10

10: End of Term (June 23, 2003 to June 27, 2003)

"Are you sure you won't come with me?" Draco asked once more. It wasn't like Draco to have to ask anything more than once. It certainly wasn't like Draco to have to almost plead to get someone to come to his sprawling mansion. But this was Sebastian, and he was a bit of an oddball. Not that Draco minded, it was what he loved about Sebastian. There was nothing more than he wanted to do than to introduce his best friend to his parents. The problem was that Sebastian refused to spend the Christmas holidays with him.

Harry really did wish he could spend the vacation time with Draco, but the problem was that he didn't want to make a promise that he'd most likely have to break. It'd be a nice change of pace for him; it'd be the first holiday he'd not be worrying about living through it. Besides, it'd be different to actually be carefree during the vacation and be with his best friend. It was too bad that he couldn't. It simply most likely wasn't going to be possible. Dumbledore had told him he could pop up to surprise Draco if the circumstances turned out that way.

If he managed to get back to his world, then he was definitely gone. He'd be sad to go, but there was a strong likelihood that he could come back here. Dumbledore was certain that the mirror was a direct link to this dimension and only this dimension. The alternate dimension traveling book that Harry had read also hinted at the same thing, that objects used to cross the divide of dimensions often were routes only to that specific dimension. But it was scary to think that Voldemort had that much power as it would take to choose the dimension Harry would end up in.

Then there was the large possibility that his friends in his world hadn't figured out how to open up the gateway and he'd end up being slammed back like before. Just thinking about it made him grimace in pain. There was no doubt if he didn't make it back that he'd be in the hospital for a good two weeks of the holidays, which was basically the entire vacation time. If he was lucky, as Dumbledore pointed out, if he came back less scathe than he had last time- he could surprise Draco sometime near or after Christmas Day. It was too bad things were so uncertain. He would have liked to give Draco a head's up.

"Bast?" Draco called out. "Are you listening to me? I see why you make the grades you do in classes you should be good at. I mean you're not bad at Transfiguration or Ancient Runes, but you could be much better if stopped daydreaming in class!" He nudged Sebastian in the side. "Did you hear me? I'm asking you for the last time! Do you want to spend the holidays with me? I'd love to have you over."

"I can't," Harry grumbled at Draco, half annoyed that he kept asking and half sad that he couldn't go. But it was important to try to get back to his dimension. It wasn't right that he was here. Being absent from his world, would change things there and being here would change things here. "I told you, I have to stay at Hogwarts to work out some discrepancies with my old boarding school."

"I don't see why you should have any!" Draco exclaimed with irritation flashing in his grey eyes. Draco was used to getting what he wanted when he wanted, and he wanted Sebastian to spend Christmas with him. When Draco had suggested using his father's influence in the Ministry of Magic to handle any of the troubles Dumbledore was giving him, Sebastian had vehemently said no. That he wanted to handle things by himself. "You're such a stubborn prat! I don't see why you won't let me help you!"

Because Draco couldn't. "You can't," Harry responded with a sigh. "Besides, you know what a obstinate person I am. I want to do this on my own. You know I'm fiercely independent, that I hate relying on anyone. I don't want to promise I'll come if I have to break that promise. You know how I am with my word. Truth is, it's not only school stuff- it's family stuff too."

"Oh," Draco replied softly. The small bit that Draco knew about Sebastian's life before Hogwarts was slim at best. He knew that Sebastian hadn't been a great student because he hadn't really applied himself. But he'd been a good slacker. He knew that Sebastian didn't have any family left. That he was an orphan and that he had some relation to the Headmaster. The extent of the relation, Draco didn't know. "I... I didn't know."

"It's all right," Harry responded, resting his hand reassuringly on Draco's shoulder. "You couldn't have known. I didn't want to tell you." He didn't know why, but the lying sessions he'd had with Dumbledore over the summer were extremely helpful when discussing his past. He didn't outright lie, instead he only told half-truths. Half-truths, he had admit were the way to go. It made lying convincing and yet not entirely lying. Stupid justifications.

