A Story of Hallows and Horcruxes
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury, Scholastic, and Raincoats Books, and Warner Brothers Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. I do not own Harry Potter or anything related to Harry Potter.
Chapter 3
Detention With A Death Eater
A groan of pure agony escaped Harry's lips. He had been drifting between pained consciousness and blissful sleep for the past few minutes.
Slowly, and with a tremendous effort that sent ripples of pain through his entire body, Harry lifted his head. The world swam in front of his eyes for a few seconds before it stabilised. A spasm of ache shook him as he attempted to sit up and deep ragged breathing filled up the narrow tunnel as the small effort tired his injured physique. He glanced down at his battered body and grimaced at the sight of his mangled leg.
The bandage had turned a dull brown, as the blood flowing out of the wound dried; but the worst was a jagged piece of dirty white bone that had torn the bandage, and was poking out in plain view.
He was in a bad condition. Notwithstanding his fractured leg, his entire body was in so much pain, that he felt like he had been trampled by a herd of Hippogriffs.
While he'd the forethought to pack some healing potion and salves with him considering the dangerous nature of his mission, he'd no idea what it would take to heal a broken bone.
At least he'd managed to destroy not one but two Horcruxes, including the one that was supposed to be the most difficult.
Harry frowned; there were only two people who could access the Chamber, one being him and the other, Voldemort. So, what did Voldemort want with the Basilisk carcass and why keep Nagini here? A sharp jab of pain flashed through his consciousness and stopped his reflections. Gritting his teeth, he waited for the pain to abate.
He needed to escape Hogwarts, but first he'd to check whether the cursed fire had actually destroyed the Horcruxes.
Harry decided against reapplying the Pain Relieving Charm on his leg. Abusing that spell could render his leg paralytic. He, however, replaced the bloodied bandages with fresh ones and with great difficulty and extraneous pain he managed to stand up.
He walked towards the chamber doors, careful enough to keep the pressure on his right leg. He hadn't taken two steps before the two pieces of broken bones in his leg scraped with each other. White hot pain flared in his cranium and a blood-curdling scream tore through his throat.
A few moments later, found Harry staring at the ceiling of the tunnel, as the sharp pain turned into a dull throb. He'd no idea when his legs had given out and he'd fallen down. There was no way he could walk on that leg.
Gingerly, Harry sat up and muttered, “Kashaf’mad!” pointing his wand at his broken leg. Under current circumstances, he was willing to risk over-usage of that spell if it allowed him to escape Hogwarts. Despite the charm, he had to ease up on his right leg. There was only so much pain the spell would block.
Twirling his wand, he Conjured a wooden walking stick. It wasn’t decorated like Lucius Malfoy’s was; but it would get the job done. Gripping the stick tightly in his hand, he stood up leaning heavily on the stick.
Harry hobbled forward and stopped in front of the doorway.
“Open,” he hissed in parseltongue and the twin snakes engraving on the door slid aside and the doorway parted in the middle.
A blast of heat assaulted him, burning his body as the gateway opened and was immediately followed by a noxious and suffocating gas. A racking cough took over him, and he had to step back.
“Ebulio!”
A small elliptical bubble formed at the tip of his wand, enlarging rapidly. Harry bought the bubble close to his face and let it touch him. It immediately attached onto him and soon had his entire head covered, forming a spherical shape.
Harry stepped into the chamber, protected by the Bubble Head Charm and felt like he'd stepped into a large oven. While the fire had died out, the chamber was still very hot.
His eyes didn't find any trace of the locket that he'd thrown into the chamber. The heat must have been strong enough to vaporise it.
There was only a scattering of ashes, remains of Nagini, thought Harry. Nothing else remained of her. The skin, flesh and bones - the fire had burned everything. A savage grin formed on Harry's face. For all his injuries, Nagini had not died an easy death.
Two down, two more left to go, thought Harry.
And for the first time, since, he'd separated from Ron and Hermione, Harry felt that success just might be within his grasp.
