Grindelwald's Burden (Books 1-7)

129. The Thief

Y/n groaned as he opened his eyes and was dazzled by gold and green, he had no idea what had happened, he only knew that he was lying on what seemed to be leaves and twigs. Struggling to draw breath into lungs that felt flattened, he blinked and realized that the gaudy glare was sunlight streaming through a canopy of leaves far above him. Then an object twitched close to his face. He slowly turned his head to see it was Hermione's hand as she lay on the forest floor beside him. He pushed himself onto his hands and knees, and Harry and Ron were lying nearby them.

At first Y/n wondered if Hermione had brought them to the Forbidden Forest, and for a moment, even though he knew how foolish and dangerous it would be for them to appear in the grounds of Hogwarts, his heart leapt at the thought of sneaking a look at the castle he had come to know as home. However, in the few moments it took for Ron to give a low groan and Harry to start crawling toward him, he realized that this was not the Forbidden Forest. The trees looked younger, they were more widely spaced, the ground clearer.

Hermione now moved to get up on her hands and knees and Y/n pushed himself up properly now and offered out his hand to help her up.

Hermione took Y/n's hand and he pulled her up as both looked towards Harry and Ron. Harry was on his hands and knees looking over Ron and Y/n caught sight of him now.

The moment his eyes fell upon Ron, all other concerns fled Y/n's mind, for blood drenched the whole of Ron's left side and his face stood out, grayish-white, against the leaf-strewn earth. The Polyjuice Potion was wearing off now. Ron was halfway between Cattermole and himself in appearance, his hair turning redder and redder as his face drained of the little color it had left.

"What's happened to him?" Harry asked dazed and in shock.

"He has been Splinched." said Y/n quickly kneeling down besides Ron, his fingers already busy at Ron's sleeve, where the blood was wettest and darkest.

Harry watched, horrified, as Y/n tore open Ron's shirt. He had always thought of Splinching as something comical, but this...His insides crawled unpleasantly as Y/n laid bare Ron's upper arm, where a great chunk of flesh was missing, scooped cleanly away as though by a knife.

"Ron listen to me you are going to be just fine alright." Y/n said wanting to try to keep Ron as calm as possible.

Hermione quickly joined Y/n in attempting to help Ron now. "Harry, quickly, in my bag, there's a small bottle labeled 'Essence of Dittany'..." She said.

"Bag...right..." Harry sped to the place where Hermione and Y/n had landed, seized the tiny beaded bag, and thrust his hand inside it. At once, object after object began presenting itself to his touch. He felt the leather spines of books, woolly sleeves of jumpers, heels of shoes...

"Quickly!" Hermione pressed.

"Use a summoning spell Harry." Y/n told him.

Harry grabbed his wand from the ground and pointed it into the depths of the magical bag. "Accio Dittany!"

A small brown bottle zoomed out of the bag, he caught it and hastened back to Y/n, Hermione and Ron, whose eyes were now half-closed, strips of white eyeball all that were visible between his lids.

"He's fainted." said Hermione, who was also rather pale, she no longer looked like Mafalda, though her hair was still gray in places. "Unstopper it for me, Harry, my hands are shaking."

Harry could see her hand were indeed shaking while Y/n's own were doused with Ron's blood as they tried their hardest to contain the bleeding.

Harry wrenched the stopper off the little bottle, Hermione took it and when Y/n moved his hands she poured three drops of the potion onto the bleeding wound. Greenish smoke billowed upward and when it had cleared, Y/n and Harry saw that the bleeding had stopped. The wound now looked several days old, new skin stretched over what had just been open flesh.