"...T-There's no pulse,"
The words repeatedly echoed inside Harry's mind but he refused to accept them. He could not accept them. Ron has got to be wrong. He must have made a mistake... he must have...
"Harry?" Neville slid down to kneel beside Ron and asked gingerly with a confused look on his face, "Harry... Was dat man — was Sirius Black a — a friend of yours?"
Harry just woodenly nodded his head, while Ron quietly said, "H-He was Harry's Godfather..."
"Oh...I'b really sorry—" Neville started to offer his condolence but halfway through, the words died in his throat when he noticed something shocking, "D-Dumbledore!"
All three of them looked up to realise that at some point in time, Dumbledore had entered the room, stopping almost all the fights just with his presence.
The startled Death Eaters screamed and immediately scrambled up the stairs to flee the room, knowing that the fight was done for with his arrival.
But Harry felt no relief while looking at the Headmaster's familiar visage... instead, the only thing he felt was emptiness and anger... anger that he was too late... if only he had arrived a little earlier...just a little earlier... then maybe...
"Move! Let me see!" Remus abruptly intervened amidst them while roughly shoving Neville aside to get to Sirius, and then frantically began waving his wand over Sirius.
Hope once again began to rise inside Harry's chest at that, 'Surely, Remus will tell Ron that he's wrong, that Sirius is just unconscious, that he's not...'
The spell Remus was casting was somewhat familiar to Harry as he had seen Madam Pomfrey cast the same one many times in the Hospital wing.
It was a spell meant to show the main vitals of a patient, to show how much blood they had and if they needed any blood replenishers and things like that... But Remus was casting it all wrong... it was supposed to show green numbers... N-Not Red...
"W-What is it, Remus? What is wrong with Sirius?" Harry asked anxiously when Remus suddenly stopped casting with a devastated look on his face.
Remus quietly shook his head instead of answering and then his eyes wavered before he began casting the spell again... and again... but the result remained the same.
"H-He's gone..." he let out with a pained expression on his face as his wand hand fell down powerlessly beside him.
'No, No, NO! It can't be true...' Harry screamed internally in anguish with a look of despair on his face. 'It can't happen again... I can't have lost my only family in this world... I can't be all alone once again...'
Harry couldn't even bear to look at Sirius's face when it was so empty... so he tightly closed his eyes but it didn't help as he could still vividly see the last expression on Sirius's face as if it had been stamped inside his mind, he could remember the mangled look of fear and surprise on his Godfather's wasted once handsome face when the spell had hit him...
Dumbledore was rounding up the rest of the Death Eaters in the background and had most of them grouped together in the middle as if immobilized by invisible ropes.
But it didn't matter to Harry... to him, it was all pointless... because Sirius was gone...
There was a loud bang and a yell from behind the dais, and all of them looked back to see Kingsley, yelling in pain, hit the ground.
Bellatrix turned tail and ran as Dumbledore whipped around. He aimed a spell at her but she deflected it. She was halfway up when Harry abruptly jumped up and ran after, "Harry—No!"
"SHE KILLED SIRIUS!" bellowed Harry. "SHE KILLED HIM— I'LL KILL HER!" And he was off, scrambling up the stone benches.
"Harry! Stop—" Ron shouted along with the others but while Remus had taken off after Harry, Ron didn't as he was suddenly distracted by a blinking red exclamation in the corner of his vision.
He looked up to see that it was the quest alert notification from before and when he focused on it, it expanded to become the earlier window.
[Quest: Save Sirius]
[Status: Ongoing]
'Why... Why is it still here?' Ron thought with a perplexed look on his face. He was unable to understand why the quest was still showing an Ongoing status when Sirius clearly had no pulse in him, which even Remus's spell verified.
Neville was confused by Ron's sudden vacant gaze wondering if the brain was still having an effect on him, when he suddenly noticed that Remus had come back into the room... but he was alone...
"P-Probbessor?! Whad aboud Harry?"
"D-Dumbledore went after him. He should be fine." Remus said quietly before coming to stand behind Ron silently.
There were a few moments of silence before Kingsley appeared behind Remus while holding onto a wound on his arm, courtesy of Bellatrix.
"Dumbledore gave me some Portkeys before he left so I've already sent Mad-Eye and Tonks to St. Mungos," Kinsley supplied quietly to Remus who just nodded in reply, "Is there... is there any chance for Sirius..."
