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The Catalyst

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Chapter Thirteen: Fastness Breached

"Would you like to tell me," Harry said very gently, as he smoothed his hand over the coverlet of his daughter's bed, "what happened back there… at the playground?" Eleanor yawned, scrunching her eyes shut, as the bedside lamplight caught the shine of the newly applied Drying Charm in her hair. Harry had held his peace as he gave her a bath and readied her for bed, but necessity drove him to ask the question.

"I do not know," she answered him solemnly. "The noise and the light made me afraid. And… and it - it came out of me."

"What came out, Eleanor? What was it?" With effort, he kept his voice calm and pitched low. Her green eyes were wide with uncertainty.

"I do not know. Like - like with the fire you saw. I did not mean to break the lights."

"Honey, I know you didn't. Sometimes… when children are magical, their magic gets away from them. It happens all the time. There's even a squad to fix those accidents. And then… you grow out of it, as your magic settles down and you become able to control it."

"And then… and then, Father, you can give me hugs and hold my hand… without the gloves?" She lifted one corner of her mouth in a hopeful half-smile. Harry turned toward the foot of the bed to hand her the plush kneazle, in part to squelch the sting of pending tears that burned his nose. He had not fully realized the nuances that Eleanor picked up on, unbidden. And he truly knew how she felt, remembered what an impact Hermione's gestures of affection had had on his own heretofore love-starved childhood.

"Without the gloves," Harry promised, even though he truly knew no such thing. As he Noxed her lamp and pulled her door almost closed, he wondered if the investigation had turned up anything new, or if Shravana would be able to give them any answers.

He had only just turned away from her room, when he heard the soft snick of his front door closing. Hermione was entering the living area, kicking her shoes off and pressing her fingers to her temples like she was forcibly keeping her brain inside her skull.

"Headache potion?"

"Please." She sank onto the sofa, as Harry rummaged around in the medicine cabinet for the appropriate vial.

"What happened?" He asked the question hesitantly, as he backed out of the depths of the cupboard, a musical series of glassy clinks accompanying his question. The guilt he was feeling at having bailed out of a difficult situation and left her there to handle it was stamped clearly across his face.

"Nothing too crazy…" Hermione ventured slowly, taking the slim-necked container from his hand and tossing the dose back like a shot. He sat next to her, tension evident in every sinew, and waited, as she pressed her eyes closed, swallowed, and winced. She was several words into her next sentence before she looked at him. "There must have been some kind of power surge. The traffic signals were messed up - that caused a minor accident at the intersection. Lights blew in a couple of storefronts; some bystanders got cut." Alarm blazed up in Harry's eyes, as she hastened to add, "Nothing major. And the Reversal Squad - they were there in minutes. I - I wasn't able to avoid them."

"What did you tell them?" Harry's voice was so warily guarded that Hermione almost laughed.

"That I was walking through the park, on my way to your house, when a child's magic must have gone off. It must have started at the slide, but I didn't see anything of use." She blinked faux-innocent eyes at him, as she parroted her story.

"I should've - I - I shouldn't have just left you - I - "

"You did what you needed to do. You got Eleanor out of the situation as rapidly as possible." Hermione laid a gently hand atop his. "Although…"

"I know," he interposed glumly. "I saw the camera flashes too."

"The chances that nobody caught you on camera… and that the Reversal Squad won't put two and two together are pretty slim." She waited a beat, but Harry's gaze remained distant and unsettled. "They'll remember I was there. They'll want to know who Eleanor is. They'll start bothering the Weasleys…" Harry wasn't sure whether her pronoun indicated the Ministry or the media, and he figured she probably didn't know either. Her voice trailed off again, peering at him in concern. "We weren't going to be able to keep her a secret forever, Harry."

"I know that. I know that. I just - I thought we might have more time, more time to figure out what - what exactly is going on. St. Mungo's is going to want a piece of her, the MLE, the Department of Mysteries… and now, the Prophet'll have a field day, for no other reason than the fact that she has my blood in…" Hermione privately thought that there were several other reasons, not the least of which were Eleanor's maternal heritage and its connection to her break-up with Ron, which in itself would be news, thanks to their relationship with Harry. She noted with a start that Harry had stopped talking mid-sentence, and was staring with single-minded intensity at absolutely nothing.

"Harry? Are you all right?" She picked up the hand she'd been touching so his was encased between both of hers. He jerked his gaze up to collide with hers, looking almost startled to see her sitting there - wherever he'd been just then, it had been quite a distance away.

