Chapter Sixty Three
The staff at Saint Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries was accustomed to strange cases coming into their facility in need of saving.
With magic there was no telling the kind of predicaments the average witch or wizard could find themselves in… there were even more ways for a magical person to hurt himself or herself than a muggle, if truth be told, and the staff at Saint Mungo's saw it all. But even still, when the main fireplace used for extreme medical emergencies belched green flames and spat forth its travelers, the nurses and doctors gave a squawk at the entourage that spilled forward.
One of their mediwizards, a young man who had been fetched to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by a rambling redhead before anyone could get a straight answer from him (the particular mediwizard that had been drafted as paramedic had been chosen for the simple fact he was closest to the young redheaded boy when he burst into the hospital), was the first to emerge from the fire… or rather, the first human. Levitating before him was what looked at first to be little more than an enormous ball of brown hair and matted blood. It took a few seconds for the staff to make out the shape of an unconscious lion floating in the air.
Directly on the mediwizard's heels, arriving at the same instant like two components of a single military unit, was a matronly if somewhat tousled woman and the biggest witch's familiar of a cat anyone had ever seen. Next to step from the fireplace was the boy, the wet, disheveled redhead who had
absconded with one of their doctors without even bothering to provide a coherent account as to the nature of the emergency that had justified the kidnapping of one of their healers. Lucky for the young man, a frantic wizard flooing in and right back out again with a healer in tow was not too terribly unusual, and it had not caused a panic. Those who healer-nicked tended to return soon enough with the same healer they'd nabbed, as was the case with the rambling redhead and his added crew.
To the Saint Mungo's staff's credit, they took the circus in stride… it was par for the course at a magical hospital.
"Fetch Doctor Manmalis immediately!" the mediwizard commanding the motionless lion called out to his colleagues, "Haste, haste! We have a critically wounded animagus!"
A tendency for stating the obvious was another hallmark of Saint Mungo's, really any hospital. The blood dripping on the tile floor of the lobby from the hovering cat's limp body would suggest it was no mere nap the lion was taking. Also, it would stand to reason that the healer currently wielding his wand in order to hold his patient aloft would not bring a true lion to a witch and wizard's hospital. 'Critically wounded' and 'animagus' declared itself.
But all the obvious aside, action was immediate.
One nurse behind the counter disapparated in an instant to track down the requested specialist.
Another nurse hurried over to the ragged band of fire-bound arrivals. She paid attention first and foremost to her coworker and his injured person- turned-animal. "This way, Doctor, room one-thirteen is open." As the wizard doctor nodded curtly and hurried to maneuver his patient down the hall, the nurse stepped in the path of those who had come through the floo with the lion and healer… for they had all moved, as one, to follow the mediwizard and his feline charge into the bowels of the hospital. "I'm sorry," she said sternly in a kind voice, "but the rest of you will have to wait out here."
The black cat revealed menacing teeth and spat.
The worse-for-wear older woman who had come through the fire settled an unwavering, steely gaze on the nurse standing in their way. She managed to look a hundred times more dignified than the scrape on her face, the torn and bloodied state of her robes, or the unmanaged mess of her hair would have seemed to permit to be possible. In spite of her vagabond appearance, she was a force with which to be reckoned. Much like her bearing, her voice
was firm and commanding. "Young lady, Voldemort is dead, killed by Harry Potter."
The nurse's jaw dropped.
The formidable woman pointed at the snarling, bristling panther at her side.
"That is Harry Potter."
The nurse continued to gape.
"Stand aside," McGonagall said plainly in a tone that brooked no argument.
Dumbstruck, the nurse could only stammer mutely a moment before taking a step meekly to the left. Without sparing another second, Knight rushed past the nurse and down the hall to catch up with the healer who had left with Sagehunter. He was oblivious to the stir he caused when he charged through on his single-minded mission to reach Sagehunter. Ambulatory patients on walkabouts and healers making their rounds sidled out of the way and pressed against the walls as the black jaguar bowled headlong through the corridor. But the patients themselves were magical folk, the healers part of the desensitized staff of Saint Mungo's, and anything fantastic was taken with a grain of salt, even a loose panther in a hospital hallway.
"There has been an attack on Hogwarts," McGonagall said pointedly to the nurse. When she had the nurse's attention once again, the professor said, "there are wounded students and teachers in dire need of medical attention. Summon as many healers as you can, all the hospital can spare, and see that they're tended to at once."
'Finally', a clinical part of the nurse's mind thought amid the shocking news of Voldemort's reported demise, 'a picture of what was going on to warrant such an uproar as all this'… and an ugly picture it was indeed. A school attacked by Voldemort, children hurt… the audacity of it, the very definition of wickedness and evil. The nurse paused for a fraction of a second to be horrified, but no more. There was work to be done.
She whirled at once to face her coworkers and barked, "You heard her! You Know Who's gone and attacked children! Quick, pull together as many healers as we can for a team to leave for Hogwarts right away! Move it!"
Everyone jumped and moved, until everyone was moving at once… a furious, frantic, and yet well-choreographed and efficient flurry of activity as the hospital went into high gear.
Watching over it all, like a wolf den mother attending a litter of puppies at
play, McGonagall edged over to the wall to get out of the way. She stepped aside to let the experts do their job. She tried to tug Ron along with her, to keep him from impeding the healers and their work, but the fifth year balked and looked up at her imploringly. "Professor… please, I need to go back and see how my sister's doing."
She could hardly fault him worrying about the youngest of the Weasley clan; Ginerva would be among those students receiving medical treatment.
McGonagall gave a consenting nod that sent the banged-up student darting back to the fireplace connecting the hospital to Hogwarts, and soon enough McGonagall alone still stood somber sentry, an observant, statuesque figure on the edge of diligent anarchy.
When she began to believe that, truly, her students would be properly cared for, that she could relinquish their well-beings into better suited hands, she allowed herself the fissure in the armor of leaning back against the wall and letting it take some of her weight. With the lives of so many children on her shoulders in the headmaster's absence, it had been a hefty burden to bear.
Her thoughts turned to easily her two most exceptional students in all her years of teaching. She wondered and worried and waited against the wall of the magical hospital lobby while chaos reined around her for the second time that day.