"If you aren't coming over to my place for the holidays," Draco grumbled reluctantly, "then you'd better send me an owl everyday. Merlin knows how boring Christmas is going to be for me without Hermione's Know-It-All-ness gone and your stubborn reticent self not by my side."

"I know, I know," Harry muttered sarcastically. "It's such a damn tragedy."

"'Tis."

~

"Are you ready Harry?" Dumbledore asked kindly when his young charge stepped into his private chambers.

Harry nodded. "Will you do something for me first?"

"It depends on what you ask me to do."

Harry smiled. This was where he got that trait of never promising anything unless he could deliver, from Dumbledore. He handed the Headmaster a small bundle he retrieved from his pocket. "I've shrunk all the Christmas presents that I got for my friends. Will you make sure they get them on Christmas Day if I do manage to go back successfully?"

"Of course, Harry," Dumbledore responded genially.

"And," Harry began quickly, "I want to know what you'd tell them of my disappearance. You know we can't tell them the truth, and you're going to have to tell them something." He didn't know why he was so anxious, but he was. It was just that Severus, Draco, and Hermione had become very important to him here. He knew he'd miss them when he went back.

Dumbledore cleared his throat and glanced into Harry's eyes with much seriousness. "I certainly couldn't tell them the truth. It's too far fetched for even me to think of. Considering that everyone believes you came from the Americas, you'll just have to go back there. I'm sure I can manage a convincing enough story. Say you've been adopted by close friends of your parents or the other option is to say that you died in an unexpected accident.

"It probably is the best option since none of your friends will try to look for you and possibly stumble upon the half truths. If you should happen to never return here, then you'll have no loose ends," he remarked. "Of course, I leave the final decision up to you, Harry. You know your friends best."

He didn't want them to think that he was dead, but what choice did he have? It was the best choice to make since it tided up all the loose ends. But what if he did manage to find a way back? What then? He was getting far too ahead of himself. He didn't even know if he was going to be able to return to his world yet. There were too many things that he was depending on to happen to get to the possibilities he was listing in his head.

"Tell them I died," Harry said with hoarse difficulty, "if I go back successfully and don't forget to deliver the Christmas gifts to them."

"I won't forget."

Harry gulped and stared at Dumbledore with emotional eyes. "I want to thank you for all that you've done for me."

"It's no problem. I'm glad I could help," Dumbledore replied sincerely, though he regretted that Harry needed to go back to his world. They could really use him here. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, I'm ready."

"Good," he commented. He raised his wand about to cast the spell when he murmured, "Harry?"

"Yes?"

"You'll be missed." That touched Harry and he also knew was the last words he'd ever hear in this world if things went the way they should. It saddened him, but there was nothing to do. He had to go back to his world. He wasn't meant to be here; he shouldn't be here but he was. Did that mean anything? Anything at all?

Every muscle in his body was tense in dreadful anticipation. Dumbledore had already cast the spell to open the path between the dimensions. All he had to do was chant the charm that'd use his lightning bolt scar as the pathway to his dimension. Saying the charm was not hard at all. It was actually easy to do, simple to think of but then very hard to accomplish when everything needed to be aligned perfectly. Their side and the other side. Stupid complications.

Once he'd whispered the spell, he again felt the sensation of being sucked into a funnel that made him feel weightless. The feeling of being held in stasis warped to a blinding speed of being shifted across time, space, and distance. He again felt himself getting closer to his world, close enough to touch it and close enough to feel the familiarity. Almost there, almost.

~

Despite the weariness that lined Hermione's exhausted face, she raced down the hallway to the dungeons and burst into Snape's office. As she expected, she found McGonagall and Snape sifting through the piles of books on the floor and on the desk looking a even a hint of how to get Harry back from where Voldemort had banished him. Ron would have been with her, but he had to go back to the Burrow for a Christmas family gathering.

