Chapter 26: Hospital Wing

"…generally the hero of a journey story is very young."
David Guterson

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White.

Of all the reactions Harry had expected from Quirrell's curse, white had been the last one. No, that wasn't accurate. He hadn't expected it at all. What kind of curse left its victim seeing white and not in any pain?

In fact, he was actually pretty comfortable, all things considered.

His body was one massive ache that reached from his little toe to his hair, and his throat felt scraped and raw, and he could track his heartbeat by the throbbing in his head. But compared to the curse Quirrell had hit him with earlier he was relatively pain-free.

He couldn't move though.

There was some kind of band that ran from his feet up to his shoulders that seemed to be holding him down. It wasn't any kind of petrification curse, and it certainly wasn't like the ropes Quirrell had used. His clothes had been transfigured as well. Instead of his comfortable robes he was wearing something scratchy, stiff, and kind of itchy…

Harry groaned. He wasn't in Quirrell's tender mercy any more. Somehow he had ended up in the Hospital Wing.

Again.

He tried to decide whether or not this constituted an improvement, but decided it was probably a wash.

Gradually the pain receded and he became aware of something pressed firmly into his left side.

He blinked his eyes, trying to get up enough tears to help clear the gummy stuff coating the lashes and get rid of the feeling of dry sand caught under the lids. That feeling, like the ache, gradually receded as he came to terms with the discomfort.

The world returned to as much focus as it ever got without his glasses. He looked down to find Padma laying half-draped over his arm. Her arm, thrown across his chest, was just about the only thing keeping her from falling off the bed. She was snoring softly, and her eyes looked slightly puffy.

"Harry!"

He turned at the fierce whisper of his name, his hand closing instinctively but instead of the white linen the Hospital Wing used he felt the comfortably familiar wood handle of his wand. The other person he could see in the Hospital Wing was a blur about the same size as Padma. "Parvati?" he asked.

"Shh," Parvati said, her voice thick. "This is the first time she's slept in days."

Padma shifted slightly next to him and stuck her head up. "'rry? Wh'time izzit?"

Parvati sighed. "Never mind, and early afternoon. It's been three days since you went into the Forbidden Corridor," she added to Harry.

"Three days?" Harry asked.

"Yep," Parvati said. "Hang on, I've got your glasses," she said.

He held still rather than disturb Padma or relinquish his wand, and Parvati slipped them onto his face.

"You should go back to sleep," Parvati said as soon as they were in place.

For a moment Harry thought she was talking to him, then Padma muttered, "'m fine. "She's been really pushy," she added to Harry. "Kinda scary actually. She's already threatened a number of girls who've stopped by. Hasn't been stopping the boys for some reason."

"Boys are easier to intimidate into being quiet, and they bring better stuff," Parvati said.

"Stuff?" Harry asked, looking around. "And why do I have my wand?"

Madam Pomfry usually confiscated them as a way of making sure her patients stayed until she was ready to release them.

"Granger slipped it to you when Madam Pomfrey wasn't looking," Padma said.

"Hermione did?" Harry asked. He couldn't think of anything the Gryffindor was less likely to do than filching his wand and sneaking it to him in contravention of at least a half-dozen rules.

"Uh-huh." Padma made an unhappy sound and finally sat up and slipped off the bed.

"Your admirers," she said, gesturing towards a pile of candy and cards. "Fred and George tried to leave you a toilet seat for some reason, but Madam Pomfrey confiscated it. Something about it not being hygienic."

"Oh," Harry said. "Uh…what are you doing here?"

Padma gave him a hurt look.

"We're on guard duty," Parvati said instantly. "All of us have been."

"Not Tonks."

"Except Tonks, she's down that way," Parvati pointed down the ward to where curtains blocked off another bed.

"Not Allie."

Parvati hesitated a fraction of a second before nodding. "She's been avoiding everyone. But the rest of us have all been trading off guard duty."

"And most diligently you have been."

Harry turned. "Professor Dumbledore," he said, struggling to loosen the stiff, heavily starched sheets.

"Prove it," Parvati said, turning on the Headmaster of Hogwarts before he could say anything.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as he looked down at Parvati who had her wand out.

"How would you like me to do so, Ms. Patil?"

Parvati hesitated, apparently not having thought this the whole way through. "What," she said finally, "is your name?"

"Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore," Dumbledore said serenely.

"What," Parvati asked again, "is your favorite color?"

"Blue," Dumbledore said, "no wait…today is the sixth? Yes, it's blue today."

Parvati scowled, her wand rising a little higher as she tightened her grip on it. "What," she demanded, "is the capital of Assyria?"

"Assur, of course," Dumbledore said.

"Wrong!"

"No," Padma said, "he's right."

"He is? Really?" Parvati asked. She turned and looked at Padma. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Padma said.

"Dang," Parvati said as she lowered her wand. "I should have asked what his quest was."

"Isn't that routine just a little obvious?" Harry asked. "I mean, even I have heard that before."

