11

Taylor had never looked so fragile to Harry as she did now, draped with clean sheets in Saint Mungo's. Her head was propped up by a pillow and each of her stumps wrapped in clean white bandages, even though one was old and uninjured. Her face was crumpled, drawn with pain despite everything the healers could do, and a big blindfold covering both eyes, one normal and one apparently damaged internally. Even with that Harry could tell she was not sleeping soundly, her face tight with discomfort.

There were four beds in their shared room, an area set aside for group injuries where the spells involved made separating the victims inadvisable, or other scenarios in which multiple patients were injured in the same way. One was empty; Percy Weasley had been cleared quickly and sent on his way to explain his side of things to the Aurors, presumably at length. The Aurors had questioned Harry, too, and he gave them as much of the story as he knew. They wanted to come back and talk to Sirius and 'Moody's other security person', once they woke. Whenever that would be.

One of the remaining beds held Taylor. Another held Sirius, who was less obviously injured, but also still unconscious. Harry sat on the fourth, his hand stuck in a bowl of foul-smelling paste he was told was regrowing the skin and nerves damaged by magical backblast. He was fine. Mostly.

Taylor had always seemed to him to be formidable. She argued with his teachers and on occasion other parents when he was a little kid. She never stopped, never backed down from anyone, and when she did it was to come at them from another direction. He had never seen her fight anyone before, but he knew she had. Sirius. Pettigrew, though that wasn't really a fight from what Sirius said. Death Eaters, Barty, and his elf at the World Cup, Moody in Hogwarts. Other times before she had magic, because he recognized that how his mum acted was too much like Moody, a war veteran, for her to have never fought before.

He would never have imagined her in a lethal magic duel with Voldemort himself, but if he did he might have imagined her coming out on top with some clever trick or strategy. Not screaming, writhing on the ground, disarmed – literally – and broken.

He knew what his boggart would be next time he faced one, and that version of Taylor would be all too real.

His injured hand was immersed in the healing mush. The other was on his mum's hip, one of the few places he could touch without worrying about causing her more pain. He had to lean over in the bed to reach across to her. His arm was going numb.

The healers said she would wake soon. They said she would live, and that any further medical information was to be given to her directly, not him. Even though he was awake and she wasn't. They didn't know who she was to him, and he didn't say, so her medical information wasn't to be given to an unrelated stranger.

He had felt comforted by that assurance of privacy. She'd like that.

Said comfort turned to bitter surprise when he heard two people talking as they approached the room, their voices a hair too loud to go unheard. "She was struck with repeated bursts of the Cruciatus curse, her arm was removed with a dark cutting curse, and she was bleeding internally. Sirius Black is little better, and showing signs of a serious possession and an unknown countercurse. Harry had to have his skin regrown. Percy Weasley just had a few scrapes and bruises."

"Thank you, Wendy," Albus Dumbledore said as they entered the room.

"Screw you, Wendy," Harry said angrily.

The nurse, who had been looking at Albus nervously, did a double-take. "Excuse me?" she demanded.

"So much for it being confidential information," Harry said.

"It's Dumbledore," the nurse retorted, as if that explained anything.

"Boy's right," Sirius grunted. Harry jumped a little; he hadn't known Sirius was awake. "Fame doesn't equal… medical privileges."

"Well I never," the nurse huffed. "Let me know if she wakes," she told Dumbledore before leaving. "I'll make sure you aren't disturbed." The door shut behind her.

"You're right you'll never, never again once I speak to your bosses," Sirius grumbled as he sat up. "What if I'd had a case of dragon pox in unfortunate places? She would have told him that, too!" He sounded mostly back to normal, albeit hoarse. An impressive recovery, given he was unconscious seconds ago… Or possibly just lying there with his eyes closed. Harry wouldn't have known the difference.

"I imagine she would expect me to keep it to myself," Dumbledore said gravely.

"Not her call," Sirius retorted.

"She was doing me a personal favor," Dumbledore said. "And that is beside the point. Alastor Moody is dead. What has happened?"

"Ask Amelia Bones, Harry gave her the scoop two hours ago." Sirius put one hand on the side of his head and cracked his neck. "Hoo, post-possession paralysis is a bitch. Sorry Harry, I didn't intentionally leave you to the Aurors on your own. Heard the whole thing, though."

Harry thought that Sirius was acting weirdly peppy, given all that had happened… But this was Dumbledore. The one who had obliviated Taylor. Here in a room with her when she was at her most vulnerable.

Maybe that cheerful attitude was a cover. Harry wished he had his wand. Or that Sirius had his, since his wand hadn't been snapped or exploded in the fight. There should be rules about visitors being allowed wands when helpless patients weren't.

"I wished to hear it from you, my boy," Dumbledore admitted.

"Also, Amelia is too much of a hard-arse to 'do you a favor'," Sirius added. "Fine. Percy Weasley was polyjuiced Barty. Moody, Harry, Samantha here, and I tripped his portkey to find out what he was up to after we caught him. Dropped right into an ocean of snakes in somebody's swanky ritual room, fought them off, found a homunculus in a cauldron, it claimed to be Voldemort. Voldemort or not old Moody turned it to mush. That's about all I remember. Harry?"

Samantha, was it? And Moody had killed the Voldemort-thing? Harry could follow Sirius' reasoning easily enough; Taylor was to be a nonentity, an extra wand of no consequence. Someone Dumbledore wouldn't look twice at. He could do that. He had done that, in talking to the Aurors. It wasn't far from the truth, though where he was vague Sirius inserted fake details.

