Harry pulled himself from the bed and crossed to Severus. "That doesn't matter. How is he?"
"As you can see, Poppy healed most of the open wounds and abrasions," Hermione said. "She was able to repair his broken nose and reset his shoulder and hip joints, plus she did a ton of internal organ healings. He's out of danger now."
Harry breathed a deep, relieved sigh. It was a small thing, but he was glad to see that they'd cleaned Severus up. Even his hair seemed to have been washed.
"He looks much better," Harry said. He was standing on Severus' left side, so the stump where his right hand should be wasn't noticeable.
"Harry . . . ." Hermione hesitantly started.
"Hmmm?" Harry had reached out to lay his hand in Severus' hair. He still wasn't able to believe that they'd gotten him back alive.
"Severus' right hand and his tongue . . . they're – they're gone," Hermione said. "This morning I borrowed your Invisibility cloak and went to that Muggle castle Burke was hiding in to search for them. They're nowhere to be found."
"I couldn't find them either, even with a powerful summoning charm," Harry said. "I think the bastard vanished them."
"That's not good," Hermione said.
"I know," Harry said. "I'll go back later and try again, but I think they're gone for good."
"There were Aurors all over the place," Hermione warned.
"I thought there would be. Once I blew Burke's wards, there wouldn't be anything to stop them from finding his remains." Harry had known once he'd destroyed Burke's security wards that the Ministry would be on the place right away. He'd also been fairly certain no one would find the missing . . . items. He supposed that he shouldn't be surprised that Hermione had gone to look for Severus' missing body parts. She'd always had the courage of a lion. "Thank you for looking, though."
Normally, lost limbs and body parts would have been a tragedy to the afflicted wizard. Broken bones could be healed or re-grown. Damaged organs repaired. But when a limb was amputated or a tongue or eye removed, and the body part remained lost, there was nothing that could be done magically. That was why old Mad Eye Moody had had to use a prosthetic on his missing leg and that weird, mechanical eye. As far as Harry knew, the Wizarding World had yet to invent a substitute for a missing tongue. If he couldn't use his powers to help Severus, his lover was in for a long, hard time of it.
Even if he could use his powers, Harry knew this wasn't going to be as easy as what he'd done for Ron. Ron's body had been intact. He'd just needed to give Ron sufficient power to repair the hideous damage done to him. If he were able to do this, and he knew this was a definite if, he was going to have to re-grow the hand and tongue from scratch. Like re-growing bones, that was going to be an extremely painful process.
Staring down at Severus' unconscious face, Harry said, "I'm going to try to use my powers to heal them."
"To re-grow missing body parts?" Ron asked in the tone a Muggle would use to question someone who'd just announced his intention to fly without mechanical assistance.
"I thought you'd say that," Hermione said from beside Harry, sounding pleased. "If anyone can do it, you can."
"I hope so. Can I ask you to sit with him for a while? I want to go down to the dungeon and brew up a batch of that Sanguinis Philos potion. It made the connection easier." Looking down at Severus' unconscious face, Harry said, "I know he probably won't wake for some time, but if he does, I don't want him to be alone."
"Of course, I'll stay with him," Hermione answered.
"You're going to brew a potion?" Ron asked in that same incredulous tone.
"I've actually become quite good at it," Harry said, not quite bragging. "Come down and watch if you like."
Recalling what he needed, Harry manifested a pair of scissors out of the air with a thought and then snipped off a small hank of Severus' hair. After all his lover had suffered, Harry felt guilty about taking even that small liberty, but it was the only way to help Severus. Once he had the hair, Ron and he left for the Potions lab.
They were on the moving staircase that was slowly shifting them from the east side of the stairwell to the west when Harry remembered Burke's wand. As he was still wearing yesterday's clothes and robe, when he looked in his pocket, the yew wand was still there. For that matter, Severus and his own were in his other pocket. It was a miracle he hadn't broken any of them when he collapsed last night.
