When I regained consciousness I immediately became aware of a couple of things. First of all, most of my pain was gone. The worst injuries were little more than dull aches now. Someone had been raiding the pharmaceutical potions.
The second, an older woman’s voice humming badly out of tune, told me where I was. “Hello, Madam Pomfrey,” I tried to murmur as I opened my eyes. What came out was more of a dry croak, but she apparently was rather adept at translating sick-speak.
“There we go, Mr. Potter,” she said smoothly as she helped me sit up, running a damp cloth across my eyes to remove some really impressive crusts. How long had I been out, anyway?
No sooner was I inclined than she spun around with an entire rack of potions for me to take. “I need you to take all of these, from left to right, now that you are awake. You were quite a mess when you were brought here, Mr. Potter, so you need to take everything.”
I didn’t even protest the first vial of nauseating sludge she poured down my throat. Something was bothering me about what she said. After I swallowed the first one, I tried to fend her off for a moment. “Bulstrode?” I managed to choke out as she went for the kill with the second vial.
Madam Pomfrey paused for a moment, as I swallowed and struggled not to retch. The only thing that tasted worse than one potion was two potions back to back. “Miss Bulstrode is in custody at the moment,” she finally said. I didn’t have to look up at her face to tell she was scowling.
After the third potion I managed to choke out “saved my life” before the pain relievers made conscious thought an impossibly arduous task.
OoOoO
The next time I woke up, I was a little more coherent. This was good, because I had some guests. Ron and Hermione were sitting next to my bed, reading their transfiguration textbooks. I guess school had started already – with me captured, there wasn’t much point in going Horcrux hunting, I supposed. Ginny must have been in class or something.
I guess I’d finally managed to top a summer with the Dursleys when it comes to downright awfulness.
“Hey…” I managed to croak out. Hermione’s book went flying out of her lap, which shocked me. She never mistreated books. She looked like she was about to hug the stuffing out of me before she remembered my injuries. Madam Pomfrey withstanding, I had no mad desire for a punctured lung.
She settled for squeezing the crap out of my hand. My right hand. I turned and frowned at my left hand, which was still swathed in bandages. I vaguely recalled it hurting before I passed out… at Voldemort’s…
I suppose my shudder must have been rather visible, because Hermione immediately yelped and called for Madam Pomfrey. I didn’t really want a Calming Draught, but I wasn’t in any position to resist.
After the matron was done dosing me for the moment, Hermione sat back down, refusing to let go of my hand. Ron frowned a little, and I hoped he didn’t stick his foot in his mouth again. It seemed like they’d finally stopped fighting after Dumbledore’s funeral, but they’d had plenty of unsupervised time to screw things up again.
Maybe that wasn’t particularly fair, but I felt I was entitled to some snarkiness after the summer from hell.
“Okay, Hermione, I’m glad to see you two as well. I thought my luck had finally run out. How did I end up here?”
“Well, as far as we can tell, Millicent Bulstrode and you appeared just outside the gates to Hogsmeade a little over a week ago,” she said slowly. “The Ministry had Aurors on patrol, but she dragged the two of you across the threshold before they could say anything and began shooting sparks into the air. Headmistress McGonagall and Hagrid were the first on the scene and brought you here, over the Ministry’s objections.”
I shuddered. I did not want to wake up to Scrimgeour’s smiling face any time soon. “Where’s Bulstrode?” I asked after a moment.
Hermione frowned. “I think the Ministry took her into custody. She wasn’t registered as a student this term, and they had some questions.” She lowered her voice. “The Order had you on the books as a student, hoping you’d be found.”
I coughed lightly and sat up a little straighter. “Has she been charged with anything?” I asked.
Hermione looked even more curious. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Find out,” I whispered. “Please.”
“Harry,” Ron hissed, lowering his voice as well, “She’s one of them.”
I sighed. “She broke me out of Voldemort’s dungeons,” I replied. “And her dad turned himself into one great sodding bomb and blew up Voldemort and most of his inner circle,” I continued, speaking quietly, but with as much precision as I could muster. “If it wasn’t for them, I’d likely be dead right now.”
Ron’s eyes widened and Hermione bit her lip. “I’ll see what I can find out,” she whispered just before Madam Pomfrey returned and shooed them both away.
I guess it’s time for the political intrigue, eh? I’d take bets on whether or not the ministry would handle Voldemort “dying” in the same idiotic way they did last time, but no one takes sucker bets anymore.
Well, farewell to Harry’s parseltongue ability.
Even if Bulstrode the Elder did suicide bomb, Voldemort would still be around, on account of his Horcruxes. He may only be at the same power level as Sorcerer’s Stone, but he’d still exist.
Brief, but still well done.
P.S.
Seeing the Team 8 meter increase is scary. That means less time spent writing NoFP. Booooooooooooooo!