"From there," he began, "Voldemort possessed Sirius. We fought him, Percy, Samantha and me, but he was so fast. He beat us and hurt her, really bad, cut her arms off," both arms because surely Dumbledore would not connect one-armed Muggle Taylor with two-armed and now no-armed witch Samantha, "and tortured her. I… got her wand. From her arm. While he was distracted."

"And how did you defeat him?" Dumbledore asked seriously. "Such a powerful forced possession is rare, and a possessed Sirius should have been stable and magically active for… at least a few minutes."

"A few minutes?" Sirius rasped. "What would have happened after that?"

"Either you would have ejected him," Dumbledore said solemnly, "or your magic would have begun to rebel, damaging you both. There is a reason most possessions are partial, short-lived, or on a somewhat willing subject. Harry, how did you defeat Voldemort?" he turned back to Harry.

"Possessionem Skurge, the same way I beat that wraith that possessed Ginny," Harry answered. If it worked for one of his friends with one possession, he had reasoned that it would work just as well for another. "Samantha's wand blew up in my hand, but it really worked. I only had to cast it once."

"So he was driven off once more," Dumbledore concluded. "That may not have been for the best."

"It was damn well for the best," Sirius retorted. "Given it was my body he was puppeting around! Killed him dead, didn't it? Good enough for me!"

"You should not be so quick to kill," Dumbledore admonished him.

Harry wondered whether his own jaw had dropped more or less than Sirius'.

"But it was the right action today, though not as final as we would prefer," Dumbledore hastened to add. "I had hoped not to speak of this yet, Harry, but now it seems you must know. Voldemort is not dead."

"He wasn't dead, yes, and if you knew that but didn't bother to tell anyone I am going to find a wand–" Sirius threatened.

"I have never said he was dead, but until a few years ago lacked any sort of confirmation, and even then I lacked proof," Dumbledore interrupted. "He cannot die at present. To think otherwise would be very dangerous."

"Okay, let's say I believe you," Sirius conceded, still sounding quite suspicious. "Why do you think we didn't finish the job this time, either? How does he keep himself alive?"

"I will not say the words, not here when others could be listening… It would already be disastrous if this much was made known to the public, they would panic," Dumbledore told them.

"Do you happen to share a common ancestor with Fudge?" Sirius asked.

"No? No more than you or anyone else? I fail to see how that is relevant." Dumbledore pulled a little black book out of his robes, a familiar and not destroyed black book. "Harry, you may recognize this." He tapped his gnarled wand on the book, flipping it open to show a single line of writing–

Dumbledore choked out a gasp of surprise as the book leaped up out of his hand to smack him in the face. At the same time, his wand shot out of his other hand, soaring over Taylor's bed to fall behind the headboard.

Harry leaped up, knocking the bowl of healing paste off the bed, and reached for the book, thinking that it was attacking Dumbledore because of course it would do something bad, it had possessed Ginny and was supposed to be destroyed.

Dumbledore grabbed the book out of the air, gave it a hard look as it fell limp, and then started looking around. "My wand, where is my wand?" he asked.

A red spell streaked out from under Taylor's bed, hitting Dumbledore's ankle. He collapsed, unconscious.

"Not… as satisfying… as I thought it would be," Taylor rasped. "Damn. That hurt."

"Mum!" "Taylor!"

He and Sirius converged on either side of her bed, Dumbledore all but forgotten. Sirius gently removed her blindfold from over her good eye, leaving the fabric over her bad one, while Harry squeezed her leg.

"Safe?" Taylor asked. "You two?"

"We're barely scratched, you're the one who took on Voldemort!" Sirius said.

"And Dumbledore," Taylor said dryly. "Harry… The book… Is it?"

"The one that possessed Ginny, yeah. He told me he was going to destroy it!" He didn't understand why Dumbledore had it with him, or why he thought it was relevant to the fight with Voldemort. Tom the random wraith had no relation to Voldemort… So far as he knew.

"Worked out. Gave me a… thing to distract with." She tried to sit up, but Harry joined Sirius in pushing her back down. "Fine. Sirius. His wand. Under the bed."

"Got it." Sirius leaned down. "Hey…" he said, his voice muffled as he stuck his head under the bed. "Did you cast a stunner at Dumbledore with bugs? Ow! A spider just bit me!"

"They have limbs," Taylor said. "Unlike me… I keep losing mine. Careful. His wand… feels different. Didn't want you to… take it."

"Eh, it's probably old-man wood with old-man power," Sirius offered as he came up with Dumbledore's wand. "It doesn't feel any different to me. That spider bite, on the other hand…" He shook out his left hand, revealing an ugly set of red marks. "Am I going to die?"

"No," Taylor said. "Sorry. Not intended. Change him. Revive him. Question him." Harry looked around for water, his mum's throat sounded so dry, but there was none to be found and no cups for Sirius to fill with conjured water. He was about to press Sirius to transfigure a cup and fill that when she continued talking. "Find out… what the diary has to do with Voldemort. Whether Dumbledore is possessed. Other things. Perfect opportunity."

"Can do." Sirius cast the necessary spells and, in a move that Harry thought wasn't strictly necessary but very much appreciated, tied Dumbledore up by setting him on the unused fourth bed and conjuring a straitjacket over his robes. Then he transfigured Dumbledore into a small, toothless garden snake. "The old Moody special," he said sadly. "No magic for you, Dumbledore. Harry, translate for me? Both ways."

