Harry sat at his wife's bedside, his hand massaging hers. He blinked repeatedly, his eyes stinging from the powdery ash that fell in traces from his hair. (This was true as far as it went, and in Harry's opinion it was as much as the personnel of St. Mungo's needed to know.) No more able to Apparate (and portkeys being strictly regulated by the Ministry), he had used the Floo system to come to St. Mungo's immediately following the adjournment of the court. The sentencing had taken less than five minutes, the pronouncement (along with the Minister's testimony regarding Harry's "demotion" from wizard to Muggle) being recorded for the Ministry files and signed by Dumbledore in front of witnesses. In like manner, the Minister then produced Harry's wand and snapped it in full view. The gunshot-like sound had pierced Harry very nearly as an actual bullet through the chest. The image of the crumpled phoenix feather protruding from the splintered wand ends was burned into the back of his mind. It was a "death" he would mourn in another, more convenient venue. For the present, Harry had other, far more critical concerns.
Harry removed his glasses to wipe them clean of a fine layer of ash. He almost regretted putting them on again. The clear lenses brought out every smallest detail of Hermione's face. The tiny traces of her once severe wounds were clearly visible from so near, like bird tracks on a field of otherwise pristine snow. Harry comforted himself with the knowledge that the Healers at the hospital would be able to remove every trace of them, once the Stunning Spell were lifted. The spells and potions were effective only in concert with the body's normal healing functions, which were dormant in her present comatose state.
Harry saw a shadow fall across Hermione's face, and he recognized its outline without difficulty.
"What will the procedure be?" Harry asked without looking up.
Madam Zorgas reached out a large hand and lay it with feather lightness upon Hermione's forehead, gently brushing aside strands of chestnut hair. Madam Zorgas was the attending Healer, assigned to Hermione from the moment of her arrival. She was easily as large as the most ferocious security guard Harry had encountered in the Ministry prison, but she had the kindest face he had seen this side of Molly Weasley. There was a smell as of potion ingredients clinging to her hand, and her pearl-gray robes were splattered with droplets of varying colors and textures. She was doubtless engaged in preparing the very potions which would be used to restore Hermione to her former state of vigor which she had enjoyed prior to the tragic events of two weeks ago. (Had it really been two weeks? To Harry's spinning mind, it all seemed now like a terrible nightmare from which he had only just awakened.) When next Hermione examined her face in the mirror with her typical critical eye, she would find no trace of the brutal attack on her person that had very nearly written the premature final chapter to her young and promising life. That life was now returned to her as if nothing had happened to interrupt its smooth, immutable flow. But, Harry mused disconsolately, what of its former promise? What of that?
"Simple enough," Madam Zorgas answered. She withdrew her hand from Hermione's face and produced her wand from a pocket of her robes. "We will first negate the Stunning Spell, whereupon she will be placed under the Imperius Curse."
Harry nodded without looking up. He knew, as did most every informed witch or wizard, that the head of the hospital could authorize use of the Imperius in extreme cases. Hermione's surely qualified if any did.
"She will fight it, of course," Madam Zorgas said resolutely. "A strong mind can always fight the Imperius -- (Again Harry nodded, remembering his own success in fighting off the Curse in a classroom exercise a seeming lifetime ago.) -- and she presently has some very powerful emotions struggling to escape. But we will only need a minute. Once the Mortalis Potion has been administered -- and the effects have -- subsided -- " Harry detected a barely-suppressed shudder of deep regret in Madam Zorgas' voice, " -- Herr Kleinhorst will administer the Memory Charm. Once he received our owl, he was only too eager to come. Fear not, Mr. Potter. His reputation is unsurpassed. His Memory Charms never fail."
Harry was grateful beyond words that Herr Kleinhorst had come all the way from Estonia to treat Hermione. It was his understanding that Professor Flitwick had studied under the old wizard following his graduation from Hogwarts, and Flitwick's mastery in the art of Charms was itself the stuff of legends. But his present concern was the Mortalis Potion.
"Does she...have to go through the pain?" Harry asked mournfully. It had been unspeakable agony for him, but he would gladly have endured it a hundred times over to spare his beloved this one exposure.
