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Chapter 74

There was the sound of a crash from the room and one of the counsellors that was employed by St Mungo's dodged around Harry as he ducked out of the room muttering something about, 'the patient is not ready to confront her new reality.' Harry walked to the doorway and leant on it while giving the angry Japanese women lying in the bed a pointed look. "You know he is just trying to help right?"

Charlus had brought Harry to the hospital to check on Tanaka. He was right that the hospital wasn't going to let non-family visit her but Harry had just enough of a foot in the door of healing that even without being a healer himself he was sort of on the team. Harry thought it was similar to an engineer who worked on wheelchairs getting some access to a patient to sort out exactly what customisation was needed. So he was allowed to go consult the patient.

"Oh shut up. You should have heard all his drivel. He seems to be under the impression that I'm depressed and I'm sick and tired of everyone here treating me like my life is over." She glared at Harry. "You're not here to use another bucket of pity on me are you?"

"Not unless you plan to leave me wearing more of your blood than my actual clothes again." Harry snarked.

Tanaka looked at him for a second while it registered exactly what he had said and she chuckled. "I think I will decide to keep all my bodily fluids this time Mr Potter."

"Good, now how are you doing? The healers won't tell us anything because we aren't family." Harry asked, getting to the point.

"I'm doing okay considering. They are having trouble keeping my arm closed but the pain potions are working and I'm not bleeding everywhere any more, so that's a positive. The leg you gave me seems to be working perfectly, my balance is a little off because naturally one leg is always a little longer than the other and you copied the other leg perfectly. I will adjust to that in time without any issues. Would probably adjust sooner if the healers here didn't insist I stay in this bloody bed all the time." Tanaka told him. She almost sounded flippant like she didn't care at all that she had been hurt.

Harry couldn't help but wonder if the counselor had been right about Tanaka, at least a little. Still, Harry couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief over the future that there were no complications for the leg.

"So what is this bargain I've struck for my leg and what will it cost me, and most importantly can we include a new arm in the deal?" Tanaka asked.

"Well technically you accepted me as your lord in the same way Europe used to do before democracy took over. How familiar are you with that?" Harry asked.

"Japan has a similar history with the feudal system. You can consider me informed. Now what exactly is expected of me?" Tanaka was calm enough that Harry was sure she was hiding her emotions.

"Well you need to understand this spell seems to have been developed by a dark lord as a way to both keep his people fighting and make sure they stayed loyal to him, so the magic involved will push you to follow any order I give you. You also need to pay me a tax every year. Now here is the good news. First, I get to set the tax, personally I think a galleon a year is fair. Second, there is nothing stopping us from doing a magical contract that bars me from ever asking you to do anything. We will need to be careful with that with you currently working for my family but that's what law wizards are for." Harry explained.

Harry took a breath before continuing. "As to your arm, well, you can't become any more bound to me so there is nothing stopping us from doing that. Normally there would be some costs for that. If nothing else, just buying the silver needed costs a bit, but grandfather has already said he will be covering it. So long story short you get a new arm and leg for the cost of a galleon a year and me needing to be very careful I never give you an order in the future."

"So a galleon a year and the binding to you is a technicality. Considering everything that doesn't sound too bad." She admitted. "When can we do the arm?"

"Well that depends on a number of things. There was enough pure silver in the cottage left over from doing the arrays for me to do your leg. We will need to get more before I can do your arm. With school and healers being what they are like I think next weekend at the earliest probably the week after that. That is assuming the hospital administration doesn't get in the way then it could be a while." Harry had been cautioned by his grandfather not to over promise. Sure he was in negotiations already with the hospital to provide his services, but that wasn't finalised yet and their rules and regulations could get in the way.

It all sounded ridiculous to Harry. As far as he was concerned he had proven that the spell worked and once the legal professionals had sorted out a standard contract to stop Harry from becoming mad with power over people the hospital should be happy for him to help people. But Harry had to admit he had little knowledge of how to run a hospital. Maybe there was actually an important reason for the hospital to slow everything down.

With all of that out of the way, Tanaka demanded to know about the containment of the Horcruxes. Harry actually had a full report from Williams to give her but it basically boiled down to the containment arrays were holding and the initial scans for a connection between the Horcruxes themselves and not just between them and Voldemort were promising.

-ϟϟϟ-

After visiting Tanaka Charlus took Harry by the cottage again so he could tell the other curse breakers what else had learned of their colleague. It wasn't a long visit, just long enough for Harry to tell them everything he knew over a cup of tea. Harry and Charlus weren't even allowed to go anywhere in the house apart from the kitchen, even having to walk around the house and go in the back door.

