Chapter 103: Hastily
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Harry turned from patting down his robes to look at his friend. Phoenixes, he'd learned the day of Hedwig's burning day yesterday, had quite a few body image issues about the way they looked after their Burning Days.
It shouldn't have been a surprise really, considering how much pride Hedwig held in her plumage, but hearing it verbalized made a whole world of difference.
"You look better than you did yesterday," he told her with a smile, "Yesterday was bad."
" Thanks, Harry, "
"As in, really bad."
" No really. Thank you. "
"You looked tiny yesterday," he continued with a smirk, "Like a mix between a fist-sized shriveled bean and a chicken."
" Really grateful for the confidence boost Harry. Appreciate that. " she flatly said before going back to pecking at the piece of chocolate in the little bowl on her tray.
And she appreciated sarcasm, which was frankly great in Harry's opinion. Made for good banter.
"No problem," he said before walking over to her, extending an arm to scratch behind her neck, watching with a grin as her eyes slid shut and her tiny leg started twitching.
"Are you coming, Harry!?" Nicholas's voice rang loudly from downstairs.
"Coming!" Harry yelled back before he gave Hedwig a final pat on the head and walked over to the newspaper sitting on his desk before picking it up and looking at it.
The words he had almost committed to memory sprang right back at him, mesmerizing him into a trance as he unblinkingly stared at them.
" Tell Hermione that I sent my good wishes, " Hedwig said from her perch, startling Harry out of his thrall. His hand hastily jerked against the edge of the paper, slitting open a small cut in his palm.
"I will," Harry said, ignoring the cut as he hastily stuffed the paper into his pocket before heading towards the door.
" You aren't going to heal that are you? " Hedwig quietly said from behind him as he reached for the doorknob.
He stopped. It had been almost a week now. An entire week of him blaming himself for each one of those deaths that had happened at Hogwarts that day. Wondering if his killing one girl would have saved all those other lives.
Wondering if he had sacrificed 9 people in exchange for his moral integrity and a girl whose life was destroyed anyway. Trying to tell himself again and again that he made the right choice at the moment.
He was just tired of thinking at this point.
Not thinking about all that and just focusing on trying to save and protect what he had left just felt like the right thing to do.
He looked at his hand. Hundreds of tiny cuts were peppered all across his arms and his back from the rocks falling on him in the tunnel outside Slytherin's cave.
This new red one, the paper cut, stood out brightly amongst all the ones that had scabbed over. Every single one of those cuts he could have healed.
But he didn't.
Maybe it was stupid. In fact, it probably was. But it felt like the right thing to do. As meaningless it was, this pathetic little form of penance that he had taken upon himself, it felt like the right thing to do.
"It's just a little cut. Nothing really. I'll see you later." he said before opening the door and leaving.
"How far is the Hospital from here?" Harry asked Nicholas as they stepped out of the alley they had apparated to from home into a broad store-lined street.
All the petrified victims had been transferred to St Mungo's Hospital the day Hogwarts had closed down.
"Not far. We're just around the corner," Nicholas said, parting a group of shoppers to make way for them to pass before adding, "I will be waiting outside the building. There's a nice tea shop across the street. You take as much time as you need."
"Here we go," he added a moment later. It was a large, old-fashioned, red brick department store called Purge & Dowse Ltd. The place had a miserable air.
The window displays consisted of a few chipped dummies with their wigs askew, and large signs on all the dusty doors read: 'Closed for Refurbishment'.
"It's the glass window. Be ready to step through when I tell you to," he said, pointing towards a window displaying nothing but a particularly ugly female dummy. Its false eyelashes were hanging off and it was modeling a green nylon pinafore dress.
Harry nodded, and Nicholas leaned closer to the glass before saying, "We're here to see Hermione Granger."
Harry really shouldn't have been surprised by the dummy giving a nod, but he was nevertheless. However, he remembered his instructions and stepped through the glass. It felt like stepping through a thin waterfall as he emerged quite warm and dry on the other side.
There was no sign of the ugly dummy or the space where she had stood. Instead, St. Mungo's Hospital's reception area stood in full glory in front of him.
Rows of witches and wizards sat upon wooden chairs, some looking perfectly normal and others sporting gruesome disfigurements such as elephant trunks or extra hands sticking out of their chests.
Healers in lime-green robes were walking up and down the rows, asking questions and making notes on clipboards. Harry noticed the emblem embroidered on their chests: a wand and bone, crossed.
Harry walked over to the queue in front of a sickly thin witch seated at a desk marked Enquiries. The wall behind her was covered in notices and posters. There was also a large portrait of a witch with long silver ringlets which was labeled:
Dilys Derwent
St Mungo's Healer 1722-1741
Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
1741-1768
Dilys was eyeing Harry closely, and Harry knew that it was because another portrait of hers hung in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts, where he had been a few times.
"Next!" the blonde witch said, snapping Harry's attention back. He was up next."
"Hello," he said, "I'm here to see Hermione Granger. Could you tell me where I can find her?"
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