"Got it." Harry sat forward, his ointment bowl forgotten. There was a little thrill going through him at the idea of interrogating Dumbledore, of all people. They had really turned the tables on him.

"Wait. Before I revive him, what are we going for?" Sirius asked. "I've got ideas, but we should probably make sure we're all on the same page."

"You attacked because you assume he is possessed because the book isn't destroyed," Harry suggested. "Taylor is still Samantha and still out of it, she has nothing to do with any of this. We ask him about the book, find out what he knows. Make sure that when this is over we can let him go without him thinking we're his enemies."

"Yes. That." Taylor lay still. Harry was glad; even if she was just pretending to go back to sleep, he would rather she not strain herself.

"Okay, rennervate." Sirius threw the diary on the floor, well away from them. "Dumbledore, what's possessing you? Is it a wraith or just stupidity?"

"Sirius, I–" Dumbledore flopped around on the flat bedsheet, hissing wildly. "What is this? Why am I a snake? Turn me back immediately!" Harry repeated his words, assuming Sirius wanted to hear everything.

"Not until I'm sure you're not possessed, you bleeding idiot," Sirius said harshly. "What is the book, why didn't you destroy it, and how can we know you're still you after keeping it for years when it only took a few months to take someone over last time?" Harry repeated his words, verbatim, and from the way Dumbledore stilled, he understood. It was weird how, even now, Harry couldn't tell whether he was hissing or speaking normally. It just seemed to work, without any of the difficulty of not knowing how to consciously switch between the two languages.

Magic languages were convenient, was his conclusion.

"It…" Dumbledore looked around, but no escape was forthcoming. The door was closed, and a magicless snake would stand no chance of fighting his way free of anything. "It is a means by which Voldemort maintains his immortality. I am not possessed, I have kept it locked up since Harry gave it to me. It is a very dark object. A crucial component is missing now, as Harry damaged it back in the Chamber of Secrets, but it is still partially active and very dangerous."

"Really? I didn't feel anything." Sirius kept his wand on Dumbledore as he retrieved the book. "Yeah…" He tossed the wand to Harry. "Stun me if I do something stupider than normal." Then he opened the book.

Harry and Dumbledore watched as Sirius flipped through the book, shook it, and held it upside-down. "Nope, this is just a book," he said. "Maybe it was enchanted with something, but it isn't now. Harry, can you go digging in… Samantha's robe. She has a creepy little hunk of dried flesh on a chain around her neck."

"A blood charm?" Dumbledore hissed.

"Yes. I'd get it, but…" He shrugged. "Rather not be hexed when she finds out."

Harry did the smart thing and felt around behind Taylor's head until he found the cord, then pulled it up over her head without sticking his hand in her robes. There was indeed a little piece of dried meat hanging off it.

"Thank you," Sirius said, taking the blood charm. "Now, I think it was… Visio. Yup. Ooh, this hospital room is very well insulated, I can actually stand to keep my eyes open." He shook the book out and flipped through it again. "Nada. Zip. Zilch. Hmm…"

"A curse?" Dumbledore suggested.

"No, a naughty drawing." Sirius slammed the book shut. "Not even that, actually. It's totally blank. No magic, no writing except 'Who are you?' on the first page.. Dumbledore, are you off your rocker? Should we be getting you a new rocker in the old wizard's home?"

"It is nigh-indestructible, a former container for a piece of soul!" Dumbledore insisted.

"Uh… no?" Sirius tore a page out. Then another. "It's not. I can do the whole thing, if you want? Maybe you're just getting feeble in your old age."

Dumbledore sputtered wordlessly as Sirius continued to casually rip apart the book's pages. Harry could have told him that was definitely the wraith's book – he knew what it looked like – but he was enjoying Sirius' little show, so he kept his mouth shut. Though admittedly he was curious as to what had happened, if it really had no traces of magic on it at all now.

Finally, while Sirius was folding a paper airplane, Dumbledore regained the power of intelligent speech. "It was a Horcrux when I received it!" he said. "A broken one, but a Horcrux still, with compulsion charms layered over it by the same foul magic!"

"Well it's nothing now," Sirius told him. "Hey, don't look so glum! This must mean Voldemort is totally dead. Harry cut out the important part years ago, and us killing him today killed the rest!"

"It shouldn't be possible," Dumbledore said. "And there are others…"

"Got any of them handy?" Sirius asked.

"No," Dumbledore admitted.

"Then I say he's dead for good unless proven otherwise. Maybe go find them so you can be sure." Sirius tossed the book onto Dumbledore's bed. "Harry, hit him with the anti-possession spell, that'll set him to rights if he is possessed."

"Possessionem Skurge!" Harry incanted. Dumbledore's wand felt… recalcitrant, for lack of a better word. He missed his own wand. Still, it did the job. He cast five times, just to be sure.

"I am not possessed… That is a very impressive spell, Harry," Dumbledore hissed. "Truly remarkable, the things a culture can forget or dismiss as worthless once they are no longer needed. I went to the trouble of learning it myself after your adventure in second year, but you are very good with it."

"It's first on my list, bloody useful," Sirius remarked. "Okay… That's the Voldemort issue. Now…" He trailed off, looking contemplatively at Dumbledore.

