Chapter 188: Waking-Up, Recap, Reveal (1/2)
If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @
[ ]
The link is also in the synopsis.
.
-*-*-*-*-*-
.
”Oh, look! He's waking up,” was the first thing Quinn heard when he opened his eyes — but something felt wrong — it was as if something was missing.
”Where?” he asked. Quinn tried to groggily sit up, but his attempts brought a sharp pain in his head, causing him to hiss in pain.
”Don't get up,” he heard his favorite faculty's voice.
”Madam Pomfrey.. .. where am I? What happened to me.. . .” Quinn looked around with his out of focus vision, and he could recognize hospital wings' curtains and Poppy sitting on a barstool by his bedside.
”You suddenly collapsed in the middle of the third task and wouldn't get up.”
”I collapsed?” said Quinn in slight disbelief, ”that doesn't sound right—”
”Are you sure?” Poppy cut him off, ”you have been pretty busy this year. Even with all the things you had to do for the quidditch tournament this year, you didn't skip our lessons, neither did you skip your classes; furthermore, you took on the hosting — which would have been fine if you didn't decide to go overboard with it.”
”.. .. but the quidditch tournament was over a couple weeks back, I had time to rest,” argued Quinn while sitting up despite the protest from Poppy. His vision was still a little off — it was irritating him.
Moreover, Poppy didn't know his true magical capabilities — in no way would the magic used while hosting put so much stress on him that he would collapse and that too in front of him.
”Clearly, it wasn't enough, or you didn't actually rest in those past weeks,” chided Poppy, ”furthermore, you were using faulty magic,” she sighed, ”Quinn, you should take more care while using self-created, untested magic — it could be dangerous — no it was dangerous.”
”What?” Quinn tilted his head. His head was finally clearing up, and his mind was getting back on track, ”my magic.. .. faulty? That's not possible, Madam Pomfrey. My self-created magics aren't faulty; they never were and won't be in the future.”
”Then how do you explain that?” Poppy pointed towards Quinn's hand.
”Huh? What?” Quinn raised his hand to touch his face, and his eye widened when his fingers found the rough texture, ”why is my head bandaged,” he felt around to find that the upper right side of his face was covered, ”did I hit my head when I collapsed?”
Then it hit Quinn. Why his vision felt wrong. It wasn't his head that was covered in gauze bandages — it was his right eye that was covered. He looked at Poppy and asked,
”Madam Pomfrey.. .. what did you mean when you said how do I explain that? What's wrong with me?”
Poppy sighed at the confusion on Quinn's covered face, ”Quinn, whatever magic you used, it faulted, and it burned through your eye.. .. completely.”
Quinn stared at the matron as if she was joking, but she wasn't.
”By the time I got to you, your eyeball was nothing more than goopy sludge, resulting in severe damage to your optic nerves, which caused you to pass out from the trauma.”
”.. .. I lost my eye!” exclaimed Quinn, almost clawing out his bandages. ”M-Madam Pomfrey, is—”
”You'll be fine. Fortunately, there wasn't any permanent damage — your faulty magic didn't turn into a dark curse. You'll have your eye back in a week, and by the end of the second, your vision will mature to normal.”
”Two weeks, huh,” sighed Quinn, ”two weeks with one eye. Damn it! But, Madam Pomfrey, I'm quite sure that I didn't make a mistake while designing the magic. It took months to—”
”Quinn, I'm not aware of the details of the magic you used, but I do know your eye melted due to a magic overload. From what I learned from my time in the spell damage ward at St. Mungos is that spells mostly fail due to the imbalance in the internal magic structure — your case is a classic example of that.”
Quinn wanted to continue his progress but held his tongue. He knew that there was no use to continue. Quinn still believed that his magic was airtight solid — the second task wasn't the first time he had used the artificial eye; he had been using it for tests for much longer; not only that, but Quinn had spent many hours using the eye to make himself used to the dual vision and not once had the spell gone bad on him — he seriously doubted that it was the magic's fault.