"Yes, Potter," came a hissing reply. The door stood open, the back light silhouetting the bat-like outline of Severus Snape. He held a smoking goblet in his hand. "There is no other way. It is no easy process to burn magic from one's blood. And I'm sure the Minister has informed you that any modification results in the potion becoming lethal."
"The pain will pass, Harry," came another voice that spoke in soothing tones. Snape stood aside to allow Dumbledore to enter. "And is it such a high price to pay for Hermione's life and sanity?"
"No," Harry agreed quietly, caressing his wife's motionless hand. "Not such a high price at all."
Harry sat in the waiting room, far enough away that he could not hear Hermione's screams, either from her reawakened memories or from the effects of the Mortalis Potion.
Harry covered his face with his hands and wept in a kind of bitter ecatasy. Only a few hours ago, all had seemed hopeless. Now, it was as if the sun were rising on a new day. Once the Mortalis Potion had taken effect, Herr Kleinhorst would administer the Memory Charm. Every moment of Hermione's terrible ordeal would be locked behind walls of metaphorical steel. And without magical blood to assail those walls, they would endure indefinitely. For Hermione, it would be as though the last two weeks had never happened. Her physical wounds would be healed by ordinary spells and potions. No trace of the nightmare would remain.
Except that -- Harry shuddered -- Hermione would no longer be a witch. His eyes fell upon his wristwatch. Hermione would have been given the Mortalis Potion by now. Harry's head fell into his hands. His beloved wife, the brightest star in the wizarding firmament, was now, like Harry himself, a Muggle. Their life in the wizarding world was ended forever. How would she react to the news? Though born to Muggle parents, Hermione had come into her own at Hogwarts. From the first day they met, on the Hogwarts Express, magic came as naturally to her as breathing. Harry wept silently. He would gladly have spent a century in Azkaban to spare her this day.
A light footfall roused him. Harry raised his eyes to see the kindly face of Albus Dumbledore as he entered the waiting room.
"It is over, Harry," Dumbledore said with a smile pale as moonlight on his aged face. "Hermione is sleeping peacefully now. She was given a Dreamless Sleep Potion by Madam Zorgas, who is now attending to her physical wounds. When she awakes, she will remember nothing."
"How will we explain -- everything," Harry said weakly.
"A story has been prepared," Dumbledore said as he seated himself beside Harry, "to which all involved will attest henceforth." Clearing his throat, Dumbledore recited: "Hermione has fallen victim to a rare malady that has caused her to become allergic to magic. In order to save her life, there was no recourse but to neutralize completely the magic in her blood. Furthermore, prolonged exposure to magic of any sort, even to association with those possessing magical blood, will result in a recurrance of the allergy, and, ultimately, her death. For this reason, she is left with no option but to leave the magical world forever. In order that the two of you might remain together, you volunteered to undergo the same procedure so as to share her exile. Had you not done so, the magic in your blood would have poisoned her as readily as her own would have. That is what she will be told, Harry. And for the sake of her health and san ity, that is what she must believe."
Harry nodded heavily. The truth, of course, was that exposure to any form of magic would slowly erode the magical barrier blocking Hermione's terrible ordeal from her conscious mind. To prevent this, Harry must take Hermione away from the world she so loved, and which had returned that love in kind. Harry's soul wept inwardly at this, which spiritual tears mingled with the substantial tears of joy he could not help but shed at her return from the literal precipice of doom.
"Hermione will know nothing of the trial?" Harry said painfully. "Of -- what I did?"
"She will never know," Dumbledore said. "We have gone so far as to prepare false editions of the Daily Prophet for the past two weeks. Previous experience has told us it will be among the first things she will ask for during her convalescence."
"What about -- after?" Harry said. "If I know Hermione, she'll want a subscription to the Prophet so she can keep up on the magical world. And if we try to dissuade her, it will only make her suspicious."
"So it will," Dumbledore agreed brightly. "And with that in mind, I have already spoken to the publisher of the Daily Prophet. All copies sent to you in your new life will be edited to omit any mention of the Malfoys and -- ahem -- related events. And in the event that she elects to request other wizarding publications, such as Witch Weekly, similar arrangements will me made."
"That will prove a bit of a bother, won't it?" Harry postulated. "I mean, to print up a special edition every day for just one subscriber?"