He walked out of the Chamber and leant heavily against the wall and took deep gulps of fresh air as he removed the Bubble Head Charm. While he may have succeeded in doing more than just what he'd planned, that success hadn't been without its cost. He slid down the rough wall of the tunnel and sat down on his haunches, with his broken right leg stretched out in front of him. He stared at his freshly bandaged leg which had started to turn a light crimson as blood slowly seeped out of his shin, where the broken bone had pierced his shin from inside out.
He was wounded … badly. And while he may be able to bear up with most of his injuries, no matter how badly they hurt. Something had to be done about his leg. And his skills didn’t quite extend to healing broken bones.
The idea to escape Hogwarts and go to a Muggle hospital entered his mind. It wouldn’t take more than a few Confundus Charms to make the doctors willing to mend his leg. He immediately discarded the idea. Muggles couldn’t heal broken bones as fast as wizards. It would take too much time, time that he couldn’t afford to waste.
Who else would know how to heal a broken bone?
He could go to Madam Pomfrey under the guise of the night, and persuade her to help him and keep the entire thing quite. He abandoned that idea too. There were too many variables. And while he knew Madam Pomfrey, he wasn’t quite sure he could trust her in this situation. She was also not a member of the Order.
He rejected the idea of going to McGonagall either. While he was sure that she would render assistance. Harry couldn't be sure she wouldn't take him to the Order to interrogate him about his injuries and of his presence in Hogwarts.
That left only one person, Horace Slughorn.
The man might be able and willing to help. Harry debated whether to seek his help or not.
Harry had come to know the Potions Master quite well during the previous year. After he'd learnt the prophecy and seen that Dumbledore was only showing him Pensieve memories and not teaching him advanced magic, as he and Hermione had speculated, he decided to learn new and powerful spells on his own from the Auror books that Sirius had gifted him.
He'd decided against inviting Hermione. She hadn't taken well to his out-performing her in Potions and had constantly harped that he was cheating to get better marks. Harry didn't quite understand what he did that comprised of cheating. He wasn't after all claiming someone else's work as his own, only following different instructions to get better results.
Harry had kept the peace though and didn't retort back. He, however, kept the Auror books a secret from both Hermione and Ron. The former, because Harry was quite sure that Hermione would be displeased to see him possessing restricted materials and the latter, because while Ron might not care that he was illegally accessing restricted Ministry material he might mention it to Hermione, negligently if not deliberately.
Understanding the Auror books however, was a chore onto itself. They were obviously meant for someone who had completed Hogwarts. Furthermore, the books were only supposed to supplement the instructions that trainees would receive at the Auror Academy. Yet, there he was trying to comprehend stuff, undoubtedly advanced for his age without even having completed his Hogwarts education.
He had never been a diligent student while at Hogwarts and that had cost him a lot as he was often left fumbling, trying to decipher the books. He learnt this though, that there was more to magic than simply waving your wand and uttering incantations.
His lack of knowledge of magical theory was the cause of much frustration. He was quite sure that if only he'd asked for Hermione's help, things would have gone much easier. But he was adamant in his decision and wished to achieve success on his own. The prophecy named him after all and not somebody else.
He soon found out though that there wasn't much that he could do alone. He needed someone experienced enough to help him out.
He'd at first thought of approaching Dumbledore, but had rejected the idea. Dumbledore had been very busy and he wasn't sure whether the Headmaster could afford the time other then what they already spent discussing Riddle's past. Also, Harry hadn't been sure that going to Dumbledore was the best idea, since, after all what advanced magic could the Headmaster have taught him when Harry didn't even know the basics.
Under such circumstances, Harry was quite sure that even if Dumbledore did agree to teach him, he'd simply be passed off to someone in the Order to learn from. After all, he was far from the level where he could demand the Headmaster's personal attention. Harry had feared that in such an eventuality, Snape would be asked to teach him. The chance of that being even more then, with Snape being the Defence teacher. And Harry didn't quite fancy learning defence from Snape.