Ron had wanted to tell his family why he needed to stay but Dumbledore had insisted on secrecy. So he had been forced to return to the Burrow since he couldn't give a valid excuse to stay. But it was actually a relief for Hermione that Ron was gone because the poor boy was simply not good at discerning what was useful information and what wasn't. She was getting so much more done without him hanging over her shoulder continuously asking her questions.

"I FOUND IT!" Hermione cried out, dropping her book on top of the books scattered in the middle of the table, pointing to what she'd just read. "This book references the book that You Know Who must have used to jump Harry to another dimension. This has to be the reason that we haven't been able to find anything yet because this book has only three known copies that exist in our Universe. I have no idea where the other two copies are but You Know Who has to have one."

Both McGonagall and Snape were affected by Hermione's burst of energy as they swiftly scanned the section Hermione had referred them to. When they'd finished reading they had to agree with her. The book on unique forms of traveling mentioned a book called: THE MOST COMPLETE GUIDE TO ALTERNATE DIMENSION JUMPING. From what the reference said, the complete guide was the most comprehensive source of any and everything involving alternate dimensions.

"Well," Severus remarked wryly, "that solves the problem of which book we need to be looking at, but that certainly doesn't help us reach a resolution." He focused his dark eyes at Hermione with piercing accuracy. "So how do you purpose that we get the book?"

Hermione's face fell. "I have no idea," she whispered dejectedly. "For all we know there might only be one copy left in this world. There's a huge possibility that the other two copies might have been used to jump across the dimensions and that they are currently residing in other dimensions. The only known copy is in the possession of You Know Who."

"Albus will know," McGonagall injected.

"If he knew," Snape sneered, "then why are we on this random goose hunt?"

"He will know someone that will know," she responded with a superior expression. "Albus has many contacts with others, and I have no doubt that he will know someone that will be able to help us. If there's anyone that can find out where the other two books are, it'll be him. Besides," she said pointedly, "if we cannot find the other two, we will have no choice but to wrest the book the Dark Lord has and that means you will have to fetch it. You are the only spy that we have that he still trusts."

Severus glared at his fellow Professor and barked, "What are you two doing sitting? We have to go talk to Dumbledore now!"

~

He was close, but he wasn't there. That was his last coherent thought before he started screaming, screaming until he felt his voice box stop functioning. He lost all train of actually being, of feeling anything but the burning and raging pain that coursed through his being. This was the worst physical pain he'd ever felt before. His insides were boiling at an unbearable temperature and if he could die, he would have been released from it all.

But he didn't, though he didn't doubt that he had come close. Very close to having his existence erased permanently, yet he hadn't died and as his brain fried from the intense pain signals bombarding his sensory nerves- he wished he had. It was with grateful relief that he blacked out when the fire ripping through his innards, shattering his blood vessels and causing blood to seep into his body cavities.

It was lucky he was already knocked out when he tumbled back to Dumbledore's office like the previous time because the head jarring landing would have made him black out from that. The awful and ghastly sight of burnt flesh and blood everywhere made Dumbledore panic especially since Fawkes had just burned the other day and in his newborn form had no healing powers at all. "POPPY!" Dumbledore's voice boomed throughout the school. "I NEED YOU NOW!"

The few students that were staying shook with fear at hearing such a powerful and resonating voice of desperation calling throughout the entire school. Most of the teachers that were also there leapt to their feet and ran to where the voice was calling from, Dumbledore's office. But it was Poppy that was the only one that had a clue of what had happened. She'd been called like this before, and Dumbledore had kindly hinted to her this morning that it wouldn't be a bad idea to be prepared for the worst.

But even she wasn't prepared for what she saw. Sebastian looked dead, not on the verge of death but dead. He was barely breathing as Dumbledore had the invisible stretcher moving full speed to the medical ward. Poppy managed to slow the stretcher down enough so that she could dump a full healing charm on the boy, enough to remove some of the more shallow wounds and clean up the blood that drenched the boy from head to toe.