"I was just - " He closed his mouth abruptly, thinking better of whatever he'd been about to say. He shook his head, a series of short, quick motions. "Never mind." A half-laugh. "It's gone now."

Hermione cut her eyes sideways at him, but said nothing. He was lying. She knew it, and she was fairly sure that he knew she knew. She was not going to press him for what he was unwilling to say however - at least, not yet. It was getting late.

"I should go," she murmured softly, half-rising from the sofa, before his fingers tightened around hers.

"Stay." It was a request, and he would not have pressed her, but she found herself sinking back down onto the cushions, as quickly as she'd moved away from them.

"What is wrong?"

"What happened… at the playground - it's just highlighted for me how much - I mean, what's at stake with - and Ron and everything - I - " Hermione's brows were a crooked furrow above her dark eyes, and Harry could not prevent a frustrated sigh. "We don't know what they were trying to do. We don't know why they left her behind. If the Ministry were to try to take her, to finish what those others started - `for the greater good', of course - " he added sarcastically, " - there's no way to know what kind of chain reaction something like that would cause. What if someone had been seriously hurt in that accident? There are still people there who - who don't like me - who would use this to further some kind of - of political advantage. What if we lose her? And I already - I already - " His head dropped with the wobble in his voice, as she tried to communicate comfort by the swirl of her fingertips on his hand. "God help me, Hermione," he continued tiredly. "I already love her as if you gave birth to her yourself, and I was in the delivery room at your side." Her fingers stilled suddenly, and she hoped he would not notice the sudden wash of color across her cheeks. He raised his head to meet her eyes, and there was an upwelling of emotion in his that she did not recognize. The faint air of desperation, though, made her nervous.

"Hey, hey," she shushed, in a soft voice meant to soothe. "You were right, what you said earlier. We don't know anything. So there's no need in winding yourself up over hypotheticals, right?" She stared at him, solemn and wide-eyed, willing him to understand. She could still feel the flush in her face that had not entirely receded, and he was staring right back at her, until an unwilling snort from ill-repressed laughter escaped his lips. She arched her brows in query, and he was all too eager to elaborate.

"You! Telling someone not to fret over hypotheticals. Talk about the kettle calling the cauldron black!" She narrowed her eyes at him in mock injury, although she couldn't honestly deny the truth inherent in his statement. She made as if to drop his hand and withdraw from him, but his grip tightened again around her left hand. His eyes were still dancing with their momentary mirth, as with careless grace, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it so gently that she barely felt it. Her heart stutter-stepped briefly, before resuming a painful, heavy rhythm against her breastbone that was surely audible. "I couldn't do this without you. I don't know what I would do without you." Harry's voice was soft in the utter stillness of the flat.

"Miss me?" The sudden intrusion of Ginny's voice, while airy and light, struck a discordant note in the middle of their hushed conversation. Hermione's face felt scalding hot, and she withdrew from Harry's hand like it was as well.

"Ginny!" Hermione spread a smile of greeting across her face, and rose from the couch in what she hoped was a smooth and casual fashion. "I'm so glad you came. I was about to head on home, but it - it was a bit of a rough night. I'm not sure Harry should be alone." There was something flat and coolly assessing in Ginny's eyes that Hermione was not entirely comfortable with.

"Harry is fine with being alone," the man in question snapped irritably, looking as discomfited as Hermione felt. "He can feed and dress himself too." Hermione leaned down to ruffle his hair, and then kiss the mess she'd made of it.

"Sarcasm does not become us," she retorted. "I'll see you in the morning for Eleanor's appointment?"

Harry nodded, and Hermione moved toward his front door, grabbing her shoes with one hand, as she willed her heart to resume its normal rhythm. Over the sound of her exit, she barely heard Ginny say,

"You should really turn your Floo back on."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Hermione met Harry the next day, hand-in-gloved-hand with Eleanor at the St. Mungo's Employee's Entrance, he looked awful, and she told him so.

"So what were you doing last night, you know, when normal people were sleeping? Because you obviously weren't. And didn't you have any Pepper-up Potion on hand?"

"I took some." Hermione's eyebrows arched up further. This was what he looked like with a dose of Pepper-up? She got her mouth open to ask what had happened, when he said, "I don't want to talk about it."

"Was it - ?"

"I said, `I don't want to talk about it.'" His voice was emphatic, without quite crossing over into rudeness. Hermione figured it was more because of Eleanor's presence than hers.