All this had resulted into him asking for Slughorn's help. He had already seen that Potions Master was a very talented wizard and heard Dumbledore say so, when he'd visited him. And if the Dark Lord did indeed want Slughorn in the ranks of his Death Eaters, there was no doubt that he was an extremely skilled wizard.
So, Harry had asked for Slughorn's help. The Potions teacher had at first been sceptical but Harry had insisted and mentioned his mother in the conversation, and how important it was that he, the Boy-Who-Lived be able to defend himself, especially then, when Lord Voldemort was obviously back. Harry's rather persistent requests and arguments had forced the man to yield.
Two days of class a week with Slughorn during his sixth year had shown Harry that Slughorn was indeed a highly accomplished wizard. While the man was a Potions teacher, his skills were not limited to that. He was quite brilliant in Transfiguration and also more than capable with curses. His knowledge also extended to the darker forms of magic. Harry had learned more from the man then he'd learned in his entire stay at Hogwarts.
He was quite sure that Dumbledore knew about his private lessons with Slughorn, even though he'd never mentioned them. Perhaps, it was for this reason that Dumbledore had asked him to retrieve a memory from Slughorn, mentioning that Slughorn was an accomplished Occlumens.
This had led Harry to ask Slughorn for lessons in Occlumency which the Potions Master had easily granted. His teaching however, had ended rather abruptly when Harry had foolishly asked him about Horcruxes, hoping that the man liked him enough to tell him about it. Harry had later apologised to Slughorn profusely and the man had resumed his lessons.
He had also managed to retrieve the memory from Slughorn with the help of Felix Felicis during a drunken bout at Hagrid's hut, during the burial of his acromantula, Aragog.
Harry was quite sure that Slughorn liked him; he however was under no delusions as to why Slughorn had helped him out in the first place. He was the Boy-Who-Lived and as Dumbledore had mentioned once, Slughorn liked the company of the powerful and popular. It was his fame more than anything else that had made Slughorn so helpful the previous year.
And if Harry had learned anything about the man, it was that Slughorn was an opportunist. Helping the Boy-who-Lived was well and good last year, he was at the pinnacle of his fame, with the papers praising him for his courage and being so popular amongst the masses. Things had changed drastically since then. Voldemort had taken over and Harry had gone form being the Boy-Who-Lived to being the Undesirable No. One. Harry wasn't sure that Slughorn wouldn't just take advantage of his weakness and hand him over to the Ministry, to curry more favour.
As such going to Slughorn was out. Harry sighed and looked down at his mangled leg. He couldn't seek help, whatever needed to be done, he'd need to do himself. He was oblivious about how to mend a broken bone. Despite his numerous injuries during his stay at Hogwarts he had never broken a bone before. He had once, during his second year in a Quidditich match, when Dobby had enchanted a bludger to attack him. But Lockhart had vanished his broken bone before he could go to Madam Pomfrey, who had been forced to regrow the bones in his right hand.
Harry's eyes suddenly lit up as an idea hit him. He couldn't mend the broken pieces of bone in his left leg. He could however, simply vanish them and regrow them with Skele Gro, the potion Pomfrey had used.
The spell to vanish the bones would be in the Auror books, he was sure of it. There were a host of spells that acted on bones in those books. All he needed was the Skele Gro potion. It wasn't something that he had with him already.
Harry was sure that he could just go to the Hospital Wing under the Cloak and steal a beaker of Skele Gro.
Plan made, Harry made to move. Using the Conjured walking stick as a support, Harry hauled himself to his feet. With slow steps, he hobbled towards the pipe, through which he’d come.
As he came to the tunnel that had taken him down to the Chamber of Secrets from the girl's bathroom, he met with a glitch in his plans. He hadn't exactly considered on how to get out of the Chamber of Secrets. The last time around Fawkes had been with him to carry him out.
He wondered for a moment. It wasn't as if Slytherin would built such a huge tunnel and slid down it do access the Chamber.
