Brackium Emendo
Gilderoy Lockheart leaves a deep, damaging impression on Harry Potter.
CRACK. (hehehehe)
The portkey had stopped, and they'd landed in on a sort of lawn.
Harry Potter looked around the twilit graveyard, terrified. Well, and he had a splitting headache. Cedric Diggory was looking around "Do you think this is part of the task?" asked Cedric.
And a figure in a black robe came out of the fog up the hill, which coincided with Harry's headache getting worse.
"Kill the Spare," said a cold, high-pitched voice. The robed figure raised a wand, and Harry heard an enormous rushing wind sound, saw a flash of green light. And just like that, Cedric fell down dead, staring up lifelessly, looking surprised. Harry had no idea what to do, apart from casting a spell. Sadly, his red stunning spell didn't connect, and Harry saw another red spell heading towards him.
Various things happened after that that Harry, in hindsight, would rather not remember. Waking up tied to a statue of the angel of Death. Getting stabbed in the elbow. Voldemort, naked, standing up from the cauldron filled with glowing liquid. Cedric dead. The sight of Voldemort's privates. The intolerable existence of Peter Pettigrew, handless, then with a magical silver hand. The Death Eaters, including someone that was obviously Mr Malfoy. The random thought occurred to Harry that Draco's father didn't need to 'hear of this,' as he was right here.
And then Voldemort had to treat Harry like a puppet, in a farce of a duel. Every spell Harry cast, Voldemort, obviously, being possibly the evil-est Dark Lord ever, just idly deflected. If it hadn't been for the weird connection between their wands, Harry was quite sure he'd have died.
As it was, once he got back to Hogwarts, Moody turned out to be a fake, and nearly killed him.
But eventually Harry got to end the year, as usual, in the infirmary, dosed to the eyeballs on potions. He muzzily thought about medical spells. The only one he knew was Lockheart's useless Brackium Emendo, which just vanished the bones instead. And like another Horntail spike to the shoulder, it occurred to Harry that 'Brackium Emendo' might be quite useful in a fight, as nobody knew what on earth it did. And there was no risk of anyone asking Lockheart, who didn't even know his own name. At the next opportunity, thought Harry, he was going to use that spell in a fight. It was fairly safe – all anyone he cast it on would just need to do is take Skele-Grow overnight. Though, he wondered if it worked on any particular bone. Or on people without broken bones – he'd seen references to bone-breaking curses and those sounded like spells grown-ups used in serious fights.
Harry had a little time after getting out of the infirmary before needing to pack to catch the Hogwarts Express, so he took the opportunity to go see Hedwig. And the owl pellets on the floor of the Owlery gave him an idea. A quick 'Brackium Emendo' on an owl-pellet shrank it vastly. Removing all the bones, he suspected.
"Hello girl," said Harry to Hedwig, as cheerily as he could, and she blinked her golden eyes at him.
"I've been busy."
Hedwig put her head under her wing.
"It's end of term tomorrow," said Harry "Back to Privet drive again."
Hedwig barked, taking out her head from under her wing to glare at him.
"Yes, I don't like them either," admitted Harry.
"Prek," she barked curtly.
Harry took an owl-treat out of his robe pocket. An entire parliament of owls pivoted their heads to watch him closely.
"Here you go," said Harry, hand-feeding Hedwig. She chewed briefly and swallowed.
"Prek," she barked more softly.
"Lots of hunting," promised Harry. "Plenty of Owl food."
"Preeek?" barked Hedwig in what was definitely a question.
"I suppose you can owl-order owl food," agreed Harry. She blinked slowly.
"I'll um, go get some money?" asked Harry "You can drop it at Privet Drive?"
The resulting prek was quite derisive. Harry went off to get a galleon.
With a galleon in one claw, Hedwig flew off. I've just given my owl spending money, thought Harry. He considered that for a moment, and was fairly sure Owls matured a lot faster than people, and Hedwig was basically a full-grown owl. And not the sort to just buy owl-treats. She'd buy sensible owl-food. That gave him the idea of going to see the house-elves, because sensible food on the train would be… sensible. And he didn't really feel like eating sweets tomorrow on the train.
And Harry could not be blamed for testing Lockheart's spell out in the kitchen on the chicken drumstick in front of him. It was a bit floppy, but still quite edible. It occurred to Harry that casting this on someone's wand arm would… slow them down a lot.
And later that night, waking up sweating from the memory of Cedric dying, he imagined casting the spell at Peter Pettigrew's head. And felt immediately guilty.
Ron solved the 'Malfoy Problem' on the train by turning Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle into slugs. Harry wasn't sure human-sized slugs weren't disgusting, but at least Hermione levitated the slugs back to what was presumably (By the masses of expensive luggage) Malfoy's compartment.