"Purebloods," Parvati said.

"Aren't you considered a Pureblood?"

"Depends on who's doing the counting," Padma muttered darkly. She turned to Dumbledore, "can I ask a question, Headmaster?"

"You just did, but I will certainly answer another," Dumbledore said.

"What would you have answered if she'd asked you what your quest was?"

"Why, to seek the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, of course," Dumbledore said mischievously. After a moment his expression grew solemn. "Harry, may I talk with you for a moment?"

"If you don't mind Padma and Parvati staying," Harry said slowly. "I'd rather only go over it once."

Dumbledore hesitated, then nodded in agreement. With a swish of his wand he conjured three extra squishy armchairs and immediately took a paisley-patterned one for himself.

"How's Tonks?" Harry asked once he and the twins were settled.

"Ms. Tonks will make a full recovery, Harry," Dumbledore said. "As will Professor Snape, who is recovering from his ordeal in the privacy of his own quarters, much to the displeasure of Madam Pomfrey."

Harry winced. The idea of the medi-witch being upset with him was almost nearly as terrifying as facing down…whatever it was that Voldemort and Quirrell had become. Voldeirrell? Quirrellmort?

"Snape called him 'Master,'" Harry said.

"So you were right," Parvati said. "Snape was working for him."

"No, Ms. Patil," Dumbledore said, looking particularly grave. "While it is true that Professor Snape was once a follower of Lord Voldemort, those days are long in the past."

"Harry?" Padma asked uncertainly as her sister scowled and crossed her arms.

"Professor Snape wasn't helping him," Harry agreed unhappily, "but he said that he worked against Quirrell only because he didn't know Quirrell was working for Voldemort."

"Professor Snape enjoys my full trust and confidence, am I understood?" Dumbledore asked sternly.

Tense silence filled the Hospital Wing.

Finally, Harry asked, "The Stone?"

"Destroyed, as I'm sure you intended," Dumbledore said evenly. "That was a rather remarkable thing that you did, Harry, and very dangerous. It nearly killed you. It did kill Quirrell."

"Quirrell's dead?" Harry asked in dismay. He had wanted to stop him—all right, to delay him until Dumbledore arrived—but he hadn't wanted Quirrell dead. He needed to be alive to answer his questions. To find out why Voldemort had attacked his house that night, to find out what had made the Dark Lord come for him.

"Wait—" Harry stopped abruptly. He had meant to ask 'wait, you think I destroyed the stone?' but something made him cut this question short.

"Yes?" Dumbledore said.

Reluctantly Harry said, "I don't remember destroying the Stone."

Dumbledore nodded for him to continue so Harry said: "I remember getting the Stone—nice trick with the Mirror by the way, you really had Quirrell angry since he couldn't figure it out—and then I remember it stabbing me in the hip when I landed on it, but..." he shrugged.

"Hmm…" Dumbledore said. "What do you remember, Harry?" he asked.

"Quirrell trying to strangle me," Harry said bluntly. "His hands burned. Then I called fire and tried to burn him, but he put up some kind of shield, but I don't think it was strong enough. And then he tried to curse me again. 'Abracadabra' or something like it, Voldemort screaming not to use that curse, and then everything turning very green."

"'Avada Kedavra,'" Dumbledore said hesitantly. "The Killing Curse."

Parvati hissed and Padma said something in a language Harry didn't know but caused Dumbledore to raise his eyebrows.

"Sorry, Professor," Padma said, not sounding very sorry at all.

"So why aren't I dead?" Harry asked. "I mean, if the curse kills…"

"I think he missed, Harry," Dumbledore said after a moment. "I am not certain, mind. There are…signs when that curse is used, and it was. But the last time you survived it you were left with a rather distinct scar, and Voldemort was reduced to his present form. Quirrell survived for some few hours after the incident so clearly the Curse did not rebound upon him in the same manner."

"So what do you think happened, Professor?" Harry asked.

"I think a number of things happened in that chamber, Harry," Dumbledore said. "Regardless of whether or not his curse touched you, Quirrell was severely injured in his attack upon you, Harry. The destruction of the Stone—whether at your hand, an unintentional consequence, or quite possibly by being hit by the curse intended for you—caused a magical backlash that inflicted further injuries. You and Quirrell being the closest suffered the worst. Voldemort abandoned Quirrell at his hour of need, and the traumatic shock of his master abandoning him, the injuries, the magic energy unleashed when the Philosopher's Stone was destroyed, was more than most wizards could have lived through. That he was alive at all when I had arrived was little short of a miracle. But he has spent the past year with Voldemort inside of him and consuming unicorn's blood."

"To strengthen Voldemort because he was possessing Quirrell," Harry said.

"So Professor Snape has already informed me," Dumbledore said. "Unfortunately, one of the many side-effects of consuming unicorn's blood is that it renders most healing magic impotent. Without Voldemort, or more unicorn blood to sustain him, there was little that could have been done even had there been time to do anything."

"Was his ending bad?" Parvati asked.