“Stairs,” Harry whispered in parseltongue, as a sudden thought came to him.
Immediately, a rumbling noise disturbed the silence. Harry looked on curiously as the ground slowly rose and then straightened out. And slowly a flight of stairs grew in the tunnel and rose into the darkness towards the entrance.
Harry smiled as he climbed the first stairs, which turned into a grimace as the motion disturbed his broken leg and sent a sharp jab of pain to his cranium. He could hardly climb all the way to the top.
His worries soon vaporised as he heard a low grinding sound, the kind one hears when two pieces of stones are smashed together. And the staircase slowly rose upwards, like a giant, primitive escalator.
Harry heaved a sigh of relief and settled down lazily, allowing the magical staircase to carry him out of the Chamber.
O
A bright light filled his visions the moment Harry stepped out into the bathroom. He covered his eyes with his free hand and blinked rapidly. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he found that sunlight was streaming in through the ventilators.
It was morning.
He must have been unconscious longer than what he'd assumed. Harry thought for a moment to abandon his plan to raid the Infirmary, but a jab of pain from his broken leg discouraged him.
Harry wrapped the Invisibility Cloak around him and pulled out the Marauder's map. He moved out of the bathroom after carefully noting the lack of people in the adjacent corridor.
The Hogwarts Infirmary wasn't far from the Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. If not for his injuries, he could have reached there within a few minutes. But as things stood, he'd to evade any person and entity in the castle and be mindful of his leg.
He passed a few students as he walked by out of their sight. It was early morning and most people, he assumed were going to the Great Hall for breakfast.
As Harry turned a corner, he came upon a long corridor. He was fairly close to the Infirmary. He started walking, careful to ease up on his leg. He'd nearly reached the end of the corridor when he saw a group of five boys coming in from the other end.
The boys, all of them Slytherin, and Harry recognised Zabini and Nott from the group were swaggering towards him. Harry's eyes widened as he realised that as they were walking they would surely crash into him. The breadth of the corridor wasn't enough for Harry to manoeuvre himself around the boys.
Harry immediately looked back. The corridor was long enough that he wouldn't reach the end of it before the boys would catch up with him. There were no narrow fissures or suits of armour for him to hide and wait for them to pass.
As he looked around frantically, Harry noticed an oak door. He immediately hobbled towards it. He tried to open it, only to find it locked. He acted fast and pulled out his wand and whispered the Unlocking Charm. The door clicked open and Harry carefully eased himself inside the room. No sooner had he squeezed himself in, he heard the thumping of boots outside the door, signalling that the boys had just passed him by. Harry heaved a sigh of relief and immediately gritted his teeth as his mangled leg let himself know that it wasn't happy at being forced to use.
Harry waited for the pain to abate and curiously watched the room he was in. It was some kind of office, with a desk to one side, with papers and documents strewn haphazardly on it.
He looked around and saw a number of picture frames that adorned the walls.
They were pictures from Quidditch games, he realised. He took a step towards a picture that depicted him as a chaser making a spectacular goal. Harry frowned, he wasn't a chaser; he’d never played a chaser. It struck Harry suddenly; he wasn't looking at his picture, but of his father.
There were dozens of such pictures. Most showed someone making a spectacular move in a Hogwarts Quidditch game. They weren't limited to his father alone. There were a few of him too. A smile lit Harry's face, as he saw one that was undoubtedly from his first game; catching a snitch with his mouth. Ironically, that very snitch happened to be present in his moleskin pouch. There were pictures of other players too, ones he didn't recognise. He was sure he saw one of Charlie Weasley.
He looked around the room, it was filled Quidditch peripherals and equipments. He even found some old Shooting Star brooms in a cupboard.
This might help ..., thought Harry as he picked up a broom.
Harry abandoned the walking stick he'd Conjured earlier and used the broom instead.
He left Madam Hooch's office soon, and was on his way to the Infirmary.
