The Secrets of The Sighted (Golden Trio Era) {3}

Fight Fallout

The first person Harry saw was Neville, the round faced boy was lying, apparently asleep, in a bed near the door, his parents and grandmother was sat in the visitor chairs around him. Ron, Hermione, Luna, Tonks, and Lupin were gathered around another bed near the far end of the ward, they all turn to look at Harry and Ginny at the sound of the door opening. Hermione ran to Harry, wrapping him up tightly in a hug, Remus also moved forward, looking extremely anxious, "are you all right, Harry?" he asked as Hermione squeezed him once more before letting go. "I'm fine... How's Bill doing?"

Nobody answered him, so Harry looked over Hermione's shoulder and saw an unrecognisable face lying on Bill's pillow. He was badly slashed and ripped that he looked grotesque, Madam Pomfrey was dabbing at his wounds with some harsh-smelling green ointment. Harry remembered how Mikayla had mended Malfoy's Sectumsempra wounds so easily with his wand. "Can't you fix them with a charm or something?" He asked the matron, not being able to remember what the incantation was that Mikayla had used. "No charm will work on these," Madam Pomfrey said gravely, "I've tried everything I know, but there is no cure for werewolf bites."

She looked back down at Bill with sorrow filled expression, "but he wasn't bitten during a full moon," Ron argued while gazing down into his brother's face as though he could somehow force his injuries to mend just by his stare. "Greyback hadn't transformed, so surely Bill won't be a- a real-?" He looked uncertainly at Remus, "no, I don't think that Bill will be a true werewolf, but that does not mean that there won't be some contamination. Those are cursed wounds. They are unlikely ever to heal fully, and- and Bill might have some wolfish characteristics from now on." Remus explained, which did seem to comfort some of the others in the room.

"Dumbledore might know something that'd work, though. Where is he?" Ron turned to Harry, "Ron, Dumbledores dead," Ginny whispered, as if she feared her own words, "No!" Remus looked wildly between Ginny to Harry, hoping Harry would contradict Ginny's statement, say that she was misunderstood but when Harry did not deny the claim, Remus collapsed into a chair beside Bill's bed, his hands over his face. Harry caught Ron's eye, they exchange a look in silence that confirmed what Ginny had said.

"How did he die?" Tonks whispered, "Snape killed him, I was there, I saw it. We arrived back on the Astronomy Tower because that's where the Mark was... Dumbledore was ill, he was weak, but I think he realised it was a trap when we heard footsteps running up the stairs. He immobilised me, I couldn't do anything, I was under the Invisibility Cloak — and then Malfoy came through the door and disarmed him-" Harry paused, trying to recompose himself from crumbling again because they needed to hear it. Hermione clapped her hands to her mouth and Ron groaned while Luna's mouth trembled. "- more Death Eaters arrived and then Snape, he did it. The Avada Kedavra."

Harry's voice caught in his throat, he couldn't go on, it hurt too much. Madam Pomfrey burst into tears, nobody paid her any attention except Ginny, who whispered, "Shh! Listen!" Madam Pomfrey pressed her fingers to her mouth, hulping back her sobs with wide eyes. Somewhere out in the darkness, a phoenix was singing in a way Harry had never heard before, a stricken lament of terrible beauty. And Harry felt, as he had felt about phoenix song before, that the music was inside him, not without, it was his own grief turned magically to song that echoed across the grounds and through the castle windows.

How long they all stood there, listening, he did not know, nor why it seemed to ease their pain a little to listen to the sound of their mourning, but it felt like a long time later that the hospital door opened again and Professor McGonagall entered the ward. Like all the rest of them, she bore marks of the recent battle, she had grazes on her face and her beautiful robes were littered in rips, "Molly, Arthur and the twins are on their way," she told them and the spell of the music was broken. Everyone roused themselves, turning once again to look at Bill, or else to rub their own eyes shake their heads.

"Harry, what happened? According to Hagrid you were with Professor Dumbledore when he, when it happened. He says Professor Snape was involved in some-" Harry interupted his head of house, telling her that Snape had killed Dumbledore. She stared at him silently for a moment, before she swayed alarmingly, Madam Pomfrey, who seemed to have pulled herself together, ran forward and conjured a chair from thin air, which she pushed under McGonagall, "Snape," repeated McGonagall faintly, falling into the chair. "We all wondered... but he trusted... always... Snape... I can't believe it..."

"Snape was a highly accomplished Occlumens. We always knew that." Lupin spoke, his voice uncharacteristically harsh, "But Dumbledore swore he was on our side!" Tonks whispered in disbelief, "I always thought Dumbledore must know something about Snape that we didn't..." McGonagall seconded Tonks thoughts, saying that Dumbledore had always hinted that he had an ironclad reason for trusting Snape. McGonagall was now dabbing at the corners of her leaking eyes with a tartan-edged handkerchief, "I mean... with Snape's history... of course people were bound to wonder... but Dumbledore told me explicitly that Snape's repentance was absolutely genuine- Wouldn't hear a word against him!"

"I'd love to know what Snape told him to convince him," Tonks mumbled, "I know," Harry admitted, causing all of them to turn and look at him. "Snape passed Voldemort the information that made Voldemort hunt down my mum and dad. Then Snape told Dumbledore he hadn't realised what he was doing, he was really sorry he'd done it, sorry that they were dead." They all stared at him. "And Dumbledore believed that?" Lupin asked incredulously. "Dumbledore believed Snape was sorry James was dead? Snape hated James." Lupin reminded them, "and he didn't think my mother was worth a damn either," Harry added "because she was Muggle-born...'Mudblood,' he called her."

None of them asked how Harry knew all of this, they all seemed to be lost in horrified shock, trying to digest the monstrous truth of what had happened. "But I don't understand how they could even get inside Hogwarts, there were powerful enchantments on every entrance into the castle." Harry revealed he knew how the Death Eaters infiltrated the castle, briefly explaining about the pair of Vanishing Cabinets and the magical pathway they formed. "Yeah, we knew that they were going to come out of the Room of Requirement, Mikayla had told us in the Patronus she sent."

They all looked to the blonde girl in the bed across from Bill's, and as if their eyes summoned some kind of reaction from her, Mikayla shot up into a seating position in the hospital bed. Her eyes were glued shut, but her mouth dropped open, no words left her throat at first. Hermione called out to her, but was met with a blue orb floating out of Mikayla's mouth. The orb growing into the average size of a sundial, they watched the orb completely enraptured by it and curious as to why it appeared.

The fog of the orb began to clear away, and a series of gasps leave everyone's lips as Dumbledore's face appears in the orb. "Hello, everyone. Nod if you can see and hear me." They all slowly nodded confirming that they could both see and hear him. "Good. There are somethings I need to tell you before I formally enter the spirit realm. First thing is first, never tell Mikayla I did this, she would banish me to the shadow realm if she knew that I used her Mediumship abilities without her permission. Secondly, there's a deep purple potion in Mikayla's bag that will help speed up Bill's healing, and finally, you might want to sit down for what I'm about to tell you."