In room one-thirteen, the mediwizard who had been levitating the wounded lioness hastily lowered Sagehunter on to the bed that dominated the center of the room with one end like the other and the head only given such a label for it abutted against the wall. Sagehunter came to rest on the crisp white sheets and lay still, not even a twitch to indicate she was even aware she had been moved. Knight pushed his way through into the hospital room when the door gave half a notion to close on him. He didn't spare even a backward flick of his ear to find out if he had offended the door. The healer shot a glance at Knight as the panther stormed into the room with him and his patient… all highly irregular, to say the least. Knight stood with feet firmly planted on the floor and looked back challengingly at the mediwizard, his body language screaming that it would take a small military force to budge him from the room. And it would not be done without bloodshed.
The mediwizard was not a soldier, nor did he fancy getting his arm ripped clean off to cater to his sense of professional propriety that demanded medicine be conducted without an audience, so he let the panther be. He'd seen the carnage of the school grounds where he'd been taken to retrieve his current patient, he'd taken in the bodies and their state with a practiced eye
even in his hurry… he had not failed to notice the blood on both cats that had not all come from wounds, at least not wounds they themselves had sustained. If the panther would keep to the outskirts and out of the way… well, the mediwizard concluded an unobtrusive spectator was hardly worth risking life and limb.
The healer had other lives and limbs to worry about at the moment.
Mediwizard, panther, and lioness had been alone in the hospital room only a matter of seconds before the door burst open and a portly man with a fringe of white hair that frizzed out like a cob-webbed halo around his head came striding in. "What's the emergency, Will? Louise practically pulled me right off the commode going on about how I was desperately needed, right away and all that, and I do believe she nicked my Witch Weekly when I-! Merlin's beard!" the healer had just spotted Knight in the room, standing back from the thick of things but watching every move the doctor made with keen acuity.
"Doctor Manmalis," the younger mediwizard said at once, for the moment dismissing the man's surprise concerning their audience. "It is an emergency; forget your Witch Weekly a sodding second."
"What do we have, then?"
"Just brought this one in. It was a Death Eater attack on an animagus, I
think. There had been some kind of battle."
Manmalis gave Knight a wary eye then gave him nary another look as he rushed to the bedside of the unconscious lioness. He bent down and studied the large gash on her back. "Oh, that is a right nasty piece of work. Any notion if this beasty is on our side or theirs?" the healer asked, even as he pulled out his wand and began to clean the wound with a modified scourgify, revealing that the affiliation of the current patient was more an academic question than a basis upon which to provide treatment.
Will shook his head. "Not really… probably ours, since a Death Eater wouldn't have sent for help at Saint Mungo's, and the lad that grabbed me and pulled me through the floo was hardly Death Eater material."
"Hmmm…" Manmalis breathed in distraction as he scowled at the wound on Sagehunter's back. "Well, from the looks of this I'd say it was cast by a Death Eater. Frightful amount of black magic in this cut. It's eating away at the skin as we speak. A two-tier, if I were to guess. Vile, vicious curse; I don't want to think one of ours could do it."
While the two doctors conferred, nurses began to scuttle into the room to assist. Each gave a jump and a squeak when they first spotted Knight standing watch from near the far wall, but soon enough their own professional proclivities put the panther in the backs of their minds. Soon there was a veritable flurry of activity around Sagehunter's bed, Sagehunter oblivious to it and Knight a distance away fretful and anxious for it.
"What do you think, Doctor?" Will asked his elder, and in many respects mentor, as they both examined the injury. Manmalis waved his wand and spoke a few spells… by Knight's observations, he seemed to invoke the same incantations three times before they took to the doctor's satisfaction. But even then, the mediwizard gave a displeased scowl and shook his head.
"No good. I've stopped the corrosion of her flesh, but it won't do much for healing her. I can't properly treat her magic as she is. We'll have to turn her."
Knight gave a plaintive, involuntary, worried mewling sound in the back of his throat at the decree. The gravity behind the healer's words, the tone of his voice when he spoke the last, revealed what manner of 'turn' he meant, and it was certainly cause for alarm.
Both healers spared half a glance at the panther for his concerned vocalization, as did all the nurses and attendants in the room. When one is in the same room as a panther, every sound it makes is noted.
"Any idea as to who the dark stranger is?" Manmalis asked off-handedly, giving the impression for all the world that he was not overly concerned, or even concerned in the slightest, about the large predator's presence in the room with them (his first expletive when entering the room notwithstanding).
Will gave a helpless shrug and shake of his head. "I know very little of what's going on when it comes down to it. I was yanked into this whole affair and have been jerked hither and yon since. The attack was on Hogwarts, so… a professor, maybe?"
One of the nurses put in gently but pointedly, "Whoever he is, he's obviously worried about her," she ticked her head down at Sagehunter.
"Indeed… I don't suppose there's chance of clearing him out of here?" Manmalis asked.
Knight's stare at the doctor turned lethal, practically daring him to try.
"Thought not, well, then go on, the lot of you, and set up the monitoring charms to keep an eye on the patient when things start getting… dodgy. I'll have a word with our proctor before he thinks to use those dreadfully impressive claws."
Manmalis left his colleagues to prep Sagehunter while he crossed the room and knelt, with creaking knees, on the floor before Knight. Knight watched the doctor with desperation and question in his eyes. The man looked like an odd combination of Dumbledore and Flitwick… if only that dual resemblance to two adept wizards could be construed to speak to his own power and competency.
The old man jumped right into it. "Good sir… I know what you're thinking, and you're absolutely right. It is very dangerous to force an animagus transformation on someone, either the change to animal or the change back to human, and especially so in a weakened physical state such as your friend's. I won't lie to you on that count. But I'm afraid your friend is in no fit condition to change herself, and this is not a veterinary clinic. This is a hospital. The best chance your lady friend has is to be treated as a witch.
We can't properly take care of a lion here; no one in Saint Mungo's has been a healer apprentice or so much as summer interned at a zoo."
Knight shuffled nervously on his feet, ears back and neck muscles tight to express his disquiet with the proposed course of action all the same, despite the practical reasons for doing it. His anxiety and worry made the hair on the back of his neck and between his shoulder blades bristle and rise.
"I can assure you that I am the foremost specialist in Britain in treating animagi. I've forced the change on many and more patients, and the vast majority pull through. Short of carrying your presently feline friend off to a zoo to let an experienced animal keeper tend to her, you'll find no better doctor to treat her.