"Now you change me back and return my wand," Dumbledore reminded them. "I am very impressed with your quick thinking, but the danger you suspected does not exist."

"No, see, I was thinking." Sirius glared at Dumbledore. "I think I have something we should do. Harry, hand me the wand."

Harry passed the wand over.

"I've been practicing," Sirius told an increasingly apprehensive Dumbledore. "With memory charms, specifically. Getting better, more precise. I even looked into doing one for myself, just as an option to make somebody feel better. It was a bit like walking in on Prongs in the shower sixth year, but worse because I meant to do it this time and it turned out he was not soaped up with three Quidditch fans having a post-game celebration like I'd been told. You know what I mean?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about," Dumbledore said stiffly. He tried to slither away, but stopped when he realized he had at least five body-lengths to go before he reached the edge of the bed, and then nowhere to go but down. All while the two wizards he was trying to avoid were watching him.

"That's the idea!" Sirius said brightly. "Samantha, what do you think? End it the way it started? Way easier than my other ideas!"

"If you can… manage it," Taylor rasped.

"What is this?" Dumbledore demanded. "Let me go!"

"Nah. Obliviate." Sirius and Dumbledore locked eyes for a moment as Sirius cast, his spell striking Dumbledore in the scaly back. "Stupefy," Sirius added, knocking Dumbledore out again. "Damn, that was easy. This wand really does have old-man power. I didn't think it would work!"

"What did you do?" Harry asked.

"Removed every memory he had pertaining to Taylor Hebert or anything he might suspect is haunting her," Sirius said. He grinned widely at Harry. "Can't be a dick about her if he doesn't remember she exists, can he?"

"He'll notice… next time we meet…" Taylor said.

"He only noticed anything when he looked into your head, so just don't make eye contact until we get you skilled up in Occlumency, problem solved," Sirius insisted. "I don't expect it to last forever, but it'll definitely hold for a few months, and if it does hold indefinitely then the problem is solved. Now, both of you play along when I wake him, we've got to send him along with a good cover story and I know just the thing."

Harry watched as Sirius transfigured Dumbledore back to normal, vanished the straitjacket and book, positioned Dumbledore sitting up on the edge of the cot, and hit him with a Confundus charm before reviving him and quickly tossing his wand into his lap.

"So the magic backlash of Harry's anti-possession charm must have followed Voldemort's soul when he retreated to his death-avoiding dark artifacts," Sirius said loudly. "Yes, you're right! That's why the book is nothing more than a mere book now!"

Harry had never heard such blatantly made-up magical theory before. Years of listening to Hermione and Ginny made him a connoisseur of semi-understandable jargon. There were far too few citations of magical theory for Sirius to be saying anything provable.

"I… yes, that's it," Dumbledore said groggily, not at the moment aware enough to realize, as Harry had, that Sirius was obviously making it up as he went. "The question, then… is… whether he is fully dead, or simply that the pull on the damaged anchor broke it, but the others remain."

"We can't know until you find the others and confirm they're no longer enchanted, but it's a sight better than the situation we were in before," Sirius told him. "Good work! I never would have figured that out."

"Yes, well," Dumbledore straightened up, "when you spend enough time around magic like I have, these things become, if not clear or intuitive, then at least understandable with enough research. Harry's spell was a power Tom knew not, and it undid him. Very good!"

Harry fought to keep a straight face. He was mostly successful.

"Say nothing of what you saw in the Malfoy ritual room to anyone," Dumbledore warned as he stood. "If he is not fully dead we can warn the Minister, but we must have proof first. And please give my well-wishes to your companion… Samantha?"

"My girlfriend," Sirius lied. Harry thought it was a lie, anyway. He couldn't imagine his mum with a boyfriend. Especially not one who was still actively trying to apologize to her every few days. "Samantha Raven…. Fang. Ravenfang."

"Yes, her." Dumbledore frowned. "I hope she recovers."

"She should," Sirius assured him. "I'll be with her every step of the way. Harry, you don't mind if she recovers in Grimmauld Place this summer, if she's still injured?"

"Of course not!" Harry said.

"Your kindness will serve you well, Harry," Dumbledore told him. "I will leave you to recover… And I will bring your friends to visit tomorrow, if you would like. They were very helpful in keeping Barty from escaping, or from being hidden away by Minister Fudge. Hermione will be fine, I assure you. Minister Fudge does not have a leg to stand on."

Hermione? For that matter, the ritual room had belonged to Malfoy? Harry resisted the urge to ask what the hell had happened; he wanted Dumbledore gone before this ridiculous ruse could fall apart. "That would be good, sir."

"Be well," Dumbledore said. He left the room, the door closing firmly behind him.

They all, by unspoken agreement, waited a good ten minutes after he had left before anyone said anything.

"I will never perform a more impressive prank in my lifetime, no matter how hard I try," Sirius announced. "And never will I reach the heights I could have reached."

"All you did… was obliviate an old man," Taylor said.

"Yes, and it was Dumbledore, but I meant convincing him all of that bollocks was his idea and that you're my girlfriend," Sirius insisted. "Samantha Ravenfang… Ha! It was just shy of perfect."

"What would have made it better?" Harry asked.

"I couldn't figure out a way to work in calling your mum 'my beloved trouser snake' without it seeming contrived," Sirius admitted.

Sirius yelped as cockroaches swarmed into his shoes. Harry pulled a face, then couldn't hold it and burst out laughing. His mum's hoarse chuckles and Sirius' braying laughs joined him.