Remus just shook his head and whispered, "I-It was Bellatrix's Heart Stopping spell, so..." his voice sounded as though every word was causing him pain.
"Oh..." Kingsley said before lowering his head sadly, he knew about that infamous Dark Spell that kills you the moment it hits you, "T-Then we should move his body before—"
"W-Wait! What did you say?" Ron abruptly turned around and interrupted them while looking at Remus with a shocked look on his face, "D-Did you just say the Heart-Stopping spell? A spell that just stops the heart?!"
Remus was confused by Ron's sudden outburst but was just too exhausted to question him so he just nodded his head.
'So that's why...' Ron's face lit up with an enlightened expression as his eyes went back towards Sirius's prone form. 'If it's just his heart that has stopped then... then maybe there's still hope...'
Maybe in the wizarding world, they consider it over once your heart stops... but in the muggle world, it's not over... until you're broke.
There was no time to muse about it, so Ron immediately went to work and turned his thoughts into action.
While he knew that it would be better for Sirius if there was a defibrillator here, but there wasn't and neither was there any time to get it, so Ron did the only thing he could...
He placed his hands, one atop the other, on Sirius's chest and started pumping up and down in a rhythm while singing a song.
"Uh-Uh-Uh-Uh... Staying Alive... Staying Alive..."
Sam had never taken any proper training on how to perform CPR, and the only place he had even seen it being performed was on TV series online.
The scene which immediately came to his mind was the one belonging to a comedy series he had watched many many times, in which the office manager calls a professional to teach them CPR, and the professional shares this trick of pumping the chest with the rhythm of this song.
Ron just hoped for Sirius's sake that the show in Sam's memories wasn't joking about this particular trick...
"W-What... What is he doing?" Kingsley asked in a bewildered tone, as he watched the youngest Weasley boy jump up and down on top of Sirius's dead body as if he was trying to break all of his chest ribs, "Is he mad?"
"I-I thinb dhad maybe dhe brain thingy is sdill affecding hib..." Neville said hesitatingly before he raised his hand to stop Ron from dancing on Sirius Black's dead body.
"Wait!" Remus shouted abruptly stopping Neville in his tracks, "D-Don't interrupt him!"
"Remus?!" Kingsley asked as he turned to look at Remus with a strange expression on his face, "Do you know what he is doing?"
"I-I think it's a muggle healer thing..." Remus replied in an uncertain tone, "I've heard about it from some of my muggle-born friends... I-It's supposed to help restart the heart...I think..."
"Really?! Muggles can revive people," Kingsley asked in a bewildered tone before turning back to Ron who hadn't stopped pumping or... singing for a single second since the beginning, "But is this really..."
It wouldn't have been so weird if Ron wasn't also singing a merry song along with his procedure because adding the song...
"Uh-Uh-Uh-Uh... Staying Alive... Staying Alive..."
... adding the song just made it seem like a strange superstitious ritual to Kingsley and the others.
"I... don't know..." Remus was also getting sceptical by now but just as he was about to intervene something happened... something that they weren't expecting but were hoping dearly for...
"ARGH—" Sirius's eyes abruptly flew open, making Neville scream and scaring the crap out of him.
"Hu-hu-hu..." Ron immediately raised Sirius's head when he saw him struggling to breathe. Sirius rapidly inhaled and exhaled as his dazed eyes took in the people around him.
"Sirius?!" Remus and Kingsley finally shook off their shock and shouted simultaneously while dropping to their knees before Sirus's head.
"Har..ry...whe..where's...Harry..." Sirius managed to ask in a barely audible voice.
"He's alright, Sirius. He's alive, but you need to keep your eyes—" Ron replied quickly but before he could get out more than a few words, Sirius's eyes abruptly rolled back upwards and his head tilted sideways.
"SIRIUS!"
"It's fine, it's fine," Ron said hurriedly in reply to Remus's scream after placing his fingers on Sirius's neck, "There's a pulse, and he is still breathing... he just fell unconscious..."
Remus sighed in relief at that, but he still raised his wand and cast the same vital check spell again just to be sure and even though he had somewhat expected it, he was still astonished to see the numbers come out in a green light, "H-He is really alirght..." he said in a stunned tone.
"This... this is just miraculous..." Kingsley said in a similar tone to Remus while looking at Ron in awe. As an Auror, he had come various shocks in his long life but this... this one took the crown, "How did you even—"
"The questions can come later, " Ron abruptly cut off the Auror's question, "Sirius was dead just a few seconds ago and his pulse is very weak at the moment so he needs a healer... urgently!"
