1,174Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter world.
A mighty flame followeth a tiny spark
Dante Alighieri 1265-1321
Harry shifted his body position slightly so that his wandlight fell more effectively over the Marauder's Map. His perusal of the map had become a common occurrence in the last few days – ever since the fight in the Department of Mysteries. Despite his physical exhaustion, sleep had been very difficult to come by for him thanks to the thoughts that plagued his mind: Voldemort, the Order, the Prophecy and, most painfully of all, Sirius…
Though, of course, he wished they'd never been harmed at all, his best friends still recovering from their injuries in the Hospital Wing was both a blessing and a curse because, while their absence meant that he didn't have to answer any questions he wasn't ready for or see their sympathetic faces, Harry also felt extremely alone. Yes, there were three other boys currently sleeping in the dormitory with him but, without Ron in the bed next to him, it just wasn't the same and sleep was hard to come by. So, in an attempt to distract himself and quieten his brain to lull himself into a state of sleep, he had spent his recent nights systematically looking through the map.
He had finished the lower levels and the ground floor and trained his wand over the first floor, knowing exactly where he wanted to start. However, Harry felt an anxious lurch in his stomach when the pale light from his wand fell over the map's depiction of the Hospital Wing. His breath paused and he stared in alarm at what he saw. Or, more accurately, at what he couldn't see: Hermione's name was missing.
Clamping down on an increasing sense of panic, he quickly turned his gaze to the Gryffindor girls' dormitories, telling himself that she must've been released from Madam Pomfrey's care without anyone informing him. (He knew that wasn't true, that Hermione wasn't nearly well enough to be discharged, but that was the only thing his brain could think of to stop himself from freaking out.)
Hermione wasn't in her dormitory.
Sitting up quickly, Harry began a furtive search for his best friend's name on the map as his mind attempted to reassure him that there was likely to be a reasonable explanation for her absence. As each room, corridor and floor he swept his wandlight over failed to reveal Hermione's name, his sense of unease grew until his breath came in quick pants and his heart thundered in his chest. He was in the process of getting to his feet, planning to see Professor Dumbledore at once about his concerns that Hermione was missing from the castle (lateness of the hour be damned) when he finally spotted her name.
He frowned, his concern was only moderately lessened – What was she doing in the Astronomy Tower?
Harry gripped his wand and the map tightly as he hurried from his dormitory; her reasons for being there may turn out to be perfectly innocent, but there was no way that he wasn't going to investigate. Getting from Gryffindor Tower to the site of their Astronomy lessons wasn't a direct route and he ran as fast as he could, feeling inordinately anxious as every second ticked past with Hermione up there alone. Nobody called at him from the portraits as he tore down the corridors – or maybe they did but he was running too fast to hear them – and it was late enough that he didn't have to worry about prefects patrolling the floors.
His muscles burned with exertion as he began his frenetic climb to the Astronomy Tower and he held the map in front of his eyes to check that Hermione was still there in an attempt to distract his body from the strain. The words Hermione Granger were still unwavering in their position atop the tower and he blew out a (primarily exertion-caused) breath in relief.
When he finally burst into the tower, his eyes searched wildly around the curved structure until they placed her figure on the edge of the parapet.
"H-Hermione," Harry panted heavily, clumsily jamming his fist into his side in an attempt to stave off the stitch that was burning through his side. In his fatigue and his relief to see her (though he wasn't surprised; the map never lies) it took Harry a few seconds to realise that something was off. Well, more off than the whole situation already was.
Obviously, the fact that Hermione had climbed all the way to the highest point in the castle when a few hours ago she could barely adjust her position on her hospital bed without wincing, was quite concerning. So, too, was the fact that she there, in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but a simple nightdress that stopped at her knees and did nothing to protect her bare feet. It might be late June but the evening was still chilly and Harry saw that her riotous curls were being blown about by a strong breeze. The rest of her body, however, remained eerily still, and she made no move to show that she had heard him call her name. The most unsettling thing of all, though, was the very feeling in the air around him. A few years ago, he might not have noticed it, but his knowledge of different types of magic had grown so much, especially in the past couple of years, that the atmosphere made the back of his neck prickle with discomfort.