”Your family has been made aware of your condition this morning. They've sent back that they will be here sometime after noon. You'll be going with them instead of the Hogwarts Express,” said Poppy as she stood up.
”Noon, huh,” groaned Quinn; he wasn't looking forward to that conversation, ”wait a minute, noon?! How long was I out? What time is it?”
”It's nine. You slept through the night,” said Poppy, ”now, excuse me, Quinn. I have some important appointments that I need to deal with.” She had to make sure that the Hogwart female students understood what they needed to take (potion-wise) for regulation of their monthly cycle — for the next couple of months, she wasn't going to be with them, and Poppy preferred that they continued with the potion regime as it made her job much more manageable when they returned.
”Ah, yes, thank you, Madam Pomfrey,” nodded Quinn; while he wanted to ask her what happened last night, he knew the matron was busy this time of the year.
After she left, Quinn silently sat on his bed — he was at least sure that Harry Potter was alive because if he was dead, Poppy would've said something — the death of the Boy-Who-Lived would've been hard to ignore.
”Let's just hope Voldemort is revived,” whispered Quinn; his decision to send Harry off was a success only if Voldemort was back in power. ”I need to find out what happened. But before that.. . .”
Quinn conjured in front of him and looked at his reflection — he looked like a certain evil head of a super-secret organization of elemental-controlling ninjas who kept one of his eyes hidden under bandages.
”This isn't my style,” said Quinn and snapped his finger for the gauze to come undone and fall into his lap. His nose scrunched up when he saw the black-blue-red around his eye and the loose eyelid, ”I hope two weeks would pass soon enough.”
Quinn glanced down at the white roll of gauze and concentrated his magic for the bandage to shift and distort before it turned into a black-triangular eyepatch (without string.) He picked it up and gently placed it over his eye such that it would cover all the colored parts of his eye.
”Much, much better,” smiled Quinn into the mirror. This way, not only did he look good, but it also dulled the impact of the injury — something he critically needed when his family came to take him home.
”Now, let's go and find out what happened.”
.
- (Scene Break) -
.
Quinn wasn't the only one in the hospital wing at the moment. In another corner sat the Potter family with Dumbledore and Moody — once again going over Harry's account of what had happened last night.
Cornelius Fudge had denied any of their pleas to declare that Voldemort had come back to life. The minister had grabbed onto the Peter Pettigrew part of the story and had ignored every aspect, declaring Harry a victim of dark magic that had caused him to become confused. The official ministry-approved news in the papers was that Peter Pettigrew had abducted Harry Potter with intentions to kill him(100% true), but Harry Potter was able to fight his captor off and return to Hogwarts.
Seeing that the first and most impactful release of information had told an incorrect story, Dumbledore once again wanted to hear the details now that Harry was calm and settled so that he could have a better grasp of the situation.
”Voldemort's back, Harry, I believe you,” said Dumbledore; he was never really gone, ”but how did he do it?”
Harry glanced at his feet on the bed and recalled what he had seen, ”He took bones from his father's grave and from Wormtail, and then from me,” he rubbed his forehead, ”Wormtail recited it — bone of father, unknowingly given, the flesh of servant willingly sacrificed, and blood enemy taken forcibly — yeah, that's what he had said,” Harry looked at Dumbledore and gravely spoke, ”he was able to touch me, professor.”
Harry could only weakly smiled at his mother when he felt her squeeze in hand in support. It meant that the protection granted by his grandmother's sacrifice couldn't protect him anymore.
”How did he look, Harry?” asked Dumbledore.
”Flat and snakelike face, with gleaming red eyes,” answered Harry; he couldn't forget that face even if he wanted to, ”tall and skeletally thin with a grey pallor — he was barely human.”
Ivy, who was also present, thought back to the photo of Tom Riddle she had seen in an old record stored in the library. The Hogwarts Voldemort was a charming person. If she didn't know the name of that face, she would've never pegged him to be a Dark Lord.