Alteration (Book 3 of The Corruption Sequence)

Chapter 18. Returning

Harry opened his eyes slowly to find his head pounding so badly that he could hardly see. The room around his swam into focus very reluctantly and, as he blinked, the low murmur of conversation beside him stilled.

"Harry," Remus' gentle voice said, and he tried to make his eyes focus on the blob that he was sure was the werewolf.

It was almost like needing glasses again, only then it hadn't hurt quite so much to make his eyes cooperate.

"How are you feeling?" his friend asked quietly.

"Like the Quidditch team if practising with bludgers in my skull," he replied blearily.

"If you can sit up, Mr Potter," Snape's cool tones cut into his head like knives, "I believe I have something which may help."

Harry was not happy about the moving idea, since the moment he tried the pounding increased, but with Remus' help he managed to make it into a sitting position. At this point, a small flask was pushed into his hand and he upended it into his mouth without waiting to be told. It burned all the way down, but, as with most of Snape's concoctions, it was efficient, and it began to work immediately.

"Although not the most effective pain killing potion available," the Potions master said evenly, "I can guarantee that Mr Potter will have no adverse reaction to this one."

"Thank you," Harry said, genuinely grateful as the pounding began to reduce to a manageable level.

Now that he was upright and could use his eyes without fear of reprisal from his brain, he recognised the inside of Arthur's office at the Ministry, and everyone who had been at the hearing with him seemed to be squashed into it. He had been lying on a couch and he suspected that someone had transfigured it.

"How long was I out?" he asked quietly.

"Only about ten minutes," Remus it appeared was spokesperson, "which considering what Fudge put you through is nothing."

The cold feeling came back as Harry remembered what had happened in the court room, but this time it was internal and the Dementor did not make an appearance. The dispassionate, logical part of his mind rationalised that it was probably too weak after returning its only food source. How he had managed that was beyond Harry, and he just couldn't fit his mind round the idea.

"I didn't know," he whispered to Remus, horrified by the whole thing, "I didn't know I'd done it."

"I know, Harry," Remus said soothingly, "and if Fudge hadn't had Peter whisked off you would undoubtedly have undone it far sooner than today. That man is an idiot."

"I had him inside the whole time," Harry continued to whisper in disgust, "and I didn't know. How could I not know?"

The ideas that reliving the memory caused in him brought most of his rational thought to a halt. The Dementor had been his greatest fear for so long and that he had been capable of doing that to someone else was abhorrent to him.

"Dementors cannot give back souls, Harry," Remus said as if reading his mind, "they consume them. You took Peter's soul in revenge, but you did not consume it. That you gave it back is nothing short of a miracle."

The werewolf's words made sense, but they could not reach the core of what Harry was feeling. The horror of having to relive his kidnapping and all subsequent events was too much for him with the whole Wormtail incident on top. The darkness in him was flooded out by simple human distress.

"Please, can we go home?" he asked a little desperately and then he burst into tears.

Remus pulled him close and he sobbed into his friend's shoulder as the stress of the day poured out of him.