"Mother thinks your sur-lee-ness is un-attractive," Eleanor remarked blandly.

"Oh, Eleanor." Hermione's voice was a weary sigh, her face aglow. Harry scrubbed his free hand across the unshaven lower half of his face, and looked torn between laughter, annoyance, and exhaustion.

"Unattractive, am I? If you think I'm unattractive, will you please tell Ginny that? Bombard her with owls, paint it on one of those enormous billboards, take out a full-page ad in the Prophet?" His purple-encircled eyes were full of misery. Guilt welled up in Hermione's chest, as it hit her right in the face, the reason that Harry looked so sleep-deprived and irritable.

"Oh, Harry, I'm sorry."

"What have you got to be sorry for? Haven't we been friends for twelve years now? Why can't they trust us? Why can't they believe us, when -" He flashed a quick glance down at Eleanor, and stopped talking.

Maybe it's the way we look at each other, or the way we hold hands without realizing it, or that you say things like `I don't know what I would do without you,' where your girlfriend can hear them, Hermione thought sadly. She loved her relationship with Harry, and would be loath to alter it in any way. But perhaps, with her and Ron's break-up, Ginny was more apt to see her as some kind of rival, finding their closeness untenable.

"Ginny-Weasley thinks that you like Father," Eleanor added somewhat unnecessarily, flashing those green eyes of Harry's up at her through her long lashes.

"Good morning, Harry," came a piping trill from behind them, as Bronwyn fluttered out of her office to intercept him. Harry's reluctant mumbling response all but drowned out Eleanor's next pronouncement.

"-and I know you do."

"Eleanor - " Hermione managed a warning sort of hiss, before Harry steered them with alacrity away from Bronwyn's simpering clutches. Shock had parted her lips, but simultaneously closed her throat. The little girl was mistaken, had to be mistaken, had misread the situation entirely due to her lack of familiarity with normal human interactions.

Please do not say anything about that to your father. She tried to keep her mental `tone of voice' as calm as possible, and was rewarded with another upward flash of green - in what she hoped was acquiescence - and no further conversation until they had reached the children's ward again.

By the time they reached the small conference room across from where Eleanor had stayed, the little girl was walking almost directly behind Harry's right leg, close enough to occasionally trip on his heel and cause them both to stumble. Healer Desai was waiting for them there, and, to Harry and Hermione's surprise, Auror Stuart Falworth.

"I wasn't aware that this was considered part of the Ministry investigation," Harry offered, somewhat stiffly, in response to Falworth's hand extended in greeting. Auror Falworth looked slightly shamefaced.

"With all due respect, Mr. Potter, at this point, anything regarding Eleanor is considered part of the investigation."

"And what point is that?" Falworth cleared his throat awkwardly.

"She is still largely an unknown quantity, sir. I realize that you would like nothing more than to leave this ward in your broom contrails and never see me again in particular. But should you choose that course, then know that we'll likely never find out who did this and why."

"Why should it matter now?"

Falworth chose not to answer in words, but merely crossed his arms and speared Harry with a look that was almost Granger-ish. Harry's mind was forced back to the conversation that he and Hermione last night, and knew that Falworth was right, however much he might not like it.

"Mr. Potter," the healer interjected softly, seeming to read something in his body language that indicated his irritation subsiding. "You said last night that Eleanor was transmitting her thoughts to you?"

"That's not exactly it." He paused to look down at his daughter, and saw her beaming at the Auror. He found more of his recalcitrance fading. If she had formed such a high opinion of the man in such a short time of acquaintance, then who was he to resist? "When we touch, I can see her memories. I - I'm not sure if it's done deliberately or not."

"It's caused him to lose consciousness," Hermione put in, concern clear in her voice and her eyes. Healer Desai murmured in acknowledgment, her quill flying across the file. With a one-armed gesture toward Eleanor's old room - shall we? - they were directed through the door.

"Any other symptoms?" Desai asked, as both Hermione and Falworth erected another layer or two of privacy wards.

"Dizziness, mainly. I was able to push it off once… mostly… "

"Hermione, have you experienced this too?"

"No, only Harry." That tone was still resonant in her voice, and Harry turned to look at her, oddly worried because he had made her worry. He found a feeling of longing welling up within him - longing to soothe the shadows out of her somber eyes. "I think it's been worsening each time, hasn't it, Harry?" Something strident in her voice warned him not to lie, and he smothered a smile at her constancy.

