"It really was quite a dreadful summer, wasn't it?"
That about summed it up. Iris blinked at Luna in confusion. Was she going to elaborate on that?
Nope, apparently not. It seemed like the magazine was still more interesting than this conversation. Iris kind of wanted to have a copy herself now. She just hoped she could put off the topic of her conspicuously absent cat for a bit longer.
There was a sigh from the strange girl, and a faint mumble. "I really wish I could have met Salem..."
Iris froze in her seat. What. The. Fuck?
"Yeah, where is she?" asked Tracey in confusion.
Her mind was running in three directions at once, and Iris couldn't manage a single coherent thought. How did this girl know about Salem? No, worse, how did she know that something happened to her?
"How do you know about that?" Iris asked in a steely voice, barely restraining herself from doing- even she didn't know what.
The blonde just blinked at her, a look of confusion slowly taking over. "Well, you told me..."
Was this girl just insane?
Or... maybe... was she some kind of seer? Apparently, those were a thing, as she had learned...
The girl's confused look started shifting into a frown. "Or... was that..."
Was it something she had told her... in the future?
Luna shook herself and said "No, it is you, isn't it?"
Or maybe just insane. Iris raised an eyebrow. "Who?"
"Irisistible"
"What? How do you-"
The girl's eyes lit up.
Iris' mind performed an emergency shutdown, but didn't manage to reboot.
"Moo?!" No. fucking. way.
The girl grinned and nodded, her radish earrings dangling in front of her face.
"You're Moo? But you're-"
Nope, still wasn't rebooting. Luna just gave her a happy smile.
"But how? I... I mean you're a..."
"A what?" Luna asked with curiosity.
"A... girl?"
"Why yes, looks like I am. I'm glad you noticed, otherwise this might have become awkward."
Yeah, still nothing. Her brain simply refused to associate Moo with anything other than the image of the male Tauren hunter in her mind. The blonde looked at Theo and Tracey with a shifty look, then leaned forward, cupped a hand to her mouth, and whispered, "Don't tell anyone though. It's a secret."
Yup. Definitely Moo. She had no idea how she had ever doubted it.
They were interrupted by a snort coming from Theo. Iris turned to look at the boy, who was giving her the most gleeful of smirks.
"Irisistible?"
Iris could practically feel the color of her face eclipsing that of a tomato, even without the help of any mirror. She really had no idea what her nine-year-old brain had been thinking.
Burying her face in her hands, she tried her best to ignore the roiling laughter coming from his direction.
"I take it the two of you know each other?" interjected Tracey, holding back giggles of her own.
"...Yeah. We're... well, online friends, I guess..."
Tracey was looking between the two girls with disbelief. "Huh. How on earth did that happen?"
Luna just smiled and helpfully explained, "I asked the Nargles for a friend."
Iris just nodded, as if that had made perfect sense. "What are you talking about?"
"Well, sadly, they only like to trade. So I gave them my old friend in exchange."
This caused Iris to freeze up again.
"What do you mean?" asked Tracey in confusion.
Theo sighed. "You know that silly old tradition where kids would burn their plushies in hopes of luck with meeting new friends?"
"Oh, that, I've heard about that," Tracey replied with intrigue.
Luna just pouted. "I liked my explanation better."
Iris took a breath and could practically feel the tension ebb out of her again.
"Well, Luna, this is my friend Tracey, and that pillock next to you that likes to ruin everyone's fun is Theo."
"Smooth as always," assessed Theo.
"Nice to meet'cha!" chirped Tracey, eager to meet another one of Iris' rare friends.
Yeah, friends apparently, weren't they?
Iris turned back to Luna and gave her a sheepish look. "I guess we still have no idea how to make friends the normal way, huh?"
"You can say that again," chuckled Theo.
"The normal way sounds boring," agreed Luna sagely.
She guessed there was some truth to those words, as she looked from the blonde conspiracy nut turned gamer over to the piece of human snark that had taken her for a ride half the past year to become her friend without her realizing, across to the kind boy who's guilt she had grabbed and twisted around to bypass his low self-esteem in order to become friends, and finally over to the bubbly brunette she had almost trapped in the shadow realm on accident. She wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.
Not like she had Sabrina.