As he stood outside the doors of the Infirmary, he checked the Marauder's Map to see if anyone was inside. All he found was the unmoving dots of Ginny and Neville.
Carefully, Harry opened the door and stepped in. As the Marauder's Map had shown, Ginny and Neville were lying on two beds. He walked over to their unconscious bodies.
Shock registered in Harry as he saw sharp cuts on Neville's face and arms. Repeated use of a mild Cutting Curse, he thought angrily. Ginny, on the other hand looked unharmed, if extremely pale. He remembered that Phineas had mentioned that they were sent to detention with Carrow.
Harry looked at Ginny's listless lips, her pale face and closed eyes. She looked as if she was just sleeping. All the fond times he'd spent with her, kissing in the broom-cupboards, snuggling in the Gryffindor common room; they came hurtling to him. It had been wonderful, the more innocent times spent with her.
He sighed in regret, he felt guilty for starting a relationship with her. While he'd definitely been attracted towards Ginny, he wondered if his relationship with her was anything more than a manifestation of his want to show Fleur, that he too had moved on.
It was foolish and idiotic of him to think that way. Fleur had never talked to him after that night, had never mentioned the possibility of the two of them as anything other than casual friends. A mistake of one night - which Harry was sure was what Fleur labelled that night as – didn't start a relationship. Yet, Harry had felt the need to show her that, that night had mattered as little to him as it'd to her, even if it weren't true.
A foolish notion, Harry was sure of that and the girl before him had suffered for it. He never should have taken up with Ginny.
He shook his head to bring himself out of reminiscence's of regrets. He'd a job to accomplish. Quickly Harry left their bedside to go to the cabinet that was at the end of the large hall.
He tapped the lock of the cabinet with his wand and whispered the Unlocking Charm. With a small click the cabinet door fell open.
Harry smiled; it was going good so far.
He put his hand out of the Invisibility Cloak and started pulling different vials of potion. A dark red looking potion that he recognised as the Pepper Up Potion, he shoved into the satchel that he Conjured to carry the vials.
The small bottles clinked together as Harry started haphazardly filling up the satchel with various potion phials. Wit-Sharpening potion, Invigorating Draught, even an ampoule of Boil Curing Potion, anything that Harry deemed useful, he took.
He pulled out another one from the cabinet and squinted to read the tag on it. It read 'Skele-Gro'.
“Gotcha,” muttered Harry and let the beaker fall into bulging bag, filled with potion ampoules that he'd wrapped around his waist.
O
A gust of cold air tickled Harry's neck, moments before a battering ram of force struck his back and sent him hurtling through the air.
His body was forced through a head-spinning lurch which came to an immediate halt as he crashed into the stationary wall. When Harry came to himself, he found him to be lying on his back on the cold, sterilized floor of the Infirmary. He had lost his Cloak and broom somewhere during the forced tumble he'd taken. His fingers wrapped around the hilt of his wand and he lifted his head up from the floor to look at his attacker.
“Stealing are we,” shouted a stocky woman with dark hair, standing by the doorway to the Infirmary. “T'ch, tch, that won't do at all.”
Harry groaned as he pulled his body to a sitting position. He frowned, as he looked at the woman who had attacked him, his eyes widened in recognition; she was one of the Death Eaters present during Dumbledore's death, Alecto Carrow.
Recognition flashed in Alecto's eyes just as Harry remembered the Death Eater. She lifted her wand to her throat and shouted, “POTTER,” her magically magnified voice resounding through the castle, “IS IN TH AHH ...”
A well aimed Foe Hammer from Harry prevented her from finishing and sent her spinning like a top through the air.
Assuming her to be knocked out, Harry tried to get up on his feet. Alecto's counter volley missed him by inches and hit the wall behind him, which groaned as it shook slightly.
She wasn't as out of it as he'd thought and had already gotten back to her feet, though she seemed to favour her shoulder slightly.