P.P.S.
Just kidding, slightly, I just have no interest in anime.
I must disagree with Nephilim. Seeing the Team 8 meter increase is joy. Pure, unadulterated joy. Did the recent, totally awesome Shino fight in canon spur on your muse?
Tallly another ‘boooo!’ vote for the Team 8 meter; I don’t grok what all this Naruto stuff is about. NoFP for the win!
Oh, right … True Colours. It’ll be good to see noble!Harry fight on Millicent’s behalf. As others have said, I guess Voldemort’s reduced to being a mere spirit again. Really, that’s not a bad tactic/option … spend the next few years comfortably chasing up the horcruxes, destroy them, then exorcise Voldemort from this world?
Loved the Hermione hand-hug 🙂
Hmmm… looks like I’ll be skipping two days of working on NoFP now. *grin*
And I haven’t seen the Shino fight yet, as I don’t get the Manga regularly. Most of this was frustration with how NoFP was progressing and a desire to be productive SOMEWHERE.
So each “Booooo!” equals one lost day per fiction. Hmmm.
“Boooooooo!” Naruto X 100
…
I can understand that, progress on something else is always preferable to a stand-still, even if the progress is on something only a fraction as interesting as the main topic.
🙂
Good luck on the block though, and as I always say, an unpaid author always has the option to never work on a free project again. I’m glad you haven’t chosen this option. I want to see Goblet o’ Doom eventually 🙂
Keep in mind that I know who roots for what, so gaming the system is usually futile. And sometimes getting progress on one story will give me a breakthrough on another. That was the original reason why I started Team 8, after all.
1: Its good to see the HP meter go up a notch.
2: Its good to see more of True Colours
3: While I like Nightmares, its not posted often enough anymore to satisfy my addiction, so its nice to be able to read some more of your quality work, TC isn’t Nightmares, but its enough.
4: I still think you should post it as an entire storyline, I’d love to see the beginning, how he got caught escapes etc etc. I love the detail of the story, but alas, as they say less is more.
5: Writers block sucks ass!!
6: No offence dude, I HATE manga, ek on many levels
I don’t read the manga, I was hooked on the anime. Aside from the pretty colors, Anime is nice because it’s considered an adult entertainment medium in Japan, so there’s something for everyone. For example, Perfect Blue is a psychothriller about a pop star being pursued by a murderous stalker.
The other nice thing for me is that the culture is different enough that my normal expectations aren’t always right. You don’t always get a ‘Hollywood Ending’, and a lot of common cliches don’t apply. That severely limits my ability to predict what will happen next and really increases my enjoyment factor too.
Also, True Colours starts where it does for a reason. If there isn’t a good reason to show something ‘on screen’, then don’t waste the reader’s time with it. For example, Bobmin complained that every post-HBP HP story will be a scavenger hunt, so I purposely let Sirius do all the fetching off-screen in NoFP. That story isn’t about Harry masquerading as Laura Croft, so why make it into one?
Fair enough. I’m still not convinved about ‘anime’ and manga tho’ 😀
As for True colors, well it *is* your story, so that settles that 🙂
And yes, I had Harry find most of the horcruxes between book 1 2 and 3.
Thanks to True Colours and NOFP, the Bulstrodes are getting to be some of my favourite Harry Potter characters. With Milicent’s fate in question (I wouldn’t put it past the Ministry to pull a Sirius Black and throw her in Azkaban without trial) it just makes me want more!
It’s great to see the Team 8 meter go up, I personally prefer Team 8 over Nightmares – not that Nightmares is bad!
Though Team 8 is my favorite, progress on any of the stories merits a cheer from me. I’m in for a good read in any case. 😉
Wow, watching that Team 8 bar go up in a week like that was scary-awesome! Which do I prefer, T8 or NoFP? Can’t decide…head explode!
On the story itself, I thought it was all well done, but Ron had no part! He said zilch! Even Ginny had more of a prescense and she hasn’t even appeared yet.
Awesome writing though!
(P.S. Darksbane??? Aww man, next thing ya know I’ll find a Lightbane!)
Oops Ron did say something, my bad.
There’s a very definite reason why Ron is being so quiet…
Whoot for both NoFP and Team8! Hah, I win. True colors is a nice addition to both, as it’s completely different and original. To the manga haters: you don’t have to read Team 8 (although I would recommend it – it’s like the best Naruto fic ever), but stop booing – it’s a great piece of work, and the reason I even found NoFP. Can’t wait for the next chapters in all of these works 🙂
Cheers
PS – I think a few people here might enjoy fanfiction.net/s/2429277/1/Masks_and_Shadows – in which Naruto and the gang are sent to Hogwarts as bodyguards. It’s a nice mix of humor and action/drama. It’s a bit slow to update (like really slow), but it’s still really good.