The sounds of the elevator rang through the silence inside, though Hermione's nervous energy was more than enough to keep Harry entertained on their trip down to the bowels of the Ministry. He caught Sirius glancing down as well, an amused smile creasing his face. Madam Bones lingered in the corner nearest to the button panel, her intense brown eyes studying the three of them.
A small bell dinged their arrival to the Wizengamot floor and Sirius let out a tired sigh that didn't go unnoticed by their new guide.
"I'm sure this chamber has lost a bit of its luster for you, hasn't it, Mr. Black?" she asked, leading them down a wide hall that was peppered with unornamented brown doors, save for a set of double doors that was twice as tall as any of the others looming ahead on the right.
"Boring memories as a kid," Sirius said with a shrug. "And boring recent memories, though a great deal more important." He grinned in a way that seemed to show more teeth than usual. "My unpleasantness was done in darker, smaller rooms much further down."
She nodded in response. "They don't like to do the dirty work in the open."
Hermione made a strangled noise and her eyes bulged. "But…surely the Ministry doesn't…"
The older woman paused next to the closed double doors. "No? Didn't Sirius spend time in Azkaban due to some sham of a trial?"
"Well…yes."
"So clearly, the Ministry had dirty work that needed doing, and they preferred to do so away from the transparency of a glass-covered room. I was not around back then, so all we can do is to ensure that what we're creating is something better."
Hermione digested the short speech, then slowly nodded, and Harry could see the resolve in her eyes. He doubted Madam Bones could have said anything else that would have cemented Hermione's desire to work at the Ministry further.
The massive doors swung open in answer to a wave of Madam Bones' near-black, reedy wand, exposing a massive cylindrical room inside with a section of raised chairs near the center atop stone risers. Sirius wandered in alongside Harry, his hands in his pockets as he looked up to the ceiling, which, to Harry's surprise, mirrored the star-filled sky outside, though not quite as clearly as the Great Hall at Hogwarts. He could still pick out the profile of the golden statue beyond, and the occasional lit window even higher above.
"What's this?" Hermione asked from somewhere over to his right. He turned to find her crouched down, one finger tracing something on the floor.
"Good eye," Madam Bones said, gesturing for Harry and Sirius to follow her over. "This is where we keep any dangerous criminals that are being tried by the entirety of the Wizengamot."
Harry slowed and looked over his shoulder, hoping that Fleur would join them soon. She had been the whole reason he had been at all excited to come.
Sirius joined Hermione, peering down at what appeared to be a circle of various runes.
"Grindlewald was held in this very circle," Madam Bones said, pointing to a single out of place rune with her wand. "That one there raises both barriers."
"Both?" Hermione asked, craning her neck to look at the middle of the large circle.
"The inner one holds the dementor. Some of the more violent criminals often don't respond to much else and can become more cooperative when shown what awaits them at Azkaban. It keeps the dementor from kissing the prisoner, and limits its influence so it doesn't affect the members of the Wizengamot."
Hermione stood and walked to the middle circle, squinting as she pointed to some of the runes. "There's algiz, and that one is isaz…" Her eyes went wide and she crouched down again. "Harry! This one looks like your scar!"
Sirius stepped forward to look, his eyebrows raised in surprise.
A shimmering barrier sprang to life behind him, a similar, denser one forming around Hermione.
Harry spun to face Madam Bones to find her wand pointed at his chest.
" Imperio ."
The world around him faded, muting down to little more than a bare difference between light and shadow. He remembered the spell of course. It had hit him with a pleasant splash of warmth that seeped through his clothes and into his bones. He felt light, carefree. As though he could take a deep breath and lay down for a nap.
Obey.
A deep, accented voice rumbled through his pristine world over top of a woman's voice from somewhere nearby.
"Seems like Barty overplanned again," the voice said, ringing through vague angry shouts that sounded as though they came from the end of a tunnel.
His interest piqued. He…knew those voices?
Obey.
The woman's voice spoke again. "Once Potter is secure, I'll be back for you two. I'm sure Barty will find something to do with…"
Light and shadow burst into life and color and Harry yanked his wand from his pocket, conjuring a shield charm in front of himself before Madam Bones could react.
"Interesting…" she said, her voice barely audible over Sirius' fists thudding against the barrier and his frantic shouts. A quick wave of her wand silenced Sirius and Hermione's yells and she bared her teeth at Harry. "Confringo!"
A burst of orange light exploded against Harry's shield. It shimmered in the air, diffusing the spell with little apparent effort. He checked his sides to see if his attacker had moved in his temporary blindness, but she remained standing in front of him, her wand held aloft.
"You're quick," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "And you beat an Imperius and survived a killing curse. Not to mention being tortured at the hand of our master, and retaining your sanity. Perhaps there is something to the Dark Lord's interest, after all. Even beyond that pro-"
Harry let his shield drop and thrust his wand forward. "Reducto! "
She dove to the side, allowing the vivid blue spell to soar over her.
"Nasty spell. Seems Dumbledore's golden boy is a bit tarnished," she growled, rising to her feet. "Let's see what you've got without people running to your rescue like last time."
A crooked twist of her wand and an inaudible utterance began the duel in earnest. A pair of sickly purple curses spat from the tip of her wand, soaring across the space between them and impacting against Harry's shield. He took a few steps back, putting some distance between them while the spells kept him from view, and brought another shield to life in front of him and to his left, the barrier that held Sirius and Hermione on his right.
No sooner had he raised his second shield than a spell skittered off it, rebounding up to gouge a swath in a wall above them.
'Keep moving.'
Moody's words.
'The shields are useless if they know where they are. Don't let them get behind you'.
Harry spun to find her beginning a barrage of colorful spells, a potent, violent stunner at the head, bracketed by a set of cutting curses. He dropped to the ground, just in time to see the muted purple of a leg lock curse that had been hidden by the shining light of the others.
On impulse, Harry tugged on the stone beneath his aching side, willing it up to absorb the oncoming spell. As before, it refused to yield to him, and his legs slammed together, pain shooting through his knees as they knocked together.
'Obscure and mobilize. Never be stationary'.
Quelling his impulse to immediately free his legs, he pointed his wand in front of him, the tip just barely above the floor.
"Reducto!"
He grimaced, partly at his habitual shout, and partly because of the pebbles that peppered his face. The curse gouged a trench into the ground, sending a mass of rubble spewing into the air ahead of its path.
With a quick, muttered, "Finite," he unbound his legs and rolled to the side before climbing to his feet while simultaneously placing another shield in front of him. His side and knees vibrated with pain but he ignored it, scanning for his opponent.
The air shimmered to his left, a disillusionment charm falling as she sent another quick volley at Harry; an unidentifiable mix of roiling light.
Even as he brought up his second shield, the first shattered under the onslaught, more than a few pushing through to badger his second. He was moving a fraction of a second before it fell, stumbling in an attempt to keep his footing.
Pain bloomed in his arm as a cutting charm dug into his left shoulder.
The remaining spells impacted against the barrier behind him, rattling his teeth in his skull as a heavy thrum reverberated through the room.
Harry grit his teeth and pushed through the painful noise, sending a deluge of stunners as he ran to the side, each swift pivot of his arm producing another vibrant red spell. He switched to a body-bind but felt it falter as liquid poured into his eye. Reflexively, he cast a shield charm in front of him and wiped at his eye, his hand coming back bloody.
When had he been hit on the forehead?
A vivid blue light was his only warning as his own tactic was turned on him. Stones battered his body, sailing through the translucent shield standing in front of him. He crouched to the ground, presenting a smaller target, and, shielding his head with his body as best he could, returned the favor towards the origin of the attack.
Furious swears rang out above the cracks of rocks peppering the floors. Harry whirled towards the sound, wand held aloft, eye closed against the now swiftly flowing blood.
Amelia Bones' face was drawn into a rictus of fury, her wand held out in a trembling white-knuckled grip. Brown eyes, nearly black with rage, stood stark against the visible whites.
'Use their emotions against them. Most of them are more than a little unhinged. Capitalize on their mistakes'.
Battered and bloody, Harry let his wand fall slightly from the ready position and straightened, plastering on the best smirk he could manage. One he imagined Sirius might be proud of.
The fury directed at him became murderous and she shifted, her wand drawn back for what could only be an Unforgivable.
"Cruci-"
"Diffindo!"
Her hate-filled curse became a gurgle as a thin line of red bisected her neck and arm.
The body collapsed into the rubble surrounding her feet, her head and hand following a sliver of a moment later.
Harry let out a long, shaky breath and looked around with his clear eye, searching for the wards holding Sirius and Hermione. He found them halfway across the room, their voices little more than a dull roar through the ringing sound and the blood thundering through his ears.
When had he run all the way over here?
Shattered stone and pieces of wooden chairs littered the floor, leaving Harry stumbling as he hobbled towards the bubbles, his body screaming painful protests.
Their shouts coalesced into his name, Hermione's screech ringing out above Sirius's hoarse call.
"Harry! Watch out!"
"Expelliarmus."
Harry spun even as his wand was ripped from his fingers to soar into the outstretched hand of the Minister. His face was impassive as he surveyed the rubble-strewn room, his eyes lingering for a moment on the shifting corpse that had once looked like Amelia Bones.
"This was…not what I had planned," he said after a moment, a spark of anger flashing across his dark eyes. "But no matter. Your capture is paramount, even compared to the death of one of the inner circle."
The body stopped its bubbling shifting growth, and where a short, commanding woman had lain, Karkaroff's sightless eyes stared up at the starry sky above, a full meter away from the rest of his body.
Ice prickled across Harry's skin and settled in his chest, a deep-set dread that muted the pain of his battered sides and the sting of blood in his eye. He stole a glance up, squinting past the twinkling stars and the statue, hoping he could see a glimpse of the Minister's window, no matter the futility.
His right hand clenched, devoid of the one thing that might have helped him out of their predicament.
Though…he felt like he could barely stand up, let alone fight another sudden duel.
Knocking reverberated through the chamber, Sirius's knuckles bloody as he raged against his prison. Barely a croak issued from his open mouth, his voice shouted raw beneath the now-vanished silencing spell. Frantic tears streaked down Hermione's cheeks, flashes of spells from her wand obscuring her from view.
He turned back to the Minister, or Barty, he supposed, and set his jaw.
"I'll go with you if you let everyone go." He nodded his chin up towards the ceiling. "All of them."
Barty closed the distance between them, stepping over a gouge in the floor and bits of chairs. He stopped before he was within arm's reach, and smiled.
"I'm not going to bargain with someone who has nothing to offer."
A body-bind curse slammed into Harry's midsection, sending him toppling backwards onto the ground. One of his ribs, the one that had been broken before, cracked when he landed on a large piece of debris. Spiky, blinding pain rolled through him, causing him to breathe in, the action coursing agony through his side.
Barty stepped forward to peer down at him, a wand clutched in each hand.
"Despite our loss, this operation was a success." A slow, deliberate smile lifted the corners of his thin lips and he raised Harry's wand towards the ceiling. "Or rather, it's about to be."
Massive red sparks, reminiscent of the ones used during the Third Task burst from the tip of the wand, lighting the cavernous room as they soared up towards the stars. Tiny, glittering motes broke apart as they impacted the glass, illuminating it with a flickering red glow.
No more than three heartbeats later, the sky above exploded into an inferno.
The glass windows surrounding the atrium shattered, blown outward by churning, liquidus fire. The night sky replica vanished as violent orange light pierced the spell, the flames licking the glass as it crawled across the atrium floor high above them.
Harry raged against the spell, his side flaring against the attempted exertion but the curse refused to yield to him.
He tried to call out, to do anything more than lay helpless on the ground during a crisis.
Again.
Grinning, Barty returned his attention to Harry, pointing the other holly wand down at him. "The Dark Lord needs you alive but I have been granted permission, as one of his most effective servants, to ensure you are pliable when you meet him."
The wand raised into the air, a cruel grin twisting Fudge's eyes into narrow slits. His mouth curled, then opened to bring forth a pain whose memory already sparked deep in Harry's bones.
Up above in the distance blurred by blood and sweat, beyond the man and the glass, beyond the churning fire and shimmering air, a flash of blazing blue pierced the flames.
A cacophony of broken glass drew Barty's fury heavenward.
Shards rained down around them, the noise of them shattering against the ground lost against the shriek of the massive form that impacted the ground by Harry's feet.
It rose as Barty pointed both wands at it, a sneer twisting his mouth.
Fleur was larger than Harry remembered, her feathers spiky and dangerous, rather than the smooth silk of before. Her wings flexed and her taloned hands clenched, eyes shining tempestuous blue light from the shadowed recesses above a flesh-rending, hooked beak.
She took a step forward, forcing Barty to stumble back as waves of heat pulsed from her with rhythmic regularity. She shifted so her back was to Harry, her wings expanding to cover him. The warmth that issued from her was soothing as it brushed across his skin, rather than the waves of painful air that had Barty struggling backwards.
"The iron should have held you!" Barty bellowed, wincing as another shriek from Fleur echoed in the redoubling wind.
The hem of his coat began to smolder and the boiling, violent air carried with it the scent of burning hair. Crouch thrust his wand forward towards Fleur but a feathered arm; the wrist blackened and cracked, with exposed, shifting tendons, reached out and grabbed his arm.
A faint, audible crack sounded through the rushing wind and Barty let out a groan of pain. She seized his other arm, a second snap following the first.
A groaning curse left his lips as she raised him from the ground by his arms, bringing him to eye level. He spat at her, the liquid turning to steam while his eyebrows burned away and his skin began to redden.
Her beak opened, the shrill, piercing call reverberating through the chamber, unaccompanied by the translative voice. Raw, painful fury vibrated the air, its promise taking shape in the form of pockets of vivid bluebell flame bursting to life around them. The waves of heat intensified, pushing a scream from Barty's thrashing form.
"Fleur! No!" Hermione's frantic shriek barely pierced the rushing wind, her fists banging uselessly against the magical prison. Sirius had slumped to his knees, his face a pallid, ghostly gray as he looked on, mute.
As one, the pockets of flame erupted.
Fire cascaded through the room in a wave, consuming the debris as it flowed across the ground. The few remaining chairs and the podium on the raised platforms turned to ash while stampeding flames rushed to climb the walls. The heat of it pushed Hermione back, the barrier flaring a blinding white as it absorbed the brunt of the onslaught.
Through the rush of fire-fueled wind and the cracking of stone, a piercing shriek raged; a scream of ethereal fury giving life to the inferno.
Then, as one, and as though they had never existed at all, the flames vanished.
Fleur stood stoic in the center of the room, her feathered arms still outstretched. A taloned claw opened, spilling ash onto the floor at her feet. Behind her, curled on the floor and still protected by her wings, lay Harry's battered form.
"Harry!" Hermione's shout drew Fleur's attention and she whirled to face the sound. "Fleur, is he okay?"
Fleur drew herself up, expanding her wings to their full incredible span. Her beak opened, expelling wisps of smoke, tinged with faint gray-blue. The glow of her eyes pinned Hermione in place, the uncontrolled destruction churning behind them locking her voice in her throat.
" It is my fire ," Fleur said, her shrieking voice high, sharp, painful, and sure. "It is a part of me. It will not hurt him."
A soft groan from down by her taloned feet drew her focus, the singular defensiveness vanishing against an overwhelming wave of concern. She knelt awkwardly, her wings brushing the ground behind her, her burns screaming their pain with a voice loud enough to draw the blackness of unconsciousness to the edges of her vision.
She reached a hand out to him, the worry boiling inside her leaving no room for the pain.
A whimper froze her in place, her talon hovering above his shoulder, the visible muscles of her wrist straining to hold it aloft. He rolled onto his side, his hands pressed to the sides of his head as though holding it together. Tears tracked dirty paths down his soot-covered face, mingling with barely congealed blood.
On his forehead, glowing softly above his cracked glasses, his scar bled freely. The edges had become charred and the normally smooth, pink scar pulsed with a familiar, horrible blue light.
She screamed.
The sound filled the room, as piercing and shrill as it had been before, but filled with fragile agony instead of blazing fury. It transformed into a hoarse, wet noise as her avian form fled the sight before her, pushed away by the horror of the bleeding, glowing scar.
She began to retch, her throat filling with blood. Her hand instinctively reached for her neck but found only blinding pain instead of comfort. She spat the blood from her mouth as she coughed, pushing away the pain at her wrists and ankles as best she could. Her consciousness wavered as she looked around the room, each breath labored and wet.
Her gaze was drawn back to Harry, who writhed in pain in front of her, but she couldn't bring herself to lay a hand on him for comfort.
"W-what happened here?" an unsteady voice called from the doorway.
"Help!" Hermione called from her prison, her fists banging against the barrier, a sound echoed by Sirius's bloody pounding fists. "We were trapped by Death Eaters! They need to go to the hospital!"
The young man entered the room, his eyes glued to Fleur as he drew closer, a frown warring with a placid smile on his face.
"Y-you're…" he began, crouching down next to her, "incredible. My name is Daniel. I-I'm on track to be the Minister soon!"
"It would…make me very happy," Fleur croaked, fighting against the dizzying flash of pain that speaking caused her, "if you would let my friends out of there."
Daniel's head bobbed with excitement and he sprinted over to Sirius and Hermione. With a tap on the activation rune, the barriers fell and they rushed over where Fleur slumped in front of Harry.
Sirius gripped his wand as he drew close and tried to remember how to breathe when he caught sight of the red and blackened sinew around Fleur's neck. Blood and musculature occupied space where smooth skin had once been, the edges charred and cracked across her collarbones. He swallowed the bile in his throat and raised his wand, only able to offer them both the mercy of unconsciousness.
XxX
Sirius paced the narrow confines of Harry's room, each new lap failing to dispel the gnawing fear that tore at his insides. Sure the healers had said he was stabilized. He hadn't lost much blood and the cracked rib had knit nicely back together.
It wasn't his more mundane injuries that worried Sirius, if he could even call them that. It was the unassuming hospital-white gauze taped to Harry's forehead that threatened to spill what little his stomach still had in it out onto the floor.
In the hours he'd had to worry about it, he had only conjured worse and worse scenarios of what activity in a fourteen-year-old scar could mean. A lingering curse? A mark from some hitherto unknown Veela power? Had he been grazed by some unknown spell during his duel, and the effects wouldn't spark for weeks?
Sirius ground his teeth and spun on his heel, tracing his steps back across the off-white tiled floor.
He had to keep moving; keep stoking that corrosive fear and heft the guilt that dug deep trenches as it settled on his shoulders. If he stopped, sat down in the chair at Harry's bedside, and let the exhaustion mingle with the storm of darkness inside him, he wasn't sure he'd ever find his way to dry land again.
A gentle knock at the door snapped him from his introspection, his wand up in his hand before he'd taken even a single step. With deliberate care, he pulled open the door a crack to find Dumbledore peering at him with somber eyes.
With a shaky sigh that robbed him of the last dregs of his energy, Sirius pulled open the door to allow Dumbledore access to the dim, sterile room.
"How is he?" Dumbledore asked, frown lines adding decades to his visage.
"They handled most of his injuries with ease. A few blood restoratives, sub-dermal regeneratives, and bone menders did most of the work."
"Most?" Dumbledore's steely gaze was fixed on the bandage on Harry's forehead.
"Yeah," Sirius said, drawing out the word with a sigh. "They had real trouble getting it to stop burning. Even unconscious he was thrashing around while they tried to help. In the end, they had to use a tincture of water and silver to soothe…whatever was happening. After that, they were able to get him under with the Draught, and they'll give him the antidote tomorrow."
Dumbledore nodded, pulling his gaze reluctantly from Harry's sleeping form.
"I spoke with Apolline on my way in. Miss Delacour is recovering, though her injuries have been somewhat resistant to the normal healing methods, due to their nature. She has a positive prognosis, it will simply take a little extra time. They are both in her room, should you want to go visit."
Sirius cast a glance over at his immobile godson and shook his head.
"I think I'll just stay here," he said, eying the empty chair sitting by the head of the bed.
"Understandable." Dumbledore turned to go, then hesitated, fixing Sirius with stern, blue eyes that only hinted at the utter exhaustion concealed behind them. "Harry will not be going anywhere, should you wish to visit them. I suspect company might be good for all involved."
With a slow nod, his eyes flickered back to the hospital bed.
"Please, let me know when he is awake…we have much to discuss."
Sirius nodded, lowering himself down into the chair to wait, doing his best to ignore the blanket of guilt that smothered his thoughts, blinding him to the Headmaster's departure.
Uncounted minutes melded into hours, the windowless room offering no indication of the world outside, save for an ignored clock ticking away on one wall. Sirius's eyes burned as he stared at Harry, noting each slow rise of his chest with bated breath. His youthful skin was pallid and gray without even a sheen of sweat to indicate life. Just one, too-slow breath after another to soothe Sirius's anxiety.
In the middle of one such uncounted hour, the door to the room swung open, allowing access to a haggard, pale-faced Sebastian Delacour.
"How is he doing?" Sebastian asked, using the metal foot-board as a grip to hold himself upright.
"The Medi-witch says he'll be fine," Sirius said, his voice scratchy and wan. "Seems like all the bruises are finally gone. All that's left is whatever is wrong with his head. They've had to change the bandage a few times already."
"I'm sure it'll be fine." Sebastian's grin was tired but reassuring. "Fleur is also still under the effects of the Draught. I guess the process for restoring the muscles in the-the uh…the…" he faltered, his eyes sliding out of focus as the tendons in his hands stood in stark relief as he gripped the metal bar. "There's a lot of work to do with her neck. They say it'll take some time before she can use her voice properly again, but with a strict potion regimen, she'll be fine.
Sirius nodded, the blossom of relief he felt in his chest muted by the overwhelming blanket smothering him.
"Sebastian," he said, clasping his hands together between his knees. "I'm sorry."
Sebastian pushed himself upright and shook his head. "I'd like to think I know you well enough to know that if there had been anything you could've done, you'd have done it." He folded his arms and took a step back to lean against the wall. "What happened in there? We didn't get much after Dumbledore's phoenix brought us back from Italy."
Sirius frowned, his fingers protesting his tight grip. He ignored them.
"Karkaroff polyjuiced into Amelia Bones, and Barty Crouch Junior was the Minister. I don't know if Umbridge was one of them, or just under the Imperius, but she was the only other person we had contact with. Barty had Fleur stay behind, and Amelia locked me and Hermione away in the prisoner's circles."
Sebastian let out a long breath, then swallowed. "I've got a pretty good idea of what happened to Fleur to give her those injuries, though they're far worse than I would have expected." He shook his head again. "By a lot."
Sirius could only shrug, the effort of it almost painful.
"What happened to Crouch and Karkaroff?"
A ghost of a smile touched Sirius's lips. "Harry beat Karkaroff in a duel. An unbelievable combination of smarts and being way more skilled than that bastard bargained for. As for Barty…" Sirius forced himself to look up to meet Sebastian's eyes. "She…burned him. Burned the whole room until only Harry was left."
Sebastian paled. "I thought that might be it. The back of her clothes…and the burns being what they are…" He pushed off the wall with his shoulders and moved to stand next to Sirius, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I'm going to get back to Apolline. She's beside herself, and I was only able to come to see you because she had cried herself to sleep. Come see us if you want. I'm sure she'd be glad to see you."
Sirius made himself nod and felt the hand slide off his shoulder.
He'd be able to visit them at some point. Maybe later.
For now, he was content to count the rise and falls of Harry's chest.
XxX
Harry blinked himself awake, the unfamiliar blurs around him refusing to coalesce into any discernible shapes. In his groggy haze, he fumbled for his nightstand where he kept his glasses, taking care not to brush off his notepaper.
When his hand found air and the distinct tang of antiseptic finally pierced his fog, he sat up; heart thundering, mind racing.
He searched the room for his things, his body cool beneath some thin cloth garment. Had he been captured? What had…happened?
Jumbled memories filtered through his thoughts, of the flashing lights of a duel and the rolling blue warmth that had become searing pain. His body gave a violent twitch as he remembered the sight of Fleur's injured arms holding Crouch and of blackened, cracked skin.
He swung his legs off the side of the bed and only then did he notice Sirius's sleeping form slumped in a chair by his bed. He sat close enough for Harry to see him, even without his glasses. His long hair was matted, the tips flecked with dried blood and his head was tilted to the side in a way that made it look almost broken.
"Sirius," he said, his voice cracking from a mixture of disuse and biting thirst.
Even though his word had been a near whisper, Sirius jerked and stood, eyes wide and blinking.
"Harry?" he croaked. "You alright?"
Harry shrugged, then straightened, feeling like an absolute idiot.
"Fleur!"
A firm hand stopped him from rising, and he tilted away from it with practiced ease and…a growl?
"Harry, wait," Sirius said, taking a step back and raising his hands. "She's not awake yet. Sebastian said he'd let me know when she was."
He settled, every nerve in his body tense and ready to run from the room, though he tried to force the impulse down.
"So…are you alright?"
To his sudden surprise, he realized he was. None of the injuries plagued him, not even the rib he had snapped that had burned with each labored breath. Even his head…
His hand flew to his head to find an oddity resting there. The soft fabric of gauze met his probing fingers, lined with thin strips of tape. He searched blindly for the edge, then pulled at the bandage.
"I don't know if-!" Sirius trailed off as Harry yanked the gauze from his head. Then he whistled through his teeth.
"Is it bad?" Harry asked, reaching a tentative finger to his scar. Rather than the almost imperceptible ridge he was used to, the skin was cracked at the edges, the scar wider and deeper than it had been originally. He winced as his finger ran over the center, the skin still tender beneath his touch.
"It's…different?" Sirius said, cocking his head to the side. "Looks a bit more like a real lightning bolt now." He fumbled in his pocket for a moment before producing his half of their mirror pair and offering it to him. "Check it out."
"I need my glasses."
"Ah."
His scar was indeed more…realistic. The cracks gave a more energetic feel to the lighting, as though it were discharging into the air as it traveled. The center still followed the same line as before, though it was still red and raw.
"What happened?" Harry asked, handing back the mirror.
"I was kinda hoping you could tell me."
Harry relayed his version of events, though as he spoke he realized he remembered less than he would have expected. Mostly impossible to describe flashes of light and instinct. Warmth, and pain.
He found himself exhausted at the end of the retelling, the time spent under the Draught of Living Death a poor substitute for actual rest. After extracting a promise from Sirius to wake him when Fleur woke, even if it was only a few minutes later, he allowed himself to slip into a blissfully empty sleep.
It was a few hours later when he was gently shaken awake and handed his glasses. He took a moment to slip his trousers on under the thin hospital gown, then followed Sirius from the room and down the hall.
Any lingering exhaustion was burned away by the rampant desire that coursed through his veins. He needed to see that she was okay. To see her breathing and alive after the glimpses of her ruined neck played through his memories. The need pulsed in time with his heartbeat, urging him to sprint down the hall to her room.
It was a steady hand that turned the knob, and surprisingly steady legs that carried him into a room of such uncertainty. Though he had needed to see her well, alongside it rode the icy fear that she wouldn't be.
His feigned composure fled when he saw her sitting upright in bed, her hair fanned out behind her head on the pillow, its silvery length somehow less lustrous than usual. Her parents stood to her left, each with one arm wrapped tightly around the other. They spoke in the hushed, tense tones reserved only for hospitals, and cut off when Harry and Sirius stepped into the room.
In the moment when Fleur met his gaze across the silent room, the burst of pure relief and joy that shone in her beautiful blue eyes was so passionate and clear, it drove his fear away like so much smoke amongst a warm summer breeze.
When his blood settled in the calm, it took with it the panicked energy that had kept him moving. He would have collapsed to the ground had it not been for a swirl of motion and warm arms that tugged him into a tearful embrace.
"Oh, Harry," Apolline said, her voice hitching across each word. "I'm so glad you're okay."
He patted her heaving back, enjoying the momentary warmth her arms gave him. She finally released him when Sebastian stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder, causing her to start, then straighten.
"I'm sorry," she said, offering Harry a tremulous smile. She turned to her husband and nudged him with her shoulder. "Go on. No need to be such a stick-in-the-mud."
Sebastian let out a strained laugh and placed a light hand on Harry's shoulder, smiling down at him. "He's not much of a hugger. I'll let the two of you enjoy that privilege," he said.
Despite the accuracy of his statement, the words produced in Harry a twinge of desire to turn and embrace the man, though he settled for awkwardly patting the hand on his shoulder.
Apolline wiped at her eyes and beckoned to Sebastian. "We'll give you two some time. We'll be out in the hall if you need us."
Harry nodded his appreciation, not trusting his voice as his gaze settled again on Fleur and the small smile resting on pale lips. He tried to wait until the door had closed but found himself moving towards her almost immediately.
"Are you okay?" he blurted.
Thick bandages wrapped her wrists, though they were nothing compared to the swath of gauze that encircled her neck.
She gave an almost imperceptible nod, taking care not to jostle her neck too much. "I am much more concerned about you," she said, her voice a raspy whisper. Her eyes traveled up to his scar and her features morphed into a mask of horror. "No…"
"What?" he asked, his hand flying up to his forehead, the unfamiliar ridges catching him by surprise.
"My…that thing," she said. "It did that."
He shook his head. "You didn't do it on purpose," he said, remembering the comfortable warmth that had preceded the pain. "My scar is…well, you know where it came from. Who knows why it did that."
His eyes followed her arm as she reached toward him, then changed her mind and laid it carefully back down on the bed.
"What happened?" he asked, nodding to her wrists, then her neck. His throat almost closed over the question, unsure if he wanted to know what had caused her such pain.
"He…had done his research. He caught me unaware with a body-bind curse and chained me with iron manacles and snapped my wand. Then said he would be back and left me."
He swallowed at the thought of her skin burning beneath the metal, an image he had been unable to banish since hearing of her capture as a young girl.
"So…how'd you get out?" he asked, his voice almost as weak as hers.
She smiled at him, though it faded as she looked away.
"I could think of nothing else. A simple body-bind curse will not hold my other form. So I changed, even though I know that would make the iron hurt even more."
"But you were still-"
"Iron is metal. Metal will melt." She gestured to the bandages at her neck, taking care not to brush it with her fingers. "The medi-witch said I was lucky. More damage and I might never have been able to speak properly again."
Harry frowned down at the bed, his heart constricting at the thought that Voldemort's interest in him had nearly stolen away her ability to speak. Had almost gotten her captured, or killed.
"I can see what is going on inside your head," she whispered, trying to catch his eye.
He closed his eyes and nodded. No sense in denying it when she had become so adept at understanding him.
Cool fingers traced their way through his hair, sending comfortable tingles across his scalp. He opened his eyes and looked up to see her smiling at him, her eyes warm and bright. She didn't speak for a moment, her hand resting atop his head before she let it fall, tracing his jaw with a finger.
"If our situations were reversed," she said as she carefully replaced her hand on the bed, "would you not be laying in this bed, utterly content at having protected someone you care about?"
He wanted to argue. To point out that thanks to him, she had been in life-threatening danger and tortured. All because of him. Yet again.
But he couldn't.
He sank down into the chair that sat behind him and laid his head on the bed next to her thigh, breathing out a slow breath as her fingers found their way into his hair again.
She was right.
