Faith: Chapter Forty-Seven Part One
Chapter 47: Aftermath
Lucius Malfoy was tired. His clothes were grimy, his hair a mess and his muscles screamed with exhaustion. He sat on the steps of the castle, his elbows on his knees and his hands hanging limply between. He stared out over the once green lawns, now blackened by spells and blood.
The Dark Beasts had been carted away. The Death Eaters he had been able to affect with Severus’ Confundus potion had been captured. A number had escaped, out through the Forbidden Forest, though no one knew their exact number. Bodies - and parts of bodies - still littered the ground. Teams of Aurors and members of the Order were starting to pick them up, but the process was slow going.
Lucius hated the aftermath of battles. The once pristine landscape was scarred and he doubted he would get the image of children’s bodies lying limp on the floor of the Great Hall from his mind any time soon.
Draco was fine. The flaunted Malfoy composure that he had prided himself for his entire life had fled when he had caught sight of his child, clothes torn and bloody, but whole and alive in the Infirmary. Madam Pomfrey had watched with a smile as he gathered the boy close and held him. He had not let Draco go for a while.
Lucius rubbed a hand across his eyes. He gaze strayed to the Forest and his smile grew sharp. He pushed his aching body to his feet and headed for the shadowy recess.
Retracing his steps was difficult. He found the area where he had lain in wait. He turned and moved further into the dark. He found blood decorating one tree. He found several strips of tacky flesh. But no Bella.
He knelt next to the mass, the hairs on the back of his neck rising. There were no wolf prints - no tracks surrounding the area where she had lain. He stared out into the Forest, a hard knot of suspicion tightening his gut. He rose with a curse and spun away, storming for the castle.
He did not see the black rune shimmer into life, using the blood on the bark and ground. He did not pause for the burst of birds from the trees, their alarmed cries echoing out over the morning. The trees moved, the hissing whispers of their branches covering the lone scream that rose from far away. A shadow passed across the ground, and the trees went silent, their voices fading away, to be taken over by harsh human calls, and the industrial clank of human cleanliness. Lucius never looked back.
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“We need a healer! Quick!”
The voices of panicked Aurors rang across the lawns. Charlie paused, taking a moment to wipe his brow and look across to where the commotion was coming from.
Green-clad healers were sprinting in the direction of the Quidditch Pitch. He saw his father sag and then start to run after them. Charlie dropped his gloves, a cold feeling spreading through his stomach.
It didn’t take long for his loping strides to catch up with the others. He followed them under the stands and fell to his knees.
Ron’s face was unrecognizable. The knitted sweater was the only clue as to who he was. Running sores and blacked skin covered his face. Ron’s eyes were little more than a pulpy mass.
Charlie turned his head and vomited. He could hear several others doing the same. He wiped his mouth with a shaky hand and tried to quell his heaving stomach.
“Ron? Ron! Let me go! That’s my son! My son!” Arthur’s anguished voice registered in Charlie’s mind. He struggled to his feet and pushed his way outside.
“Charlie!” The now-oldest Weasley son grabbed his father, feeling the strong arms wrap around his shoulders. “Ron. Oh Merlin. What did they do to Ron?” The older man struggled against him. Charlie tightened his grip.
“You can’t help him, Dad.” He moved them away from the stands. “The Healers are with him now. We have to let them work.”
“No. No he needs me.” Arthur’s eyes were wild. “Who could have done such a thing? Oh Ron…”
“It was a Dark spell.” A haggard looking Healer stepped from the stands and joined them. Behind him a team of nurses moved a stretcher carrying Ron’s body to the castle. “You’re his father? Arthur, yes? Arthur Weasley?”
Arthur nodded, but his attention was focused more on the body trailing towards the hill than the healer in front of him.
“I’m Charlie.” The head of the Weasley clan offered the healer a hand to shake.
“Healer Fabing. Thank you.”
“Ron? He’s going to be alright?” Arthur’s attention settled onto the healer, his gazing sharpening and his shoulders going stiff. Charlie let his father go, but kept close incase the older man tried to rush the stretcher.
The Healer’s expression was grave. “That I don’t know. His eyes…” the healer looked away. Deep lines of exhaustion were already etched onto his face. “I’m afraid his eyesight may be lost forever. We won’t know for sure until we can get him stabilized.”