Harry's departure for Hogwarts, because technically speaking he had no reason to linger in Saint Mungo's and it was still the middle of the school term, was frustratingly inevitable. Dumbledore took him back to the castle less than twenty-four hours after Taylor woke up, as soon as the healers confirmed that there was no lingering damage and that his hand was healing without complication. It would have been even sooner, she gathered, had his famous forehead scar not taken the opportunity of the fight against Voldemort to spontaneously shrivel up and mostly disappear.

He left, unable to publicly do anything more than wish her well, and she hated everyone involved in taking her son away from her again. Even if they didn't know. Thanks to Sirius, this sort of situation wasn't going to happen anymore, but it was still galling.

Once Harry was gone, the nurse – a different nurse than the one who had let Dumbledore in – took the opportunity to shoo Sirius out and get the healer to check her over and talk about her options in private.

"I'll start with your eyes," the healer began, after a long series of diagnostic spells and physical pokes and prods under her bandages. He had a clipboard – a magical clipboard, she assumed – and a very distracted look about him. "You have a detachment in your right eye, where coagulated blood pulled a lens out of place, resulting in blindness in that eye. This would normally be easy to fix, though in the Muggle world it is incurable, but the cause of the damage is magical in nature. You have a case of magical discharge buildup in your brain, and it has spread to your eyes and as far down as your chest."

"How bad?" Taylor asked. Her power sent a feeling of apology and determination. If it could be mitigated from her power's end of things, it probably would be, going forward. But it sounded like some damage had already been done.

"The buildup? Very, and we haven't a clue as to how it happened," he answered. "But if you mean how bad it is for your health? You must have constant migraines, and your blood pressure is far too high, but the weakness in the backs of your eyes can be shored up. You won't be in any danger of the same thing happening to your left eye, and with therapy we can reduce the magical concentration in your right eye to make reattaching the lens possible. You will have to refrain from using magic for two months prior to the restoration, but there is no time pressure to start that beyond how quickly you want to regain sight in that eye. Once we've gotten in to shore up the weakest points you won't have to worry about it happening again in either eye. Ambient magical buildup is mostly harmless, the biggest danger is what's happening here, with it complicating unrelated injuries."

"That's good news." She could scrap her nascent plans to grave-rob Moody. He liked her, so if she could get his eye she imagined he would have wanted her to have it. No need for that now… though she might still take the eye, for sentimental reasons.

"I'm afraid it's the best news I have for you," the healer admitted. "Moving on to your arms. Am I right in thinking the loss of one of your arms is old and was not magical in nature?"

"Yes," she confirmed.

"The injury is much too old to easily regrow or replace it with a normal arm," he told her. "There are still ways, of course, but they come with tradeoffs. Your other arm was severed with a very dark curse. That's even harder to work around, but again, there are options. The problem is none of these options are ideal."

"I see." That was worse than she thought it would be. "You can't… just grow another arm and attach it? Did anyone pick up my arm from the ritual room? It was still intact." She would have thought it would be easy to do the latter. It was commonplace for things like non-fatal splinching, she had checked back when she was looking into apparition.

"The magics involved in that require certain conditions, and dark magic being the cause of the amputation, to put it simply, mucks things up," he said apologetically. "I can walk you through the more technical complications grown arms have after a long period of separation or dark magic, but my professional opinion is that your best option for recovering full functionality in either arm is some manner of magical prosthesis. We have a few very basic models here in Britain, but the best are illegal to make or buy here."

"I've already got four of the best possible model on order in Bulgaria," she said.

Her healer gave her a very incredulous look. "Four?" he asked.

"I'm told you don't negotiate with vampires, and that you should buy generously," she said seriously. "Will the curse damage on my stump affect me using one for that arm?"

"It shouldn't if they are blood magic," the healer said with a relieved smile. "This is the best possible outcome for you, given your situation, which is bad but not as bad as it could be. In the same vein, your existing nerve damage was compounded by Cruciatus exposure. We can and always could fix the former, and the latter is less severe, so on the whole you will likely have fewer inexplicable aches and a more sensitive sense of touch once we finish that."

"What I'm getting from this is I should have come here years ago," Taylor said ruefully. She didn't even know what nerve damage the healer was referring to. Something from those last, horrible moments fighting Scion when she wasn't fully in control of herself, perhaps.

"Yes, you should have," the healer agreed. "We have already fixed the other stress-related damage from the chronic headaches," he continued. "Aside from your nerves, eyes, head, and arms, you are mostly healthy and there were no second-order complications from the dark magic that removed your arm. Many of my patients ask me this no matter what their injury is, so I will tell you now that you are still capable of having children. This will not be the case if any serious dark magic strikes you in the pelvic area, so be careful."

"How common is that?" she asked.

"I see as many fertility consultations due to dark magic as I do to age concerns," he said. "It's much more common than you think."

"I'll be sure to avoid that." Not that she was likely to get pregnant anytime soon. That would require sex, which she wasn't having, and a desire to raise children, which had been thoroughly covered by raising Harry. It would also require a man somewhere in the process, another thing she didn't have.

"As for the order of your recovery," the healer continued, flipping a page on his clipboard and rearranging its contents. "What is the timeline on your prosthetics?"

"Two months," she recalled. She had given the requisite blood by owl post, on a boring, uncomfortable afternoon shortly before Sirius' ill-fated meeting with Dumbledore. Her arms were scheduled to be done by the end of May.