Nobody wanted to risk a non professional going anywhere near the arrays now that they were up and stable. The special circumstances of Harry's blood being the best thing to kickstart wards was over. It was time to leave it to the professionals. After that it was right back to Hogwarts.

The next week in Hogwarts was both hectic and chill. It was hectic because Harry barely got a minute to himself to just relax. There was Quidditch practice, combat training, prefect rounds, revision, homework, and classes. Throw in an evening Hermione had scheduled for him and her to disappear for a date and Harry's time was booked from the moment he woke up until he crashed back into his bed at the end of the day.

Yet Harry was loving it because it was regular O.W.L year problems. Almost everyone in his year was going through the same thing. Sure for most of them it was charms club or chess club or the choir rather than Quidditch and Harry's little combat training club, but still everyone was under the same pressure. It wasn't a dark lord breathing down his neck. It was great to be a regular teenager for a bit rather than having to worry if the curse breakers were going to find the horcrux that a dark lord had hid in a school.

Even the news was pretty good, at least by comparison to the previous few weeks. Death eater attacks were down and death eater arrests were up. The paper was attributing it to raids conducted by the Aurors, but Harry knew it was Sirius working with the Aurors using the taboo against them. Sirius had told Harry they were keeping his involvement and the strategy they were using out of the press.

Harry remembered what Sirius told him. "While it's probable the death eaters know what we are doing and that I'm involved given that Bellatrix escaped the first time, we don't want to risk telling them something they don't already know that we assume they worked out. That and we really don't want anyone from the public trying to copy us. If someone tries and gets hurt then that kind of undermines why we are doing this in the first place."

Harry did get a letter from St Mungo's on Friday about sorting out Tanaka's arm.

Dear Mr Potter

It has come to our attention that you have a private deal with Miss Tanaka over providing her with a prosthetic arm. Due to some medical concerns we want to delay that for a time.

After reviewing the records of the time you provided Mr Krum with a prosthetic arm we are aware that your process works when the patient's wound sight has fully healed.

It is the professional opinion of the healers that sat in review that waiting until a patient has the amputation point healed is safer for the patient. This is in case your prosthetic ever stops working and falls away. A possibility that must be accounted for, because we cannot be aware of how the prosthetic would react to wild or esoteric magic. If this ever were to happen the patient would be left with a life threatening open wound. If however the amputation site is healed first then it would be a much safer matter in the event of a catastrophic failure of the prosthetic at a later date.

With this in mind we are also requesting that you arrange a time that you can come and remove the prosthetic leg you gave Miss Tanaka in the emergency first aid situation she was in. While this undoubtedly saved her life at the time, the fact is that you merely patched a hole rather than fixing the underlying life threatening situation and we think it would be better for Miss Tanaka's long term life expectancy to deal with that issue now when it can be done in a controlled medical environment.

Sincerely

Helbert Spleen

Ward director

Artifact accident ward

Harry sat there thinking about it for a while. While his first reaction was one of annoyance the more he considered it the more he agreed with the healers. Sure his spell seemed stable but Harry had no idea what could happen in the long-term. More importantly he had no idea how it would react with any old forgotten curses that Tanaka may need to deal with after she had finished working on the horcrux job. He was going to need to speak with Tanaka first but he would probably go with the healer's recommendation.

Harry was so lost in his thoughts that he almost missed the argument that Ron and Susan were having over breakfast.

"Seriously Ron, it's just a name. You know how these things work." Susan sounded agitated.

"What's going on?" Harry asked, completely missing the look Hermione tried to send him to not get involved.

"Susan expects me to take her last name if we get married." Ron said in a huff.

Harry thought about it for a few seconds and quickly realised the issue. Susan was actually the Warlock of her house. Sure the job was being done by her aunt as regent so it wasn't official just yet. But the title was hers and with that title came the responsibility to carry the family name. Ron however was a guy and grew up expecting his future wife to take his name but Ron was the sixth son of a branch family. It was probably an unwritten rule somewhere that it was Ron who needed to change his name.

Harry was sure he knew how to deal with this and it meant letting his Slytherin side out to play a little. The question was should he do it? Was it wrong to manipulate your friend into doing something that would make him happy?

In the end he gave them the choice. "Do you two just want me to listen or do you want my advice?"

Ron immediately asked for Harry's advice but Susan was more hesitant. But she agreed and asked for his advice.

