Chapter 14
AN: Hope you like this chapter. Sorry I've had a very busy few days.
Knowing she cannot dwell on her guilt Mie, even though she is on the ground sends a spell through the destroy door and towards Cabot, but he blocks it.
"We've got to keep it to the classroom, we can't let him go," Mie says, and both Lily and Remus nod.
"Is that you Miss Dumbledore?" Professor Cabot asks. "Do you really think I would leave my belongings unprotected?" Professor Cabot asks and Mie curses herself as she should have thought of that but she was so focused on finding proof.
"I'm going to draw his attention to me, distract him, as I do that you two stun him, I think he thinks I'm the only one here," Mie tells Lily and Remus and before either can stop her, which is exactly what they are going to do because her plan is incredibly dangerous, Mie gets up and runs through the destroyed door, leaping over the railing on the platform above the classroom and landing on the ground, using a shield charm as she goes to protect herself against any spells Cabot may cast, an due to her shield charm being so strong it also protects her from the fall.
"Well, there is certainly more to you than meets the eye," Professor Cabot tells Mie as she gets back to her feet, having landed in a heap.
"You have no idea," Mie responds, ignoring the aches she is feeling, lowing her shield charm so she can send a couple of offensive spells at Cabot, but he manages to block and doge them, sending his own spells back at Mie.
As Mie was expecting she blocks the spells, and a split second later she sends offensive spells back at Cabot, which he is able to block, but it is clear that Cabot is annoyed with her.
"CRUCIO!" Professor Cabot yells furiously, and before she can block it, Mie feels the pain she is very familiar with, but she soon realises that the pain a lot less than the pain she felt when Bellatrix used the spell on her.
"NO!" A voice Mie thinks belong so Sirius, but she isn't sure as she is trying so hard to push out the pain, and stop screaming, but seconds later the pain stops as Cabot is hit by a couple of stunning spells.
As soon as Cabot is stunned the spell on Mie is broken so she collapses to the ground.
"Mie," Remus says as he and Sirius rush to her side while Marlene and Lily hurry over to Cabot.
"Are you okay?" Sirius asks worried, as Mie pushes herself up so that she isn't lying on the ground, but rather on her knees.
"I think so," Mie answers, feeling the feelings aftermath of the Cruciatus, the feeling that her nerves are working on overdrive, as Marlene takes Cabot's wand.
"He's alive, our multiple spells just knocked him out," Lily says as Sirius and Remus help Mie to her feet, and with her hands shaking a little Mie casts a spell that causes Cabot to be tied in chains.
"Thanks," Mie says to Sirius and Remus, both looking concerned as they saw the way her hand shook, something which neither have ever seen in the time they have known Mie. "I need to get my dad, you should stay here," Mie says, moving away from Sirius and Remus and taking a few steps and it is clear that she is unsteady on her feet.
"You can't go alone, Mie, you're not okay," Lily says worried, not surprised that the spell seems to have had such an effect on Mie considering everything she's been through.
"And we can't leave him alone," Mie argues.
"I'll come with you," Marlene offers. "Remus, Sirius, and Lily can stay with Cabot," Marlene explains, realising that Mie isn't going to be stopped.
"Okay," Mie says. "We'll have to be quick," Mie says to Marlene.
"Of course," Marlene says and because Mie won't admit that she's not okay Marlene links arms with Mie and helps her without saying a word.
By walking as quickly as Mie can manage at the moment, which admittedly she is only able to do because she is leaning on Marlene, Mie and Marlene get to the great hall within a few minutes. Once they get to the hall Mie makes it seem like she isn't leaning on Marlene as they make their way up to the head table.
"Dad," Mie says as she walks, struggling a lot, to where her father is sitting.
"Annemie? What's wrong?" Albus asks concerned, noticing the way she is acting, and realising that something is wrong.
"Professor Cabot is a Death Eater," Mie reveals, knowing that there is no point beating around the bush, and several teaches who are around Albus gasp.
"Are you sure?" Minerva asks concerned.
"Positive," Mie answers. "He's unconscious in the Dark Arts classroom," Mie explain, looking at her father. "I've changed him up and Lily, Sirius, and Remus are with him," Mie explains.
"Keep the students here until I get back, Minerva, I need you to come with me," Albus instructs. "Everyone else should stay here," Albus says, looking at the other teachers, several of whom nod.
"Madam Pomfrey should come to," Marlene says. "Cabot is unconscious, and Mie needs medical attention," Marlene says, being sure that her friend isn't' going to mention it, a suspicion that is confirmed when Mie glares at her.
"Annemie? What happened?" Albus asks worried, looking her up and down for signs of injury.
"I'll tell you later," Mie tells her father.
"Mie!" Marlene objects, feeling that that is a very bad idea as Mie is clearly so far from okay.
"Right now, we need to deal with Cabot," Mie says, speaking over Marlene, as while she is far from okay she knows they have deal with Cabot before she gets Madam Pomfrey to have a look at her. "Dad, please," Mie tells her father, trying to tell him that she doesn't want to talk about it right now, and that they have bigger things to focus on. "Please," Mie says, her voice almost begging as she looks directly at her father, and Albus gives a small nod before standing up.
As soon as Albus stands up the school, who have been clearly watching, become silent.
"There has been a security incident involving Professor Cabot, I must ask that you remain in the hall until further notice," Albus says. "Minerva, Poppy," Albus says and the three teachers, Marlene, and Mie head out of the hall.
As they leave the hall Marlene looks at the other seventh year Gryffindors and mouths, 'I'm okay', while Mie looks at Regulus and without saying a word, or gesturing too much, tells him that she is okay, but she can tell that he is worried.
"I'm worried about you," Marlene tells Mie as they make their way out of the hall behind Albus, Minerva, and Poppy.
"I've been worse," Mie says, though she does continue to lean on Marlene.
"There's a whole lot more to you than meets the eye, isn't there?" Marlene asks Mie, trying to figure her out.
"You can say that," Mie tells Marlene. "We need to walk faster," Mie realises as Albus, Minerva, and Poppy are walking fast.
"Are you able to do that?" Marlene asks concerned.
"Let's find out," Mie responds, and she tries to walk faster, leaning on Marlene a little more.
A little while after they left the great hall Mie, Marlene, Albus, Minerva and Poppy walk into the defence against the dark arts classroom where Lily, Remus, and Sirius are standing around Professor Cabot who is unconscious.
"Are you all alright?" Minerva asks the students.
"Mie was the only one of us hurt," Sirius explains. "Cabot was hit with multiple stunners," Sirius explains.
"Poppy," Albus says, and Poppy waves her wand over Cabot, casting a spell.
"He's unconscious but unhurt," Poppy explains.
"What happened? How did you know he was a Death Eater?" Albus asks, looking between his daughter and the students.
"We have Defence yesterday and today and I found his actions and the way he would interact with me strange," Mie explains. "Today's lessons we did duel and why it was meant to be chance pairs I took part in basically every duel, it felt like he was trying to see what I could do," Mie admits. "After class ended, I went into the room across the hall and was watching, Lily, Marlene, Sirius and Remus joined me and I explained my suspicions," Mie explains.
"We agreed that there was something going on, that Mie wasn't being paranoid," Sirius explains.
"Once Cabot left Remus, Sirius, and I started to search the classroom while Marlene kept watch in the corridor," Mie explains. "I found a false bottom in a draw, Sirius opened it, and we found…" Mie starts to explains as Sirius picks up the objects he went and grabbed from upstairs.
"This," Sirius says, handing Albus the notebook, which he starts to look up. "And this," Sirius says, handing Albus the cloak and masks.
"Death Eater robes and mask," Minerva realises, as Albus is looking through the notebooks.
"This is full of evaluations of the students," Albus realises, with a frown, really not liking that.
"That's what I thought too, I think he was trying to figure out who would be suitable to be lured to the dark side and who would be a threat," Mie explains.
"That's what it seems like," Albus says with a frown, closing the book. "Stay down here," Albus tells everyone as he heads upstairs to use the floo to contact the ministry.
For a few minutes the five students, Poppy and Minerva wait down in the classroom until finally Albus walks back in.
"The Minster and Alastor are on their way," Albus explains. "Minerva, could you go the gates and meet them," Albus requests.
"Of course," Minerva says before leaving, and about a minute after Minerva leaves Albus turns to the students.
"Sirius, Remus, Lily, Marlene, you should return to your common room, your fellow students will join you soon," Albus explains. "Poppy, please take my daughter up to the Hospital Wing and run all the tests you need to run," Albus requests.
"Dad, I'm fine," Mie tells him.
"Mie you were tortured!" Lily tells her, knowing that after everything Mie has been through, she wouldn't think it is a big deal, but it is.
"Annemie, you need to go to the hospital wing," Albus informs his daughter, fighting to keep his voice even, but he is distressed by what Lily just said, and while Mie knows he is concerned, and that getting medical attention would be a good idea, she would rather avoid it as she knows Poppy well enough to know that she will want to fully check her out which could lead to awkward questions.
"Shouldn't I talk to the ministry?" Mie asks, and Albus gives her a look, which she knows the meaning off. "Right," Mie says, and she sighs. "Fine," Mie says, with a sigh.
"I will join you in the hospital wing soon," Albus says, and Mie nods. "You should all go," Albus tells the students and Poppy and they al head out of the room, the other Gryffindors looking worriedly at Mie as they go.
Due to Mie being pretty unsteady on her feet the walk from The Defence Classroom to the Hospital Wing takes a lot longer than usual, but finally Mie and Poppy walk into the wing.
"Sit down on one of the beds Annemie," Poppy instructs.
"Only Dad calls me Annemie, it's Mie," Mie says, as she sits down, doing so with some difficulty.
"Of course," Poppy says. "Mie, I'm going to run a diagnostic charm so we know what we are dealing with, and then we will move on to healing," Poppy explains, and Mie feels panic rise up inside of her as she knows that a Diagnosis spell will show not just what Cabot did to her, but her historic injuries as well which will be hard to explain.
"Professor Cabot used the Cruciatus curse on me, isn't that all you need to know?" Mie asks, as she really doesn't want Madam Pomfrey to use a full diagnosis spell on her.
"No," Poppy responds, just like Mie expected, and she stars the spell.
Over the next couple of minutes Madam Pomfrey performs the diagnosis spell on Mie and from the look on the Matron's face Mie knows that she is seeing all her past injuries and so Mie quickly starts to search her mind for an explanation to explain it. Finally, after over five minutes, the spell is finished and a piece of parchment with the injuries appears.
"I can explain," Mie says, though she isn't completely sure how she is going to do that, but thankfully the door to the hospital wing opens and Albus walks into the room.
"Albus, I want to know what is going on," Poppy says, an edge to her voice, as she looks Albus.
"I am not sure I understand what you are talking about," Albus says, though he suspects that he does know.
"What am I talking about? I am talking about what the diagnosis charm has just told me about your daughter," Poppy tells Albus. "Exposure to Cruciatus curse, PTSD, multiple magical burns, cursed cut on neck, prolonged exposure to Cruciatus curse, malnutrition, love and other mind altering potion ingestion, significant healed injuries to the torso, petrification, early childhood injuries of…." Madam Pomfrey starts to say, reading of the parchment.
"You really don't need to go into detail about those," Mie tells Poppy as the details about what happened to her when she was a child are not something she wants the details of shared.
"Albus, what do you have to say about this?" Poppy asks him, giving him a disappointed look, and Mie realises that she thinks Albus allowed his daughter to stay in an abusive situation.
"I didn't know about the Malnutrition, but I'm not surprised," Albus admits, knowing that it is not surprising considering everything Mie has been through and the way she has been acting, though he still frowns and is far from happy.
"I figured it might be obvious," Mie admits, like it is no big deal.
"Albus!" Poppy exclaims, looking angry. "I want to know what happened to Mie and I want to know now so that I properly treat her!" Poppy exclaims.
Hearing that Mie and Albus exchange looks, both of them know that telling Madam Pomfrey is a risk but considering the list of injuries Poppy just read it is very unlikely that she will believe a lie easily. As they have a whole conversation without words both Mie and Albus know that they can trust Poppy and because of that they both come to an understanding.
After coming to an understanding with his daughter Albus, after looking around to make sure they are alone, cast several spells at the door to make sure that they cannot be overheard.
"I wasn't born in 1959," Mie reveals, once Albus has cast the spell, causing Poppy to look at her. "In fact, technically, I won't be born until 1979," Mie explains.
"I don't understand," Poppy says, looking between Mie and Albus, as she pulls over a chair as she really needs to sit down.
"Annemie is from nineteen ninety-eight. She has lived through a war, and came to this time to give the information to make it so that the war against Voldemort will truly be over rather than having a thirteen year intermission like there was in her timeline," Albus explains.
"You're not Annemie Dumbledore," Poppy realises, looking at Mie.
"No, I am," Mie says, as even with everything going on that's who she feels she is.
"I got to know Annemie when she was giving the information about what happened in her time, I considered her to be my daughter then and that's why I blood adopted her," Albus explains.
"Who I was before I came here, doesn't matter," Mie admits. "Everything I've been through, everything I was, made me who I am but that's not who I am anymore," Mie admits. "I am Annemie Ariana Kendra Harriett Dumbledore," Mie explains. "But because you need to know, the childhood injuries, most of them were caused by my biological father, he had exceptions that I didn't meet," Mie tells Poppy.
"Unrealistic expectations," Albus says, disapproval clear in his voice, not noticing Mie's use of 'most'.
"Why weren't they healed by magic?" Poppy asks as she can tell that.
"My biological parents were muggles," Mie explains. "That may also explain some of the other things you've seen," Mie tells Poppy, hoping she doesn't go into too many details about them as she wants to talk to Albus in private about them, she is just not sure when she will be ready to do that.
"And your other injuries?" Poppy asks, standing up, getting over her shock to focus on her patient.
"Petrification happened due to a Basilisk which was released during my second year," Mie explains. "The Chamber of Secrets was open, long story, but you made me a mandrake draft," Mie explains, and Poppy is glad to know her future self is still around. "During fifth year there was a big battle with death eaters, and I was injured significantly, I don't remember exactly what you said my injuries were, but you had me take ten different potions a day for a while," Mie explains, as she was even sent home with a couple of days supplies. "I didn't know about the love and other potions until I came back here, but I know who slipped them to me and when," Mie admits. "The other injuries you mentioned were caused by what I have done over the last year," Mie admits. "Getting medical attention wasn't exactly easy to do," Mie admits. "Your future self told me in recent weeks that because I couldn't get medical attention right away the damage done to my nervous system from the Cruciatus curse is basically impossible to reverse," Mie admits, and Albus frowns at that, as he didn't know that.
"It likely is," Poppy admits. "I am going to give you potions to treat your current exposure, and it likely will not do anything towards your history exposure, but it might," Poppy says, conjuring the potion, which she hands to Mie. "You need to take the potion once a day for a week, and I would like you to take a nutrition potion twice a day for three days to help with your malnutrition," Poppy explains, conjuring another potion.
"Okay," Mie says, and she drinks the first potion Poppy gave her, pulling a face as she does, but once she drinks it the shaking feeling, the feeling of her nerves working overdrive is gone, and she just has the slight numbness she has gotten used to. After Mie finishes the potion Poppy gives her a second potion which Mie drinks and while it also causes her to pull a face, she can't tell what effect it had.
"Is there anything else Annemie needs?" Albus asks.
"It could be beneficial to spend a night here, It would be good for someone to watch over you," Poppy tells Mie, looking between her and Dumbledore.
"No, I don't need that," Mie says, standing up and feeling more stable on her feet.
"Annemie…" Albus starts to say.
"I'll stay in the tower tonight, I can tell you if something's wrong," Mie tells her father. "And we've got a meet up to get to," Mie tells Albus, wanting to get to the meeting as soon as possible.
"I really don't think that's a good idea considering what just happened," Albus tells Mie, knowing what they will be planning at that meet up, to Poppy's confusion.
"And we can't forget out mission just because of a complication," Mie argues. "Dad, lives are at stake, I can still go ahead with our plan," Mie assures him. "But I will stay with you tonight, take the potions, and do anything else Poppy wants me to do," Mie tells her father.
"I would like to do another diagnosis scan on you in three days," Poppy tells Mie.
"Okay," Mie says with a nod, but as she turns back to Albus it is clear that he is isn't a fan of the idea. "Dad, I'll be okay," Mie assures him, and it is clear that Albus is incredibly worried about his daughter.
"You tell me as soon as you don't feel okay, and you don't go through with our plan if you don't feel like you can, you don't push through," Albus tells his daughter and as she watches them Poppy realises that Albus was telling the truth, Mie might not have been born his daughter, but she is now the daughter of Albus Dumbledore.
"Okay," Mie says with a nod. "Can we go now?" Mie asks, and Albus, looking reluctant, nods.
"Thank you, Poppy," Albus says looking at her, his voice full of sincerity, and he and Mie head out of the hospital wing. After she watches Mie and Albus go Poppy heads to her office, planning on getting a very big drink.