Dumbledore hesitated, before nodding slowly. "It was quite bad, Ms. Patil."

Parvati looked at Harry, then towards her sister who was curled in her chair, before turning back to Dumbledore. "Good," she said in a tone that was so cold it made Harry flinch.

Dumbledore didn't reply.

"Professor, what about the Flamels?" Harry asked.

"Ah, so you know about Nicholas and Perenelle?" Dumbledore asked, sounding rather delighted after the seriousness of their discussion so far. "You did do a proper job of it, didn't you?"

"I had help," Harry said uncomfortably.

"Nobody expects you to do these things on your own, Harry, least of all me," Dumbledore said. "As for Nicholas. He and I have had a little chat and we both agree that the events of this year aside, the destruction of the Stone was all for the best."

"But without the Stone, won't they…"

"Die?" Dumbledore asked gently. "Harry, everything comes to an end, eventually. Nicholas and Perenelle have a quantity of elixir laid in. Enough to set all of their affairs in order and to accomplish what tasks they have remaining, and then, yes they will die."

Padma made a soft sound and Dumbledore turned to her and smiled gently. "I am sure it is amazing to one as young as you three are, but to Nicholas and Perenelle it will be like going to bed after a very, very long day. After all, to a well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. You know, the Stone is not such a wonderful thing. As much life and gold as a human could desire. The two things that most humans would choose above all—the problem is that humans have a knack for choosing precisely those things that are worst for them."

"Sir," Harry said, "the other curse Quirrell used, the one he used on Snape and me—"

"Professor Snape, Harry," Dumbledore said, looking especially grave. "As for that curse… Like the Killing Curse, such things are usually not discussed for some years yet in your Defense Against the Dark Arts class." He sighed heavily. "It is called the Cruciatus Curse, and it is one of the three curses that the Ministry calls 'Unforgivable'. The use of any one of three on another human being warrants no less than a life-sentence to the prison Azkaban.

"The Killing Curse, as its name implies, kills. No spell can counter it. No magic shield can block it. And with one single exception, everyone it has touched has died. Instantly," Dumbledore said, looking at him pointedly. "Thus my belief that Quirrell missed, likely drew his wand away at the last moment at his Master's order.

"As for the Cruciatus curse, it inflicts pain, Harry. Terrible, unbearable pain. It inflicts such pain that a person would do anything, give anything, to stop it. And yet, when it is released those who have had it cast upon them find that despite the agony they experienced, that no physical injury was inflicted upon them."

Harry felt rather sick. Parvati had an unusually tight expression on her face, and Padma had looked away, as though by looking anywhere else she could escape the grim descriptions of the worst spells that wizards and witches could use on one-another.

"He's going to be back, isn't he, Headmaster?" Padma asked, still looking away and refusing to meet any of their looks. "He's not gone for good."

"No, Ms. Patil, Voldemort is not," Dumbledore said. "He is still out there, perhaps looking for another body to share…"

"Voldemort said that there have always been those who have been willing to let him into their hearts and minds," Harry said.

"Indeed," Dumbledore murmured. "This is true, and now it is more literal than ever I'm afraid. Being reduced to such a state where he is not truly alive, he cannot be killed. He left Quirrell to die. I have little doubt that he could have saved him had he wished to; he shows as little mercy to his followers as he does his enemies."

He smiled, and his mood brightened, "nevertheless, Harry, you have managed to delay his return to power. Something that even the ablest of wizards would have been very-hard pressed to do. It will merely take someone else who is prepared to take a stand for what he or she believes is right, who is prepared to fight what may seem like a losing battle—and if he is delayed again, and again, who knows, perhaps he will never return."

"Not that you believe that, Headmaster."

Dumbledore turned swiftly in his chair.

"Allie!" Harry said a moment before Dumbledore could murmur a much more restrained, "Ms. Thorne."

"Blackthorn," Allie and Harry said together.

He traded looks with her and both grinned though hers died swiftly as she crossed to the bed next to Harry's where the pile of chocolates and cards had migrated to after filling the top of his bedside cabinet. She cleared a space and hopped up onto it to face them. "Well, Headmaster?" she asked.

"Not forever, perhaps," Dumbledore said. "But for long enough."

"Sir?" Harry asked. "There are some other things I'd like to know about, if you can tell me… Things that I'd like to know the truth about…"

"The truth, alas, is a beautiful and terrible thing, Harry, and should be treated most cautiously," Dumbledore said. "Still, if you ask, I shall do my best to answer your questions, unless I have a very good reason not to in which case I shall beg your pardon. I shall not, of course, lie."

"Sir," Harry said, his throat thick. "About the Mirror. I knew how to work it when I got there, Quirrell didn't. Did you…"

"Did I deliberately engineer events so that you would find out about the Philosopher's Stone, discover the Mirror and how it works, and then have a chance to confront Quirrell and Voldemort for the Stone?" Dumbledore asked evenly.

"Forget it, Harry, he didn't know," Allie said.

