Harry woke to a familiar and welcome warmth pressed against his side, along with the soft rumble of his mate's purring and the jangling sensation in his nerves that he guessed was the after-effects of his encounter with the Cruciatus curse. He really hadn't thought Nott would go that far... The boy was dangerous, not to mention the fact that he knew the spell at all, let alone that he was willing to use it. As he opened his eyes, he caught sight of the ever efficient Madam Pomfrey, and knew exactly where he was.
"You know what, Madam Pomfrey?" he inquired as she reached his bedside, looking down at Hermione's furry form snuggled against him with a look that said she was clearly perplexed as to how Miss Granger came to be there. "As often as I've been in this bed, you could probably add a brass plate with the tally and auction it off for a small fortune." He winced as he sat up, dislodging the bushy-haired catgirl from his shoulder. As Hermione yawned and stretched, a sight which did 'terrible but great' things to his insides, the medi-witch smiled.
"You, Mr Potter, are one very lucky boy," she stated firmly. "If Mr Nott over there," she waved her hand at a bed on the opposite side of the ward which had two Aurors next to it, "had been any more skilled with that vile curse, you would have a far longer recovery than this." She cast several diagnostic charms as she went on. "If you'd been fully human, you'd have shrugged that horrible spellwork off easily. The boy should not have been able to do more than make you itch. It seems that a combination of his desire to hurt you through harming Miss Granger and your own nerves, which transmit far faster and more efficiently than a humans can, conspired against you. You'll always have a particularly hard time of it with that curse, and since you fought through it rather than let it flow, it caused even more pain than it otherwise would. Now..."
She was cut off as another Auror burst into the room, waving a piece of parchment in his left hand and brandishing his wand in his right. "Mr Potter, you are under arrest for the assault of Theodore Zachary Nott," roared John Dawlish, who then promptly hurled a Stunning Curse at Harry. The curse spent itself on the pillow Hermione threw in its path as she pulled her own wand out. Dawlish had a glazed look about his eyes, she saw, although exactly what that meant, she didn't know. Not knowing anything was a major source of annoyance for her, and as Dawlish, believing his first spell to have been enough, lowered his wand, even as the pillow exploded in a cloud of feathers, she hurled a spell of her own in return. "Incarcerus!"
The ropes that bound Dawlish were a little tight, owing to her emotional state. The two Aurors guarding the young Nott's bed had both stood, and the larger of the two, a big black fellow named Kingsley Shacklebolt, had his wand aimed at the boy lying there, who although he occasionally twitched in pain, didn't wake. The other was a trainee, a young woman with bubblegum-pink hair who almost stumbled into the central aisle between the beds. Something Tonks was her name, Hermione recalled vaguely, then remembered the woman's first name, mostly due to the fuss she kicked up about hating the name 'Nymphadora'. Kneeling, the bright-haired Auror checked the man on the floor.
"Imperiused, Shack," she called to her partner. "Five galleons to fifteen Malformed's got an alibi, too." The swelling of the blond man's jaw had never gone down after Amelia Bones had broken it, and the new nickname had stuck. Picking up the parchment, she gave it a once-over. "False arrest papers, someone wanted the Ministry at war with Potter over this."
Tonks asked to use Madam Pomfrey's floo, then headed off in the direction of the medi-witch's office. As she did, Madam Pomfrey turned once again to the kitty couple. "As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted," she said. "Now how did you get on that bed without me noticing, Miss Granger?"
Hermione smiled, a sheepish grin. "I went barefoot and used a Schroedinger Charm," she answered. She snuggled next to Harry once more and resumed purring, managing to speak as she did. "Did you know that muggle doctors did a study and found that patients with a purring cat recovered quicker?" Seeing the sceptical look on Madam Pomfrey's face, she continued quickly. "Honest, I'm not making it up. Apparently the cat's purr made them want to feel better, and where the mind led, the body followed."
The older witch glared at the young feline. "Interesting. And you bring this up now out of pure benevolence? Somehow I think your ulterior motive is showing. I'll let it pass this once." Now she turned to the catboy. "Mr Potter, no-one has any right to blame or attack you for what happened, but your claws did a lot more than simply scar Mr Nott, I'm afraid. I can't say whether or not it's a good thing, considering what he tried to do,but your venom has done serious damage to his nerves and muscles, especially across his chest. I was able to neutralise most of it before it killed him, but he's never going to have the strength in his left arm to lift his wand again, and he'll have weakened muscles throughout his chest. Including his heart. His father is arguing for a lesser sentence because he's a minor, but with as many witnesses as there were... Let's just say it's not going well for him."