"It's - it's hard to say," he stammered a bit, and wouldn't meet Hermione's gaze. "It seems like it could be getting worse, but … but we've been actively avoiding it, so - " he held up his gloved hands for their perusal. "So - it's hard to say." He shrugged.

"Does it affect Eleanor the way it affects you?"

"It does not hurt me." It was Eleanor who piped up, rather than Harry. "I do not want to hurt Father. But I do not know how to make it stop. Can you fix it?"

"If we can find out why it's doing that, we might be able to stop it." Healer Desai addressed the little girl, briefly kneeling to be on her level. "Can you hold your daddy's hand for me? Without the gloves?" She shot a look up at the Boy Who Lived. "Is that all right with you, Mr. Potter?"

Harry nodded roughly, and then reached over to briefly squeeze Hermione's hand, hoping to ease some of the obvious trepidation there. He hopped up to sit on the hospital bed sideways, legs dangling, while Hermione lifted Eleanor to sit beside him. They exchanged a brief glance, and removed their dark gloves, handing them to Hermione, before Harry gently took her little hand in his. He felt a bit like he'd just been coated in some kind of Sensory Deprivation serum, and his closed eyes rolled up in his skull as his equilibrium left him. Tinnily and as if from very far away, he heard Healer Desai say, "Healer Granger, can you monitor the - "

Eleanor was in the hallway again. She was so tired. They had had her lifting large concrete blocks all day yesterday, without touching them of course. They had paid her no attention when her head throbbed and her nose bled, and tears and sweat blended together to coat her face. She figured she had gone to sleep, but it was a sleep full of angry voices and clanging doors and crying Muddles and flame. She did not feel rested.

Her hair was getting matted in the back. It had been a long time since Rhu had brushed her hair.

Mei and Zed met each other in the hallway, and were talking in hushed voices, studiously avoiding eye contact. Mei did not loosen the claw-like grip on her hand. She thinks I'll get away, Eleanor thought gloomily. But where would I go?

"… seem to get stronger responses with application of negative …"

"… as long as you know what will happen to you if…"

"… willing to take that chance… seems to think the results would be amplified beyond anything we've seen so far…"

"… may the curse be on your head then, if anything…"

She did not know what they were talking about, could not hear all the words, but she knew some of them: results, responses, application. More tests. She concentrated as hard as she could on stopping the trembling of her mouth, the welling of tears in her eyes. She really wanted to take a nap.

A joint in Eleanor's arm popped loudly as Mei jerked her into motion. She stumbled and staggered for a few steps before recovering from the sudden start. Mei did not appear to notice at all, as she all but dragged the girl into a dismal, cavernous stairwell, and headed down. They ended up in a poorly lit basement, lined with thickly painted cinder blocks and smelling of mildew. The corners blurred into shadow, and Eleanor felt uncomfortably that she was being watched with menace. Across the room, there was the faintest of metallic rattles.

Mei disentangled her fingers with a muttered oath, when Eleanor instinctively fought against being released, against being left in the middle of this scary, stinky room , where odd noises lurked in unseen recesses.

"Do not move." And with clacking strides that quickly ate up the concrete floor, Mei was gone, disappearing behind a heavy metal door that closed with a decisive and resounding thud.

The metal rattled again, and then there was a slithering noise, as if a chain was being dragged across the floor. There was a low snarl, an almost gentle warning rumble bubbling up from the gullet of some monster that Eleanor was very sure she did not want to meet. A shudder rippled through her frame, but she did not give voice to the fearful whimper that wanted release.

"Eleanor?" A soft voice called, resounding lightly in the empty room. "Eleanor, Mei told me your hair needed brushing. Why don't you come sit down?" It was Rhu, something approaching kindness glimmering in her eyes, as she dragged a battered metal chair over to where Eleanor stood. The abrasive noise did not fully drown out the chain dragging, growling monster hiding in the dark.

"You can brush my hair upstairs," Eleanor said hopefully, trying not to sound afraid. "In my room."

"It's okay, Eleanor. There isn't anyone down here, but us."

You're lying, Eleanor thought. She looked up at Rhu, focusing her gaze with intensity, willing Rhu's thoughts to her, hoping she could glean what was going on. But Rhu's mind was smooth, slippery and blank and cold, like a dead fish. The `Perius Curse, Eleanor realized dully. They did not want her to read Rhu's thoughts, so Rhu could not know what was happening either. Rhu tried to turn her head gently, as she began to slip the bristles of the brush through her tangled chestnut hair… and that was when Eleanor saw it:

An enormous black dog, eyes glowing in the dim light, unmistakable malice in every sinew of its bearing. Eleanor only had an impression of slavering jaws and a furious, frenzied bark, before it broke into a run.