Harry nodded and thought for a second about the best way to approach it. "There is a muggle saying by a famous playwright. By coincidence the same playwright who wrote the play Hermione's parents got her name from. He wrote, 'a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.' In your case it means whatever name you go with if you get married you will still be you. You will still like the same Quidditch teams, the same foods, your family will still be your family. The name doesn't change the quality of who you are. The name is just not important.

"That being said, there is meaning attached to a name. You," Harry nodded to Susan." can choose to be one more of dozens of Weasleys or you, "he nodded at Ron. "can choose to be married to Warlock Bones. In the end Hermione and I will still be your friends and that's more important than a name."

That left the previously quarrelling couple rather pensive for the rest of breakfast. However as soon as Harry and Hermione were finished Hermione practically pulled Harry out of the great hall. She pulled him into the first broom cupboard they came across and once they were inside she asked. "Why would you take Ron's side like that? Telling Susan her name doesn't matter and she could be part of a big family when you know she only has her aunt left?" She actually sounded hurt that Harry would do that.

"You think I took Ron's side? Hermione, what I just did will practically guarantee that Ron takes the Bones name." Harry couldn't keep the smile from pulling up the corner of his mouth.

Now Hermione looked confused. "What? How?"

"Hermione, what is Ron's biggest insecurity?" Harry asked, hoping it would lead Hermione to the answer.

Hermione thought for almost thirty seconds and Harry wasn't disappointed. "Ron's insecurity is that he is just another Weasley, nothing special, just another Weasley doing what a Weasley does. Whereas the house of Bones is small, exclusive. Then that bit you said about names not being what defines you was about helping him let go rather than pushing Susan to let go of her name. But why didn't you just tell Ron that?"

"Because if I came out and said to Ron that he was wrong he wouldn't have listened. So I made it sound like general advice to both of them." Harry explained.

"That was pretty clever. Underhanded and Slytherin-like, but clever." Hermione said leaning in to him now she was over being miffed at him she wanted some cuddling and that was something Harry was alway happy to provide.

"Well maybe it was a little manipulative, but it was for their happiness. And now we don't have to worry about them arguing for the next three weeks because Ron is being stubborn."

"So Harry what was in that letter? Anything interesting?" Hermione asked as they left the cupboard arm in arm. So Harry explained what the letter was about. "The healers at St Mungos have decided that they need to be allowed to heal Miss Tanaka before I give her an arm and they want me to remove the leg I already gave her."

"What? why? Your magic limbs are incredible, they work even if no healing has been done." Hermione was outraged on his behalf.

Harry handed her the letter so she could read it for herself. Harry watched Hermione read the letter. The look she got when she was concentrating always looked cute to him. "Well…" Hermione was finished reading the letter and it was obvious to Harry she actually agreed with the healers but wanted to support him.

"Honestly if it was anyone else I may think they were going overboard with their caution. But as a curse breaker I bet Tanaka has to deal with a lot of weird magic very few people know anything about. Being extra careful for her makes sense." Harry said.

Hermione relaxed, not feeling like she was being pulled in two different directions any more. "Would you be able to reattach the same leg or would you need to make a new one? And if you do need to make a new one can you reuse the silver from the leg?"

Harry had to think about it. He had never had access to the original spell, only the modified trap version Voldemort had given him and a workable reverse engineered version. Because of that he had never been able to read the full theory behind the spell. Only what the arithmancers his grandfather had employed had come up with. "I don't think I will be able to reattach the leg, but I should be able to reuse it as raw silver. Though I suppose I should arrange for more silver anyway. At least if I don't need it I can just use it for the next person I help."

"True but what will you do with the prosthetic if you can't reuse its silver?" Hermione asked just following her curiosity now as they walked to class.

Harry shrugged. "Sell it to the goblins maybe. They may be able to purify it again. Though it may actually belong to Tanaka so if u can't reuse it maybe it's up to her to deal with?" Harry really wasn't sure.

Hermione had no idea either. "I doubt the value of it means anything to you and from what you said your grandfather is paying them I doubt it means anything to curse breaker Tanaka either. It may be worth keeping it as a display model though. Let the other people looking to get one have a decent look at it and see what they are signing up for." Hermione suggested.

Harry thought that was a brilliant idea and told her so.

-ϟϟϟ-

Tanaka wasn't happy about giving up her ability to walk for a week while the healers went to work on the part of her hip that couldn't even be called the stump of her leg. It helped though that through sheer force of will she had gotten the healers to agree that Harry could give her a new arm at the same time he took the fake leg. This way instead of leaving her without the freedom of walking and unable to do anything that required two hands she was trading off one issue for another.