Harry looked at her. "But—"

"He's the Headmaster of Hogwarts," Allie said. "There are Oaths with that office, Harry. Oaths that make him responsible for the safety and security of the students."

Harry watched her turn from him to meet Dumbledore's gaze as she said, "all of the students."

Dumbledore, his expression grave, inclined his head slightly.

Allie nodded back and turned back to Harry. "Even if he wanted to do what you're suggesting the Oaths wouldn't have let him, not and let him remain Headmaster."

"So you didn't know?" Harry asked.

"I knew a great deal, and not as much as any of us might have hoped," Dumbledore admitted. "I admit I was suspicious after your first Quidditch game. Quirinius was quite knowledgeable about jinxes of all kinds. But he knew little of thaumaturgy, and only someone well-studied and practiced in that arte could have disrupted Ms. Thorne's duel. I knew that you were aware of the existence of the Stone, of course, but you and your friends broke no rules gathering information and it was information that neither put you at risk nor was dangerous to know and this is a school."

"Why did it take so long for anyone to respond?" Allie asked unexpectedly.

Dumbledore grimaced slightly. "An arithmancy error stemming from the fact that the person who had done the calculations was purposely kept in the dark about what he was doing calculations for. The Wards of Hogwarts transfer to the Deputy Head whenever the Headmaster leaves the school grounds. While many of the subtler protections were anchored by the Wards, they were not in themselves part of the Wards and so did not transfer as they had been intended to. Only when the door to the Forbidden Corridor was opened, or as it was destroyed, did the supplemental wards rouse the suspicion of Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Snape."

"Do you know why Voldemort came after my family?" Harry asked. "Why he came after me?"

"Harry, he went after a lot of families," Padma interjected suddenly. "I…talked with my dad about it over winter."

"But he went after me for a reason," Harry said.

Dumbledore gave him an inquiring look.

"He-he said that he killed my father quick, that he tried to defend us, but that my mother could have stepped aside, that he was there for me not her. But she was muggle—" Allie made a noise and Harry quickly said "mundane-born—and I thought he targeted them, so why…why me? If he hated…her so, why was he willing to let her live if she gave me up?"

"Alas, Harry," Dumbledore said with a very deep sigh, "this question is one I cannot answer. Not today. Not now. Put it from your mind for now, Harry. When you are older, I know you hate to hear this…when you are ready, you will know."

Harry knew it would be no use to argue, but from Allie's expression she was inclined to do just that anyway.

"Why couldn't Quirrell touch me?" he quickly asked, trying to divert the coming explosion. "And why does the Phoenix Amulet act funny around him?"

"Phoenix Amulet?" Dumbledore asked.

Harry reached into the Hospital Wing pajamas he was wearing and pulled out the pendant of a carved amber phoenix wreathed in gold flames that clutched an obsidian sphere in its claws. "Allie said it has some minor defensive magic, and that it'll grow hot when I'm in danger and glow in dark places, and it does. But I've also seen it burst into flame when he got near and it seemed as though Quirrell couldn't stand to be around it, not when it was in the open. During the fight with Quirrell I was even able to use it to direct fire."

"Nothing I put on it should have done that," Allie said. "To be honest, I thought any of the defensive magics would have faded. They were basically collapsed wards. The danger-detection and glowing bits were the only pieces I had any faith would stay."

Harry looked at her, and quickly realized she had deliberately not mentioned the magic null-zone that would not yet be fully charged even if he dared use it.

Dumbledore hummed softly to himself as he peered closely at the amulet.

"I see," he said softly. "To answer your concern, Ms. Thorne, I do not believe that any of your wards have remained. To explain the rest, however, will first require that I answer Harry's other question."

He turned to Harry. "The reason that Quirrell could not touch you—that doing so caused him great pain and injuries far worse than those seen with the eye alone—is quite simply that your mother died to save you. If there is one thing that Voldemort does not understand it is love. He didn't realize that a love as powerful as your mother's love for you leaves its own kind of mark. Not a scar, not a sigil, or anything that can be seen…to have been loved so deeply, even though the person is gone forever, leaves some protection. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, filled with hatred, and greed, and ambition, sharing his very soul with Voldemort could not touch you for this very reason. It was agony to touch something so good."

"A lot of families were killed, Headmaster," Padma said stiffly. "Harry's situation could not have been unique."

"But he survived the killing curse and nobody else has," Parvati said.

Padma scowled, "and how do we know it is that curse anyway?"

"As I said before, there are ways of knowing, Ms. Patil." Dumbledore said to Padma. "There are signs, magical signatures, arithmantical models…"

"And as for your observation, Ms. Patil," he continued to Parvati, "there has always been an element in Harry's case that I have never fully understood. Understand, we are talking about some of the very oldest of magics. Magics on a level that are so primal, that are so innate with the universe, that even those people who are otherwise unable to do any magic at all can tap into it. The kind of magic that can lead an estranged family to reconcile or for a mother to lift an impossibly heavy object to free a trapped child.