"The editors' consensus was that it is a very small price for the peace and security the wizarding world has enjoyed since the destruction of Lord Voldemort," Dumbledore said cheerfully.
Harry nodded. Though elated by Hermione's impending recovery, yet Harry felt a great weight on his soul. Dumbledore read in his eyes what his mouth could not put into words.
"In time," Dumbledore said kindly, "you will forgive yourself, Harry. In time."
"I killed a human being, Albus," Harry said, his eyes unable to meet the old wizard's. "Nothing I do, no amount of remorse, can ever erase that."
"No," Dumbledore said. "It is a burden you will carry with you forever. To paraphrase Dickens, we all wear the chains we forge for ourselves. But I pray you not to allow those chains to bind you so tightly that you cannot spread your wings and fly as high as they may carry you. Even a wizard's days are not without number. Use the days left to you to make the world a better place. Be not bound by the past, Harry. Learn from it. We are none of us without flaw. Until that day when we are all judged by a Higher Power, we can only strive to do the best we possibly can not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Look to the future, Harry. Yours and Hermione's."
"Can I see her now?" Harry said hopefully. "I know she won't know I'm there. But I want to be with her when she wakes up. I want to -- tell her myself."
"I believe that would be best," Dumbledore agreed. As Harry moved toward the corridor, Dumbledore said, "When you have told Hermione what you must, take the Floo back to the Ministry. There are preparations we must make. I have left instructions that you are to be escorted to me immediately. And -- one more thing, Harry. When Hermione awakes -- give her my love."
Leaving the waiting room without a word, Harry hurried through the corridors until he came within sight of the door to Hermione's room. Before he could take two steps toward it, the door opened. Snape stood in the doorway, his sallow face frozen in as sour an expression as Harry had ever seen. Refusing even the courtesy of leaving the way open for Harry, Snape closed the door and turned to leave down the opposite corridor.
"Why, Severus?" Harry said abruptly.
Snape froze. Harry wasn't sure whether the Potions Master was more startled by the question, or by the informal address.
"Why what?" Snape hissed, looking back over his shoulder.
"I figured it out," Harry said. "Sitting in the waiting room, I had time to put the pieces together. Albus said that the Mortalis Potion required weeks of meticulous preparation. But there was only one week between the verdict and the date of sentencing. And Albus spent the first three days of that interval searching the library at Hogwarts. There wasn't nearly enough time for even the most skilled Potions Master to brew such a potion. Unless Albus literally gave you -- more time."
Snape had turned to face Harry. If possible, his expression had grown even more sour.
"Albus gave you a Time-Turner," Harry stated with flat certainty. In a silent addendum, Harry thought, And since he was acting outside the parameters of his Office, I'd wager it was the one Minerva keeps locked in her desk at Hogwarts. The same one, he reflected with grim satisfaction, that Hermione and I used to save Sirius from your bloodthirsty vendetta. Then, aloud: "You took a month out of your life -- "
"Five weeks," Snape said acidly, his eyes hard as obsidian.
"But why?" Harry repeated. "As much as you hate me -- "
"Hate you," Snape parroted sharply. "You flatter yourself, Potter. You are less than the dragon dung I scrape from my boots when I depart the apothecary in Hogsmeade." Snape's black eyes narrowed, his voice falling to an icy whisper. "I curse the day you came to Hogwarts. The wizarding world hails you as their savior. The Boy Who Lived, the Promised One, the destroyer of the Dark Lord. But I was never fooled. You are your father's son, Potter. No rule too big or small that you can't break it at will, no line you won't cross if it suits your purpose. They all bent over backwards to treat you like royalty, even the Headmaster. And nothing has changed, has it? Any other wizard in your place would be on his way to Azkaban, in chains. But not 'Saint Potter.'"
Harry's face was imperturbable as a death mask.
"Quite a speech, coming from one with the Dark Mark of a Death Eater branded on his arm," Harry said with emotionless pacific. "Want to talk about breaking rules, crossing lines? Escaping punishment? How many people did you torture and kill when you served Voldemort? Any other Death Eater would be rotting away in his cell in Azkaban, chatting up rats and cockroaches -- yet here you stand, free and clear. Is that justice?