Harry flicked his wand and muttered, “Inilendio!” and sent another Foe Hammer towards her. The powerful bludgeoner missed her even as she retaliated with a dirty looking, thick beam of dark brown curse.
A Shield Charm that Harry raised just in the nick of time took the burnt of her curse, but the strength of the spell sent Harry skidding backwards.
Her wand flashed and she gave a cackling laugh, a flat blade of magic flew towards him. Harry scrambled frantically to avoid it. Despite his evasion, he hissed in pain as the curse sliced his biceps; warm hot blood spilled from the wound.
Harry gritted his teeth against the pain and looked at Alecto with burning rage in his eyes.
“Angry, are we, little boy,” Alecto jeered.
Harry gave his wand a sharp flick and the door of the Infirmary banged close taking Carrow by surprise and slammed her on the face, as Harry's silent Banishing Charm hit the doorway.
“Ferula!” muttered Harry, and conjured bandages wrapped up his sliced biceps, stemming the flow of blood.
The moments respite came to an end as a loud crash emitted, Harry whirled around to see the door of the Infirmary being torn out of its hinges and sent careening through the air.
In the doorway stood Alecto Carrow, face bloodied and fury evident in her posture. A dark angry red curse flew from the tip of Alecto's wand towards Harry, who limped sideways to dodge the spell.
Carrow stalked towards him angrily, every so often throwing a curse. Harry in his battered condition found himself overwhelmed by her spells.
“Flippendo!” whispered Harry pointing his wand toward an empty bed, while simultaneously ducking his head, as a curse passed over his head and hit the wall behind him tearing off the mortar.
The hospital bed gave a violent lurch and flipped high into the air.
“Pango!” cast Harry in quick succession, hitting the bed with a Hammering Hex and sent it spinning towards Alecto at a tremendous velocity. An impact looked imminent -
– Suddenly, there was a small bang as the bed was blasted out of the air, shattered into pieces.
She slashed her wand towards Harry, even as he cast, “Defodio!” Harry felt something hit the side of his leg hard enough to remove his footing from the ground.
The earth rushed up to meet him, and his face slammed hard against the ground. Stars flashed in front of him at the impact. Tears fell from his eyes giving his vision a glazed look and his ears rang from the force of the impact.
He slowly twisted around his body to look at Alecto and realised that his ears weren't ringing, Carrow was screaming bloody murder.
The Gouging Curse had torn out part of her cheeks, showing bleeding gums and bloodied teeth. It looked as if it'd been clawed out, with some of the flesh still left hanging, giving her face a horrendous look.
Carrow looked at him, murder in her eyes and angrily swiped her wand at him.
Harry, who was using his hands as leverage in an attempt to get back on his feet found a giant force slam into his back, pushing him forcibly into the ground.
He shakily lifted his arm to cast a counter curse, when it was blown aside, his non-verbal Banishing Charm missing Carrow completely.
He didn't even get to take a breath when another one of Carrow's spell caught his torso, bodily lifting him off the ground and spun him through the air. His momentum came to a rest as he impacted face first against the wall.
Harry gave a small grunt of pain as blood oozed out of his forehead and dripped down the side of his broken glasses that hung limply from his ear. Small slivers of glass from his spectacles had embedded itself into his cheeks. Again, he tried to blindly lift his wand, when one of Carrow's spell swatted his entire arm aside.
“Poena Tribuo!” shouted Carrow and Harry's world was rent apart with pain. He wasn't aware as he screamed himself hoarse.
And as swift as the pain had come it was gone, replaced with a dull ache in his entire body.
Every movement was an agony. He felt as if someone was hammering his head as he looked up hazily at Carrow, standing a few feet away from him.
She pointed her wand at him and the red glow on the tip of her wand was quite distinctive of a Cruciatus Curse.
Harry's hand was nearly catatonic and hardly responding to his commands. Yet, with a mighty effort Harry managed to flick the wand, loosely clasped in his fingers.
'Waddiwassi!'
The silent charm lurched a few ampoules of potion that had fallen to the ground when she'd first attacked him, and sent them speeding towards Carrow.