Harry got to have the next Wednesday after lunch out of the school for this. Apparently Headmaster Greengrass considered 'assisting healers in a magical operation' a valid excuse for missing an afternoon of classes.

The surgery wasn't actually due to start until about fifteen minutes before the last class of the day ended, but the healers wanted to give Harry a crash course in how to behave in a magical operating theatre. Harry had to go through a full magical decontamination as well suffer through a lot of cleaning charms.

Harry had asked why he hadn't needed to do any of this when he gave Krum a new arm. Healer Spleen, the same healer who had written to Harry explained, "Firstly Mr Krum didn't have an open wound. There was no chance of getting any contamination in the wound. In Miss Tanaka's case we are dealing with a big open wound. We are actually lucky that your spell uses real silver. Silver is naturally anti-inflammatory. So while no healing has happened we think the silver kept there from being an infection. Still we don't want to risk introducing one now."

"The magical decontamination is more complex, if you want to understand it I can recommend a book on the subject but to boil it down to its most simple, this type of healing is hard and we want to be one hundred percent sure we have removed any influence that could make it harder. And trust me we healers don't like the decontamination either. But we do what we must for our patients."

After that Harry was given a set of healers over robes in apprentice brown and was led into the room where everything was going to happen. Harry was a little surprised when he heard a familiar voice call his name "Potter." Like it was the most disgusting thing in the world. Stood next to a rack of potions was Severus Snape who Harry only just remembered worked at St Mungo's now.

"Apprentice Snape." Harry said with a nod. After all he had always insisted on being referred to by his proper title.

"Please don't tell me that you are arrogant enough to actually think you have what it takes to be an apprentice here?" Snape indicated the apprentice robes Harry was wearing.

Harry actually laughed which caused the greasy bat to scowl even more. "Well since I'm a specialist and not a healer of any type, no. I just don't think they have a robe for someone who's here only because they can perform one spell no-one else can. They said the robes are enchanted to help prevent infections and curses from spreading. Personally I think someone thought that I haven't earned the right to wear a healer robe yet and the apprentice robe was a compromise."

Harry didn't try to push any of Snape's buttons like he normally would because this wasn't an opportunity for him to bash the dungeon bat it was about helping Miss Tanaka.

Soon Miss Tanaka was rolled in on one of those wheeled beds hospitals use and Snape was up first to administer a potion to let Miss Tanaka sleep through the process. "One standard dreamless sleep potion administered. Continuing to monitor the patient."

Next it was over to a medi witch who moved Miss Tanaka's robe out of the way and applied some privacy screening to protect her modesty as much as possible given where they were going to be working. She also rubbed surgical alcohol all over the area presumably to prevent infection.

Then it was Harry's turn. He was nervous. How could he not be? Last time he was doing everything he could to keep her alive by stopping all the blood from bleeding out all over everything. This time he was reopening that wound and trusting everyone else there to keep her alive.

Harry reached for the mental connection he had with Tanaka through the limb and severed it. The leg immediately went straight and stopped moving altogether, Harry then cast the spell that created the limbs targeting the silver of the limb as a source of silver and it started to flow into a ball of silver ready for shaping. Harry first took the toes, then the foot following up the leg until there was just the bit that was holding in Miss Tanaka's blood. "I'm about to remove the last bit, be ready." Harry gave the room a heads up even though he was sure they didn't need it.

The last piece came away and the first thing Harry noticed was the blood. There was a lot of it. More than he remembered from the cottage. Healer Spleen had told Harry to expect a lot of blood because the legs need a lot of blood pumped through them and had some of the biggest arteries in the human body. And while Harry understood he hadn't expected this. Snape was right there immediately switching blood replenishing potions directly into Miss Tanaka's stomach while the healers got to work clamping the artery and closing up the wound.

The second thing Harry noticed was the smell, it smelled like raw meat fresh from the butcher, for one second Harry felt his mouth water and then as he realised he felt sick. The medi witch had apparently been waiting for this reaction and pushed a blue vial into Harry's hand and told him to drink it.

Harry did and felt the familiar sensation of a calming draught wash through his body and mind. "Thank you." Harry said to the medi witch.

"It's not an uncommon reaction the first time. Or at least the first time you aren't all pumped up on adrenaline. Just be thankful we don't have to open up the torso, that smells a lot worse. Now go set that ball of silver down on the tray over there. I believe you will need that later."