"Of course, taking her to a zoo is an option… but I can't speak to her chances of surviving the trip."
"Doctor," Will called, "the monitoring charms are in place; we're ready."
Manmalis looked directly at Knight. "I'm going to force her change now so I can try to save her life. I'd be much obliged if I didn't get a fang in the neck for my trouble." With that, Manmalis stood and returned to the bedside. He went with a self-assured air; he would either get on with his work or be mauled, but he wouldn't let the odds of either against the other weaken his resolve. Knight watched him leave and gave no indication he meant to
intercede, despite his worry.
"All right," Manmalis said when he'd rejoined his comrades, "brace her, take care, watch her back, I don't want her rolling over on to that wound when she's changed."
Hands came to rest upon Sagehunter's body, like a mystic healing ritual right from an era past, and Manmalis produced his wand and traced a pattern in the air over the lioness's body. He recited one of the most complex spells Knight had ever heard; Pomfrey had never uttered a tenth of the words that spilled from Manmalis's mouth with precision and ease. Knight would have needed Hermione to have any hope of comprehending the layman's language for most of what the mediwizard chanted.
Everyone tensed in expectation and waited.
The transformation the healer's wand and spell work forced was not normal. In a typical change, when Sagehunter willingly and purposely reverted to Hermione, it happened in the span of a couple of seconds. As Knight watched the doctor cast the spell to force her change, it was slow. It almost seemed to resist the process being imposed by an outside force. Sagehunter sank back to Hermione like a hapless wanderer slipping into quicksand, agonizingly slow and nerve-wracking to witness. The nurses watched with bodies taut and jaws clenched. Knight was not breathing as he waited.
The creature on the bed was not Sagehunter and it was not Hermione, it was some hybrid beast of both, a human shape with claws and fur and tail.
The monitoring charms keeping vigil over the being that was once Sagehunter and which was not rightly Hermione either began to sound all manner of alarms.
Manmalis looked up at them briefly, took in the information they provided with practiced swiftness, but did not stop his spell work.
Finally, the last vestiges of the cat faded away from the bedridden figure's form and the hospital staff stood ringed around a human girl. The nurses held her immobile on her side when she might have been inclined to roll forward or backward in her new shape; for the lioness lying on her side was natural, but that was not true now for the witch.
"Merlin!" Will hissed when he got a proper look at his patient for the first time, "she's just a kid!"
Hermione was entirely herself again, but made halfway a stranger for the
blood that seemed to cover every inch of her. She was horribly pale, skin chalky and frightfully cadaverous to the eye. Her clothes were in shambles and dirty and stained. Her hair was an even greater mess than usual. She didn't look asleep so much as she looked dead, and that fact was a lance of agony in the attending panther's chest.
Knight perked up to see Hermione fully herself again. He was agitated by the sight she presented. He was alert and restless, and he wished that the noises and lights from the monitoring charms could tell him something about Hermione's condition. As it was, it was only senseless and distressing sounds and colors.
"Turn her on her stomach, gently," Manmalis ordered. When it had been done, the healer magicked away her clothes with a flick of his wand. He seemed to pause at the hint of gold around her neck from the necklace, but a sidelong glance at Knight stilled him from banishing that, too. Finally the staff was given a good look at the extent of the witch's injury… and it was appalling. A great gash opened a shallow sanguine valley in her skin that started at the top of her left shoulder and tracked diagonally across the length of her back to curl into a trailing red welt on her right hip.
To see it, even the most optimistic soul nearly had to ask how the girl could still be alive given her wound.
"There's so much blood," one of the nurses mumbled in near despair as she stared at the red stains that covered Hermione's back, her arms, her face… there didn't appear to be an inch of her spared the tacky fluid. It was a gruesome sight, in all interpretations of the saying a veritable bloodbath. To a trained eye, it would appear hopeless for the patient's chances of survival that she had lost so much blood.
"Not all of it's hers," came another voice from the room's doorway. Knight saw the nurse from the lobby come inside. The two nurses who had spoken last shared an empathizing look then the lobby nurse reported, "I spoke a moment with the woman who arrived with these two. She's a professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It seems that You Know Who attacked the school."
A few nurses gasped and whimpered at the mention of the dark wizard. Some paled and croaked for the knowledge a school had been attacked.
"This young woman, Hermione Granger, a fifth year, fought back and managed to kill some of the Death Eaters who were with You Know Who." Then the nurse seemed to pause to brace herself to speak the next bit of
news. "You Know Who is dead."
For a second, one could have heard a pin drop in the room. Everyone went absolutely silent. The news was just too enormous to take in without getting tongue-tied and stupid.
The first sound to break the quiet of numb shock was a thin, "Is it true?" when one nurse near Hermione's head whispered tremulously, almost afraid to believe her ears, afraid to give over to such a hope. "Really… he's gone?"
"I know it's almost too much to hope, but I really do believe it is true. Professor McGonagall asked to use our floo to contact some friends in the ministry about seeing to the remains. Apparently, they'll be carrying You Know Who back in two pieces."
Eyes were wide and faces grave all around the bed.
"Oh, thank Merlin," another nurse breathed, "thank Merlin…" Mute nods echoed the sentiment.
"Good riddance to bad rubbish would be a fantastic understatement for a moment such as this. Who finally dispatched the foul creature?" Will asked.
The lobby nurse looked over at Knight and nodded. "He did. Harry Potter."
All eyes turned to Knight. For a moment, the respect and admiration and devout love that shone from their eyes was crippling.
It was Manmalis who brought everyone back to task with a brisk clearing of his throat. "Ladies, gentlemen? Back to work. Need I stress how critical it is that we save this girl?"
No one had to hear it to understand that fact perfectly well. It didn't take a genius to put together that the young woman on the table was someone very important to Harry Potter, vanquisher of Lord Voldemort. And right then, no one could bear the idea of disappointing the great Harry Potter.
Chapter Sixty Four
Original Author Notes -
A/N: We're coming into the home stretch; only four more chapters after this one.
He could hear every single person that passed anywhere near the room. They might try to be quiet, but it was pointless to try and slip the hearing of the jaguar. He attended to it only as much as he needed to in order to recognize that none of the passers-by were a threat. Beyond that they were a background thrum of noise; he couldn't block them out but he could more or less ignore them. Conversely, his hearing was hanging on every tiny sound of Hermione's breathing on the bed behind him. It was a softer, yet far more important a sound and it filled his auditory senses.