"Magic is an art, not a science. Even in the most common of magic practiced today we talk about 'Laws of Magic', but the best we have are theories that we know to be true and have never been able to fully explain why. There is far more uncertainty in the oldest and wildest of magics than there is understanding.

"It is entirely possible that when Voldemort cast his spell, his luck or fate or whatever you wish to call it ran out. That love, or magic, or something even deeper had had enough and chose to reject his actions or counter them. Or perhaps it was a rebound from karma, or perhaps a ritual that went wrong, or that the precise combination of spells and rituals and experiments he had undergone in his mad quest for immortality reflected poorly upon him. Or, perhaps, if he spoke truthfully to Harry, in offering Harry's mother the chance to stand aside he unwittingly made some form of magically-binding Oath and killing her violated it.

"Lily Potter was a brilliant young witch, exceptional with charms, one of the two or three best potion students I have seen in all my years at Hogwarts; if anyone could have seen a loophole or a method, anything in those frantic seconds and had a chance and the means to exploit it, it would have been her."

Dumbledore fell silent, and when he spoke again it was in calm, measured phrases.

"Certainly it was Lily Potter's love that made Harry's touch so ruinous for Quirrell," he said. "Whether or not it was sufficient on its own to account for the events of that night, or even if it was intentional or an unintended byproduct, I do not know.

"Turning to your question about the Phoenix Amulet as you called it, Harry. Ms. Thorne's attempt to collapse wards into it would normally make it little more than a curiosity piece. Wards are not meant to be mobile and using them so would rapidly drain them of their potency.

"However, crossed with your unique circumstances, the prevalence of magic around Hogwarts, Voldemort's attempts on your life this past year, and now the destruction of the Philosopher's Stone and Quirrell's attempted Killing Curse…"

Dumbledore fell silent. "Without testing I have only guesses to offer, Harry."

"I'll take whatever you can give me," Harry said.

Dumbledore nodded. "In that case I shall tell you that the amulet has become more than it was ever intended to be. Certainly it is capable of acting as a focus for a portion of your magic, you have become increasingly proficient with your ability to call and direct fire since you started wearing it, I imagine."

"You mean my ability comes from this?" Harry asked, gesturing to the amulet.

Dumbledore blinked. "By no means. The vast majority of witches and wizards can work very minor magics, such as lighting candles, without a wand—or would if they had a desire to learn how and practice. Most do not for such abilities are little more than parlor tricks compared to the capability and versatility a wand brings. Your ability with fire certainly goes past 'very minor', the amulet only enhances your natural ability. Simply put, it is acting much like a wand though in a very narrow field.

"I am less certain, but based on your descriptions of how it has responded in the presence of Voldemort before now I also suspect it has become something much like a mobile node for the wards in place on #4 Privet Drive. I cannot say that I have ever heard of such before, and indeed I may be wrong, but I strongly urge you to keep it with you at all times, Harry."

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Harry lifted another small pile of sweets from the mound that had spilled from the bedside cupboard in the hospital wing to form a small mountain on the floor. He poured it from his hands into one of the book-bags Ron had brought up and turned back to repeat the motion again, but something hard, white, and flat caught his attention. Kneeling, he began to brush aside chocolate frogs and every-flavor beans, ice mice and pepper imps, a bag of lemon drops that he knew had to be from Dumbledore and a bag of small mars bars that he had no idea how had gotten into Hogwarts. In short order he revealed a toilet seat, scrupulously clean, with the antiseptic bite of the medical-grade cleaning spells that kept Madam Pomfrey's domain germ-free. On the lid was a small plaque declaring it an authentic Hogwarts' toilet seat, the day it was retrieved, and that it had been borrowed from the second floor girl's bathroom, second stall from the right.

"So they managed to sneak one in here after all."

Harry turned to find Allie standing by the foot of the bed he'd been in for the past three days.

"Allie," he said, standing. He set the toilet seat on the foot of the bed, next to the two already full bags of candy. She didn't reply, just stood there watching him with an expression he couldn't begin to decipher. "Dumbledore came back," he said. When she didn't say anything he continued, "he said that you got to me before he did," he said awkwardly. "He also said that I looked…pretty bad and that you helped him. Thank you."

"Jump."

The word came so suddenly and unexpectedly that Harry found himself in the air before he fully realized she had spoken at all. Feeling rather foolish he looked away as he felt his cheeks heat.

"Harry look at—no, don't—damn it," she swore fervently.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked cautiously as he turned back to his friend.

"Oh I am just fine," she said wryly. "So are you, in fact."

"So what's the problem?" Harry asked.

"You shouldn't be," she said, her voice suddenly flat. She shook one sleeve back, exposing an empty wrist. Before Harry could say anything she produced the familiar band of silver. The metal rippled as her wrist passed through it and then snapped back into place around her wrist. She shook the sleeve back into place again, but continued to stare at it. "You shouldn't be fine. Quite the opposite, actually," she added, looking up at him.