Harry realised he was still floating the ball of silver and did as he was told. His part was over for now. He just had to stand in the corner and wait while everyone else worked in some way to heal the amputation site. The downside of being a specialist was he had absolutely nothing to do while he stood around waiting for the opportunity to fix Tanaka's arm. As far as everyone in this room was concerned Harry was barely qualified enough to tell them the time if he was asked.

It took way longer than Harry thought it would. Harry was used to magic fixing things either incredibly quickly or over night while you slept. He wasn't expecting to stand around for almost two hours waiting for them to finish up with her hip so he could sort out her arm.

What Harry didn't know was just how much work needed doing. Arteries and veins all needed to be paired up and connected to keep the blood flowing and to prevent internal bleeding. Nerve endings needed to be dealt with, skin had to be grown to cover the entire site, all while dealing with the residual dark magic in the wound fighting their attempts.

If it hadn't been for the fact that Harry would have to go through the cleansing again if he left the room there wouldn't really be any reason for him to still be here. He could have gone off and done something more productive. Yet he was needed again at the end so he couldn't leave. So he just sat on a stool in the corner out of the way watching as much as he could between the shoulders of the healers. Eventually the healers had managed to stop all but the smallest amount of bleeding and bandaged up the wound site where a case of potions would over the next week grow in new skin over the wound.

With Miss Tanaka now stable, it was time for Harry to see if he could use the silver to create the arm. Harry moved over and stood next to Tanaka, standing right by where her arm used to be.

The healers were now all watching Harry. It was incredibly unusual for there to be a non-qualified healer in the room that wasn't a patient. Normally If there was a spell that was needed to be used it would just be taught to the healers. But as this spell had some really unusual requirements keeping most people from being able to learn it and that was fascinating to the healers they all wanted to see it and try and work out a way that any healer could cast it.

"Can we raise her good arm so I can see it?" Asked Harry as the medi witch brought over the tray that he had put the silver on earlier. "I need to be able to match the prosthetic to it to keep everything balanced."

One of the healers waved his wand and Miss Tanaka's arm rose up enough for him to get a good look. Harry took a deep breath and after shutting out the unnerving feeling of the healers watching him so intently Harry began the spell.

Reusing the silver proved to be harder than using fresh. Harry wasn't really surprised by that, he was just glad it was possible. He took his time and over the next ten minutes created a silver arm and hand from the silver leaving it with a mirror smooth finish. Then he finished the job by attaching it to miss Tanaka's shoulder.

Afterwards when Miss Tanaka was taken away to recovery, the healers all dragged Harry to one of the staff break rooms to relax and talk. One of the healers realised how much magic Harry had used and called on an elf to bring Harry a sandwich and glass of pumpkin juice. Harry may have complained about being babied but his indigestion was silenced before it could even be spoken when most of the healers also ordered themselves something. Harry hadn't ever considered just how powerful a witch or wizard would need to be to be a good healer. Sure knowing the right spells was a must and being able to cast them perfectly as well. But it was one patient after another. That took stamina.

The healers were impressed by Harry's spell and every one of them was disappointed that it was impossible for them to cast even if Harry taught them the spell. One healer, the youngest by the look of her, joked about marrying Harry to see if the symbol part of the spell could be extended to her but Harry was happy with Hermione and said so.

"So what are you planning on doing after Hogwarts?" One of the healers, a middle aged wizard that was starting to go gray and was named Bevin, asked.

"Quidditch." Harry answered. He was determined to secure his place back on the team for at least one match this year. And the idea of playing Pro still applied to him.

"That's a career with a time limit though. Most players don't last for even fifteen years. Assuming you start at seventeen that barely puts you in your thirties. What's your plan for after that? Ever considered giving healing a go?

"Can't do healing. Didn't take arithmancy." Harry admitted. "As to what I will do, not sure but I have a few years to make a plan."

"I suppose suing everyone who ever used your name made you enough gold to keep from having to worry like a normal person. " Snape sneered from the back of the room. Harry just ignored him.

Harry chatted with the healers for another half an hour. During that time they pretty much all suggested that he should look into taking arithmancy after Hogwarts and look into healing as a career. They all clearly thought it was the best job in the world. Then an administrator came into the room and reminded the healers that they needed to start prepping for their next patent. Not long after that Charlus took Harry back to Hogwarts where Harry climbed back into bed until dinner.

A/N

I got scammed on my latest energy drink shipment. as a result I am in desperate need of coments