What Voldemort Left Behind

Chapter 13 - The Second Time

"Harry, Harry please wake up, ennervate, ennervate" Ginny's voice was shaking but she held her wand still as she casted the spells. They did nothing.
"RON! HERMIONE!" Ginny called.
Ron was first in the room. Harry lying unresponsive on the wooden floor, a cut on his head from hitting it on a loose nail as he fell. He was cold, apart from the Killing Curse mark that often made him burn up. When he was still, it was even easier to see how much weight he had lost from his already thin body.
"Right Ginny, get something soft underneath him so he doesn't crack his skull open on this floor if he starts moving like he did the last time."
Ginny waved her wand and Harry was lifted onto a mattress that appeared on the floor. No one else followed Ron and Hermione and Ginny assumed the adults were trying to keep the children out of the way and she was very thankful, she knew that her three kids had realized something was wrong and they took after their parents, they wouldn't rest until they were able to help.  The three stood beside Harry unsure of what to do until Hermione knelt down beside him.
"He's breathing. Slightly......"
Ginny sighed with relief, his rapid panting had stopped completely as he fell. She normally kept her head in a crisis, otherwise she wouldn't have lived past the age of fourteen, but when the crisis was Harry, which it often was, it was even more difficult.
Ron stepped towards the fireplace, "I'll call McGonagall, maybe she'll know what to do for him, she won't be busy because it's Easter." Ginny nodded silently to her brother, green flames flashed and he disappeared. She moved closer to her husband and tried to shake him awake, too scared to cast any spells she whispered in his ear and begged him to wake up. His expression suggested he was in pain although still motionless on the floor.
After a minute had passed, he jerked violently and started shouting in his sleep. Very little of what he was saying made sense, and Hermione casted Mufflatio at the door to stop the others hearing. He twitched and shook uncontrollably and after what felt like ages, Ron appeared in the fire with Minerva and Poppy from Hogwarts. Poppy gently tried to pour a dark coloured potion into Harry's mouth but it was no use, he was shaking too hard and eventually she vanished it off his face, which was soaked in the dark liquid. She casted a spell, forcing the potion into him.
"It will repel some of his magic. This is a Dark potion often used to weaken an opponent, in this case, he is a danger to himself," Poppy explained.
Ginny knelt beside him. Minerva waved her wand in a complicated pattern that Ginny did not recognize, she could tell it was a difficult spell.
By then Ron had brought their mother in and was explaining to her what had happened, she stared in disbelief at Harry, who was an adopted son to her. The conversation ended abruptly as Harry switched, suddenly still and silent.
Her mother left to head off Jamie, Al and Lily, allowing Ginny to focus her attention on her husband. She carefully took Harry's limp hand in hers, reminded of all the Auror injuries she'd sat with him through. Poppy Pomfrey began to cast diagnostic spells on Harry while the others waited.
"Well Ginny, I'm sorry but I don't know how to help him, I've never come across Horcrux damage and neither have any of my contacts from St Mungos. This is an unusual reaction, which suggests to me that this is linked to his unusual past."
She healed the cut on his forehead that everyone else had forgotten about and continued to cast spells over Harry. "Has he eaten much recently?" She asked, hovering her wand above him. "Actually that was what we were arguing about before he... before he sort of... fainted and fell. James and Lil heard me, I was telling Harry he needed to eat and that he was worrying me when he was losing so much weight. I brought him in here after I realized they were listening and he was behaving strangely. He barely noticed where we were going and he didn't seem right, he wasn't acting like himself."
Poppy's brow furrowed as she looked at  her unconscious patient.
"Does that happen a lot when he is stressed?"
"Quite often, I used to order Kreacher to make him eat more any time he was away for the Ministry."
"Are there any more telltale signs?" Poppy pressured gently.
"His anger," Ginny answered, "although it takes longer now for him to lash out, if he does, the dark thoughts have been getting to him for a while."
"I'll look into that," Poppy told her, "I think it's very important to take care of his emotions first."

-

Lily felt slightly guilty for eavesdropping on her parents, but it didn't make sense to her why on earth they were having their discussion when she was sitting right there. She thought her dad had seemed kind of weird, he was all right when they sat down but then sometime during the meal he changed. When she heard her mother asking for Ron and Hermione, Lily was immediately curious. She nudged her older brother who was still stuffing chips into his mouth, how can he be eating at a time like this? She gave him a look and he choked on his lunch. This gave her a few seconds to grab the Extendable Ear conveniently discarded under the table. James recovered and excused himself from the table to go and get a drink of water. Lily waited long enough and then followed her brother, lunch was basically finished and it didn't look suspicious that she would look for him because they were best friends as well as siblings. James started talking as soon as she entered. "So, what do you think is going on? Dad was acting kinda off his head," James commented.

"I'm not sure..... They were talking, well arguing more, about that Dad was getting really thin and then they left."

"No kidding, he looks smaller than you now and you're not exactly chubby. I've heard that people lose weight when they're stressed, but he seems pretty chill to me, better than usual."

"James, I don't think they're telling us everything... Mum's worried, we already know that he's upset, the 2nd of May is coming up and that always sets both of them off. We're not even allowed with them then it's that bad and we see how Granny is on that day, Mum and Dad are 10 times worse."

"Yeah, we need to find a way to get down there now."

"Exactly." Lily pulled out the Ear she had in her pocket.
They walked across the landing and saw the family were beginning to break up and get on with their own activities, barely noticing that anything was wrong, Al was reading a book, Fred was playing with a spare snitch and ew, Teddy and Victoire were kissing again in the corner. James and Lily made faces at each other before sneaking out of the back door, good thing their Granny wasn't around. Before long they were threading the Extendable into the sitting room their parents were in and........ silence. They tried to shake the ear and still nothing. James muttered the counter charms to Silencio and Mufflatio and they tried again, this time they heard a slight noise as the Ear hit the ground, they'd done it!!!! But strangely there was still no noise. Lily fiddled with the ear for signal, "This can't be right..." as their grandfather walked towards them.