Harry walked towards Hermione cautiously, dropping the map to the floor so that he could hold his wand out in one arm and raise his other hand towards her in a pacifying, comforting manner, despite that fact that she'd shown no indication of being aware of his presence so far. "Hermione!" he called again, louder this time. It made no difference. "Hermione, it's me, Harry." Nothing. He took a few more steps towards her and saw, with alarm, just how close she was to the edge of the tower. Her bare toes curled around the edge of the stone and if she took just one step forwards or lost her balance she would fall to her death…
Although he was now only a few feet away from her, he took no chances and cast a strong summoning charm to wrench her away from the edge. He half caught her, his arms closing clumsily around her midriff as he struggled with the sudden burden of her admittedly-light frame. She made no protest about his actions, making him even more worried. "Hermione!" he said desperately, lowering her to lie on the floor and then scrambling around her to finally look at her. But, when he did, he quickly saw that his anxieties over her well-being had been justified. Her cheeks were flushed and sweat lined her face. He could see droplets of it running down her hairline and it glistened along the skin of her neck as he traced his wandlight over her. From his close proximity next to her, he could feel the heat radiating off her body and he would readily (and optimistically) conclude that the explanation for her bizarre behaviour was simply due to a fever, were it not for her eyes.
Harry had seen many terrifying things in his short life and the sight of the purple flames dancing in his best friend's eyes as she gazed unseeingly into the night was only surpassed by the blood-curdling scream she released when he held a trembling hand to her burning cheek.
Madam Pomfrey didn't know what to do.
Harry saw it in her expression as she gazed down at the still burning – but, thankfully, no longer screaming – Hermione. His best friend had mercifully stopped screeching the second Harry had removed his hand from her face. Recalling that she hadn't screamed when he'd caught her after the summoning spell, Harry had tentatively put his hand on the part of her upper arm that was covered by her nightdress. She didn't scream. He quickly lengthened the sleeves of his pyjama t-shirt so that they covered his fingertips and then replaced his hand on her cheek. She still didn't scream. Optimistic that he knew how to prevent any future chilling screeches, Harry had scooped her into his arms, pointedly avoiding looking at the purple fire that still flickered across her eyes.
The journey down to the Hospital Wing had seemed to take an impossibly long time but he whispered reassuringly to Hermione the whole way. He had no idea whether she heard a single word he said.
He'd shouted for Madam Pomfrey before he'd even kicked the doors to the Hospital Wing open. The flames in the torches around the beds flared into life, flooding the room with light as Harry placed Hermione as carefully as he could with his failing strength.
With Harry's repeated yell, Ron had spluttered awake and Madam Pomfrey had dashed into the room. Harry quickly explained what had happened, only interrupted when Ron swore and Madam Pomfrey gasped as she took in Hermione's eyes.
Harry waited for Madam Pomfrey to do something – to hurry off to get a potion or a salve, or even take out her wand and perform an incantation – but she just stared at Hermione, looking horrified.
The doors to the Hospital Wing were pushed open and a deeply concerned Professor Dumbledore strode in. After their heated and revealing conversation of a couple of nights ago, Harry's emotions tumbled over each other at the sight of the Headmaster but the sense of relief was the strongest; Dumbledore would know what to do.
After repeating his explanation of what he had observed on the Astronomy Tower, Harry watched with trepidation as Dumbledore lowered his hand to gently brush his fingertips over Hermione's wrist. The shock of hearing her scream was only lessened because he'd braced himself – the chilling effect it had on his insides was just as bad as before.
Ron swore again and Harry lifted his gaze to Dumbledore's face.
Dumbledore didn't know what to do.
This blow was so unexpected that Harry took a step back and nearly collapsed onto Ron's bed. How could Dumbledore not know what to do?
The two adults started to talk quickly and quietly to each other but Harry could still see by their expressions that they had no immediate plan of how to return Hermione from her current state. Something silvery shot out of Dumbledore's wand with such speed that Harry wouldn't have been able to identify the spell even if his mental abilities weren't currently handicapped by his distress for his best friend. This was all his fault. If he hadn't insisted that they go to the Ministry…
Before he could sink into that thought, Dumbledore addressed the two boys. "Did either of you see the curse that Miss Granger was struck with?"