She couldn't even guess at the damage until they reached her ward where she'd be able to use her magical medical equipment to do a full examination. It was a lucky time she had gotten there when she had because her full body healing spell had cleared Sebastian's blocked windpipe and had fixed most of the serious internal damage like torn arteries. Her mind was focused entirely keeping the healing spell up, working intricately to fix some of the more severe damage.

She knew that she ought to call someone from St. Mungo's to help her, even if she was one of the best healers in Great Britain. But if she lost her focus for a minute it might prove fatal to Sebastian. It was her magic that was sustaining the poor boy. She didn't think it'd take any of the Professors that were swarming around the medical ward now to run to St. Mungo's. McGonagall was the on that was sent, using an emergency Portkey that resided in the Utmost Emergency Kit.

Dumbledore and Flitwick with their mediocre knowledge of medimagic was fixing up the ward when Severus stalked into the room. His dark eyes widened as he shoved Flitwick out of the way so that he could examine Sebastian's full damage. "What in the bloody hell happened?" he raged his query. "Dumbledore? Poppy?"

"An accident," Dumbledore responded briefly, shoving the Potions Master away so that Flitwick could step back in and set up the diagnostic test that would fully survey Sebastian's body and detail to them what precisely was wrong with the boy. "Get some potions."

Severus didn't move, he was too stunned to see his favorite student, his Potions partner- Sebastian dying in front of him. It didn't take him long to realize that whatever 'accident' Sebastian had gotten into had been terrible and not something that just anything would cause. The poor boy looked like he'd been fried outside and had hemorrhaged internally, the blood finding outlets through his mouth mainly.

"POTIONS NOW, SEVERUS!" Dumbledore hollered.

That was all that it took to make Severus run full speed to the dungeons where he gathered anything, potions and et cetera that had any relation to healing. When he got back, he found two other mediwizards there that had took one look at the diagnostic results and had started intense internal medimagic surgery to correct Sebastian's internal damage. One spare glance at the chart overhead told Severus that Sebastian's innards had been severely injured.

Frantically, he shoved several external potions that healed potions to Poppy who was taking a break from the intensive spells she'd enacted that had stabilized Sebastian enough for the two of the best mediwizards at St. Mungo's to operate on Sebastian. She took one look at the potions that Severus had handed her and poured them over Sebastian's burned wounds, murmuring in awe when most of the severe burns were wiped away. While Poppy attended to Sebastian, Severus started throwing ingredients into his cauldron to brew a complicated spell that would restore his student's lost blood.

Lost in the intricacies of the potion, Severus saw that he and the mediwizards attending to Sebastian were the only ones in the room that were making noise. The rest stood there and watched with bewildered eyes at every small incision and healing spell the two brilliant medisurgeons cast. It was sever hours of long silence before they had completed the first round of surgery and they took a break to rest themselves.

During this downtime, Poppy was revived enough to heal the rest of Sebastian's more severe burns that the potion couldn't heal and Severus gave Sebastian a great boost in strength by giving him the blood reviving potion. By no means was Sebastian better, but he was out of the deleterious danger that he had been in. Another few hours went by with Severus pumping potions into Sebastian and Poppy revitalizing her patient with her medimagic.

After the treatment, the two medisurgeons decided that Sebastian was sufficiently strong enough to undergo the second rounds of surgery that would fix the rest of his internal injuries, including the strain that his heart had undergone when the main artery had been severed. While that had been one of the first things Poppy had repaired, Sebastian's heart had been under the strain of a lack of blood flow for a few seconds, disastrous enough that he'd nearly died from that not to mention his extensive blood loss.

It was hours, many hours later when the medisurgeons felt that it was safe enough for them to head back to St. Mungo's to rest up. Poppy had already drop down onto the bed next to Sebastian in an exhausted sleep when a level 7 mediwitch arrived from St. Mungo's to watch over the patient's critical condition. All the other Professors had retreated to their rooms, leaving only Dumbledore and Severus in the ward. Severus was weary, but the adrenaline from the situation was still pumping through his veins. Besides he had something he needed to ask:

"What in fuck's name happened, Albus?"