Alecto blasted the phials of potion moments before they could hit her face. Harry gave a small disheartened sigh as his quick attempt at a diversion failed.
A dark mist of red fluid from the broken vials floated in air covering Alecto's face, who rapidly backed way.
Carrow swiped her wand to fan away the mist created from the broken vial of the potion, which Harry now recognised as the Pepper Up Potion.
As the air cleared, Harry saw Alecto frantically rubbing her eyes with her fist.
Harry’s heart jumped a beat as he realised his stroke of luck. Not wasting another moment, he lifted a shaking arm towards her from his prone position on the ground, using her distraction to his advantage and muttered, “Fracta!”
The pale dirty ochre bolt of magic slammed into her thigh.
A resounding crack rung through the air and a deep-guttural scream of pain escaped Carrow, as her femur was forcibly broken into two.
“Percutio!” whispered Harry, following the Bone-Breaker with a Piercing Curse, aimed at her other leg. He followed the verbal curse with another silent Piercer.
Alecto tittered on her feet before her leg gave out and slammed into the floor with her knees.
Harry watched in shock as the Piercing Curse he'd aimed for her leg hit her chest, just over her heart and rocked her body. Her mouth opened in a small 'O', just as another Piercer slammed into her.
A jet of blood blew out of her punctured chest, as she toppled over. The fountain of blood kept on flowing and lent a red hue to the world. The sterile floor, the hospital beds, the very air itself turned a shade of crimson.
Harry had never seen so much blood in his life and could only watch in morbid fascination as a pool of dark red blood formed around Carrow's body.
A violent shake of his head pulled Harry from the hypnotic vision. He still had to get out of Hogwarts. He pulled off his battered glasses and tapped it with his wand and muttered, “Reparo!” There was a small flash of light as the broken spectacle rearranged itself and the shattered glass reformed to become brand new.
He put on his repaired glasses and crawled over to where the old broomstick had fallen and summoned the Invisibility Cloak and the satchel filled with potion vials to him. Harry quickly checked to see if the phials had broken during the duel. He needn't have worried as he found the vials to be enchanted with an Unbreakable Charm making them impervious to normal impacts.
He fished out an Invigoration Draught and a Wit-sharpening Potion, and gulped them down in quick succession. His entire head was throbbing from the effects of the torture curse and he'd trouble concentrating. The Wit-Sharpening Potion should lend him the mental dexterity needed, long enough to leave Hogwarts. He disregarded any complications that might arise from the successive ingestion of the two potions.
Harry wrapped the potion-satchel around his waist and hopped onto the Shooting Star, and used his one good foot to kick off the ground.
He made one short circle in the air before heading straight towards one of the windows, his body flat on the broomstick. Moments before he made contact, Harry pulled out his wand and screamed, “Deprimo!”
The window shattered into a thousand pieces and Harry flew out into the morning air.
He rose steadily towards the sky while flying straight for the lining of trees on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
The sun had risen high in the sky and Harry flew under the bright sunlight completely visible from the castle.
Despite the circumstances and the many attempts on his life in the past few hours, Harry found himself enjoying the flying. As he closed in towards the Forbidden Forest, Harry felt that he'd successfully achieved what he had come to Hogwarts for.
Author’s Note:
Well, as I said, the update was supposed to come in February and it did, even if by only a hair’s margin. Hopefully, the next one would be soon.
As you may’ve noticed, the story tile was changed to A Story of Hallows and Horcruxes from Hallows Vs Horcruxes. The story’s summary was also re-written. Reason was that I felt the previous ones didn’t quite do justice to the story. The plot, however, remains same.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to the DLP crowd for their comments.
Review: I’ll reply to each and every review that I receive.
Twitter: You may choose to follow me on Twitter. I post info about new stories and upcoming updates there. On that note, I’ve a new Harry/Tracey one-shot, all written that I’ll post within a few weeks. So, look forward to that.