Ron shook his head mutely but Harry nodded. "Dolohov made a slashing movement, like this," he said, moving his hand through the air as the Death Eater had done. "Hermione had silenced him so I didn't hear the incantation but purple flames came out of her wand and hit her in the chest. She dropped to the floor."
"The colour of the spell," Dumbledore said, "it's the same as the flames in her eyes?"
Harry steeled himself. The change from Hermione's warm, intelligent brown gaze was so unsettling that he could scarcely bear to look at her now. He took a couple of steps closer to her and forced himself to look at her face. Dolohov's fiery curse had moved so fast that Harry had only seen a flash of it and Hermione had certainly had no time to react or defend herself from it. But, looking down at the small flames that burned brightly in front of her eyes, Harry could see they were the same as the ones she'd been struck with. Harry nodded at Dumbledore solemnly. "They're the same."
Madam Pomfrey gripped the front of her dressing gown anxiously. "But there was no sign of any lingering effects," she murmured. "Miss Granger was well on the road to recovery."
The doors to the Hospital Wing were thrown open once more and Professor Snape strode in. Harry immediately understood that the silvery spell Dumbledore had cast must have been a Patronus message to summon the Potions Master. Harry was so hopeful that Snape might be able to use his knowledge of dark magic to help Hermione that his normal hatred for his professor didn't even register.
"You know of the curse, Severus?" Dumbledore asked, turning his head slightly but not taking his eyes from Hermione's worrying state.
"I have seen Dolohov use it before but I have never known anyone to survive it," Snape replied, also fixing his gaze on Hermione's prone form, though his expression was more curious. "It was created by Dolohov himself, designed to kill instantly. I was very surprised to learn that Miss Granger had survived that attack and I was led to believe that she was faring well."
"She was getting better," Harry said quietly, shaking his head at the contrast that Hermione's current form made to the – admittedly worse-for-wear but very responsive – girl he'd left a few hours ago. He looked at Dumbledore accusingly. "You said all my friends were going to be fine."
Dumbledore fixed him with a blue-eyed gaze that, as seemed to be a common occurrence recently, held none of his usual twinkle. "I confess, Harry, that my magical knowledge is not unlimited. From my initial assessments of your fellow students, I could not have anticipated that Miss Granger would suffer such a deterioration in her condition."
Hermione suddenly whimpered and scrambled out of bed, making a dash for the door. Alarmed, Harry made a grab for her, as did Snape. However, while Harry still had his magically lengthened sleeves to prevent him making contact with Hermione's skin, Snape had no choice but to clamp his bare hand around her forearm. When her ear-splitting screams rang through the room once more, Harry couldn't help but notice the flinch that swept across the normally expressionless professor's face. Hermione's body was completely drenched in sweat, as were her clothes and the linens on her bed, and Harry could feel how abnormally hot her body was through his sleeve-covered hands as she struggled against their efforts to return her to bed.
She was definitely getting worse.
"Can't you do something?" Harry yelled at Snape over Hermione's horrific cries and desperate writhing. "Please!"
"Get the emergency portkey to St. Mungo's, Poppy," Harry heard Dumbledore instruct as Hermione paused in her screams to take a breath before continuing in her very vocal objections to Snape's touch.
Harry knew that the combined strength of himself and Snape far exceeded that of Hermione but she was fighting like a demon against their attempts to force her back into bed, kicking out at them with her legs. As Ron begged Hermione to stop, Harry abandoned his grip on her arm and grabbed her flailing legs instead before she injured herself or somebody else, and Dumbledore sent a series of rapid silver Patronus messages.
Madam Pomfrey raced over to them with a large brass number four, like one might find on the front door to somebody's house, and handed it to Dumbledore, who tapped it with his wand. Snape shifted his hold on Hermione so that their skin was no longer in contact, effectively stopping her tortured screams, but she continued to struggle in their combined hold. The headmaster lifted his gaze to Harry but, before Dumbledore could say anything, he declared in a fierce voice that he hoped left no room for argument, "I'm coming; I'm not leaving her."
Dumbledore paused for a moment and then nodded. He counted down from three and Harry maintained his grip on one of Hermione's legs whilst reaching out for the brass number with his other hand, instantly feeling the familiar tug at his navel.