"Rhu!" she shrieked, terrified beyond measure that the only adult in the room was paying no attention at all to the deadly beast bearing down on them. She jerked her body to the side, staggering Rhu backwards, and knocking over the chair. She felt like she was on fire, only the fire was inside of her, flowing, running, burning, then seeping through, breaking the seal of her skin and exploding outward in an aura of light that was white-hot and eclipsing.

She was able, with the distance of rapidly fading consciousness, to register the pitiful whimper of an animal in pain, followed by the sound of many feet and many voices.

"Harry!" Hermione cried in alarm, as her best friend's body arched up, as though hit with an unseen curse.

"Father!" Eleanor's voice was similar in timbre, and she immediately let go of his hand. But Harry did not blink his eyes open, wincing and rubbing his head with a self-deprecating grin. Instead, he keeled over sideways with unforeseen suddenness, nearly hitting the hard tile floor, before Hermione and Falworth managed to halfway catch him.

"He's seizing!" Hermione's declaration was urgency that had not quite crossed over into panic. Shravana dismantled the privacy wards, and sent out an emergency beacon, the equivalent of a Muggle code.

"Has this happened before?"

"No… nothing like this. Just momentary syncope."

"It almost looks like magical feedback." Healer Desai's wand was flicking back and forth too rapidly to be seen clearly. Her quill and file hovered nearby, recording everything. "But a five-year-old shouldn't be able to overwhelm an adult's system. There isn't even a Legilimental bond. Nothing but touch? It doesn't make any sense. None of this should even be possible."

A team of mediwitches pushing a potions cart burst through the door, Levitating Harry onto the bed, as Auror Falworth carefully moved a distraught Eleanor out of the way. He cradled her on one hip like a toddler, while her eyes remained locked on the unresponsive form of her father. The lights in the room flickered, and one or two of the globes cracked in several places. Hermione's eyes followed the flashes and subtle sounds, and she exchanged worried glances with Healer Desai.

"This is magical feedback," she said, as the two Healers apparently reached the same conclusion at nearly the same time. "His system is overloaded. All of his magical synapses are misfiring." Hermione clenched her teeth to keep her jaw from trembling, willing her throat not to clog with tears. Harry needs me. I cannot fall apart when it matters most.

"We've got to stabilize him before there is brain damage." Desai called out to the mediwitches, a rapid-fire staccato of potion names spilling from her mouth, as they moved into seamless coordination. "Keziah, take a scan of Eleanor please. We need the full panel of MSR. Can someone get a message to Healer Fellowes? He's the best we've got on this kind of thing. Hurry!"

Hermione had used a medical incantation to call up a three-dimensional rendering of Harry's brain activity. She and Shravana had not moved from Harry's side, as they rotated the image and discussed what was going on, while the mediwitches worked around his spasming limbs.

"Why don't they just Stupefy him?" Stuart Falworth murmured to himself, more than anything wishing to quietly extricate himself from this room and this all-too-personal situation. Healer Granger's agony was heart-rending to watch. But this child in his arms needed somebody, and he'd be damned if he was going to drop her in a hard plastic chair and leave.

"It could do more harm than good. They need to stabilize his magic first," Eleanor replied, startling him, her over-precise diction telling him that she had gleaned the information out of someone's mind: the petite, silver-haired Mediwitch approaching them, perhaps.

"This isn't going to hurt a bit, love. Just hold very still for me." With immediate and mechanical obedience, Eleanor made herself rigid in Falworth's arms so the Mediwitch's wand could scan her. She had almost finished when Hermione's frightened voice cracked across the room,

"Harry!? Stay with me, Harry. Stay with me."

A word that Eleanor had heard Zed say once blistered from Healer Desai's lips. "Where the hell is Fellowes?" Another Healer burst through the door at almost that exact moment, as though Desai's imprecations had conjured him up.

"Eleanor, love, we're almost done. Can you be really still for me?"

But Eleanor couldn't be really still. Not anymore. Not even if they punished her. She had done this to him. She had done this. He had told her that she wasn't bad or dangerous, but he was wrong. He was wrong, and it was going to kill him. She was going to kill him. She found herself slumping face down into the shoulder of Auror Falworth's robes, unable to take any comfort in the soothing pat of his hand on her back.

"Daddy…" She whispered, but nobody heard her.

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