"But that still doesn't answer my question. If anything, it sharpens it more than ever. Why?"
"For her, you idiot!" Snape spat, jerking his greasy head toward Hermione's door so that his lank tresses danced about his griffonesque shoulders like a nest of adders. "What Malfoy did to her -- " and here his teeth grated with every syllable, " -- no one deserves that. Not even a simpering little know-it-all Mudblood."
Harry reacted as if struck a physical blow. It was all so clear now. Had he not been sunk so deeply in grief and self-loathing, he would have seen it from the first. Even as Snape had deplored the so-called "royal treatment" accorded to Harry, had not he himself treated Malfoy with as much deference, and more? Had Snape not lavished such favoritism on Malfoy, virtually encouraging the son of his former Death Eater colleague to follow the path laid out for him by his father, how much evil and misery might have been averted? Had Draco not been so twisted as a sapling, perhaps the tree had not grown into so foul a blight upon the earth. It might have required but a single word of chastisement at the proper time to undo so much pain. Hermione need never have lain in that bed of suffering.
And what of Draco himself? What might he have accomplished for the good of the wizarding world had his eyes been diverted toward nobler horizons by the strength of a firm, guiding hand applied at the proper moment? It was a chilling thought, not to mention a sobering one. In like manner as Harry, Snape would forever wear the chains he had forged, both by deeds rendered...and, even more tragically, those not done.
"You did it for Hermione," Harry said in a voice so soft that the words barely passed his lips.
"You were nothing more than my guinea pig," Snape said in a voice cold as the breath of a zombie. "It was a difficult potion to brew, even for one of my skill. The Minister did not misrepresent the risk. There was always the smallest chance I would not succeed, that the resulting potion would be a deadly poison. And that was the true beauty of the situation." An expression of unabashed depravity contorted Snape's thin, vulture-like face. "If the potion were successful, the Mudblood would be preserved, and I would be hailed a hero. And if it failed -- why, then you would have died horribly, in such agony as your mind could not conceive. Either way -- I would win."
His triumph complete, Snape gathered up his robes and made to turn his back on Harry in a final gesture of dismissal. But Harry halted him in a voice thick with emotion, in which lurked no trace of mockery.
"Thank you, Severus. May God bless you for what you have done here. I'll be grateful to you for the rest of my life."
Snape looked pure hatred at Harry for a moment that embodied a lifetime. No curse, no insult, no foulest obscenity could have burned him so deeply as these calm, sincere words. With a savage snarl, Snape spun about in a swirl of black robes and disappeared down the corridor.
Harry stood alone in the silence, feeling a lightness of spirit he would not have thought possible only an hour ago. He remembered a quote he'd heard long ago, one which he'd pondered now and again, yet which his soul seemed evermore powerless to embrace ere now: "Only as ye forgive, so shall ye be forgiven." A quiet, peaceful smile spread across Harry's face as he opened the door and entered his wife's room.
Author's Note: Congratulations to those who put Chapters 4 and 5 together to see the true significance of the Mortalis Potion. I didn't want to be TOO obvious, lest Chapter 5 become a textbook lecture as opposed to a series of natural events (or as "natural" as things ever get in the wizarding world).
In answer to nurray's query, it has been established that Dumbledore's age is in excess of 150 years. One reputable site lists his year of birth as 1840. Yet, in the flashback in Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore's hair was still a youthful auburn in the year 1945, despite the fact that he was all of 105 years old. A wizard's lifespan appears to be roughly twice that of a Muggle, and the only difference between one and the other is magical blood. Put another way, can any of US reasonably expect to live 150 years? And if we could, would our bodies be as healthy, and our minds as sharp, as Dumbledore's? So I feel safe in concluding that magical blood IS the deciding factor. (As an added bonus, isn't it a delicious thought to consider that Argus Filch won't be around that much longer? Now why couldn't HE be allergic to magical blood? Oh, wait...I just made that up, didn't I? Never mind.)
Thanks to all who are still reading (with added thanks to any who chanced to board the train on the last stop). One more installment should be forthcoming before the long intermission preceding the final chapters. And I promise, no more dark clouds, okay? (But a couple of surprises are hiding around the corner, with the biggest saved for the final chapter.) Until next time...