"Um, you'd better give this to your boss," Harry said, handing Burke's wand over to Ron. "It's Burke's."
"Oh, that's where it got to. Thanks, Harry. Chief Lawrence thought it had burned up with Burke," Ron said, taking the wand.
The image of those blue flames consuming Burke's living flesh flashed through Harry's mind. Realizing that the Ministry must have questions concerning Burke's grisly demise, he asked, "Does Lawrence want to talk to me?"
"He wanted to last night," Ron said. "I explained that Severus was mortally injured and that you can't be spared at the moment. I answered most of his questions. Told him that you'd told me what happened before you passed out last night. Mostly, he wanted to know what spell you used to kill Burke."
"It wasn't a spell." Harry felt his stomach tighten as he told Ron in a voice so low that even the portraits wouldn't overhear him, "I used mage fire."
"Yeah, I reckoned that was what you did," Ron said, seeming both unsurprised and unperturbed by the knowledge that his best friend had killed a man using a power that hadn't been seen in over three hundred years.
"What did Lawrence say when you told him?" Harry asked, wondering if there would be anywhere in the world he could hide once his true nature became common knowledge.
"When I told him what?" Ron asked as they stepped off the staircase.
Barely able to hold back a snap, Harry took a deep breath and whispered, "That I used mage fire to kill Burke."
Ron stared at him as if he'd taken leave of his senses, which was a very real possibility after the stress of the last three days.
"I didn't tell him that. Do you think I want to get you killed?" Ron asked.
"You didn't tell him?" Harry repeated.
Ron appeared almost offended. "Of course not. I'm not stupid. I know how paranoid the Ministry is about the rise of Dark Lords. They find out you can do something like that, and you'd never have another moment's peace."
"What did you tell him, then?" Harry asked, utterly confused.
"I told him that you were in a duel fighting for your life and that you weren't sure what happened. I suggested that your shields must have deflected that Corpus Accendio spell Burke used on me and my team last week and that it must have bounced back and took out Burke before he could block it," Ron said.
"You -" Harry didn't know what to say. That wasn't what had happened, but it was a perfectly logical explanation for the state of Burke's corpse. Normally, Ron was a pathetic liar. He was shocked that Ron had come up with the idea. It was a very Slytherin explanation. "Lawrence believed you?"
Looking a little self-conscious, Ron said, "I know I'm not that good at lying, but I can when I have to. I, er, reminded him how powerful your shields have always been, how you deflected Avada Kedavra when you were just a baby. If the Chief questions you, you just tell him that you're not sure what Burke threw at you in the duel, but you just bounced it back at him. I don't know if he'll even bother with you at this point. They're all just relieved the bastard's dead."
Harry paused at the top of the last stairs to the dungeon. He felt totally adrift, grateful on the one hand for what Ron had done, but worried. Lying to the Ministry and the Aurors could put him in Azkaban. "I . . . if the truth comes out, you could lose your job over this."
"Better I lose my job than I lose you," Ron said. "You know the kind of circus this will turn into if the media gets wind of what you can do."
"I know, it's just . . . I don't want you to get into trouble because of me," Harry said, warmed by Ron's words despite his overwhelming guilt. With everything that had happened in the last three days, he knew he couldn't handle getting Ron fired right now.
"Look, if the Ministry goes after you for how you put down that monster, I don't want the damn job."
Harry knew Ron meant the words, but that didn't make him feel any better about what could happen to Ron. "Ron -"
"Harry, that fucker killed my entire team. I don't care what you did to put him out of action, and, frankly, it's none of the Ministry's damn business. You did the job we couldn't do. No one's going to persecute you for how you did it, not while I'm around. Whatever happens, the decision was mine and it was the right one to make," Ron insisted.
"I just hate the idea of your having to lie for me," Harry said, reaching out to squeeze Ron's arm.