"Dumbledore said that he got there just in time to—"

"To what, save you?" she cut him off.

Her harsh tone made Harry take a step back.

"You weren't dead when I got up there, Harry," she said, "but you weren't far from it."

Harry swallowed. "But I'm alive now. You?"

She nodded.

"How?" he asked. "I mean, CPR?"

"You weren't like Padma," she said. "There might be a little flex, some quibbling over when death occurs, but you were past it. You hadn't stopped breathing yet, but you were past the point where you should have been able to come back from."

"Your bracelet," Harry said slowly. "The one that you just put on," he continued, thinking quickly. "It's some kind of ward or binding on your powers, so you took it off and…called me back?" He was guessing, but it sounded good. Being able to convince magical pests to leave a house didn't seem all that impressive, but she must have done something to scare Mr. Patil. He knew she was scared of herself. That she could bring a person back from the dead was certainly powerful magic, but he couldn't see how it would be particularly scary or feared.

"No," she said flatly. "I told you not to die."

"Oh," Harry said, not really understanding.

"You were past the point of healing magic, and I kept you from dying," she said.

"Oh," Harry said again, steadying himself on the bed as he suddenly felt ill.

She gave a choppy nod.

"So then how…" he gestured to himself.

"As I said, you got lucky."

"So everything's all right then?" he asked.

"No it bloody well isn't," she said harshly. "It isn't supposed to happen. I'm not near powerful enough, maybe never will be powerful enough, to do that. Meddling with death is serious, Harry."

Harry slowly sat on the bed as he tried to wrap his mind around what he'd just been told. On the whole it sounded too fantastic too be true. On the other hand, Quirrell and Voldemort really had been trying to kill him and he'd certainly felt like he was dying, and even Dumbledore said it had been close. "Okay," he said slowly. "So what? I mean, it isn't a bad thing, is it?"

"If the Ministry finds out, the trial will last about five minutes and the sentence is executed immediately," she said in a tone that was almost casual.

"Prison?" he asked.

"Maybe," she said, "I suppose it's as good a place as any."

Harry frowned.

"They use a sword."

"Oh," Harry whispered.

"I did say 'executed'," she noted dryly. "That's if they're feeling merciful, of course," she continued into the silence that had suddenly threatened to drag on forever. "If they aren't it'll take them ten or twelve hours before they get to the part where they use the sword. Unless they decide to go with an axe, then I have to hope that the executioner knows what he's doing or it'll take them a couple of whacks to get the job done proper…if they don't screw it up like Sir Nicholas'."

"But—but why?" Harry asked. "I mean, how is saving someone's life a bad thing?"

"Saving a life isn't," she said. "But what I did is a major no-no. Compelling someone is right up there on the list as well, and I certainly compelled you to stay alive. I mean, if the Ministry knew…technically I was in a legal grey area because I hadn't used my abilities on humans. There is a reason why I had a run bag—more than one, actually—stashed just in case. Didn't you ever wonder? As long as I wasn't using my abilities on humans I was technically in the clear, but that isn't the case any more, is it?"

"Why are you telling me this?" Harry asked. "Tonks was unconscious when I got to the chamber. Snape arrived later than me, but he was tortured badly, he couldn't possibly remember you saving me. Not if you were able to convince Dumbledore that you hadn't. So why tell me?"

"Because I don't know if there are any side-effects," she said.

"What kind of side-effects?" Harry asked curiously.

Allie gestured to the mist-grey cat that was curled on the bed opposite the one he'd used.

"Cammie, right?" Harry asked. "You said she followed you from your apartment building."

"Kami, actually, good memory," she said.

The cat hopped off the bed, then stood on its back legs. For a moment it stared at Harry, then began to walk, on its rear legs, across to his bed then back to Allie.

"She used to be a stray. We'd see her every couple of weeks—this was back when I still lived with the Patils. Then one day I wanted her to come to me so I could pet her. When I woke up the next morning she was on my bed. Since then I've had absolute control of her. I can make her stand on her hind legs and dance with a mere thought."

"That's why you told me to jump," Harry said. "You wanted to see if by bringing me back you'd had that kind of control."

"Yes."

"And you think you do?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said. "Were you reacting because someone told you to jump, because it was someone who you trusted that told you to jump, or because I compelled you?"

"Um…I suppose we could test—"

"No!"

Harry started, and Allie took a calming breath before repeating herself.

"No, Harry," she said, her tone suddenly formal. "If I have no power over you, or if that power is very weak, practicing could very well put you under my sway. As it is, and if you are but lightly, then there is a good chance it may fade in time if we let it alone.

"Yet I shall offer you this Oath. If ever you need my aid, in magic or steel, in blood or treasure, you have but to ask and anything I can grant shall be yours."

Before Harry could say anything she scooped up Kami and quickly left.

\|/\|/\|/

The walls of the Great Hall were draped in green and silver hangings. An absolutely enormous banner with the Slytherin serpent on it hung behind the chairs of the High Table.