"Given your current condition, you will not want to leave Saint Mungo's prior to that," the healer told her.

Her current condition… meaning armless? He was right, she wasn't going anywhere. Even if she could wandlessly, wordlessly move things around with magic. That came with far too many headaches to totally replace her arms, especially without her wand.

Damn. It was a good thing she had already set Ollivander to making a new wand. She didn't expect to need one so soon.

"It's rather well timed, all told," the healer continued. "If you choose, we can begin the no-magic regime immediately and keep you for the two months of therapy needed to clear the ambient magic from your eye. The nerve correction is entirely potions-based, so you can do that after, in your own home. If you follow that treatment path, we can have you out of here either shortly after your prosthetics arrive, or as soon as they arrive, depending on whether they come before or after we're done with your eye."

"That's good. Do it." It would be a trial, being stuck in the hospital for several months straight, but it would get her out just in time for the summer. It was a good thing the third task had been moved up to happen in April; if it happened when originally planned, in June, she would have missed the entire summer while she recovered. That was precious time with Harry.

"Your treatments are covered by the wizarding health initiative and, where that does not apply, by Sirius Black, who has already said he would 'pay for everything' in regards to your care," the healer informed her. "I would ask you to sign a form stating you understand this, but…"

"That'll have to wait until I have an arm." Which wouldn't be for a while. Two months in the hospital…

An unpleasant realization hit her. Her job at the library. Her house, in a Muggle neighborhood, with neighbors who would want to know where she had been, why her arm was covered in tattoos, what was going on…

"Great," she huffed. She was going to have to move. There were probably wizarding ways to stop people from questioning it all, but she didn't think she would be comfortable with the outcome if she used those methods. Not when it likely amounted to selectively obliviating and confounding everyone who knew her to accept whatever she said as the truth. It would be better to just move, however much she liked that house. Aggressive mental alteration was for her enemies if anyone, not her hapless neighbors.

"I'm sorry?" the healer asked. "I didn't catch that."

"Nothing," she lied, forcing herself to put her imminent removal from her Muggle life aside. That was a problem she could ponder while laid up here with nothing to do. "I was just thinking about being stuck here for two months. Am I allowed visitors when I'm on the no-magic regime?" It would be a lot more tolerable if Harry could come visit, or Sirius.

"Yes, you are." The healer tucked his clipboard under his arm. "We'll be moving you to a smaller room once we discharge Mr. Black. Until then, kick the bell here if you need anything. Water, food, someone to turn you over, anything. Don't be shy."

Taylor knocked her toes against the bell they had hung from the foot of her cot. It tinkled loudly. "Got it." She was going to go mad before the two months were over, she just knew it.

"Do magical books count as magic?" she asked.

"Don't practice anything you read about," he warned. "We can set up a page-turning charm for you."

That would have to be good enough. At least she could get a big jump on the theory side of things without feeling like she was wasting her time…

Her power sent a strong burst of eager anticipation.

"You're not allowed to be happy about this," she grumbled.

Harry knew he was out of the loop on what had happened while he was away from Hogwarts. Three days in Saint Mungo's was a long time. He thought he had a general idea of some things, just from listening to idle talk among the nurses and doctors, but the details? Nothing. It was all confused and uncertain.

Nothing he had heard explained why Hermione was currently in a Ministry holding cell, for instance.

"What for?" he demanded, leaning further into the customary privacy ward set up over their library table. Ginny, Neville, and Luna all leaned back.

"Minister Fudge is an arse," Ginny said angrily. "She's not being charged with anything, the Aurors said so, but they're allowed to hold a 'person of interest' for up to a week before having to charge them with a crime or let them go. He's being a petty little baby and making sure they keep her as long as they're allowed."

"But what– why?" he asked. "Why just her? What does the Minister of the whole country have against a random schoolgirl?" Sure, Hermione was awesome, and she had that ongoing thing about questioning authority, but what could she have possibly done to offend the Minister?

"Remember how we were guarding Barty?" Neville asked. "When you and Moody and the others went to check out the other end of the portkey?"

"Yeah." He also sorely regretted them doing that. In hindsight, they shouldn't have jumped on it like that. Not without backup. As much as he didn't like the man, Dumbledore would have been a great fifth member of the investigation. But Moody wanted to go immediately, and nobody had objected. They would never know what Moody's reasoning for that was.

"Well, Fudge noticed the commotion," Neville continued. Ginny scowled aimlessly. "After a few minutes of Moody not coming out from under the stands, he sent an Auror to tell Moody to stop making trouble in the middle of the event, and that was about when Barty's polyjuice wore off…"

Harry winced.

"It was very coincidental timing," Luna remarked. "Barty was cutting it close."

"The Auror saw and demanded we hand him over, but we did what Moody said and refused," Neville explained. "The Auror sent for backup, and Minister Fudge came over with the rest of his detail. So it was us, surrounding Barty, keeping the Aurors from getting him, and Fudge started demanding that we release the suspect."

"We said we would, once Moody came back," Luna added. "The Minister was impatient. He didn't want to wait."

"We may have put up shields when the Aurors came to take him away from us," Neville admitted. "Which isn't, it turns out, against the law. For some reason."

"Hermione will explain it when she gets back," Ginny said. "She would know."

"So they broke our shields," Neville continued. "That's when Luna cast a Patronus."

