Dark Pasts { A Harry Potter Story }

Chapter 82 - The Phoenix Lament

"We're going to the hospital wing," I said softly.

"I'm not hurt," Harry said in a stifled voice.

I frowned as I looked at him and felt a tug at my heart. His eyes were filled with tears and his voice filled with worry and sadness.

"It's McGonagall's orders," I said. "Everyone's up there, Ron and Hermione and Remus and everyone —"

"Liz, who else is dead?" He asked in a trembling voice.

"Don't worry, none of us."

"But the Dark Mark — Malfoy said he stepped over a body —"

"No one's dead, Harry," I said as I caressed his shaking hands. "It's just Bill, he — he's hurt. But he's alive."

"But the others . . . There were other bodies on the ground. . . ."

"Neville and Professor Flitwick are both hurt, but they'll be alright," I said softly. "Harry, if we hadn't had your Felix potion, I think we'd all have been killed, but everything seemed to just miss us —"

We reached the hospital wing and pushed open the doors. I saw Neville lying in a bed near the door. Ron, Hermione, Luna, Tonks, and Lupin were gathered around another bed near the far end of the ward. At the sound of the doors opening, they all looked up and Hermione ran to and engulfed us both in a tight hug. Remus moved forward too, looking anxious.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"I'm fine. . . . " Harry said. "How's Bill?" 

Nobody answered, and we saw over Hermione's shoulder a Bill whose face was badly slashed and ripped that he was grotesquely unrecognizable. I felt Harry tremble slightly and squeezed his hand.

"Can't you fix them with a charm or something?" he asked Madam Pomfrey.

"No charm will work on these," she said.  "I've tried everything I know, but there is no cure for werewolf bites."

"But he wasn't bitten at the full moon," Ron said. "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," Remus said, "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."

"Dumbledore might know something that'd work, though," Ron said. "Where is he? Bill fought those maniacs on Dumbledore's orders, Dumbledore owes him, he can't leave him in this state —"

I gulped. "Ron — Dumbledore's dead."

"No!" Remus looked wildly from Harry to me, as though hoping he might contradict me but when Harry did not, he collapsed into a chair beside Bill's bed, his hands over his face. I had never seen him like this before. It made my heart break all over again.

"How did he die?" Tonks whispered. "How did it happen?"

"Snape killed him," Harry said, making me gas quietly. "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 realized it was a trap when we heard footsteps running up the stairs. He immobilized me, I couldn't do anything, I was under the InvisibilityCloak — and then Malfoy came through the door and disarmed him —"

Everyone gasped and trembled in sadness and shock.

"— more Death Eaters arrived — and then Snape — and Snape did it. The Avada Kedavra," he spoke in a low voice and stopped suddenly, as though unable to let another sound out of his mouth.