Raised By Wolfstar: Slytherin Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows

Chapter Thirteen: The Thief

Harry opened his eyes and was dazzled by blue and green: he had no idea what had happened, he only knew that he was lying on what seemed to be freshly mowed. Struggling to draw breath into lungs that felt flattened, he blinked and realized that what he had been looking at was clear blue sky through the canopy of leaves above him. Then an object twitched close to his face. He pushed himself onto his hands and knees, ready to face some small, fierce creature, but saw that the object was Tracey's foot. Looking around, Harry saw that all four of them were lying on the edge of a large well maintained field, under a forested area.

Harry's first thought was of the grassy Hogwarts grounds before the Forbidden Forrest, and for a moment, even though he knew how foolish and dangerous it would be for them to appear at Hogwarts, his heart leaped at the thought of sneaking off to Hagrid's hut. However, in the few moments it took for Tracey to give a low groan and Harry to start crawling toward her, he realized that this was not the Forbidden Forest: The trees looked younger, they appeared to be in a park next to a children's playground that was empty for now as its normal occupants were probably in school. In the distance he could see little houses.

He met Theodore and Allison, also on their hands and knees, at Tracey's head. The moment his eyes fell upon Tracey, all other concerns fled Harry's mind, for blood drenched the whole of Tracey's right side and her face stood out, grayish-white, against the grass and leaves. The Polyjuice Potion was wearing off now: Tracey was halfway between Wakefield and herself in appearance, her hair turning darker and curlier as her face drained of the little colour it had left.

'What's happened to her?'

'Splinched,' said Theodore, her fingers already busy at Tracey's sleeve, where the blood was wettest and darkest.

Harry watched, horrified, as he tore off the sleeve of Tracey's shirt. He had always thought of Splinching as something comical, but this...His insides crawled unpleasantly as Allison shakingly pointed her wand at Tracey's upper arm, where a great chunk of flesh was missing, scooped cleanly away as though by a knife.

'Ferula,' said Allison, a bandage instantly wrapped around her shoulder in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but more blood almost immediately started seeping through. 'Why did it have to be Tracey, she's the only one who knows proper healing magic.'

'Harry, quick,' said Theodore in the most serious and desperate tone Harry had ever heard, 'Tracey mentioned she bought supplies from the Apothecary, she also had me make a Wound-Cleaning Potion, go through her bag, find it, or Blood-Replenishing Potion, or Murtlap Essence, but search for Essene of Dittany first'

'Bag—Dittany—right—'

Harry sped to the place where Tracey had landed, seized the tiny purse, 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—

'Harry!' said Allison desperately.

He 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 purse; he caught it and hastened back to Theodore, Allison, and Tracey, whose eyes were now half-closed, strips of white eyeball all that were visible between her lids.

'She's knocked out, or in shock, or,' said Theodore, growing back to his normal height.

'Harry, you have to unstopper it, my hands are shaking to much and she's running out of time,' said Allison who was also rather pale; she no longer looked like Mafalda, though her hair was still gray in places.

Harry wrenched the stopper off the little bottle, Allison took it, removed the blood-soaked bandages, and poured three drops of the potion onto the bleeding wound. Greenish smoke billowed upward and when it had cleared, Harry saw that the bleeding had stopped. The wound now looked several days old; new skin stretched over what had just been open flesh.