Charlie’s nails bit into the skin of his palms. He closed his eyes and turned his head. His father let out a keening wail and fell to his knees.
Drawing in a shaky breath, Charlie forced his eyes to open. “You’re taking him to St. Mungo’s?” The Healer nodded. “I’m going with him.”
“The head of your family really should be the one…”
“I am the head of the family.” Charlie swallowed hard and straightened his shoulders. He looked at his father. “Dad. Dad!” The older man turned blank eyes towards him. “You need to go find Mum and the twins. Come to St. Mungo’s when you can. I’m going with Ron now.
The older man began to nod. “Yes. Oh. Oh Merlin.” He trembled. “I - I have to find my wife. I need - I need…”
Charlie exchanged a glance with the healer. He nodded and Charlie bowed his head. Healer Fabing bent and placed a hand on Arthur’s shoulder, speaking to him in a soft tone. Charlie turned away and began to follow the receding forms of the nurses carrying his brother’s body. One thing at a time, old man. The chant took up a cadence to his steps, reverberating around in his head and pushing out all other thought. You can fall apart later. Focus on Ron for now.
The distance to the castle never seemed so far.
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Seamus sat at the edge of the Gryffindor table, with his head resting on his hands. His elbows were planted on his knees and his chin was almost touching his chest.
The bodies in the Great Hall had been removed. The twisted, tangled limbs haunted his mind every time he closed his eyes. He didn’t know how many were dead, nor how many were injured. He could still hear the piercing screams every time he looked up.
The Great Hall was ruined. The high arching windows were gone, exposing it to the elements. The clear spring day was almost an offense to his senses. It should be raining, his laugh was bitter. Overcast or gray. Storming.
“Seamus?”
Sasha’s voice made him look up. His breath caught in his throat, unable to get past the sudden hard lump that had taken up residence. The sixth year Slytherin was bloody and her right arm was in a rough sling.
“Sasha.” It came out as a whispered croak. Later he would think back, but would not remember getting up nor letting his cloak fall to the floor. All he would remember was getting Sasha into his arms, and feeling her pressed against his chest. He would remember her squeak, and the way her good arm wound around his neck, so tight it almost choked him.
“Sasha,” he said again and buried his face in her hair. She smelled like sulfur and ashes. “I thought - I didn’t - couldn’t find you - when the - when the…”
“Seamus. Seamus.” She shuddered and hid her face against his chest. “I’m here. You’re here. Oh Merlin. Oh Merlin.”
His tears dampened her hair, but she didn’t seem to mind.
The coming and going of Aurors and the medi-wizards faded from their notice. The shouted calls of other students and the hysterical voices of the arriving parents didn’t register.
“I love you.” It was said on a breath, nearly inaudible.
“Foolish Gryffindor.”
“I thought I’d lost you.”
“You won’t, Seamus. I promise. You won’t.”
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Hermione was in the Infirmary. The apron Pomfrey had given her was two sizes too large, but she’d belted it as tight as it would go. The front was splattered with blood and other fluids. She’d scraped back her hair into a tight bun, but strands kept falling into her eyes and tickling her nose.
She rubbed the troubled appendage with the back of her hand. She was rolling bandages for the nurses, who were taking them as quick as she could get them done.
She didn’t think of the battle. She didn’t think about the grown men and women who had fallen, writhing on the ground, from spells uttered from her own lips. She didn’t think about the Aurors, who in panicked battle fury, had turned their wands into daggers and had stabbed out the eyes of their enemies. She didn’t think about the carcasses ripped open by the werewolves, nor how her feet had slipped and slid in the tacky entrails. She had narrowed her world down to the bandages in front of her and how she needed to roll them up.
“Hermione?”
Her hands stilled. She looked up at Professor McGonagall and blinked. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Hermione.” The Transfigurations professor rounded the table and put an arm around her shoulders. “Let us get you out of here, dear. Your parents will be arriving soon.”
