The silence in the room was so thick it felt like it had physical weight. Sebastian didn't offer a reassuring smile or a gentle bedside manner; he stood with a cold, clinical precision that made him look less like a doctor and more like a sculptor about to rework a piece of clay.
"The logic is simple," Sebastian said, his voice cutting through the hum of the hospital's air conditioning. "Magic and Muggle medicine don't play well together. You have titanium pins holding together a shattered mess. If I heal the bone now, it will fuse with the metal, and you'll be a cyborg with a permanent limp. To make you an athlete again, I have to remove the 'help' you've been given. I will vanish the fractured shards and the steel, leaving only the skin and muscle. Then, you will regrow the bone from nothing."
Dr. Pete let out a strangled sound. As a world-class orthopedic surgeon, every word coming out of Sebastian's mouth felt like a personal insult to the last four centuries of medical progress. Removing bones? Vanishing steel? Regrowing a skeletal structure overnight? It was madness. It was heresy.
He opened his mouth to protest, to cite the laws of biology and the impossibility of spontaneous regeneration, but the words died in his throat. He looked at Sebastian's eyes—dark, ancient, and utterly certain—and then he looked at the floating boy. The laws of biology had already been escorted out of the room the moment Shawn's bedsheets left the mattress.
"I'm ready," Shawn whispered. His voice was raw, but his eyes were locked on Sebastian's wand. "I don't care how you do it. Just... please."
Sebastian didn't waste another second. He made a sharp, whipping motion with his wand. In an instant, the remaining bandages and the jagged remnants of the cast simply evaporated into a fine, grey mist, leaving Shawn's right leg exposed. It was a gruesome sight—swollen, bruised a deep purple, and marred by the surgical incisions where the pins had been inserted.
The Sterling family gasped, but Sebastian was already moving. He pointed the tip of his wand directly at the center of the boy's calf.
"Evanesco Os."
It wasn't a violent spell. There was no flash of light, no sound of breaking glass. Instead, Shawn felt a sensation that defied description. It was like a sudden, freezing bolt of lightning shot from his knee to his ankle, followed by a sickening hollow feeling.
It wasn't an illusion. To the horror of everyone watching, the boy's leg—which had been stiff and angled—suddenly collapsed. Without the internal support of the bone, the calf became soft and floppy, like a sleeve of wet rubber. It settled against the hospital bed in a way that should have been terrifying, but there was no blood, no scream, and no wound. The bones were simply gone.
Dr. Pete staggered back, his shoulder hitting the wall with a dull thud. His breath was coming in short, panicked hitches. His entire career, his years of study, his understanding of the human frame—it had been undone in a single heartbeat.
If he can do that to a leg, Pete thought, his mind spiraling into a dark, superstitious panic, what stops him from doing it to a heart? Or a spine? Oh God, I called him a charlatan. I told him I'd run naked... He's going to erase my ribs. I'm going to collapse into a puddle of meat on the floor.
Sebastian ignored the surgeon's existential crisis. He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and produced a small, unassuming glass bottle filled with a steaming, amber liquid. He uncorked it, and a pungent, acrid smell—like burnt rubber and old vinegar—immediately filled the ward.
"Drink this," Sebastian commanded, handing the bottle to Shawn. "Every last drop. And Shawn? Try to keep it down. If you spit it out, we have to start over, and I don't think you want to experience the 'hollow' feeling twice."
Shawn gripped the bottle with trembling hands. He took a sniff and gagged; it smelled like something that had died and been brought back to life in a vat of acid. But he saw his father's face, and he thought of the green grass of the Emirates Stadium. He tilted his head back and drained the vial in one go.
The reaction was instantaneous. Shawn's eyes bulged, and his face turned a vibrant shade of crimson. It didn't taste like medicine; it tasted like he had just swallowed a handful of hot coals and a cup of liquid lead. His throat felt like it was on fire, and he could feel the potion hitting his stomach like a lead weight.
"Good," Sebastian said, taking the empty bottle back. He then produced a second container—a thick, green paste that smelled faintly of earth and rot. This was Bubotuber Essence, refined and stabilized. He spread it over the surgical scars on Shawn's leg with a deft hand. "This will ensure the skin heals as fast as the bone grows. We wouldn't want your new skeleton to burst through old stitches."
With a final wave of his wand, the "Mobilicorpus" charm ended, and Shawn settled back onto the bed.
"The work is beginning now," Sebastian said, addressing the room. "The potion is stimulating the marrow and the magic is weaving the calcium. It is an intensive process. He will be in significant pain for the next several hours as the bone knits itself back together."
He turned to Jonathan and Mary. "We should leave him. He needs his strength, and he doesn't need an audience for the sounds he's about to make."
"Will he... will he be alright?" Mary asked, her voice trembling.
"By dawn, he will be standing," Sebastian promised. He then turned his gaze toward Dr. Pete, who was trying to merge with the wallpaper. "And as for you, Doctor... relax. I have no interest in cursing you. I find your dedication to your patient admirable, even if your imagination is somewhat... limited. You can keep your clothes on."
A look of such profound relief washed over Pete's face that he looked like he might burst into tears.
The group filed out of the ward, leaving Shawn alone in the dim light. As the door clicked shut, the real trial began. Inside Shawn's leg, it felt like a thousand tiny needles were being driven into his flesh from the inside out. It was a rhythmic, grinding ache that pulsed with his heartbeat. He bit down on the edge of his pillow, muffled groans escaping his lips. It was the longest night of his life, a slow-motion reconstruction of his very foundation.
But as the first rays of the London sun began to bleed through the hospital blinds, the grinding stopped. The heat in his leg faded, replaced by a strange, heavy solidity.
Shawn opened his eyes, drenched in sweat but feeling oddly light. He looked down. His right leg was no longer purple or swollen. The skin was smooth, the surgical scars had faded to nearly invisible silvery lines, and the leg looked... perfect. It looked strong.
He tentatively swung his legs over the side of the bed. His feet touched the cold linoleum. He waited for the familiar, stabbing pain of a broken bone, but it never came. He stood up.
He wasn't just standing; he felt like he was carved out of granite. He took a step. Then another. By the time the door opened and the group returned, Shawn was doing slow, deliberate high-knees in the center of the room, a manic, joyous grin plastered across his face.
"Shawn!" Mary screamed, rushing forward to throw her arms around him.
Jonathan Sterling stood in the doorway, his eyes wet with tears he refused to let fall. He watched his son move with a fluidity that shouldn't have been possible twenty-four hours ago. He then turned to look at Sebastian, who was standing in the shadows of the hallway, looking completely unmoved by the miracle he had just performed.
"You did it," Jonathan whispered, walking over to the wizard. "You actually did it."
Dr. Pete was hovering behind the MP, staring at Shawn's leg with the intensity of a man trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing. He kept making the sign of the cross. "It's impossible... the cellular density... the structural integrity... it's a miracle."
Jonathan turned fully toward Sebastian, his posture straightening into that of a man who held the fate of a nation in his hands. But now, that power was being offered as a gift.
"Mr. Swann," Jonathan said, his voice low and dead serious. "I am a man of my word. You didn't just heal a leg; you saved my son's soul. I told White I would agree to any request. Name it. You want legislation? You want property? You want someone's career ended or another's started?"