Their abrupt arrival on the fourth floor of St Mungo's in the middle of the night caused quite a lot of disruption. Fifteen minutes later, Hermione had been magically restrained to a bed in a private room because the healers had been unable to find any magical-means to subdue her: calming draught, stunning spell and sleeping potion had all proved ineffective.
Two relatively young healers had been able to assist them immediately and another, more experienced, healer had arrived a few minutes later, looking like she'd been summoned from her home. But, once they'd exhausted their methods of calming Hermione's struggles and resorted to simply binding her limbs, Harry saw the grim looks on their faces as they stared at the fire in her eyes.
The healers didn't know what to do.
Harry remained by Hermione's side, trying to speak calmly to her as she thrashed and whimpered in front of him.
More people arrived. Harry was briefly distracted by the presence of Kingsley, Remus and Bill. It was the first time that he'd seen any of the Order since they'd come to his and his friends' rescue in the Department of Mysteries; since Sirius has fallen through the veil…
Seeing Remus' haggard and grieving figure was almost too much for Harry's already overly wrought emotions and he returned his gaze back to Hermione, blinking away the hot tears that threatened to fall down his cheeks. He couldn't lose someone else because of his foolish actions. Please, no…
He heard gasps from the doorway and glanced over, momentarily surprised to see Professor McGonagall and Tonks standing in the doorway. Harry had forgotten that they would be in the hospital to recover from their encounters with several stunners and duelling Bellatrix Lestrange respectively. Professor McGonagall was leaning slightly on the young auror for support but both women wore very anxious expressions on their faces as they gazed at the thrashing witch. Tonks escorted Professor McGonagall over to Dumbledore before coming to stand next to Harry. She gripped his shoulder in what he was sure was meant to be a comforting gesture but she held him painfully tight, presumably as a result of her fear as she saw Hermione's condition up close.
"Oh, Hermione," Tonks murmured, lowering a hand towards the witch.
"Don't touch her," Harry warned quickly, making her pause. "She'll scream if you make contact with her skin."
Tonks retracted her hand. "What," she said falteringly, "what are they doing to help her?"
Harry shook his head, swallowing thickly as his throat closed up. "Nothing," he croaked, his voice wobbling with the emotion. "Nobody knows what to do… I think," his voice broke and he shuddered as icy dread swept through his body. "I think she's dying," Tonks' grip tightened even more painfully on his shoulder, "and nobody knows how to stop it!"
Something moved at the edge of his vision and Harry realised that it was Snape. The Potions professor had been standing on the other side of Hermione's bed for the last few minutes and he'd been so still that Harry had forgotten that the mass of black was actually a human being. "If I might make a suggestion," Snape said to the rest of the room, effectively stopping all other conversations with the slight raising of his voice. The senior healer that had been talking to Dumbledore and McGonagall nodded her head eagerly, and Harry felt a tiny spark of hope. "Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the curse used and its side effects to be in a position to offer any advice on how to cure Miss Granger…" Harry's spark extinguished at once. "However," Snape continued, "there is one person we can turn to for that information; possibly the only person with the knowledge that is sought."
McGonagall gasped and held a hand to her chest and Remus looked deeply unhappy. "You don't mean…?" his former professor asked.
"He's right," Kingsley said and Bill nodded grimly. Harry assumed both men had enough experience with curses to know that what Snape suggested was a good idea but Dumbledore looked troubled.
"I'm sorry," one of the junior healers put in, seemingly nervous to speak up in front of the room's occupants, "but who are you talking about?"
A number of voices replied darkly, "Antonin Dolohov."
Night time was the worst.
When you didn't have the reassurance of sight to tell you otherwise, your brain tricked you into believing that your worst memories had come to life once again. Fears that you could clamp down within yourself in the cold light of day were torn from you in ragged screams in the darkness.
It had only been a couple of days since Antonin had been returned to the imprisonment of Azkaban. He hadn't screamed yet… but he knew that he would because, in the end, they all screamed. The weak, the strong, the young, the old, the innocent and the guilty – Azkaban claimed all their screams just the same.
A shriek pierced the night but Antonin showed no reaction to the tortured cry – after years spent in this hell, the screams were nothing but white noise to him; another symptom of his descent into utter inhumanity.