Knight and Hermione were the only two in the hospital room. When Hermione had been treated and stabilized as best as possible, when all that was left to do was wait and see and hope, the doctors and nurses had cleared out. No one even breathed a word to suggest Knight should leave, too. He had uncontested right and privilege to go and do as he pleased among the witches and wizards who knew his true identity and his recent act of salvation on their behalf. He could have strolled into the head healer's office and used his desk as a scratching post and the pompous old coot would not have breathed a word about it, except maybe to offer the great Harry Potter a spot of tea, as he must have worked up a terrible thirst with all that scratching.
Luckily for the head healer, Knight had no intention of budging from Hermione's bedside.
Aside from one nurse stopping in just long enough to see to the cut on Knight's shoulder, they let him be, and he chose to be at Hermione's side. He'd lain down on the floor next to her bed and not moved an inch in the two hours since the healers left them alone.
He was in a trance-like state of stillness, snared to the inhale and exhale coming steadily from the prone figure on the bed. She'd been left to lie on her stomach, a poultice very nearly serving as clothing for how much of her back it had to cover to treat the extent of her injury. She breathed and Knight breathed with her, timed his world to the gentle rise and fall of her torso.
"Albus!" a harried but hushed McGonagall said from just outside the door to Hermione's room.
Knight swiveled one ear forward at the name, a fraction of him mildly curious, though it could not hope to break his tenacious attendance to Hermione's breathing… in… out… as long as it kept doing that, going in and seeping out, his world kept going.
"Minevra…" came the headmaster's grave, deep voice. He sounded bone- tired. It was strange to hear no trace of humor or even vigor in the great wizard's voice. "I came as soon as I was able."
"What of Dane?" McGonagall asked hesitantly. She didn't really want to know, Knight could read it in her flat, elevated pitch.
"A farce, as is all too apparent now, but then hindsight is twenty-twenty and retrospective divination unerring… I am overwhelmed with shame to know I was maneuvered so easily."
"You couldn't have known... we all thought Voldemort was there. We leapt at the chance, what presented itself in the guise of a chance, to strike down Voldemort once and for all. None of us stopped to think your brother would unwittingly be playing a pawn. None of us questioned his escape; after all, he was your brother." A pause. "I'm so very sorry about Aberforth."
A strained quality pulled at Dumbledore's voice, making him almost unrecognizable as the formidable headmaster of Hogwarts. "Thank you. I… I spoke with some of the ministry workers who are assessing the… collateral damage done at the school, in terms of both lost life and property; I envy
them their capacity for clinical detachment almost as much as I detest them for it.
"I saw the hospital wing… or what remains of it. I ventured into the rubble… It looks like dear, sweet Kimmy did what she could to protect Aber, but… well…" His trailing silence spoke volumes.
"I am terribly sorry."
"Yes… well, I am hardly the only person to have lost loved ones to this twisted wizard's madness.
"Are the children being properly seen to?"
"Yes. I've been checking on them religiously every few minutes, at least until their parents get here to better watch over them. It's sickening, what was done to the poor things. Innocent children. I can hardly stand to think on it."
"I wouldn't suggest you try to. If you can forget, then do it and rejoice in ignorance."
"Would that I could… but I can't." "I know."
Both were quiet a moment, during which Hermione's breathing was the loudest sound. A breathing life-preserver, a drink of water to a dying man.
"I spoke with young Mister Weasley a moment ago, when I first arrived after visiting the school, and he told me a bit of what happened at Hogwarts."
McGonagall took a few deep breaths, perhaps to collect her wits. "It was horrible! The atrocities those… those… it's almost unfit to call them human beings! The things they did, and I was powerless to do anything more than stand by and watch!"
"You did all you could to protect them, Minevra… I'm sure there are children alive this moment who would not have been were it not for you."
"I wish so badly that I can believe that, but… it wasn't I who ended up saving us all."
Another pause overtook the two adults outside the hospital room.
"What is Miss Granger's condition?" Dumbledore asked.
"Touch and go as the saying goes. They've done what they can. She was hurt so badly, I... the healers won't even offer up opinion just yet as to her chances. They're that worried that she may not live."
Knight briefly flicked his eavesdropping ear backward so all of his focus was on Hermione's breathing. She was still taking in air, letting it out, taking it in… it was all he could hope for, the place to pin all his hopes.
"Miss Granger is a remarkably stubborn young woman; I daresay she won't accept the release of death until she's good and ready. And she's not ready to give up yet."
"I hope so, Albus, I really hope so. Not only because Miss Granger has so much life yet to live, but for Mister Potter's sake…"
A different kind of silence reigned, one that was tense even from the opposite side of the door.
"Albus… what Mister Pot… what Harry did…"
"I know," Dumbledore returned soberly. "Mister Weasley gave me the unsavory details."
No one seemed to need it said what they were discussing; it was foregone and understood. Knight knew it as well as they did.
"I've never seen wandless magic like that. It was… I loathe to even think it, but… it was dark magic, Albus. Even as I say it I can hardly comprehend it… the very idea that Mister Potter could perform dark magic, magic that dark… but those Death Eaters, they just… died. Harry wanted them dead, and in a matter of moments they just were."
"And do you condemn him for it, Minevra?"
"I… 'the end justifies the means', that's what you are going to argue."
"Doesn't it? Or does it ever? We are rid of a cancer in our world, one I can never regret being gone, but at such a high price… Harry can't escape what he's done… nor the fact that not even Voldemort ever managed to do what he did."
"He's just a boy…"
"I don't know that he has ever truly been one. Perhaps before his parents were slaughtered, he may have been just a boy then, but not since that
night. You misjudge him to see him as a mere child; I've made the same mistake. But he never was. From his first year he was a warrior in an undersized body. Today, we discovered just how great a warrior… and how great a tragedy, but then, most great warriors are."
"Will he be all right?"
Dumbledore sighed. "I honestly do not know. I'm no seer. Maybe he will be, one day… depending on the young woman in that room. Harry might recover, he might stay more or less the Harry we've known for five years… but only if Miss Granger lives. Her fate will make or break him."