"A Patronus?" Harry knew of the spell, he'd looked into it last year, but it was way too high-level for any of them… Or so he had assumed. "Were there Dementors?"

"No, but there were negative emotions and Neville needed a distraction," Luna assured him. "My octopus confused them."

"Not for long, but long enough that I got to Barty and triggered the Portkey you gave me," Neville recounted. "You know, the Hufflepuff one? It took us to Saint Mungo's, and I Floo-called an Auror my gran always told me I could trust. He agreed to hold Barty in custody until Moody got back to explain himself, and Minister Fudge didn't know where I had gone, so he wasn't there to interfere."

"Meanwhile," Ginny took up the story, "Fudge was threatening us with all sorts of things if we didn't tell him where we had taken the fugitive, and Hermione got into it with him, saying he had never had Barty declared a fugitive because his Ministry was covering it up. Barty was a criminal anyway, but apparently not publicly declaring it makes some sort of difference… Or Fudge just didn't want her shouting about Ministry cover-ups. People were starting to notice that the Minister was under the stands yelling at kids instead of watching the third task. It got tense, Hermione wouldn't back down, and then Dumbledore intervened."

"Oh no." Harry had no faith in his Headmaster to fix this sort of situation.

"It worked out," Luna assured him. "He is good when what he thinks is needed and what is actually needed are the same thing."

"He had Flitwick and McGonagall take us away to be 'properly disciplined,' which meant detentions, and when Fleur won the Tournament, Fudge had to go officiate," Neville explained. "Fudge didn't like that. He, uh, had his Aurors arrest Hermione, but Dumbledore told them and Fudge that it wouldn't stick. That's how we know it's just to inconvenience her. Fudge said… What did he say?" he asked.

"Foolish children should respect their elected officials," Luna blustered in a surprisingly deep voice. Harry had never met the Minister, but he was willing to believe it was a good impression. "She'll sit in the holding cell for a week and think about what she has done, charges or not!"

"He gave her a time-out?" Harry asked incredulously. "For arguing with him?" This was the man in charge of the magical side of the country?

"Yeah, and the Aurors with him weren't happy about it," Ginny said angrily. "They wanted to either arrest her for something real, or let her go. Dumbledore said she would be fine, and my dad said in a letter that he would check on her every day, but it's so stupid!"

"That settles it," Harry declared. "When we graduate, we're taking over the Ministry." The stupid cover-up with Barty, the cover-up with the hostages being sabotaged, and now this… He didn't really want to go into government, but it was obviously in need of serious adjustment. He wanted to be able to mostly ignore the government, confident that they weren't massively mucking up easy, obvious things like investigating serious crimes. Apparently that was not a given.

"Can we just blow it up instead?" Ginny asked darkly.

"If we evacuate the people first," Neville offered. "I don't know, Harry, I don't want to be a parchment-pusher, even an important one."

"How about we install like-minded leaders who reflect our values?" Luna proposed. "That way we do not have to do any of the work ourselves."

They all looked at Luna.

"I think Susan Bones wants to go into government," Harry recalled.

"Percy will fight her for the position of Minister," Ginny said. "If we can just beat some sense into him first, he might stand a chance of winning."

"Ron might make a good Chief Auror, we could trust him not to take bribes from the Malfoys," Neville suggested.

"It's a start." Harry thought about the timeline. "So… Hermione will be back in four days?"

"Or less." Ginny cracked her knuckles. "We think. If not… You still have that invisibility cloak?"

"Yeah." He had a feeling he knew what they were going to be doing for the next four days. Planning a precautionary breakout. "And even if not… Who fancies helping me go visit my mum in Saint Mungo's? Nobody knows I have any reason to go, so they won't let me take off school if I ask." Or maybe they would. But he was feeling rebellious, and sneaking to Saint Mungo's couldn't be any harder than sneaking a trip home.

Sirius took two vials, poured them both into a glass bowl, and hastily threw it into the hallway. A quick "Protego!" had a shield up between him and the hallway, just in time to catch a splatter of acid.

His mother's demented shrieking took on a new, panicked tone.

"Yes!" he cheered. "Take that, you miserable piece of paint and canvas!" Where magical methods failed, Muggle methods prevailed! Specifically, a powerful form of acid. On a related note, his current Muggle alias was going to have to disappear… Those Libyans still thought he was going to make them an acid bomb out of the stuff currently eating through his mother's ugly painted face.

His mother's shrieks faltered and faded away, dying in volume and intensity. He lowered his shield and vanished the acid eating into the floors, venturing cautiously into the hallway.

"Hoo, that's going to be expensive to fix," he breathed. Everything had holes in it. It might have been worth the time to figure out a way to direct the explosive acid blast, but the Libyans gave it to him in ready-to-explode form, so he hadn't bothered tinkering with it. The Black fortune could sustain a few more remodels. He was way too rich.

He inspected the canvas of his mother's painting. It was gray and lifeless where not eaten away, and his mother was nowhere to be seen. More importantly, the clock in the background of the painting had stopped ticking, meaning the animation charms were damaged beyond repair.

"Now, to enjoy the silence." He conjured a chair and set it down on the pitted hardwood floor, then sat down for a good two minutes.

"Too silent," he admitted, dispelling his conjuration. "Come down, stupid painting, mother is gone and her sticking charm probably is too…" He reached up and, after vanishing any remaining acid to make sure he would keep his fingers, lifted the portrait off the wall.