The transition was not yet complete, though sometimes, particularly when he saw he was to be returned to Azkaban (and delivered by the dementors into the exact same cell he'd spent so many years of his life, the twisted fuckers) he wished he were just an inhuman monster because surely it would be easier to feel nothing. His reaction at returning to hell would've been more extreme were it not for the deeply-buried hope he had that the Dark Lord would free them as he had done a few months earlier. Despite the utter failure of the mission that had seen his recapture, Antonin knew that the Dark Lord's power was increasing daily and it would be only a matter of time before his forces overtook the country – or that's what he fervently hoped. He knew that if he even thought about the possibility that he would be incarcerated for the rest of his life, he would start screaming instantly.
"On your feet, Dolohov," a deep voice broke into his thoughts, making him jerk at the unexpected intrusion. He opened his eyes warily and was surprised by the light that flooded into his miserable cell. It wasn't morning already, was it? "Quickly," the voice snapped.
Antonin turned his head towards the sound and saw at once where the light was coming from: a large patronus in the form of a panther stared at him from the other side of the bars. Lifting his gaze upwards, he saw the imposing figure of Kingsley Shacklebolt, Ministry auror and recently revealed member of the Order of the Phoenix.
Antonin was very tempted to stay exactly where he was to spite the man who was partly responsible for returning him to hell but the auror's presence in the middle of the night was extremely curious and, if there was one thing that Antonin would consider a weakness within himself, something that had led him to trouble again and again resulting in his current predicament, it was his inability to stop himself giving in to that curiosity.
Antonin considered that Shacklebolt's vice-like grip on his arm was surely tighter than it needed to be as he was roughly escorted through the prison. With every step they took, Antonin's curiosity rose. Repetitive monotony was the normal way of life in Azkaban if his previous experiences were anything to go by, and he wondered what lay in wait for him when they reached the intended destination. He highly doubted it was something he would enjoy.
The scene he was greeted with was so unlikely that he wondered for a moment if he was dreaming, but then he recalled that the contents of his dreams were never as relatively harmless as this. Albus Dumbledore stood just beyond the door of the small room and he fixed Antonin with such a piercing look that he very much felt like the last decade and a half had disappeared and he was a schoolboy once more under the scrutiny of his headmaster – as was the case the last time he had seen the old man. He found himself oddly troubled and less sneering of what Dumbledore thought of his former pupil than he would have ever anticipated he'd be so he broke their gaze and took in the other figures.
Remus Lupin was a former schoolfellow of Antonin's, though a couple of years below him, and he'd long been suspected of being a member of Dumbledore's pathetic Order. His presence in the Department of Mysteries the other night had certainly confirmed that theory. Lupin looked ragged and gaunt and he briefly wondered if the death of Sirius Black, one of his best friends at school, was responsible for his appearance. He looked at Antonin with thinly-veiled disgust but that was nothing compared to the look of hatred on the face of Harry Potter. Bizarrely, the boy was wearing extra-long pyjamas as he tried to kill Antonin through sheer mental willpower. He found the presence of all these people intriguing, but none more so than that of the young woman who thrashed and whimpered on a bed set against the far wall of the room.
He recognised her at once; after all, there weren't many teenaged girls he had attempted to kill.
For many, that statement would be proof that the transition to brutal monster was already complete but it hadn't been anything personal. The Dark Lord had given him and his fellow Death Eaters a mission to retrieve the prophecy and Potter and his friends had stood in the way of the task being successful. If the students were old enough to involve themselves in this war then they were old enough to face the consequences. Admittedly, his temper had gotten the better of him once things had to devolved to a game of hide and seek in the bowels of the Ministry and it certainly hadn't been improved by the silencing charm she'd inflicted on him to prevent him revealing Potter's location to his colleagues. A burst of fury had resulted in him hurtling his favoured curse her way and she'd dropped to the floor as expected. The fact that she wasn't quite as dead as he'd assumed was extremely interesting. His curiosity was well and truly piqued.
"Your curse didn't have quite the intended outcome," Dumbledore told him, his voice colder than Antonin remembered – but then, Antonin had never before heard the headmaster speak to someone who'd attempted to kill one of his students.
Antonin said nothing in reply. The truth behind Dumbledore's words clearly spoke for itself, writhing on the bed, but very much alive.