Harry carefully cleaned up the slime by vanishing it. After all, it had come from Malfoy.
-=0=-
Harry had not expected to be taken off to Sirius Black's mysterious London house, but it happened after a couple of weeks of Dursleys, incommunicado at Privet drive. Sadly, Dudley found Harry's new 'hobby' of having screaming nightmares screamingly hilarious. "Oooh, Cedwic, Your boyfriend was it?" he'd giggle. Harry didn't want another Ministry trial, so Dudley didn't get hexed. Harry felt he was building up a vast mental boil filled with 'needing to hex someone.' And hypothetically was planning to hex Dudley once he turned seventeen.
Sirius was very interested in the strange spell interaction in the graveyard, Pettigrew's new hand, and everything about it. And had said privately "If I could, um, adopt you, We'd be out of the country quicker than you can say 'Bugger this.'" Harry nodded tiredly. He knew not to hope by now.
And the subject of Malfoy came up, and Ron told Sirius about the bone removal spell Harry had pointedly not used.
"Good that you didn't," said Sirius, and Harry wondered if that was what having an adult that cared was like. "I've never heard of it," said Sirius. "And I could fight with the best of them."
"It's um," said Hermione, "I think, it's a miscast medical charm."
"A charm?" asked Sirius, frowning. "Gotta try it out. After dinner, we'll see how it works on the leftover bones." Sirius waited, till after dinner, then cast it, and Sirius was left holding his wand and staring at the empty plate.
"That was… ridiculously easy," he remarked. "We'll need some more bones, and to do some tests."
"Tests?" asked Harry.
"Well if it's a charm, Salvio Hexia's not going to work on it," said Sirius "And does good old Protego?"
"The shield charm," said Hermione automatically.
"Salvio Hexia's for areas. You cast it beforehand" explained Sirius. "It's pretty advanced … NEWT level."
"Oh, Harry then," said Ron.
Four days of experiments with Mr (No longer Professor) Lupin's help and Harry was given a crash course in silent casting. "It's not a hex or curse, and you can already cast it. If you practice, starting on the train, you've got eight hours at least to have it down before you're at Hogwarts" said Sirius. "Because it goes through the basic shield charm like a hot knife through butter."
"Of course, we're not going to practice spells here," said Mr Lupin, "Because you are all under-age, and exploiting the unplottable, fidelius charmed location of this house as a loophole in the trace on underage magic users is absolutely not what you three are going to do. Oh, and I've heard there's chicken tonight, which great."
"Lots and lots of lovely bones," said Sirius.
"But chicken bones are bad for dogs," said Harry as earnestly as he could. Mr Lupin's teeth showed as he smiled.
"And um… my brother's old room on the top floor," said Sirius. "It's safe-ish, and importantly, I've said nobody at all, not even adults is to go in there. Ever. So… if you were in there, nobody'd know."
So Harry, Ron and Hermione practised a spell nobody knew, where nobody could see, and told nobody. Well, except Sirius and Remus.
Silent casting, thought Harry, was ridiculously hard to get right. He'd thought casting a Patronus charm was hard, but silent casting was… it was like trying to fly a broom without using your hands. Or knees, for that matter. His magic just... didn't know what to do. But eventually, summer came to a close.
Sirius gave Harry a little black, jingling bag to take with him shopping. Professor Dumbledore had arranged for Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt, who were both Aurors, and Mr Lupin, to accompany the Weasleys shopping. Tonks was hanging around Ginny, and Harry distinctly suspected some of the wand motions Tonks did were charms to detect curses; but of course Tonks was silent casting, because she was an Auror. And Harry felt pleased that someone was making sure Ginny didn't get another cursed object. They group split up, of course, and when Tonks and Ginny came back, Tonks and Ginny were carrying parcels and laughing. Harry felt deeply disturbed by that. But, he did have new shoes, socks, pants and clothes. Sirius had let Kreacher steal most of Harry's clothes as cleaning cloths. Harry wasn't sure that didn't count as abuse, but he simply refused to buy poncy clothes, space-expanded trunks, or anything that looked like the stuff Malfoy and the Slytherins got around in. He and Mr Lupin bought quite advanced defence textbooks, of course. And books of curses, which were just for Defence. Well, and maybe if he met Death Eaters again.
Tonks had apparated away from Platform nine and three quarters and come back with a cardboard fruit-box full of bacon and egg baps in paper bags, to eat on the train. 'My treat.' she said.
Harry got Ron's corned beef sandwich. Life, he thought, was looking up, though it was pouring down raining when the Express pulled into Hogsmeade, and everyone got wet on the way to the carriages, and into Hogwarts's front doors. And some absolute plonker had given Peeves water-balloons, so the front hallway was wet mayhem. Harry suspected the twins had done it to bribe him.