She resisted the pull of the arm. “I have to finish this.” She shook her head and looked down at the table. She blinked when she saw that there were no more bandages to be rolled. “There were still some left…I had a whole pile to go through…where…”
“Hermione.” The Professor guided her from the room and down the hall. The wounded lay in neat rows, leaving only a small aisle form them to walk through.
The deputy Headmistress guided her to the Gryffindor dormitory. The Fat Lady was gone and the portrait hole stood open for all to walk through. Hermione stopped just before the opening.
“I can’t go in there.”
“Your Housemates are all in there. Most are waiting for their families…”
“I won’t go in there!” She tore herself from the older woman’s hold. “It’s all my fault! All of it!”
Professor McGonagall had aged in the hours of fighting. Deep wrinkles lined her face and her eyes were a cloudy gray. “Child that’s not true. It was no one’s fault but a mad man’s. We all did our best. None of this is your fault.”
“But Harry almost died and Ron…” She was shaking so hard her teeth rattled. “I put together the petition. I listened to him. If we had just believed in Harry…if we hadn’t been so bloody blind…”
“Language, Ms. Granger.”
“Forget the language! It’s true! We should have believed Harry! We should have never turned out backs on him! We could have - we could have…”
“Hermione.” McGonagall took her by the shoulders and gave her a shake. “Enough. Dwelling on things we could have or should have done will get us nowhere. True, perhaps, that you should have seen past the lies that filled the school. True, perhaps, you should have stood with Mr. Potter instead of throwing him out. But we all made mistakes, child. I should have paid more attention. I should have stepped in before the House got out of control. But things happened, and we must live with the things we have done. Mr. Potter went into Slytherin. Mr. Potter and the rest of his new House woke up the gods of Voldemort’s monsters. Perhaps it was meant to be, the mistakes we made. But there is nothing, nothing, that can be done about them now.”
Hermione began to cry, great wracking sobs that shuddered through her frame. Minerva drew her close and rested her cheek against the frizzy hair. “Child, let it go. We have done what we have done. You can only go forward, now.”
That was how Hermione’s parents found them, some time later. The distraught girl fainted, and her parents carried her off towards the Infirmary. Both muggles looked shaken to the core; their faces were pale and Hermione’s father held her tight in his arms as they walked away.
Minerva rested a hand against the wall and closed her eyes. She pushed away the shouted recriminations that were sounding in her mind. She drew in a deep breath and let it out. She opened her eyes and straightened her robes. She had things to do, and no time to rest.
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Neville was up to his elbows in dirt. His shirt was torn at the collar and his left eyebrow was mostly black singe. He’d lost his cloak sometime during the battle. It had caught on fire from a return curse and Blaise had ripped it off of him, and then had been pulled away by the rush of the mob. Neville could do nothing but turn and continue to fight.
Neville was in the nursery. The medi-witches and wizards were running out of salves and potions for the overflowing Infirmary, so he was harvesting plants for Professor Snape. Professor Sprout was one of the patients in the Infirmary, having taken a blow to the head and hit with a Cruciatus curse. Neville knew there was no one else who was more familiar with the nursery, so he took over the Professor’s job, though his heart protested his choice.
He’d seen Blaise once since the battle ended, though they were the length of a Quidditch pitch away from each other. Just the small glimpse had been enough to ease the painful grip that had taken his heart since the other boy had been ripped away from him during the fight.
He was getting low on plants. Two of the hot houses had been demolished in the attack. He’d asked the last medic if any supplies were en route from the Ministry. The older man had laughed and walked away, not bothering to answer.
His body was a mass of aches and pains. His elbow was acting funny, but he pushed the feeling away. He had too much to do and too little time to do it in. His shoulders and knees were trembling, but his hands, however, remained steady as they trimmed the precious leaves from the plants.
He had one last row of plants he could harvest. They were barely blooming seedlings, but that was all he had left. A sudden thought made him go still.
“Rosmerta.” His voice was hoarse from shouting curses and screaming. He hadn’t told the healers about the curses he’d been hit with. The memories of his parents rose up in his mind every time he opened his mouth, silencing his complaints.
“Rosmerta,” he tried again. “Hear my plea. I know it’s not right, but the plants - I need more of them and I can’t - there’s not enough…” His knees gave out on him and he braced his hands against the dirty floor. Cuts and nicks oozed blood into the earth.