"O-Of course. You're right! I'll send him to Mungos immediately," Kingsley said while taking out a portkey from his pocket.
"No, Don't!" Remus shouted urgently stopping Kingsley from touching Sirius with the portkey at the last moment, "He is still a wanted man, we can't risk taking him to St. Mungos."
"Shit! I forgot about that," Kingsley cursed at himself while taking back the portkey and suggesting, "Hogwarts then?"
"No, I think it would be better if you take him somewhere more discrete...to the Tonks's house perhaps," Remus said hurriedly while getting to his feet, "Ted will let you in, while I will try and get Andromeda back from Mungos as soon as I can. She'll know what to do."
Andromeda Tonks nee Black currently worked as a senior healer at St. Mungos, and while she wasn't in the know yet about her cousin's innocence, Sirius had been working on rectifying that with Dora and Dumbledore, for the last few weeks... And Remus felt, that now was the perfect time to reunite these long-separated relatives.
"I am on it," Kingsley nodded his head and then without saying anything else he took Sirius in his arms and Disapparated from the room with a crack.
"Ron, Neville, I am very sorry but can you get back on your own..." Remus asked distractedly while taking out a small piece of green rock from his inner pocket.
"We can," Ron replied immediately while getting up.
"Great," He said hurriedly while handing Ron the rock in his hands, "This is a portkey created by Dumbledore and it should take you straight to the Hospital wing, you just need to touch your wand on it and say "Pomfrey,"... Do you understand?"
"Got it." Ron nodded while taking the rock from Remus's hand.
"Good! now you need to hurry and round up the others and leave while the wards around here are still down," Remus explained hurriedly, "And Ron, I can't thank you enough for what you—"
"Go, Professor. We'll talk later."
"Thank you," he repeated before taking a step back and Disapparating just like Kingsley.
Finally, the only ones left behind were the two Gryffindors, Ron and Neville... Oh and of course the half dozen bound Death Eaters.
"R-Rob! W-Whad do be do wid dem," Neville asked while pointing a shaking finger towards the unconscious Death Eaters.
"Oh! We can just leave them as is... unless you want to off some of them..." Ron said with a meaningful look while making a slashing gesture at his throat, "Because if you do, I promise not to tell on you..."
"W-W-Whad?!" Neville asked with a horrified look on his face while backing a few steps away from Ron in fear.
"Haha, I'm joking, of course," Ron said while waving his hand with a chuckle but Neville didn't laugh or even so much as twitch his lips.
It seems Sam's flavour of sarcasm wouldn't be popular among the wizarding folks of this world.
"Ahem! The Aurors should be down here any moment now, so we can just leave them alone," Ron said before hurriedly changing the subject, "Anyway, can you move on your own? Because we should get to the others and leave before anything unexpected happens..."
"Y-Yes, I can walk..."
"Let's go then."
Both of them began climbing the steep steps back towards the revolving door room, and while they were doing that Ron finally got the time to check the system notification that he had been ignoring until now.
[Quest: Save Sirius]
[Status: Complete]
[Reward: Stats +2, Exp +300]
'Oh, that's not too bad..' Ron mused internally. He didn't really save Sirius for the sake of rewards... but it felt good to get it nonetheless. 'Now let's check the Status...' But they reached the brain room before he could do that.
Ginny vigilantly looked up at the sounds of footsteps but then immediately lowered her wand when she saw who they were. She instantly frowned when she noticed that only two of them had returned, "Where's Harry?"
"He wend afder Belladrix..." Neville replied helpfully making Ron roll his eyes at his unnecessary honesty.
"What?! T-Then we need—"
"Don't worry, Ginny. He'll be fine."
"How can he be fine—"
"Because Dumbledore is with him," Ron said simply, which immediately took all the wind out of her sail.
"Oh..."
"Yeah, so we don't need to be worried about him...but I can't say the same about Luna and Hermione," he said while pointing towards their friends who were still unconscious, "They need to get to the Hospital wing as soon as possible, so..." he took out the portkey and said, "Let's go."
Not wasting any more time, all of them huddled around each other with Ron carrying Hermione and Neville, Luna.
After making sure that everyone was in touch, Ron immediately activated the portkey, "Pomfrey!"
And the five teenagers disappeared in a swirl from the Department of Mysteries as if they had never been there.
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