There was, obviously, a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. A witch in a pink-twinset who gave an incredibly long-winded speech that Harry ignored immediately.
…
Their first Defence Against the Darks arts class started badly.
"And Harry Potter, who, as we all know, has mental problems and had been telling the most atrocious lies" she said.
It made, he thought, Snape's 'Our new Celebrity' remark look affectionate, even if that thought was mildly nauseating.
And then it transpired that they were going to be reading the pointless textbook in class, with no practicals. Harry, Tonks and Mr Lupin had looked at the textbook and determined … well, guessed wrong, thought Harry, that the new teacher was going to have a 'better than textbook' handout every class, and use the book as a source of stuff about when NOT to use magic. Instead it looked like the stupid cow thought you could negotiate or run away. Harry had to give running away a few points in its favour, but waiting for the Aurors hadn't exactly worked out for his family, or him.
And for some reason, Umbridge intentionally goaded him in class about lying. Harry let it slide, till she turned her back.
Harry cast the spell silently at the utterly useless, revolting, vile, pink, excuse for a teacher. And Umbridge turned hastily to face the class, her mouth gaping open. Not having a jawbone would do that, thought Harry, managing not to smile. She lifted her wand, and Harry cast again, his wand under his desk – and her wand fell to the floor, Umbridge's right arm now little more than a bloated pink sausage.
And watching her panic, and then fail to open the door with her left hand multiple times had even the Slytherin's laughing.
"Harry, Mate," said Ron quietly, "That was a … brilliant coincidence, that had nothing to do with us."
It was obvious, in hindsight, that Umbridge would escalate to having a Dementor in the classroom, following her around by their next lesson. Which seemed a waste of a Dementor, as she sucked all the joy out of life as it was.
But rather than cast a Patronus, Harry waggled his wand, and watched the hood of the Dementor collapse. The awful feeling of misery started to fade, and the room felt less cold.
The Dementor floated over to the nearest window, and struggled with the latches.
"Don't you dare run away, you filthy …. thing!" said Umbridge, her face flushing unflatteringly.
The Dementor got the window open, and floated out, headed away from Hogwarts, away from Umbridge's increasingly maddened ranting at it.
Harry was firstly, ecstatic that it worked on Dementors. Though, he would have thought not having a skull would have killed it. It clearly wasn't keen on the state of affairs, though. They did breathe, thought Harry, you could hear their rasping breath. Next time, he mused, he'd try the breastbone. He wondered if Umbridge needed another day W.O.J. (With Out Jaw.) But apparently Umbridge's yelling had finally got on Hermione's wick enough, and she beat him to it. Umbridge banged a long ruler on the desk loudly, evidently wanting quiet, till she accidentally lost the bones in her right arm again. Ron elbowed him smugly, and Harry felt proud his mate had finally got the spell silently.
That night, on the way back to the Gryffindor common room Ron remarked "Pity it doesn't do anything to spiders."
"Well of course not they don't have Bones" said Hermione, "They have an exoskeleton."
"Shh," said Harry.
At breakfast they discovered Umbridge had fled overnight, as she grew back her jawbone for the second time.
Professor Dumbledore went u pto the podium to give a speech, and he was clearly not impressed.
"And I have to say that maliciously casting spells on Teaching staff is utterly against the rules of Hogwarts."
"She wasn't Teaching," shouted Fred.
Harry judged that by the way Fred didn't trigger an immediate points-loss, that Umbridge leaving hadn't upset Dumbledore that much.
Harry got a letter from Sirius a few days into the second week of term.
'Harry,
Have discovered fantastic use of your little spell.
Cast it on Moony as the moon rose this weekend. No limb bones to break and reform, he just grew wolf bones relatively painlessly. Didn't attempt skull or chest, but Moony remarked the next day that most of the bones in the human body are in the arms and legs anyway.
Heard a rumour that Dolores Umbridge has fled Hogwarts. Something about bones going missing?
You're getting adopted if I have to bribe Moony to go file the paperwork with an actual sack of bribe money. Brilliant prank, horrible, horrible person, she's a complete bitch about Werewolves.
Your loving hopefully soon to be parent,
Sirius Ozymandias Black.'
Harry's chest felt too tight all of a sudden, and his eyes prickled with … allergies of course.
The replacement Government-Appointed Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher was none other than Percy Weasley. 'Professor Weasley' handed out copies of bound hand-written notes to everyone in class.
"These," said Percy stiffly, "Are my notes from fifth year. I achieved an O in Defence Against The Dark Arts, and I will expect you to have read these notes by the end of the month."
Percy, naturally, was actually quite annoying. But Percy's notes were good, and they did learn spells.
So, as a fair trade, Percy got to keep all his bones, decided Harry.