“Please. I need your help.”
“It is a terrible thing, war.”
He looked up. She stood next to him, pristine and clean, with her hair a fiery tribute caught in the rays of the sun.
“There’re no more plants I can harvest.” He was too tired to get to his feet. “They destroyed the other hot houses. Professor Snape doesn’t have anymore supplies.”
“No more plants, you say?” She kneeled next to him and touched his cheek. Her eyes were the color of a clear summer day. “I think you need to look again.” She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Thank you, Neville Longbottom, for your courage and your heart. Blessings, child, from me to you. Your hands will draw forth wonders this world has never seen.” She drew back and faded from his view.
The air grew still in the nursery. Neville shuddered as the magic swept through him. His aches faded and his mind cleared. He climbed to his feet.
All of his plants were in full bloom.
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Blaise’s parents had arrived. Both his fathers and his mothers had fussed over him, trying to get him to come home. He had smiled and hugged them, but put his foot down when they had attempted to drag him off.
“I won’t leave. Not if Neville stays.”
They had argued with him, plead and shouted, but he hadn’t budged. Finally they took rooms in the castle, content to stay with their son for as long as they could.
Blaise was glad they were there. His fathers helped with the rubble, their expertise in construction a benefit for the teams of Aurors who were ready to collapse. Night had fallen, but the flow of wizard and muggle parents kept arriving in a constant stream. Pure blood, half-blood and muggle worked shoulder to shoulder, to clean and repair the castle and the battlefield. Blaise had watched the activities for a while, stunned but pleased.
The sudden stream of healers to the nurseries caught his eye. He frowned and hugged what remained of Neville’s cloak to his chest.
He made his way to the battered glass building. Aurors had already reinforced the structure, making sure it would not fall and destroy what remained of the precious plants.
He found Neville deep in the nursery. He gazed around at the blooming plants, their heavy, heady scents filling his senses.
“Neville?”
The ex-Gryffindor jumped and spun around to face him. “Blaise!” He put the potted plant in his hands to the side and rushed to the Slytherin. Blaise grunted as Neville threw his arms around him, but held the smaller boy tight.
“I thought the plants had been stripped?” They were the first words out of his mouth and he wanted to kick himself for them.
“They were.” Neville pulled back and beamed up at him. He was bruised and seemed to favor one arm, but seemed otherwise fine. The large bruise that covered one side of Blaise’s face ached in sympathy.
“But then how…?”
“Rosmerta.” Neville’s eyes were shining. “She came and helped. The plants keep blooming, even after I trim them! Professor Snape has more than enough supplies now!” His enthusiasm dimmed as he took in the taller boy’s face. “What happened?”
Blaise tried to smile, but only managed to get one side of his mouth to cooperate. “An angry giant. I’m fine.”
“Have you been to a Healer yet?”
“Have you?”
Neville gave him a mutinous stare. “You could be hurt. We should take you to the Infirmary.”
“Neville. I’m fine. My mothers checked me over. They’re both trained nurses.” Blaise touched the smaller boy’s shoulder. “Your arm is hurt, though.”
Neville looked away, even as a blush stained his cheeks. “It’s nothing.”
“Have you been looked at?”
Neville’s silence was his answer.
“How much longer do you need to be in here?”
Neville looked at him, his eyes wide. “You’re not going to drag me off?”
“Do I look like Draco? No, if you’re alright to work, then do what you think you need to. We’ll get you checked out by my mothers when you’re done.”
Neville’s eyes shone. “Thank you, Blaise.” He seemed to notice the garment that was hanging over Blaise’s arm. “You found my cloak.”
Blaise swallowed hard. “I found it. Outside.” He waved in the direction of the battlefield, still unsure what to call it.
The other boy nodded. “I thought…You were swept away. I couldn’t see you afterwards, when all the monsters were running away.”
“I looked for you.”
“So did I.” They met each other’s gazes. Neville moved closer to him.
Blaise leaned down and kissed him. The ex-Gryffindor gasped but curled his fingers into Blaise’s robes. The Slytherin drew back and folded the smaller boy into a tight embrace.
“I can’t believe you found my robe.”
“I know.”
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I will be. Now.”