McGonagall did not counter right away, but when she did much of the tremulous undertones that had been previously in the voice were gone, reverting to the much more familiar sound of self-assurance of a cool, level- headed professor. "It's almost… the thought that we could stand to lose still more, after all everyone has already lost to this bloody war… no matter what manner of magic they used to destroy Voldemort, no matter how young they are, they're still heroes."
"An honor for which I sincerely pity them, but there's nothing that can be done to spare them that backhanded gift.
"Minevra… there is still a great deal that we should discuss, but for now I must take my leave of you. I need to see Harry a moment."
"Of course. He'll probably be glad to see you're alive. I'll go check on Miss Abbot again. The poor, poor girl."
The sound of McGonagall's footsteps faded away as she left the vicinity of Hermione's room. The jaguar listened to her go but didn't stir himself to care very much. Knight lay unmoved from his spot next to Hermione's bed.
When the door opened Knight looked up lackadaisically. He knew it was Dumbledore, by smell foremost, who had presumed to come inside the hospital room where his Hermione lay defenseless. Dumbledore was not a threat, and outside of Hermione waking up only a threat to his beloved could bestir Knight beyond a simple movement of the eyes and turn of the ears.
The headmaster of Hogwarts was sporting a bruise on his right temple and easily half of his beard was missing, shortened by half its former length and tipped with black, burned ends of hair. Knight could smell smoke and dirt and blood on the wizard. But he was whole, and fit enough to walk away from his scuffle. If only Hermione had been so lucky.
Dumbledore slipped inside the room and closed the door softly behind him. He looked down at Knight and seemed to take stock of the fact that it was not Harry that greeted him, but Knight the black jaguar. Knight watched the headmaster with eyes half glassy. He was so very tired and so very, very careworn. Sleep would be a welcome relief, but if he slept he might stop listening to Hermione breathe… he needed to hear it. If he let down his guard to rest, who would guard Hermione against danger? If a school was not safe from attack, he would not be naïve enough to think that a hospital would be. He could not let her come to harm, no matter what. And if he slept, he might dream of the battle, he might relive the things he'd done.
There were too many reasons to stay awake, maybe for the rest of eternity if there was any magic that could make it possible.
Dumbledore moved a few steps closer to the bed and Knight, then he stopped. He looked past Knight to where Hermione lay. After a moment staring at the monitoring charms over the bed, as though they might actually make some sense to him, the great wizard's eyes turned down to Knight.
Knight gazed up dully at the headmaster.
Quietly, purposefully, Dumbledore knelt on the floor in front of Knight. The two stared into one another's eyes for what seemed a long time. From their gazes, they might have been mistaken for being the same age.
"Knight," Dumbledore spoke lowly, no trace of a faked cheerfulness or levity in his tone. "This has truly been a glorious and terrible day.
"I want you to remember something. I know, sooner or later, doubts will assail you, questions and ruminations about what you did today to save your friends, and in doing so saving us all. It will be difficult, but remember… you did what you had to do. It is a popular recrimination in the eyes of those who have never had to make such a choice, but you were right in your actions. Trust in that. The world is better off for what you did. And should you begin to question your own inherent goodness, should you find yourself inclined to think ill of your own soul because of what happened this afternoon… before you believe in it, think of how Hermione would see you.
Ask yourself if she would see the same wickedness that you do.
"We cannot measure the weight of our own souls, we're blindly tangled and our perceptions usually just as knotted; so we must let our loved ones do it for us. Place your faith in yourself in the hands of those who love you."
Knight studied Dumbledore plainly. He felt only pushed to the point of breaking by it all… he wondered if maybe he had broken and didn't understand it yet for his all-consuming concern for Hermione. Maybe he'd
see the irreparable crack in his very essence later. Depending on Hermione, it might not make any difference to him once he did.
The headmaster frowned and continued, "But dolling out reassurances is not the reason I'm here. I understand you have well enough to worry about at the moment, but I feel you have the right to know. I came to tell you about Sirius…"
His manner told Knight the important part, the information that he needed to know, but just the same he waited for Dumbledore to say it. It was a necessary evil… someone had to say it to make it real. He'd just lie and wait for one more stone in the foundation of his world to be torn away.
"We were too late to save him. Knowing all that I do now, I very much doubt Sirius was permitted to live more than a few breaths' span after Aberforth…" Dumbledore paused slightly, "after my brother was allowed to get away with the news of a living captive at Dane. After my brother's intentionally allowed escape, Sirius had served his purpose for Voldemort's Death Eaters." Dumbledore said nothing of any notion that it had been over quickly or painlessly for Sirius. They both knew better. "I am deeply sorry for your loss," Dumbledore said mournfully.
Sirius gone. Dead. Knight wanted it to hurt, he wanted it to matter, but he didn't have room for that much pain when Hermione was filling him with it. He grieved and ached for her first, and when she got better he might have space inside him for a new heartache, a heartache that belonged to Sirius Black. But just now, he couldn't handle more. Hermione was all the agony he could stand. He listened and understood that Sirius was gone, his godfather killed because of him, but he couldn't feel it. It was throwing a pebble at a giant with just as much effect.
Dumbledore was watching Knight closely for his reaction, and when there was none he seemed doubly concerned. He took his eyes from Knight to study Hermione arrayed on the bed behind the jaguar. Then he gave a solemn nod to himself, as if coming to some internal realization.
"I'll give you some time, I know this must all be very overwhelming." Dumbledore stood and headed for the door. Before slipping out as quietly as he had entered, he looked down at Knight and said gently, "Keep watch over her."
As if Knight had to be asked to do that any more than one had to ask him to breathe.
As he asked Hermione to breathe, how he willed her to keep breathing, to keep taking in breaths so he could mark them, count them, thank the universe for each precious one.
His world was broken down to inhales and exhales. It kept him going, kept him sane, kept him whole where otherwise he may have flown apart or folded inward for the evil that he'd touched on the grounds of Hogwarts. It was all secondary to Hermione's breathing.
Inhale and exhale, and the world went on.
At some point, he dozed. He did not realize he'd slipped into a light sleep until the sound of the door opening jarred him awake as quickly as an explosion just outside the room might have. Knight's ears turned to the sound and he waited, expectant and on the cusp of tensing for action.
The first thing to come into the room was a floating bowl. Next came Ginny. Knight relaxed… as much as he could. He had two states it seemed, primed to tear apart any enemy who might think to lay a hand on Hermione, and the dejected, heartsick waiting of a loved one at a hospital beside. 'Relaxed' did not rightly fit with either state of being.