There was a little muddle during the OWL History of Magic exam, and Harry had to go rescue Sirius. In other words, Voldemort had got his timing out by a few days, thought Harry. He usually avoided messing up exams.
And… it was a trap. However, Harry had a trick up his sleeve, well wand. Lucius Malfoy's head collapsed, and he fell over. Ron blasting-cursed the shelf of glass balls, and mayhem began.
Bellatrix LeStrange's head collapsed, and she fell. Harry felt quite gratified, and decided that Death Eaters could all bite one.
There was a running battle, and the Order of Phoenix arrived in time to prevent it being a massacre.
The Order stood in the underground Auditorium, looking at the masses of fallen Death Eaters.
It was Hermione that asked "Isn't that the fabled 'Death Arch?'?" Harry could hear it whispering.
"Don't go near it," said Tonks.
"As … Tonks said," said Professor Dumbledore "Do not approach the arch – anything or anyone that passes through it is lost forever."
"Wingardium Leviousa," cast Neville, and Bellatrix LeStrange's … possibly not dead body floated up off the floor, then drifted gently through the arch. She faded away to nothingness before their eyes.
Luna, Ginny, Ron and Hermione all started levitating Death Eaters through the arch.
"ChildREN!" said Professor Dumbledore loudly, "You cannot just … dispose of badly injured enemies through the Death Arch! They deserve medical care, and a Trial."
"I never got a trial," said Sirius, casting some spell on of the dark-haired wizard that lifted him by one ankle and dangled him upside down "Bye bye Roddy," said Sirius, and with a flick of Sirius's wand, the Death Eater called 'Roddy' shot through the arch upside-down, his pants showing.
Tonks cast a spell on one of the other Death Eaters "Nah, he's dead" said Tonks, and with a flick, the dead Death Eater shot across the room, clipped the side of the arch and fell in spinning, with miles of english, and faded away.
Everyone mostly ignored Professor Dumbledore at that point and cleaned up the mess.
The room was pretty much clear, and Tonks had healed up Neville's leg, when Harry's scar suddenly hurt like he was being stabbed in it.
"OWWW!" Harry yelped, clutching his head, "He's COMING!"
And with a dramatic bang, the doors on the lower level of the underground amphitheatre blew open, and Voldemort strode in, cape billowing.
Harry distinctly suspected Voldemort pinched Snape's spell to do that. He hadn't been able to do it at the Graveyard.
Harry gritted his teeth and stood up straight, wand ready.
"Tom," said Professor Dumbledore, casting a massive shield to protect everyone. And that gave Harry an idea.
'Brackium Emedno!' Harry thought, and willed Voldemort's skull to be healed. His head collapsed into a floppy blob, and Voldemort fell over. Harry's headache immediately got much better, and Harry instantly knew it had been the right thing to do. It practically cured his headache, for one thing. Side effects? Who sodding cares.
"What!" said Professor Dumbledore, in a tone that reminded Harry instantly of Aunt Petunia being cross. He had to do something quickly.
Harry cast Wingardium Leviosa on Voldemort, who dropped his wand, obviously. Floating Voldemort looked perfect for the arch to Harry.
"HARRY NO!" shouted Professor Dumbledore, but for some reason ( perhaps the urge to Parent?) Sirius started casting spells at Professor Dumbledore that firstly, tied his beard around his eyes, and then started changing his robe colours.
Harry had to force himself to concentrate on the task in hand, and in the scant moments Sirius had bought him, slid floating Voldemort into the Death Arch, which seemed like a good idea.
The way his scar started to feel like someone was trying to pull his forehead off immediately told Harry that was in fact, a bad idea. He started skidding across the floor in his good shoes, and would have fallen over if he hadn't had amazing balance.
After the pulling on his head stopped, peaking at 'reminds me of the time I got hit by a dragon tail' , Harry fell backwards. Painfully.
"Oh god," exclaimed Hermione, staring at his head.
"That's not good," Ron added, looking paler than normal.
"What?" asked Harry, as the pain was fading, and his forehead felt cool, almost tickling like it was wet or something.
And then there was a red splotch in his glasses. There was a flash of red light, then nothingness.
Anyway, by the time Harry woke up in a bed at Grimmauld place, a lot of important or rich or just barely got off in trials in the last war people, went missing over summer, and Voldemort and his Death Eaters seemed to be keeping a low profile.
Harry had to keep the turban-like bandage on his head for weeks, and the twins stammered around him.
And someone brought Gildeory Lockheart, long term patient at St Mugno's, a Honeydukes 'Eat till you puke' subscription, so he had so many sweets, the Healers were quite concerned he'd suffer long-term damage. Mr Lockheart, on the other hand, evidently said, "I like sweets." Which was quite coherent for him.
Oh, and Harry's scar healed up a bit.
So as the old saying goes, 'Least said, soonest mended.'