He knew who she was, of course. He may have been imprisoned for the majority of her life but all of the Death Eaters chosen for the Ministry assault had been briefed about Potter's likely accomplices, and she was right at the top of the list, next to one of the Weasley brats. Hermione Granger, mudblood, Gryffindor prefect, top student in her year and best friend of Harry Potter. Given the way the Potter boy was using his pyjama clad hands to try and soothe her desperate struggling and the death glare he continued to send Antonin's way, the description of their closeness was undoubtedly accurate.
"Antonin," he nearly flinched at the old man's use of his given name, "do you know how to help her?"
Shacklebolt gave him a none-too-gentle shove in the girl's direction and he staggered forwards a couple of steps. From this position, he could see Granger more clearly. Even from a few feet away, he could see that her skin was slick with perspiration; the nightdress she was wearing was drenched with it as it clung to her petite frame and her face was deeply flushed. He would suspect that she was suffering from nothing more than a severe fever were it not for her eyes. Her eyes were ablaze with purple fire – the same purple fire of the curse he'd used to strike her down. How curious…
"Help her!" Potter urged anxiously. "Please." The final word came out a little choked and Antonin recognised that it had cost a lot from Potter to be so polite to the very man who had caused her distress. He could feel the weight of the stares the other men were directing into his skull and the way that they harboured some sort of hope that he knew how to cure her. He could almost taste their desperation and he realised that they wouldn't come to him unless they had exhausted every other option.
"Why?" he posed, the first word he'd spoken since his return to imprisonment. He felt the other occupants in the room reel at his query.
Monster.
Well, he may be a Death Eater but he'd been a Slytherin first and he wasn't going to do what they so desperately wanted without gaining something for himself first.
"Why, what?" Lupin fairly growled in response. Antonin recalled reading that the man had recently been revealed as a werewolf and he could well believe it.
"Why should I help her?" he elaborated snidely. This was not the right thing to say.
Shacklebolt's hold on his arm grew so tight that he thought the bone might snap but Lupin darted towards him, teeth bared, snarling, "You son of a bitch!" and promptly punched him below his left eye. Antonin saw the blow coming but, with Shacklebolt holding him firmly in place, there was little he could do except brace himself for the impact. He made no sound but he was pretty sure that Lupin had broken his cheekbone, fucking werewolf strength.
Shacklebolt seemed surprised by the sudden attack for he relinquished his hold on Antonin and Lupin took advantage of this by dragging him forcibly over to the mudblood.
"Remus," Dumbledore warned sharply but the werewolf paid no attention for they could all see that Granger had started convulsing violently, having some sort of fit.
"Hermione!" Potter cried desperately.
"She's dying, you sick bastard," Lupin growled, "and it's your fault. So you're going to do something good for once in your miserable life." He gave Antonin a final shove towards her, making him lose his balance and he held his hands out to steady himself. One hand landed on the linen on her bed, the other made contact with her sweat-slicked ankle.
She stilled immediately.
How curious.
Antonin heard Potter gasp and he instinctively withdrew his hand from Granger. She released a high keening sound the instant he broke contact and resumed her struggles, though her movements were not quite as violent as they had been seconds before.
How very curious.
Before he could move away, Lupin grabbed his arm and jerked it downwards to force him to place his fingers against the girl's skin again. He only put up a half-hearted struggle because, firstly, there was little point in fighting against Lupin's superior strength and, secondly, he was rather intrigued to see what would happen…
As previously, she stilled at once.
Antonin glanced up at her face, noting the serene, almost happy, expression it now bore. The flames in her eyes no longer blazed furiously but fluttered and danced gently.
How very deeply curious.
And didn't Antonin just love to see where his curiosity led to…
A/N: Have you ever started writing a fic and intended to keep it to yourself for a bit until you have a few chapters under your belt, but so enjoyed the plot idea that you can't hold it back just in case someone posts their own story that has basically the same plot? That is this.
Silly, I know, because there are a ridiculous number of HP fanfics and I suppose there's only so much originality but I wanted to put this out here anyway.
I am VERY interested to know what you think so far. With other fics already on the go, I don't know how soon I'll update - I guess it will depend on whether you guys like it or not.
Let me know!
Red