"You knew the Slytherins were going to win," Justin said when Harry stopped to look at the hangings.

Harry nodded, not sure why he felt surprised by the presence of the banners. "There's always next year, I suppose."

He found a place with Justin and Ernie at the Hufflepuff table. For the first time in months none of his friends from the other houses came over to eat with them, which Harry found even more upsetting than the presence of the Slytherin banners.

Dumbledore stood and started to speak.

Harry toned him out as he looked around the Hall. Allie sat near a boy and girl he vaguely recognized from class but couldn't recall the names of. She didn't have her familiar smirk, but she didn't look as serious the last time he had seen her. Padma, at the Ravenclaw table, was talking with another girl. Discussing grades? Probably.

People started to clap and the students seated at the Slytherin table looked very smug.

Harry clapped half-heartedly and turned to look at Gryffindor. Hermione and Ron were sitting together, flanked, surprisingly, by Neville and Parvati. He never had asked out what the other boy had done to get lumped into the detention in the Forbidden Forest. Hermione was watching Dumbledore attentively, Ron just looked bored. Neville seemed kind of nervous, as though he didn't really feel like he belonged there. Parvati had her wand mostly hidden up a sleeve, but was using it to change the color of polish on her fingernails.

There was more clapping.

Harry looked around the hall, mentally replacing the hangings with Hogwarts' purple, and the serpent with the Hogwarts crest. The sky as it appeared through the roof was still bright as the sun dipped low. The stone shone with gold where its light caught. There was not a cloud to be seen. Perfect for a last flight before they had to go home.

"…to Nymphadora Tonks."

Harry looked up as the rest of the table began to clap.

"What?" he hissed to Justin.

"Dumbledore!" Justin hissed back. "He said he's got some last-minute points to hand out. Padma's already put Ravenclaw over Slytherin!"

Harry whipped around to look at the hourglasses. Ravenclaw had been buoyed up during the end-of-year cramming and review sessions that the Professors had held, putting them narrowly into second place. Now they were in first!

He looked at Tonks who was sitting with Sam and the other departing seventh years. She glowered at the Headmaster but didn't say anything. He turned back to the hourglass. Hermione had done much for Gryffindor, but Hufflepuff had lagged behind largely because Snape took so many points from him for the losses Slytherin had suffered. Too many for his House, though they had tried valiantly, to make up.

He was only half-paying attention when with the table began to clap again as Dumbledore awarded more points to Cedric.

Harry turned back to the hourglass again, not really trusting his math, but yes, they were now on level with Ravenclaw. Then Hermione and Ron were each awarded points for things Harry couldn't remember being told about, but had helped Dumbledore and the other Professors get to Harry as quickly as possible and get him and the other survivors to the hospital wing.

Justin and Ernie were each awarded a handful of points for waking the teachers and sounding the alarm. Then Dumbledore turned to Harry.

Harry turned away. He put his head on the table and covered his ears, desperate to avoid the attention Dumbledore was giving him, but the clapping hands, the backslaps and 'well done, Harry's from his fellow Hufflepuffs trapped him. The pieces of polished obsidian used to mark the Hufflepuff points exceeded that of Ravenclaw.

Then Dumbledore turned. He wasn't done.

Harry watched as Neville—who looked even more eager than Harry felt to escape the sudden attention—was awarded points for apparently trying to stop Parvati from getting out of Gryffindor Tower. His eyes tracked back to the hourglasses. A bare handful of rubies trickled in as the entire Hall sank into silence as they tried to grasp what the Headmaster had just done.

Gryffindor and Hufflepuff had tied for the House Cup.

The Hall roared!

Gryffindor and Hufflepuff were the loudest, Harry thought. Ravenclaw almost equally so for they were just as happy to Slytherin lose as they were to have beaten the hated House. Slytherin was far from silent, but their yells were hardly those of congratulations coming from the other tables.

In the middle of it, feeling rather sick to his stomach, Harry stood and walked towards the doors.

He was aware of the banners turned to a mix of red/gold and yellow/black with lions and badgers scurrying around, but he didn't really see them. He was aware too of the Hall falling into silence as he cleared the end of the table, but he didn't hear that any more than he saw the changes Dumbledore had brought to the wall hangings.

Justin and Ernie stood and hurried down the Hall to catch up to him. Parvati and Padma were almost as fast, but had had further to go.

"Harry what—"

Harry shook his head and Justin fell silent as he turned down the staircase towards the Hufflepuff common room.

Back in the Great Hall Tonks stood.

"Tonks."

"He saved my life, Luc," Tonks told her best friend.

Cedric had also gotten up. With three of her teammates—and they were still her teammates, dammit—Samothrace Capper stood and followed, followed in turn by the rest of the Hufflepuff Quiditch Team standing from where they were seated along the table.

At that point it became a sort of general exodus. The Hufflepuff table deserted in blocks. Hermione and Ron left Gryffindor table first accompanied by Neville and, since the Hufflepuff Team was going, the Gryffindor Team went as well. Fred and George thought the whole thing hilarious and the best prank for emptying the Great Hall yet.