Ginny closed the door softly behind her with her bum, as her left hand was being used to command the wand that kept the bowl aloft. Her right hand was heavily wrapped in white bandages. She had an intent, concentrated look on her face, like she was struggling through an exam she hadn't properly studied for. She walked the bowl over to where Knight lay and set it down with concerted effort on the floor. Knight saw, when it was before him, that it was a bowl of water.
When it was safely down, Ginny's expression sagged in relief and she finally gave Knight a proper glance. "Hi, Harry… um, I mean… Knight."
Gently, Ginny sat down on the floor right in front of him, her wounded hand cradled near her chest. For a moment, she didn't seem to know quite what to say. She looked long and searchingly at Knight, as though trying to see past the cat to the boy Harry she knew.
Knight wasn't sure that boy existed anymore.
Ginny finally shook out of her stare and put away her wand. She gestured toward the water bowl. "I thought you might want to get cleaned up a bit." She frowned, then reached into her robes and pulled out a folded washcloth.
She seemed to hesitate, eyed Knight, then dipped the cloth in the water with her left hand and experimentally wiped it over one of Knight's extended paws. It came away filthy and bloody. Ginny scowled at it, dipped it into the bowl again, and once more gave his paw a wipe. She looked up at him to gauge his reaction, and when she saw that he was going to let her do it she grew more confident and serious in her efforts. She scooted closer and set to her task more earnestly.
Knight watched her silently.
"Sorry to do it this way, but I don't trust myself to do a scourgify with my left hand. Afraid I'd wipe off your toe or something," she gave a flickering smile that held no humor.
Knight dropped his eyes to her bandaged right hand. Curious, he just barely extended his nose toward her injured hand. To Ginny's immense credit, she didn't flinch when the jaguar moved toward her. Instead, Ginny glanced down at her hand when she realized it was what had caught Knight's interest. Then the light came on and she realized what he wanted. "Oh… that." She continued cleaning Knight's blood-stained fur as she said, "When Ron rushed off to fetch you two back to the school, he gave me the Marauder's Map so I could show it to McGonagall. When You Know… when Voldemort and his Death Eaters were sure to catch us, I was afraid they'd take the map and use it to track down everyone in Hogwarts. I knew there were students who would surely find hiding places in the school when they realized what was going on, but if Voldemort had that map he'd find them with no trouble. So I cast an incendio and set fire to the map right in my hand. In my haste, I got a little carried away." Ginny shrugged.
Knight looked intently at her face.
Ginny moved to his other front paw and began to clean that off. "Ron's outside. He wants to come in and visit with you two, but everyone's gone a little mad. They know that Voldemort's been killed, and they know you did it, and everyone and their Cousin Wulgrig wants to see you. The ministry's frothing at the mouth to get you alone. Ron's sending them away…" Ginny smiled. "Very inspiring of him, actually. Mum would be right proud of the way he's putting his foot down, and on a few toes at that. He's taking no cheek from anyone, not even high-ranking ministry officials. The Hogwarts professors and the hospital staff are on his side. The Minister of Magic himself is being sent packing when he sniffs around looking to have a chat with you. It's quite moving, really, you have quite a human shield out there."
For a time, silence descended while Ginny finished tenderly cleaning each of
Knight's front paws. Then she moved to his bloody chest. "What you did… that was the most incredible thing I've ever seen. You saved us."
Knight turned his ears back to attend to the sound of Hermione. Still breathing, still alive.
Ginny cleaned his chin and muzzle, swept away the stains of battle on his body. The bowl of water was now brown and red from the grime that Ginny had been wiping off. Pausing in her work, she turned her gaze from his muzzle to his eyes and she leaned in barely closer. "She'll be okay, Harry; Hermione's too unyielding to give up. She'll be fine… you'll see."
Knight turned his head into Ginny's hand and gave her inner wrist a small nudge.
Ginny rose to her knees to incline forward and kiss Knight lightly on the nose. When she pulled away, she gave a shy smile. "Just until Hermione's well enough to do it."
Ginny did the rest of her gentle cleaning duties without saying a word. When she was done, she laid her hand only a moment on Knight's head, then gathered the bowl and cloth and left the room.
Knight dropped his head to rest upon his forelegs and counted the moments, stretching to eternity, by Hermione's breathing.
Chapter Sixty Five
Time lost its meaning and it began to seem the whole of his life had been spent lying next to Hermione's hospital bed. Nurses and doctors and life continued to pass just beyond the door, but Knight was not interested in it so long as it did not think to come in and harm Hermione.
It became another universe, adjacent to the normal one, where only he and Hermione existed. So it was a rattling intrusion when, some time later, or maybe a lifetime and a half later, the door opened and a crowd of people poured into the small room.
Actually, it was Molly, Arthur, Ron, Fred, and George, but in a world made for two it was a stadium's worth of people.
Molly went straight to Hermione's bedside. "Oh, gracious, the poor dear! Look at her, all torn up! Those vile, disgusting, cruel, bloody…"
"Careful, Mum, or you'll pull something," Fred teased half-heartedly… or maybe it was George.
The Weasley clan pressed close around the bed in their collective concern, and Knight cared not for the crowding, even if they were very mindful not to tread on him. He got up and went to the far end of the room, still in a place where he could watch over Hermione but free from the gaggle of Weasleys.
"There there, Molly," Arthur said as he patted his wife's shoulder, "she has
the best doctors in Saint Mungo's seeing to her. She's receiving the best care you could possibly ask for."
Molly was crying. Fred and George were surreptitiously casting endlessly fascinated glances at Knight where the jaguar sat a short distance away. They were looking and practically bursting with curiosity, but neither approached.
But Ron did. He broke from his family's vigilant post around Hermione's bed and crossed the room to join Knight. He sat down with a weary sigh beside his friend and leaned back against the wall. "Hey, mate."
Knight glanced back briefly at Ron, then returned his attention to Hermione.
"I'll never complain about exam days being the longest days in history ever again," Ron commented as he sagged against the wall. "Blimey, I feel like I could sleep for a month and still not feel rested. Who knew fighting evil could be so exhausting. Don't worry, I'm all right. Dumbledore told us about Sirius… really sorry about that. Would have been nice if it hadn't ended up that way."
