Chapter Twenty: Healer
He knew at once that he was somewhere else. The light was brighter and clearer and freer. The air was fresh and crisp
and felt good in his lungs. Had it all just been some nightmarish dream?
"Ungh," he groaned as he tried to sit up. Nope.
"Your wounds heal well, my English friend, but I would not try to move just yet if I were you," he heard a friendly, though still very Indian, voice sing over, almost as if it were amused. Harry had to struggle to peel his eyes back and turned to it.
"Where... where am I?" every word burned at his throat.
"You are safe now," the man said kindly. He was older, thin, with an even thinner, graying beard. He wore a flowing white robe with a matching white turban atop his head. It was a pure white and Harry had to shield his eyes as it glowed in the sunlight through the window.
"Wha'... what happened?" Harry's memory was incomplete, a distant recollection of pain an solitude.
"I was hoping you could tell me," the man started tinkering with something on the counter.
"I... I don't remember..." Harry breathed laboriously, rolling his head back onto the pillow.
"Well then, whatever it was, it was quite nasty," the man frowned, he turned and approached Harry. "Here, drink this," he offered Harry a steaming mug.
Harry eyed it suspiciously, but there was no hint of danger in this man's kind eyes. Harry took it. He needed... something, and there were a thousand other ways this man could have killed him to wait only to poison him with a laced draught now.
"What is it?" he asked.
"A special blend of herbs and tea. You heal unnaturally so. This should have you back on your feet in a quick time," he smiled kindly, but there was something deeper telling in his eyes.
"Thank you," Harry rasped hoarsely after taking a sip. "How long have I been out?" he asked.
"Two days," his caretaker shrugged. "If you do not remember what happened to you, how about we start with your name, yes?" the man asked. Harry hesitated a moment.
"Kokerel," Harry answered as if by impulse, for some reason unwilling to give his true name. He was not sure how far his fame would precede him, even this far away from Britain, but Harry Potter could be a dangerous name to give to the wrong person, especially in his current state.
"Kokerel?!" the man mused. "A fighting cock?! Well, that would explain a lot then!"
"I... I do not like to fight..." Harry grimaced inwardly, feeling the need to defend himself.
"And yet you show up at my door with a fractured skull, three broken ribs, a broken collar bone, seven stab wounds, five bullet holes, and I have as of yet to count all the lacerations..." he crooked a brow at Harry.
"Was that all?" Harry managed a smirk as he sipped his given tea. The older man chuckled as Harry felt the liquid wash through him, springing life back into his ailing body.
"This..?" Harry looked curiously to the drink. "You're a wizard?" he asked.
"A wizard?!" the man laughed pitchedly. "Something to that effect. The people of Duma like to call me the Witchdoctor."
Harry eyed him precariously. "Witchdoctor?"
"Yes," he answered simply. "I practice healing those in need."
"Like a Healer?" Harry asked.
"Hmm, yes, I do believe that's what you call us in your country."
Harry nodded, though not sure if he fully understood. "Well, witchdoctor, how is it that I got here exactly?" Harry could not remember a thing past his fight in the shower room.
The old man took his time to answer. "Kokerel..." he sighed, staring a long while at the wall. "I do not know where it is you came from. I do not know what trouble you were in, but I do not want trouble here."
"I do not want trouble," Harry said.
"That is good to hear," the doctor said as a shadow fell across his face. "It was a great omen that delivered you here. By the Bird of Fire..." the witchdoctor spoke forebodingly.
"Only a special kind of wizard..." he went on, "a particular kind of warlock could have such a fowl under his spell... I do not want trouble here," he repeated.
Harry had no answer. Bird of Fire..?
"And those who are after you?" the man turned to him. "Those whom gave you all those wounds," the Witchdoctor signaled up and down Harry's tortured body. Harry had to think about this.
"Muggles..." Harry finally said.
"Muggles?!" the man asked surprised. "Did all this to you?!"
"I... I didn't have my wand..." he tried for some explanation without saying too much. The good doctor eyed him carefully.
The old man made as if to speak, but they were suddenly interrupted by the bursting open of a door from another part of the house followed by the wail of a despairing plea.
"Kitsaka! Kitsaka!" a desperate woman cried from outside the room. Turning from Harry, the witchdoctor rushed through the door without pause. Harry took one last, long pull from the tea, finishing it before pushing back his covers to follow. He was a bit wobbly, but soon found his balance to carry on. The doctor could certainly perform some miracles. Only two days...
Harry found another man, covered in blood, cradling a limp and battered young girl in his arms. She looked an awful sight. A hysteric, weeping woman, presumably the girl's mother, trembled over her, stroking tenderly the unconscious girl's cut and bruised face and blood matted hair.
Both the man and the woman were rambling to the doctor, Kitsaka Harry surmised, in their native tongue. He could not understand all of it, but he had picked up enough words at Dakhal to gather that the girl had been in an accident and they were pleading with him to save her.
"This way," Kitsaka went right to work, guiding them back to the room he and Harry had just left. He had the girl's father place her on a spare bed before he went about cutting away her torn clothes and addressing her numerous wounds.
"The alcohol - in the bottle there!" he shouted at Harry, his light hearted voice now laced with anxiety, and pointed to a shelf as he gathered an armful of gauze. Harry leapt to action, ignoring the protest in his own sore limbs.
"The five-finger grass, cinnamon twig, echinacea, rosemary, and yellow gentian!" the doctor demanded as he cleaned the girls most serious cuts and gashes. Harry recognized each of the ingredients from his potion classes - all that was necessary for a proper Blood-Replenishing Potion. "Prepare them in the mortar, quickly now!" Harry did not have to be told twice and knew just what to do.
He could not help but glance to the distraught parents as they clung to each other in absolute grief. He had to admit, it didn't look good. So much blood, so much death, everywhere he went. The girl's wounds looked fatal, but as long as she clung to life, he knew they still had a chance.
Kitsaka and Harry labored for hours. The mother had long since fainted and the doctor suggested to her husband that he lay her in the opposite room upon the couch while they waited. It had been bleak at times, but they did, in the end by some miracle, they did save her.
"They're muggles..." Harry collapsed down into an armchair in complete exhaustion, both physically and mentally from the work and stress. Kitsaka had just returned from delivering a soothing tea and the good news to the girl's parents.
"Very observant," Kitsaka answered him with a touch of sarcasm.
"But..." Harry started, "but what about..?" he hinted at the universal Statute of Secrecy.
Kitsaka smiled amusingly. "There are very few doctors in these parts. I treat any who seek out my help... just like I helped you, Kokerel."
Harry gave this some thought. "And they don't..?"
"Report me to the authorities?" Kitsaka chuckled. "This is not England, young master. We have no such grand Ministry. You will learn."
No grand Ministry? Harry still had many questions, but even with such few words, it explained so much already.
"You are very good with your herbs and potions, young Kokerel. This girl owes you her life. You have studied medicine?"
"No..." Harry said simply, his eyes falling to the girl. "I just took to potions a bit... at school," he explained himself.
As Kitsaka's words played over in his head, he watched her chest rise and fall with an uneven breath. The girl had been on the precipice of death, and they had pulled her back. Harry felt a certain, unnamed weight lift off of him. A piece of that violent animal that had been consuming him for over the last couple of months, the last year, ever so timidly took a step of an inch back.
Her wounds were already beginning to close and heal, turning to a raw pink instead of a red gash right before his eyes as the magic worked through her, just the same as it would on any witch or wizard. The blood was gone. Death was gone. Death had been defeated.
And something changed inside of Harry. Something shifted. He did not have to fight. He did not have to kill. He could help heal. He could help save.