Harry's heart felt like it was in a vise. In a moment of anger and instinct, he'd nearly killed a classmate, and he would never be proud of himself for that. But if he hadn't, then Hermione would be the one suffering in this bed. His nerves twitched and jangled with pain again, emphasising the thought. "There is no winner in a war," he murmured, " for it cannot determine who is right... only who is left." Hermione heard him, but could do little more than hug him a little tighter and double the intensity of her purring.
It took two days for Madam Pomfrey to agree to his 'escape' from the hospital wing, and then a rather large package arrived. Calling a meeting of the Chaos in the Chamber, the two felines opened it to find ten smaller boxes, each of lacquered ebony engraved with tigers in a fractal pattern. It seemed that the goblins had a sense of humour after all. Each box also bore a brass plate with a name engraved into it: Amber and Emerald were the first two, sitting at the top of the larger box, with the others arranged two-by-two beneath them. Once everyone was assembled, Harry distributed the boxes and their contents: each held a set of Basilisk-hide armour, engraved about the collars and joints with sizing and comfort enchantments, and including boots, gloves and a hooded cloak as well as the basic jacket and leggings. A note on the bottom of the box included a statement on the costs, and asked what they wished to do with the remaining half of the hide.
Everybody insisted on donning their armour then and there, well, not then and there, but with some privacy afforded by temporarily conjured walls, they were soon clad in the green-tinged black armour, with their Chaos names worked into the left breast above their hearts in the dominant colour of their House.
Ron pretty much summed it up as he pulled the hood of his cloak low over his face. "Admit it, guys, this stuff is wickedly cool."
"Yes, Ron," Daphne answered, rolling her eyes behind him. "It's also highly useful, especially if there are more people out there like Nott. You know the ones, more magic than brains."
Isn't that most of the Wizarding World? wondered Hermione. Except us, of course. Harry tried in vain not to chuckle, as it still hurt a little when he laughed.
An interesting enchantment had been placed on their armour, in addition to the various magics that allowed the garments to resize as their wearer grew, and to maintain their physical comfort in a wide range of temperatures and weather conditions. A simple command caused the outfits to transform into a pair of wide, basilisk-hide wrist-bands, or changed them back, and the command was set as the wearer's Chaotic name, and since the enchantment only responded to the wearer, it was a fairly secure set-up.
Harry, with advice from the others in the Chaos, requested that all the remaining hide be made into magic resistant cloaks, although he had not decided whether they would be sold or gifted to friends and allies yet. Once Hedwig was on her way with the message, the various members headed to their dorms. Harry waylaid Hermione, and the two passed a pleasant interlude stargazing on the Astronomy Tower under his cloak.
Ginevra hated her name. It was too fancy for Jennifer, and not fancy enough for Guinevere. She wasn't even sure where her mother had come up with it from. As the young, part-phoenix witch wandered the corridors on this fine Saturday, with Valentine's Day only a few days off the older members of the Chaos having paired off for the Hogsmeade weekend (Ron had even manned up and asked Daphne if she'd do him the honour of allowing him to bask in her company; she'd poked his ribs with her spoon, but said yes), Ginny heard quiet choked sobs. She turned the corner and there, wedged between a suit of armour and the alcove wall, was Luna, crying as if she'd lost a friend.
"Luna? What's wrong?" she wasn't demanding anything, but she really wanted her childhood friend to answer. "Can I help with something?"
Luna raised her head, eyes brimming with tears. "No," she sobbed, choking back a great sorrow. "It has to happen. If it doesn't things get worse, and we lose Hermione, and Harry goes Dark, and the world is doo-hoo-hoomed!" Although Ginny didn't fully understand her friend, she knew she needed something, so the fledgling heliopath flared herself into the alcove behind the armour, and hugged Luna tight. Some of what she'd heard had sent chills up her spine. Her friend's childhood predictions had always had an odd habit of coming true, and she really didn't want to imagine a truly dark and evil Harry, without Hermione's presence and heart to temper him.
"What has to happen, Luna?" she asked, uncertain if she really wanted to hear the answer, but unwilling to let the other girl bear it all alone.
"Harry has to kill someone, Ginny. He has to kill Umbridge."
The first warning anyone had of the emergency was the darkness that seemed to blacken the skies as over a hundred dementors gathered above Hogsmeade, and charged downwards into the town, filled with young couples and friends and happy memories. One person walked to the centre of town, clad almost identically to a dementor herself, with one glaring difference to the vile bodyguard that closed about her as she raised her right hand, clad in the stygian-black metal gauntlet that allowed her to command the terrible creatures. That difference was the fact that Delores Umbridge's tattered cloak was a horrendous shade of pink. It had taken her weeks to master this many of the horrors, and her efforts showed on her frame. No longer was she the horribly toad-like woman of days gone by. Now her flesh was taut and sparse, as if she were becoming one of the very things she now controlled. One word only did she say as the townsfolk, students and staff members realised exactly who she was and why they were doomed.
"Feed."