Then Terry Boot decided that he didn't want to eat dinner with just the snakes which started the rest of Ravenclaw leaving as well as they decided there was no logical reason to enjoy a feast where the guests of honor were not present.

Allie stood as well. If Harry had been there he would have seen her speak to the two House-mates she was sitting with, and would have seen them both refuse before she joined the students leaving the Hall.

At the High Table Albus Dumbledore stared at the doors of the Great Hall, trying to understand what had just happened.

"Oh, Albus," Pomona Sprout sighed from her place down the table from him. "How could you?" But Dumbledore didn't hear her.

At his place on the opposite side of the table from Pomona, Filius Flitwick noticed a small envelope propped up against his water glass. He noted the seal, and with mounting trepidation, opened it and noted the one word written in bold, hot pink, block letters.

DUCK

Hardly the fool Filius put one hand on the table, keeping a firm grasp on the letter, and with a tiny shove lifted himself off his high chair and dropped lightly to the floor, just in time to miss a rather large pie that took Septima in the side.

He ducked under the table and examined the note again.

FOOD FIGHT CLEARS GREAT HALL BEFORE DESERT.

HLC

Penned underneath this in a different hand was

Watch out for the pie-bomber.

Filius closed his eyes as outside his place under the table the screaming began.

Over it all he could hear a very disturbing hee hee hee

\|/\|/\|/

Peeves pulled the goggles on the antiquated leather flying cap down over his eyes.

By now the doors of the Great Hall would be sealed. True, it was a little earlier than his friends had intended, and it seemed like most of his potential targets had escaped, but what was a little chaos among pranksters?

Happiness, he decided as his stuck out his tongue and made a noise that somewhat resembled a turboprop engine, was an open field of fire, lots of willing—or was it milling?—targets with nowhere to run, and plenty of freshly baked pies.

The only question was where to start.

The Poltergeist lifted one and sniffed.

"Blueberry."

\|/\|/\|/

"Harry, you can't stay here."

Harry opened his eyes from where he'd flung himself on a couch in the Hufflepuff Common Room. Standing over him was a worried looking Tonks with slightly frazzled black hair.

"What is it?" he asked.

"About three quarters of the school is heading this way," Tonks said as Harry noticed the common room was quite a bit larger than before. "The Campfire has moved out of the way, and I heard Fred and George were making a run for the kitchen."

"Oh," Harry said. He looked around the much larger common room. "Yeah, leaving is probably a good idea. Tell everyone the Tower."

With that he headed for the burrows.

\|/\|/\|/

"'Each year we gain a little. We need to keep a sense of proportion.'"

Harry glanced up from slipping his chocolate frog cards into the little sleeves in the album somebody had left him in among the piles of sweets in the Hospital Wing. Allie was standing at the window, one hand braced on the luggage rack over the seats. All of his friends had trickled in in ones and twos to exchange farewells and trade news about their summer plans. Cedric was going to a Quidditch camp, while Tonks had a few weeks and then reported to the Auror Academy as their newest recruit. Hermione was vacationing with her parents, though there was a chance that she and Harry would be able to visit Ron and he hoped to be able to visit the Patils.

"I remember reading that somewhere," Allie mused. "I guess I never really realized how right he was."

She fell silent again.

"So what are your summer plans?" Harry asked.

"I thought I might go home," Allie said, staring out the window of the compartment as the Hogwarts Express pulled into King's Cross Station. "At the very least I need to see Glencloud again."

"What about your grandmother? Are you going to make peace with her?"

"It's rather too late for that," Allie's voice turned cold and her hands convulsed into tight fists. "Words spoken cannot be unspoken. To my shame, I can't find it in myself to forgive her…which makes me think less of myself and I can't forgive her for that either. "

She turned back to Harry. "Master G knows more about my family than anyone else outside it, but there are things I can only learn from inside. I need her, and since there aren't many other choices of who is going to be the next Mistress of Thornes…she needs me.

"What about you?" Allie asked. "I noticed you didn't mention any plans either?"

"Nothing really," Harry admitted. "Dumbledore said that I have to go back to Privet Drive. Something about needing to spend time there each year to recharge the wards.

"I can write," he offered.

"As can I, though it may be that correspondence while inside my family's borders may prove unlikely." she said, then suddenly grinned. "Remember that letter from Ron's brother?"

Harry laughed. "I thought we were goners. Did you think that stuff up in advance?"

She shook her head. "Two rules for telling a good lie, Harry. The first is not to, so people won't be inclined to really think over what you say. The second is to be specific. People aren't vague in real life, so it draws attention when you are. It isn't much, but the wizarding world does seem to accept explanation that the mundane world would consider…unlikely at best.

"Good luck, Harry," she said, lifting her trunk as Kami lept lightly to her shoulder. "Take care. And I'll see you in the fall, even if I'm unable to write."

\|/\|/\|/

Allie's quote is from Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers