Harry and Hermione were still in the Room of Requirement and they were looking through Harry's photo album. The page was currently on a picture of his parent's wedding, their two smiling faces beaming as they waved to Harry, whose tears were flowing freely.
Hermione had cast an impervious charm on the album a few hours ago, when Harry had started getting emotional at the pictures. As she sat with him, offering what little comfort she could, she wished she knew what to say to take away his pain. She wished she could see that beautiful smile of his, but knew it would be at least a few days before Harry would smile again for real. She couldn't take this pain away, she knew that, so all she could do was offer anything to help him through it. She knew he didn't want her to see him like this, but she couldn't abandon him when he was hurting the most.
He had never abandoned her.
Harry turned the page. It was another wedding photo with what looked like Harry's parents, along with the bridesmaids, one of whom bore a strong resemblance to Neville. The note underneath read: 'The new Mr & Mrs Potter with bridesmaids Alice, Andromeda & flower girl Nymphodora.'
Harry's mother was hugging the woman who looked to be Neville's mother. They looked like they were happy once.
The next page was similar to the last, only instead of bridesmaids, it was groomsmen. There were three men, who, according to the caption, were called Sirius, Peter and Remus. Harry and Hermione stared wide-eyed at this specific picture, though not at Harry's parents as they had with the other photos. Instead, they were staring at the man who stood next to Harry's mother, whose name was Remus.
Or as Harry and Hermione knew him, Professor Lupin. Harry suddenly understood why their DADA Professor had been bugging him all this time; he had been seeing the man in all these photos with his parents.
The two of them quickly flipped to the front of the book and started looking for their Professor. While he didn't appear a lot, he was there a couple of times, always with Harry's father. It was obvious that Harry's father and his Professor were friends.
"Why didn't he say anything!?" Harry queried out loud.
He hadn't meant to ask Hermione, who was sitting next to him, but she answered his question anyway, "I don't know Harry," they sat there in silence for a few minutes, each trying to find an answer, until Harry quietly said, "We could ask him."
"Sorry Harry, but we can't, at least not yet. He's off sick again, remember?" Hermione reasoned with him. Harry groaned in frustration; their professor had been mysteriously absent a few times this year already.
The two of them sat around for a while longer, but it was starting to get late. Dinner would be over soon and Harry wanted to be in his dorm before everyone got back, if he arrived when everyone else was in the common room, people would ask questions he didn't feel up to answering. The two left the Room of Requirement and started back to the dorms.
- ϟϟϟ -
Harry and Hermione made their way back to the Gryffindor common room. They had spent the day thinking about Harry's parents, but now they just wanted to get back to the common room. Hermione's stomach growled loud enough for Harry to hear. He debated whether he should say anything; he had tried to get her to go to every meal that day, but she had refused to leave him alone. He decided against it, there was no way to get any food now, it was too close to curfew to take a trip to the kitchens.
They had climbed down the stairs to the Sixth floor, where the portrait door was located and started walking down the corridor. They soon reached the portrait hole, only something was not right.
The portrait of the fat lady was smashed to pieces, leaving the entranceway to the common room open for anyone to just walk in however they choose.
"What the hell happened here!?" Harry wondered, pulling out his wand.
Hermione, seeing that Harry had his wand out, did the same. Harry started towards the portrait hole, intending to see what had happened to the common room. Hermione grabbed him and pulled him back panic in her eyes.
"Harry wait! You can't just go in there," she told him as she pulled on his robes to stop him.
"Why not? It's our common room and I want to see if it's been trashed." Harry said as he fought not to stumble from Hermione's incessant pulling.
"Because, what if whoever did this is still in there Harry?" Hermione sounded a little exasperated, as well as a little afraid.
"Good! then I'll teach the git not to destroy our common room!" Harry was working himself up; he seemed to think it was some prank, but Hermione felt there was something a lot more dangerous there.
"Harry! What if it's LeStrange!?" Hermione furiously whispered to Harry, who had now broken her grip and was starting towards the common room again.
"Come off it Hermione. There is no way LeStrange got into the castle."
As though in response, a voice came from inside the common room. It was faint, but they could both hear the sinister tone behind it, "You should listen to your pretty-kitty more, Mr Boy-Who-Lived." Then from inside the doorway stepped out a woman. She was dressed in an old grey and dirty set of robes, skeletally thin with wild hair and crazed eyes.
Bellatrix LeStrange held a knife in one hand and a wand in the other.
Harry and Hermione were surprised by the sudden appearance of the woman and thrown off by the casual way she spoke to them, like she was having a normal conversation. So when she started firing off spell's, the two of them were caught off guard. Green light burst forth from Bellatrix's wand, quickly crossing the space between them and hitting Hermione in the face.
Hermione stumbled back and groaned in pain, blood gushing from her nose.
"Fucking wand is useless!" Bellatrix complained, shaking her wand disdainfully, before pointing it at Hermione again. Harry grabbed Hermione and pulled her behind a suit of armour just in time to avoid another green bolt of magic.
Harry reached around the suit and fired off a few of his own spells, "Flipendo! Expelliarmus!"
"Protego! Oh, little Potter wants to play!" Bellatrix laughed, her strangely high-pitched voice setting Harry on edge, "Stupefy!" this time the spell was red but it hit the armour they were hiding behind. Hermione started panicking but Harry was too busy throwing spell after spell back at Bellatrix. They weren't getting through to her but they did do some good.
They kept Bellatrix on the defensive, and as long as she was blocking Harry's spells her wand wasn't throwing any dangerous ones at them. Harry was also choosing spells that were loud and flashy. He knew that he wouldn't be to defeat LeStrange himself, but hopefully, he could alert someone else, preferably a Professor, to him. He hoped some help would come soon, he couldn't keep up this rate of spells forever.
"Everte Statum! Slugulus Eructo!" Harry fired off two quick spells, trying to catch the older witch off-guard.
"Haha! You missed, baby Potter," Bellatrix was taunting him, "Soon I will be over there and I will kill your little MogBlood while I make you watch!"
Harry felt his emotions threatening to overwhelm him. He couldn't let Hermione be hurt either. Wild magic against his muggle relatives was one thing but against a fully trained witch, it would be useless. So instead he took hold of his emotions and used them to fuel his magic. His magic flared within him but It was too much and it started to burn him from the inside out.
He had to let it go soon, but what spell to could he use it for?
Bellatrix took advantage of the lull in Harry's spells and moved ever closer. Harry was trying to think of a strong spell to use but the magic burning in his blood was distracting him. Then it hit him;
"Hey Bellatrix, dodge this! Incendio-maxima!"
Hermione was still slightly dazed at being hit in the face with a curse she was positive was meant to kill her. She would have time to freak out about that later, but right now, Harry needed her. She tightened her grip on her wand and turned to reach around the suit of armour they were hiding behind. Just as Harry cast his Incendio-maxima she flicked her wand, "Diffindo!"
The regular Incendio that was taught in the first year was good for lighting candles, or starting a fire from dry wood, and that was about it. Incendio-maxima was different as it was commonly used to keep certain magical creatures and plants in check, and as implied by the name, was a lot more powerful. Harry, however, had overpowered the spell and instead of the usual gout of flame a foot wide, the spell filled the entire hallway with fire. Unable to dodge it, Bellatrix countered it with a flame freezing charm. The two were stuck facing off, Harry's wand spewing flames at an astonishing rate, while Bellatrix charmed the flames just as quickly.
Hermione's severing charm broke the stalemate between the two. The charm hit Bellatrix in the face, tearing open a cut on her left cheek. This lead to a surprised Bellatrix faltering on her flame freezing charm. Suddenly the witch's experience went from a pleasant tingling to searing pain. The flames ate at her robes and assaulted her skin, causing Bellatrix to scream from the pain.
It took a few seconds for the screams to register for Harry, but when they did he hesitated, much to Hermione's shock. But he had heard too many screams like that, most of them from his own lips as he grew up. He couldn't bring himself to harm somebody like that, not when he'd experienced it himself. Harry stopped producing fire, the hall was still on fire but the stone floor and walls didn't provide a lot of fuel so it soon started to go out.
Bellatrix started to rise from the floor where she had curled up in a ball in an attempt to hide from the skin blistering heat.
"Expelliarmus!" Harry tried to disarm the woman as she stood up.
"Protego!" Bellatrix blocked the spell and Harry and Hermione got a good look at what their attacks had done to the convict. Hermione's severing charm had opened a deep gash in her cheek, her face covered in blood that had dried and burned in the heat of the fire. Her hair, while a mess before, was worse now, large parts of it burned away, and what they could see of her skin was covered in bright red, shiny patches, where the fire had reached her and scalded her.
The worst thing about her appearance at that moment was the look on her face. To say she was angry was an understatement; she was absolutely crazed with rage. She ran forward waving her wand, not casting any specific spells, just wanting to cause as much pain and death as possible. Harry and Hermione ducked and weaved around a few spells, but Bellatrix cast much quicker now than during their first fight, and with her being way closer now, it was impossible to hide behind the suit of armour again. Harry was hit first when he jumped in front of a spell that was aimed at his girlfriend. His arms snapped to his sides and his legs clamped together. Harry fell forward and since he was unable to move his arms, he felt as his nose smashed into the floor with a loud crunch, pain flaring across his face.
"Harry!" Hermione, distressed at Harry being hit, was too preoccupied trying to see if he was alive to even attempt to avoid the next spell aimed at her. She also fell under a full body bind, only she fell backwards, seeing spots dance in front of her eyes as her head hit the floor.
Bellatrix looked at the two petrified teens considering what she would do with them. After what they had just done to her they deserved something special. A couple of flicks with her wand sent those that had fallen next to the teens scuttering down the corridor. Another couple swishes and both teens had been bound in tight ropes, before she levitated Hermione and used a sticking charm to attach the ropes to the wall.
It would be more fun if the girl watched.
Hermione struggled to move as she watched on in horror as LeStrange moved Harry right into her line of sight. Whatever the crazy witch planned to do to Harry, she wanted Hermione to watch it. Hermione remembered the story Neville and Madam Longbottom had told them over the summer about what this woman had done to Neville's parents and her blood ran cold. She wanted to scream, she wanted to call for help, she wanted to claw out Bellatrix's eyes to keep her from Harry, but no matter how much she willed herself to move she couldn't even twitch a finger.
"Now where should we begin Mr Boy-Who-Lived?" Bellatrix asked, softly stroking Harry's cheek with the back of her hand; too softly for what she intended to do to him, "Oh, I know! 'Finite incantatem!" she released Harry from the full-body bind but the ropes still held him, and then slapped him across the face, "it wouldn't be any fun if I can't hear your screams." Hermione wished she could do something, anything, but all she could do was watch as Harry steeled his face, that look she knew all too well in his eye. The look he reserved for trolls and retrieving Philosopher's Stones and Basilisks. She knew Harry was about to do something reckless again.
Part of her wanted to beg him to not to anger the crazed women. She knew the woman was already insane, and if he pushed her too far she may just kill him.
Another secret part of her loved when Harry got that look. But all she could do was watch as Harry responded the only way he could, by spitting right in Bellatrix's face. She snarled in fury, slapping him again, harder, causing his cheek to bruise and bleed slightly.
Harry felt the sting of the second slap, but he remained impassive and just glared at Bellatrix unflinching. He had heard what she said about screaming, this woman was like his uncle; she wanted to see him in pain, and he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction.
She pointed her wand at his scar. "Crucio!" suddenly Harry felt pain like nothing he had ever felt before. Everything else fell from his mind, all there was was the pain, it was as if each of his nerve endings was submerged in boiling acid. It could have been seconds later, or even an hour, for all he knew when suddenly the pain was gone, leaving behind nothing but an ache where all his muscles had clenched and spasmed.
Bellatrix looked down at Harry an odd expression on her face. "You didn't scream Potter. Where is the fun if you don't scream?"
Harry did the only thing he could think of. He laughed at her and she hit him with that painful curse again.
Again and again, Bellatrix would curse him, trying to get him to scream, but years in the care of his uncle had flipped Harry's response to pain. Where others would call out for relief, Harry would go silent, impassive, just waiting for it to end. Only for her to end the curse for a time to taunt him.
Harry tried to call on his magic to push Bellatrix away, to cut his bonds, anything that would make the pain stop. However he had used too much; throwing spell after spell at Bellatrix had been draining in itself, but the fire had really taken it out of him.
Then there was noise. While it had been deserted before, this was the corridor right outside the Gryffindor common room, so sooner or later someone was bound to come along. And it seemed someone was right now. Bellatrix had gotten so engrossed in trying to break Harry she had forgotten that time was short. Now the students were coming up from dinner and time had run out. It was also older students who seemed to have arrived at the corridor first, by virtue of longer legs and better knowledge of the school's shortcuts. So it was little surprise that it was the Weasley twins who arrived first.
Where Harry had been silent, he now started shouting, "it's LeStrange! it's LeStrange!" suddenly pain flared across his jaw, but it was nothing compared to the curse so he kept on shouting. Bellatrix seemed to have forgotten that she could use magic, and instead of using a silencing spell, she punched Harry again in his jaw. He was sure it was broken.
The twins, on hearing the shouting, drew their wands and immediately began slinging magic. Seeing the two students and knowing more would be on the way, Bellatrix dove behind the same suit of armour that Harry and Hermione had, to avoid the spells thrown by the twins. She retreated down the corridor, shooting her own spells behind her as she went. The hall was soon filled with sparks of light, like it was only minutes before, only this time Harry and Hermione were in between the two sides. The two of them were forced to watch as coloured bolts of magic zipped back and forth, each skimming past their immobile frames.
Fred and George were far better duellers than Harry and Hermione were. Two more years of magical education and their innate teamwork meant that they had Bellatrix pinned down behind another suit of armour further down the corridor, unable to run under the barrage. Even if most of the spells the duo where firing were prank spells, Bellatrix could hear more students coming up behind the twins, and she knew she would be very outnumbered, very soon. Then a mad grin broke over her face as she shot one more spell from behind her cover;
"Incendio-maxima!"
The corridor was once again filled with flames, only this time the people in the middle couldn't cast any type of defence against it. The twins were forced to hide from the roaring inferno and winced as they listened to the screams that came from the corridor.
Bellatrix had finally gotten what she wanted from Harry the flames doing in seconds what the cruciatus hadn't; "NO! NO! NOT HERMIONE! NOT HERMIONE! HELP! SOMEONE HELP HER! PLEASE! HELP HER PLEASE ANYONE!"
Bellatrix cackled as she used the distraction to slip away.
- ϟϟϟ -
Hermione woke up in pain. It took her only a few seconds to recall the fight outside the common room, then watching as Harry was touched again and again, then losing sight of him in the flames before she had passed out.
She looked around for Harry, only to find she was curtained off in the Hospital Wing. She jumped out of bed, intending to go looking for her boyfriend, only to suddenly find that she was naked.
Well, not entirely naked, her right side was covered in a thick orange paste that was lavished over most of her burns. She started rummaging through the small cupboard next to her hospital bed looking for something to wear. She found the clothes she had been wearing that day with Harry. The tight jeans and pink jumper wouldn't have been the best thing for her to wear over her burns, but that point was mute anyway as her clothes were completely ruined and unwearable.
"Miss Granger! What are you doing out of bed?" Hermione whirled around to find Madam Pomfrey, who had just stepped through the curtain, "Get back in bed right now so I can finish applying the burn paste to your injuries."
Hermione complied with the school nurse, gingerly getting back on the bed as gently as possible to try and avoid irritating the burns. She wasn't completely successful, wincing more than a few times, "Where's Harry? Is he-AH!" Hermione gasped as Madam Pomfrey applied a glob of paste to her shoulder, the cooling effect of it shocking her sensitive skin, "How Is Harry? Is he going to be ok?"
"He hasn't woken yet...Thank Merlin..." that last bit was added under her breath, but Hermione's cat ears heard it anyway, "He has a lot of burns. The longer the burn paste has to work before he wakes up, the less it will hurt."
Hermione nodded, her injuries were painful enough, and Harry had been right in the middle of the fire. She choked back a sob as her mind played back the scene of the fire; Harry screaming in desperation as the fire tried to eat away at him, but he wasn't screaming in pain. No, he was screaming for someone to help her. Not himself, even though the pain he was in must have been maddening, and his injuries must've been worse than Hermione's.
Maddening pain, that phrase struck another memory in her.
Bellatrix and that awful spell. What if Harry was like the Longbottom's? That spell, it was the same one Neville had described, she was sure of it. What if her Harry was gone, driven to madness by that crazy witch?
The idea that Harry could be like Neville's parents, who he had said had lost their minds, was more than enough to bring her to tears.
"She-she k-kept hitting Harry with a c-c-curse..." she tried to keep her voice steady, but the fear of losing Harry overwhelmed her, "Cr-crucio...she kept h-hitting him with it because Harry...he-he wouldn't scream." Hermione was too panicked to be coherent after that, sobbing uncontrollably.
Madam Pomfrey went pale as she listened to the distraught girl, "My God…She used that. On Mr Potter?" She quickly finished applying the burn paste to Hermione's burns and gave her one of the largest hospital gowns, "I know it's big but it will keep it from pressing on the burns too much," Hermione nodded, still unable to talk around her sobbing. Madam Pomfrey gave her an affectionate, but soft, pat on the back, "I will go check on Mr Potter, you get dressed and get some rest."
Hermione watched the nurse leave to go check on Harry through her blurry tears. She slipped on the hospital gown, grimacing in discomfort as the fabric brushed against her burns.
Then she waited. She waited for as long as she could, but the panic was like one of Hagrid's Hippogriffs sitting on her chest.
She had to see Harry. She couldn't just sit there with the thought that he could be dying, or losing his mind. She got up and parted the curtains around her bed. The hospital wing was empty except for the bed next to hers, that also had its curtains closed. Figuring that it had to be Harry, she quietly opened the curtains and stepped in.
She wished she hadn't. She was right that this was Harry's bed, but she never wanted to see him like this, in what surely was an immense amount of pain. He was covered in burns and the same burn paste that Madam Pomfrey had used on her had been used on him, though in larger amounts and more frequently.
It almost looked as though someone had just poured a cauldron of the stuff on Harry. He was also completely naked, even if the thick layering of paste was doing a completely adequate job of preserving his modesty.
She moved the chair next to the bed from Harry's left to his right side, so that she could sit with her unburned side facing Harry, with her back to his lower half. She took his hand, one of the few places without burns, and just held it and waited.
When Madam Pomfrey returned she found Hermione sat with Harry, she tried to send her back to her own bed but Hermione pretended not to hear. She could have forced the issue but doing so wasn't worth it so she conjured a thin sheet for Harry's lower half before continuing to treat him.
"A pain-relieving potion number six. That should allow him to sleep through the worst of it," Madam Pomfrey told Hermione. The girl would be calmer if she was told what was going on. She also placed a different potion in front of Hermione, "Pain reliever four, for when you feel like you can sleep." Madam Pomfrey wasn't sure but thought she saw Hermione nod just a little.
- ϟϟϟ -
Hermione heard voices. It took her a few seconds to recognise them. It was Professors Snape, McGonagall and Dumbledore talking with Madam Pomfrey. It sounded like they were talking just outside the hospital wing. Out of hearing range for most people, but her cat ears made them as clear as if they were on the other side of the curtain.
"How are Harry and Miss Granger?" asked a voice that was undoubtedly Dumbledore.
"Miss Granger is in fairly good shape, considering she has second and third-degree burns on her right side and front. I also found evidence she was hit with an improperly cast killing curse," the Professors all swore and muttered angrily at that, and, unseen by them, Hermione went pale as the thought that she could've died racked her brain, "She is understandably worried about Mr Potter, but as long as he recovers she should be fine in the long term, but will probably have night terrors for a while."
"Mr Potter is in a somewhat worse condition. 3rd degree burns to almost seventy percent of his body. A mild case of magical exhaustion and..." Madam Pomfrey paused for a second, "...he was tortured. With the Cruciatus curse."
All of the Professors gasped, "Oh my God," Professor McGonagall's Scottish accent came through very strong, as it often did if she was emotional.
"All we can do is wait to see how Mr Potter reacts when he wakes up," Madam Pomfrey finished her analysis.
"Never tell them I said this, but the Weasley twins didn't completely balls it up," Professor Snape quickly added, like he was disgusted that he had to praise a Gryffindor, let alone a Weasley, "And they said while in the fire, Potter was screaming about Granger. If he was doing that after being subject to Bella's ministrations, I doubt his mind is broken."
Hermione relaxed after hearing that. That had been what she feared the most; that her Harry would be gone, leaving behind only a shell of himself.
"What did you do with the Gryffindor students? Surely they couldn't stay in their common room?" Madam Pomfrey enquired.
"We moved all students to the Great Hall. Better to keep them all together, so that we can keep an eye on them easier," replied McGonagall.
"Any sign of LeStrange?" Hermione gripped Harry's hand tighter. Surely she couldn't still be in the castle?
"The whole castle has been searched. And while Hogwarts holds many secrets, I think she has escaped," Professor Dumbledore said.
"Escape would be my guess as well Headmaster, she is not one to hide in some hidden room. Especially not after spending the last decade in a cell. But she also isn't one to give up so easily. She will try again almost certainly..." As they talked their voices got quieter as if they were moving away from the Hospital Wing.
"I agree, Severus…" Dumbledore said more but Hermione couldn't hear it well enough to make out.
She looked at Harry, it had been hours since she started sitting with him. She tried to compare how he looked now with her memory of how he looked when she first saw him, after the encounter with Bellatrix. Harry was still in a horrible condition, but she thought his burns looked a bit better. She suddenly felt exhausted; with the worry that Harry would end up losing his mind lessening and seeing that his wounds were healing, she didn't have the will to keep fighting off her fatigue.
Hermione collected the pillow from her bed and considered the blanket too, but her side was still too tender. She set the pillow on the edge of Harry's bed and got herself comfortable in her chair, finally taking her pain reliever that had been set on the table hours before. She put her head on her pillow and retook Harry's hand in hers.
Just before she fell asleep she noticed a slight tingle where her skin touched Harry's. It was kinda nice.