"If they weren't such paranoid cowards, there wouldn't have been a need for lies. We both know what, well, who we're dealing with here, so there's no sense agonizing over it. Whatever happens, will happen. There's no point in worrying about it until it does," Ron said.
"You know you're the best best friend ever, right?" Harry asked, aware how lucky he was to have this special man in his life.
"Funny, I was just thinking the same thing myself," Ron said with a grin as they stepped off the stairs and turned down the Slytherin corridor. "Come on. Show me this Potions expertise you've acquired from Severus."
At Ron's mention of the Potions lab, Harry froze in his tracks.
"What?" Ron asked, pulling his wand from the pocket of his brown house robes and staring around the corridor as though they'd just been ambushed.
"Sorry. I just realized it's a school day. I'm supposed to be teaching right now," Harry said, running a hand through his messy hair, at a loss as to what to do. As much as teaching meant to him, there was no way he could leave Severus right now.
"It's okay. Minerva cancelled all classes at breakfast in the Great Hall this morning. She gave the kids the day off so that Hermione and I could wait for you to wake up. And, you don't have to worry about teaching tomorrow or anytime before Severus is up and around," Ron added.
"Huh?" Harry asked, murmuring the ward to Severus' private Potions lab once they'd stopped before its door. "How's that?"
"Minerva is arranging coverage for both Severus and your classes," Ron said.
"Coverage? Who's she got to cover our classes?" Harry wondered.
"Well, since I'm officially off duty from the Aurors for the next two months to recuperate from Burke's attack, I'm going to take the DADA classes. Hermione's got a free third period, so she's going to take that Potions class, Neville's taking first period Potions, Gavin took fifth period, Flitwick's covering second, and Minerva is going to cover the other three classes. So you don't have to worry about anything other than helping Severus get better," Ron said, patting his shoulder.
"God, Ron, that's putting a lot of work on you. You're supposed to be resting," Harry reminded.
Ron shrugged. "So long as I don't have to expend any power on spells, I can rest just as easy in the DADA classroom as in our quarters. Honestly, Harry, I'm grateful for the distraction. It takes my mind off . . . you know."
Harry nodded. He knew Ron was still having nightmares about the attack that had taken the lives of the rest of his squad. "Thanks. Like I said, the best best friend ever."
Ron blushed, his blue eyes moving to take in Severus' lab as they entered the room. There was a strange keening sound emerging from the work area that wasn't normally there.
"What's that noise?" Ron asked, staring around the dark lab as though one of Aragog's children might pop down from the ceiling to catch him in a web.
With only the fires under the cauldrons lighting the place, the lab had a frightening dungeon aspect to it that Harry had become inured to during the months he'd been with Severus. But he knew how menacing this place would appear to Ron.
Harry looked over at the keening cauldron. "It's an experiment Severus is working on. Don't worry about the noise."
"It's weird, is all. Gives me the shivers," Ron confessed.
"Me, too, but it's perfectly harmless," Harry assured, lighting the wall torches with a thought. The light made the wailing less eerie.
'This is his private lab?" Ron asked, eyeing the six counters, three of which had cauldrons actively brewing on them at the moment.
"Yeah," Harry said, going over to the shelf on the far wall where Severus had left the ingredients they'd used to make the batch of Sanguinis Philos that had saved Ron's life last week.
"It's pretty impressive," Ron said.
Harry was so used to the place now that he barely saw it anymore. "It is, isn't it?" he murmured as he collected the ingredients he'd need.
"Merlin's beard, that noise is awful. What's it doing?" Ron asked, gesturing towards the keening cauldron that was filled with a churning orange gelatinous mass. It was the orange goo that was emitting the crying sound that was eerily similar to that of a newborn.
"That one is pure experimentation," Harry said, unable to stop the smile that spilled over his face when he remembered Severus telling him about it. "It will either increase fertility or transform into an artificial child when it's done."
"What? What do you mean 'an artificial child?" Ron sounded understandably horrified.