Knight didn't act as though he'd heard, so single-minded was his focus on Hermione.
"Ginny would have come in for a visit, too," Ron said with a schooled expression, "but Seamus showed up. Seems he dropped everything and came looking for her the moment he heard about the attack. They're outside being all huggy and touchy. Better out there than in here where we'd have to watch it." Ron frowned and brushed at a bit of dirt on his trousers. "You know, really, I suppose Ginny could have done loads worse than Finnegan."
Finally, the twins, seeing their younger brother chummy with the jaguar, worked up their courage sufficiently to leave Hermione's bed and go over to the large cat. They both sat down in front of Knight, side by side. Knight disliked that they would presume to put themselves between him and Hermione, but he was not so far gone that he would attack a Weasley. But he still didn't like it.
"Harry… have to say, this…" the one speaking gestured at Knight's body,
"wicked!"
Hermione was lying in bed, grievously injured, and the twins wanted to chatter about animagi. Place themselves between him and Hermione and twitter about cats and neat magical tricks. Knight laid back his ears, annoyed.
"Leave him be, you two," Ron grumbled. "It's been a pisser of a day and his girlfriend's in the hospital. He wants none of your funning. Sheesh, and people call me dense."
One identical redhead elbowed the other. "Sorry, Harry… it's a real shame about Hermione. But she'll pull through, you know? Haven't seen anything yet that could stop that bird. Real mule-headed when she wants to be."
In its own way, it was meant as a compliment, but Knight was not in the mood to be accommodating to the Weasley sense of humor.
He was spared having to tolerate any further unintended insults toward Hermione when Arthur said sternly from behind his two sons, "Don't you two have better sense than to heckle a dragon?"
"Come on, Dad, it's just Harry."
"Just Harry… who relieved You Know Who of his head."
Both twins looked a little ill and seemed, despite being a year older than Harry, unfathomably younger than he just then.
"Go to your mother, she could use some comforting. And for Merlin's sake, try to keep your mouths shut. She doesn't need your foolishness in the state she's in. She's still wound about Ron and Ginny being at Hogwarts during the attack, so mind yourselves."
The twins rose and obediently went over to their sobbing mother. When they were gone, Arthur sat on the floor on Knight's other side, opposite Ron.
"You probably couldn't care less about this right now, but all the same, damn good show, Harry. I'll hardly be the last to say it, but we're all indebted to you for offing that sodding bastard."
Arthur was right, Knight didn't care.
At one point in the visit, Molly left Hermione's bed to go to Knight, take his head in her hands, and pepper his brow with kisses and tears like he was a beloved pet who had dragged one of her kids to safety from a burning building. Knight suffered it with as much composure as he could, but all their ruckus made it hard to listen for Hermione's breathing.
The Weasleys stayed for a while, but when the only occupants in the room were an unconscious girl and a cat, conversation died on the vine. The
silence became, to them, uncomfortable. Eventually, they decided they were doing more good outside running interference for anyone who had a notion to get an audience with the boy who killed Voldemort. With promises to Knight that they would be close at hand should he need or want anything and that he need only call on them, they packed out of the hospital room.
When they were gone, leaving the room in welcome silence, Knight returned to his previous spot lying next to Hermione's bed.
"We've tried to stem the tide as best we could, but the students who were there have told their parents, who've told others, and the Saint Mungo's staff has whispered it to their loved ones, who spread it even further… it's wildfire at this point. It's out in the Daily Prophet that Harry Potter is an animagus."
"It's unimportant now if the world knows that secret, now that Voldemort is gone. Because I don't imagine the ministry would give either Harry or Miss Granger any grief for being rogues."
"They're putting them on the Animagus Registry even as we speak. No fuss." "Good."
Knight listened to McGonagall and Dumbledore talk outside Hermione's room.
McGonagall's voice dropped so low that even Knight had to put some effort into hearing it. "Albus… those of us who saw what Mister Potter did to those Death Eaters without his wand… Ronald and Ginerva Weasley, Professor Sprout, and I… we've made a pact to never breathe a word of what really happened to another soul.
"We've agreed to tell everyone that when the Death Eaters were taken by surprise when Mister Potter and Miss Granger's animagus forms were revealed, the four of us recovered our wands and joined the fight. The official story will be that we killed the Death Eaters, since the state of Mister Potter's wand would exclude him from being capable of using it to inflict the damage that was caused."
"And have each of you accepted that, in so doing, you will implicate yourselves in some very borderline use of magic? As you yourself observed, dark magic?"
"Yes. We know. We accept that responsibility. It's worth it, Albus. If people were to know the truth, what really happened… Mister Potter doesn't need
that. There would be many and more who would make his life unspeakably difficult for the knowledge of what he's capable of doing, regardless of the service he did us all."
"Witches and wizards are not so dissimilar from muggles in that regard… fear and misunderstanding can make them ruthless. They would undoubtedly tear down their own savior in fear."
"He doesn't deserve that."
"No… and had I been there, I would take blame for the Death Eaters' deaths so that none of you would have to bear this burden. But it is noble and admirable of you four to take this upon yourselves."
"It's a small price to pay."
"I'm certain, if Harry knew, after he protested and tried to dissuade you, he would be grateful."
The witch and wizard were quiet a moment and the sound of someone's footsteps, approaching then fading away, explained why.
"The press is getting increasingly persistent to have a word with Mister Potter, official word from the Vanquisher of Lord Voldemort as they've taken to calling him now. As though 'the Boy Who Lived' wasn't cumbersome enough."
"At least it means they're saying his name," Dumbledore observed keenly. "Would suggest that they are beginning to truly believe that the veil of terror has been lifted. As to the weighty title… it seems Harry's unenviable fate that his name will never be left at simply 'Harry'. He'll always be 'Harry Potter' something or other. At least he's a strong enough wizard to handle such a hefty title. He got used to the Boy Who Lived; he'll adjust to Vanquisher of Lord Voldemort."
"What about the reporters?"
"You could grant them a moment of time with the Vanquisher of Lord Voldemort, I suppose, but I doubt snarls and roars will make for very intriguing reading."
In any other circumstance, Knight might have found that amusing. Instead, he just listened placidly.
McGonagall was tensely quiet for a few second. "He's not changed back once
since the battle. I'm concerned."