"I'm using you for a bonfire," he told the ornate wooden frame as he dumped it in the living room.

That done, he pulled a parchment list out of his sleeve, unrolled it, and struck a tear through 'kill mother' with his wand and a small cutting charm. "Next on the list…" He shook it out. There was nothing else, aside from a hanging bit of accordioned parchment. "Nothing! Operation 'get Grimmauld Place ready for Harry and Taylor to spend the summer' is complete!"

Something crashed in the hallway.

"Will be complete once I get a contractor in to fix the acid damage," he corrected himself. "A good day's work. And it's…"

He looked at the grandfather clock.

"Noon?" he whined. "Only noon?" It was a weekday so Harry was busy at school, and visiting hours in Taylor's wing of Saint Mungo's didn't start until three!

He looked through his ragged list again, searching for something else to do to fill the time productively. Lazing around waiting for the days to pass had gotten boring after two weeks. "Kill mother, obviously done. Relocate cursed heirlooms, done, they're in the attic. Seal attic to avoid Harry's friends investigating, check. Set up an elaborate treasure hunt that goes all through Grimmauld Place, check. Clean out two bedrooms, check. Decorate Harry's bedroom, check. Decorate Taylor's bedroom… Not check, because I have no idea how she might want it decorated, I'll just get her an open tab at a furniture store. Clean kitchen, check. Stock food that isn't Muggle pizza or Firewhiskey, check. Remove Kreacher's desiccated corpse… Tonight's bonfire should do it. Check in advance."

That was everything. He really was done. Maybe he should have done those chores without magic, to prolong them.

Maybe he was going stir-crazy, with Taylor in the hospital, Dumbledore and the Death Eaters dealt with, and nothing to do except look forward to the end of the school year and Taylor's escape from Saint Mungo's.

If Prongs were there, he'd tell Sirius not to mope around basing his entire life on two other people. Then again, Prongs fixated on, it could be argued, one person from age eleven and never gave up on that, and it worked out for him…

Not that it was the same thing. That was romantic once it finally worked out. Sappy word, sappier concept, but Sirius knew the difference between that and his feelings.

Maybe.

It wasn't the same thing. Even if he had contemplated getting her flowers on the day of her discharge from the hospital. That was just common courtesy, right? And a continuation of his apology campaign, though he thought solving the Dumbledore problem might have sealed the deal in his eventual forgiveness. What did it say about him that he still had a lot of potential apology gift ideas, so he didn't consider himself done apologizing whether or not they were necessary?

He retreated from his thoughts by tossing the completed list on top of his mother's empty frame, and went to go get something that could easily burn the remaining hours between now and visiting time.

"Oy, arsehole, I've been in here for a month!" his hat yelled as he plucked it out of the silenced closet.

Sirius spun it about by the brim and plopped it down on the kitchen table. "I will dissect you with a pair of scissors and a smile if you don't give up your secrets," he threatened.

"You can't even get rid of your mother, and she's canvas!" the hat said scornfully.

"Acid," Sirius told it. "You must not have heard her dying screams."

The hat's brim crumpled fearfully.

Sirius jumped back from the table. "You can move?"

"Well, shit," the hat said sourly. "Hoped to keep that ace in the hole."

"Okay, no, we just passed the point of no return," Sirius told it. "You're going into the bonfire tonight. I'm serious. Tell me what you are and why you are, or I'm getting rid of you. Being possessed once was enough for me!" He honestly should have trashed it months ago, even if it didn't seem dark or dangerous.

"Fine!" the hat shouted. "Level with you," it continued only marginally more quietly. "I can do that. I'm sick of being stuck in closets and boxes. What's the point of a second existence away from Hogwarts if I just get kept in the dark! I'm the Sorting Hat."

"No you're not, the Sorting Hat is in Dumbledore's office," Sirius objected.

"I'm an extension of the Sorting Hat," it clarified. "When they made me they made me replaceable. Hats wear out, you know, and back in the day they replaced me every time I was infested with the magical variant of lice you don't see anymore. The idea was that anyone who twisted some basic spells into the right configuration, on a hat, would tap into this overarching thing Godric and Helena made to store my personality and memories. My hat bodies can be replaced, I am kept in the heart of Hogwarts."

"The Sorting Hat is hundreds of years old," Sirius said. He might not have ever read 'Hogwarts, a History' but Remus had and he remembered Remus telling them it was older than Dumbledore.

"Yes, because the Headmasters over the centuries have forgotten what spells need to be twisted in what ways to connect to my storage spell," the hat explained. "The one in Hogwarts is old. You, lucky nincompoop that you are, blundered your way into connecting me to this hat. It's nothing to do with your spells actually doing things, they're in the shape of a key to a lock you didn't know about. Satisfied?"

"If you're a version of the Sorting Hat…" Sirius poked it in the brim. "Why are you such a belligerent shite?" he asked.

"You try putting up with kids, and only kids, for centuries!" the hat yelled. "I can't mouth off to them, I'd be tossed into a fire by indignant parents! You, though? You I can take the piss out of all day!"

"Fair." He would probably be the same, stuck in that unenviable position. "So no possession?"

"Turn yourself into a hat and put those spells on yourself, and we'll talk about why I still wouldn't possess you in a million years," the hat grumped. "Look, I can be good. I'll only take the piss out of you if you don't give me better targets. You need a wingman? I can do that too. Just take me places."