"I am as well, but we can do nothing about it. He won't change because we ask him to; he certainly won't change because the Daily Prophet wants a statement."
"I'm worried about what his refusal to change might mean… what it says of his state of mind."
"If he feels better able to cope as the jaguar, Minevra, then leave him be. He's earned the right to have us respect his wishes."
"But what if… I don't truly believe for a moment it will happen, but what if Miss Granger doesn't make it?" McGonagall's voice dropped, "What if she were to die? Harry would change back eventually… wouldn't he?"
"I honestly do not know if he would."
"But… but what… what would the wizarding world do with a hero who's forever a jaguar?"
"Learn to send steaks instead of fan mail."
"Don't joke, Albus, this is serious. The public is the least of our worries if, Merlin forbid, Miss Granger passes away and this jaguar state of his becomes permanent. What about Harry?!"
"I assure you I am thinking of Harry. If he finds some modicum of solace in being a beast that need never answer for his actions, or speak to his heartaches, who are we to refuse him that small comfort?"
"It's just so… wrong. He won. He defeated the monster. His trials should be over now… he should have the opportunity to rest."
"I know."
McGonagall let out a long, weary sigh. "I saw you a moment ago speaking with the ministry's Head Auror. Is there any news?"
"Nothing new. Voldemort's followers are scattering like scared rabbits. Some are being caught and prosecuted, others will no doubt disappear back into the woodwork. It's a sad thing, but we'll never catch them all. At least there's no longer any chance that Voldemort with gather them to his cause again.
"Mostly, Amelia and I were putting together a clearer picture of the events that lead to that horrible confrontation at Hogwarts. Much of it is speculation on our part, of course, but it tracks so closely to the events that unfolded that I would hazard to say we're guessing right more than we are guessing wrong.
"By our proposed timeline, last summer, Voldemort stayed relatively inactive while he rebuilt his forces and his strength. The kidnap of Alastor was a search for knowledge, intelligence, but still Voldemort had matters to attend to before he struck against Harry. He had to insure that what happened at the end of the Triwizard Tournament, the priori incantatum, would not run afoul his efforts again. At that point we lost Mister Ollivander. It was not until the wandsmith succeeded, a fantastic accomplishment that will garner him awe in its own way, posthumously, of course, that Voldemort was ready to strike. But by then, he had another problem. Harry wasn't where he should have been. Harry just so happened to choose this Christmas to spend away from Hogwarts.
"I imagine Voldemort hadn't foreseen that being a problem when he was making his plans; his sources within Hogwarts…" McGonagall muttered something that sounded like 'Malfoy', but Dumbledore only paused a fraction of a second before he continued speaking, "his sources in the school would have informed him that Harry always stayed the Christmas holiday at Hogwarts, and it would have been a correct observation until this year. This Christmas was the first one Harry ever chose to spend away from the school. It seems that when Harry left for Hermione's grandmother's for Christmas the Death Eaters couldn't find him. An elderly muggle woman named Roberta Richardson was not a clear connection to famous boy wizard Harry Potter. Voldemort had to draw Harry out of hiding.
"So he attacked the Dursleys and killed Harry's cousin. It was a strategic chess move, and the first moment when I played to Voldemort's hand. He knew I would get twitchy after someone so close to Harry had been murdered, he knew I would want Harry close to me… he knew I would take him back to Hogwarts.
"Young Draco Malfoy was there and waiting. His efforts to rile Harry into violence worked splendidly, better than even Mister Malfoy could have foreseen I am certain, and I have no doubt Lucius was waiting expectantly for word from his son of the attack so that he might go to the right people and demand Harry be expelled for his uncontrollable violent tendencies.
Voldemort wanted to know where he could find Harry, so he forced my hand to bring him back to Hogwarts, but Voldemort did not want to face me, so once he knew where Harry was, he needed to get him away from the school
and my protection. Flight from a foreknown point, providing a perfect opportunity to close in and make the kill. The expulsion tactic would have worked toward that end nicely.
"When that failed, Voldemort turned to the next logical solution. Get me
away from Hogwarts and leave Harry vulnerable.
"It was a masterfully crafted plan, one that will have me second-guessing myself and keep me up many nights wondering how I might have done differently, I'm sure."
"You mean the part about Sirius."
"Yes. It was always a risk having Sirius on the hunt for Voldemort, we knew that. Mister Pettigrew was working for Voldemort, and he knew of Sirius's animagus form. And Aberforth was registered with the ministry. There was no great mystery in their animagus forms, merely the advantages both forms lent the wizards using them. It was a risk, but no one could hope to seek out Voldemort and be free of risk.
"Sirius and Abeforth were captured at Dane, and Aberforth was allowed to escape to bring word back to Hogwarts of Sirius's captivity… Hogwarts, where Voldemort knew for a fact Harry was.
"I am ashamed of how well Voldemort predicted what I would do in that scenario. He knew I would come myself, especially with the seat of evil sitting so close to my beloved school. He left enough Death Eaters to keep the attack force on Dane busy while he took a smaller contingent and advanced on Hogwarts.
"By the time we found Sirius, or what was left of him, slain long before we arrived, and no sign of Voldemort, we realized we'd been played, and our own safeguards protecting Hogwarts worked against us. We couldn't apparate straight to the school to join the battle here.
"We returned at once to Hogsmeade to find a fireplace so we could floo into my office, but it wouldn't connect, I know now because the floo in my office was being used to transfer students to Saint Mungo's. Needless to say, by the time we arrived at Hogwarts it was already over."
"It's a chilling sequence of events," intoned McGonagall's weary voice. "It makes me all the more relieved that we need never worry about him again… one thing in all of this I still don't understand is why he destroyed the school's hospital wing."
"Because he knew my brother was there. Aberforth was grievously injured, but all the same Voldemort did not want to chance having to go up against a Dumbledore."
McGonagall sounded overwhelmed. "I think, at times, that it will never all have out. There's just so much to uncover. Moments like this, I think we'll never know the full truth of it all."
"Perhaps not. Harry and Hermione's children may never know more than the fact that there was once, long ago, an evil wizard who died and when he did everyone was free from fear."
"To think that this will ever seem as though it happened a long time ago… I don't know if I believe that."
"It probably never will be, for us. But the first children born to parents who live without fear of Voldemort… for them, it will be."
"I'll envy those children." "So will I."