The Very Long Night Of Harry Potter

Chapter 6- 10:55 P.M.

Time stood still. A heartbeat was a decade; a blink, two score, with a breath containing the birth and adolescence of nations. Harry was sprawled on the floor at Voldemort's feet for an eternity. The windup of the arm holding the vial took millennia. Stars condensed, grew old and died while Voldemort's eyes shone with triumph. Harry's knowledge that he was about to die, was going to die, had died already but was still breathing, that death was coming, lasted long enough for mountain ranges to be built up, worn away and built anew. The running charge of the dog took... The dog?

Sirius, in his Animagus form, barking madly, tackled Voldemort, sending the vial flying. Harry heard it shatter somewhere in the room, followed by an ominous sizzling sound, as time resumed its normal flow.

Tearing and ripping sounds were making their way to Harry's ears from somewhere in the room as Sirius did his best to keep Voldemort at bay, away from Harry, giving him time to recover. Harry heard Voldemort gasp in pain as Sirius growled through what sounded like a mouthful of... something, possibly forearm, or perhaps a different appendage, as the massive black dog did his best to maul the dark wizard.

Harry, feeling incredibly light-headed and weak, with a fair amount of pain in his ribs from Voldemort's kick, managed to get to his feet and whirled through the green clouds, eager to help Sirius finish off Voldemort. Then he heard another shattering sound, a shout of triumph from Voldemort, and a yelp of pain from Sirius.

"Sirius? Sirius!"

Sirius must have transformed back into a human then, as Harry heard Sirius saying thickly, as if in absolute agony, "Take Harry and go! I'll... I'll hold him off for as long as I can..."

Harry stopped in his tracks at these words, his mind flashing back to similar words shouted in similar circumstances, as he thought no, no, NO! Not again! You can't do that to me... Then he felt strong hands suddenly grasp him on both sides as he heard the dog that was Sirius growling once again behind him. Harry fought against their grip as his fragments towed him, involuntarily, towards the door.

"Let me go! I need to help him, he can't die again!"

They emerged into the Great Hall, Harry struggling against Lupin, Cedric and the twins as they strained to hold him back, pulling him towards the door that led out of the Great Hall. Harry could hear assorted tearing, ripping, and smashing noises coming from the room as Sirius kept Voldemort at bay, dancing with death as he bought Harry time to escape.

"Let me go! Let me GO!"

"He's too strong, Harry. You can't fight him now, that potion weakened you too much. Sirius sacrificed himself so you could get away..."

Lupin's words were drowned out by a howl of pain and agony coming from the small room, a howl that could only have been produced in a throat that wasn't human. Harry felt his pain coursing through him, felt him go, the barrier in his mind between him and Sirius down for those few moments as the sounds of battle and destruction ceased, replaced by silence.

Harry stared at the shattered doorway feeling as if his heart would tear itself in two. No, not Sirius... Not again...

Harry heard the door open behind him as the twins manhandled him over the threshold into the entrance hall. When they let go of him, he just stood there, rooted to the spot.

"Harry, run!" he heard them say, yell really, at him. But Harry didn't move as he stared, stunned, at the space where he had just lost his godfather for the second time.

Then Voldemort emerged from the billowing green smoke, looking bloody and weathered, but triumphant. Eyes flashing, he spotted them and, reaching into his robes again, produced another vial as he walked towards them, limping slightly.

"Harry, RUN! You're not strong enough to fight him now... HARRY! RUN!"

Barely registering Lupin's words, Harry ran.

~*~*~*~*~

"And how are we supposed to do that?" Hermione asked the Healer.

Almost wilting under the combined stares of everyone in the room- well, everyone capable of moving as Dawlish and Umbridge were both still laid out on the floor and Harry being in a coma- Healer Alexander somehow managed to continue speaking.

"There is a way to enter the mind of someone in a coma and assist, but it's very uncommonly done and highly dangerous to do. We only use it when there's no other choice, such as now," she said.

"So? How do you do it?" Ginny demanded.

The strawberry-blond Healer took a deep breath and said in a measured rush, "Essentially, the volunteer who will be going to assist the comatose patient takes a specific potion that will put them in a coma and will open his or her mind, dropping a series of unconscious mental barriers. Then, before the volunteer can start his or her own comatose dream, a group of Healers casts a series of spells that connects the two minds and harmonizes the coma-dream of the patient with that of the volunteer. The volunteer will find themselves in the patient's coma-dream and can assist in ending it."

Scrimgeour looked pleased at this. "Fine, then. When Dawlish is awake again," he said, with an irritated glance at the three teenagers, "he'll go under and help Mr. Potter end this whole sorry affair."

Healer Alexander looked mildly uncomfortable at Scrimgeour's statement. Hermione sympathized. It must be hard to contradict someone who could have you fired and then blacklisted with a wave of his hand, she thought and looked at the Minister's expression as Ginny kept her wand on him, and he would enjoy doing it, too, she mentally added to herself.

However, although somewhat hesitantly, the petite brain specialist managed to say, "Pardon me, Minister, but that won't work."

Scrimgeour was obviously reaching the end of his tether from the up and down events of the previous few minutes. In a tone that made Hermione think of wild tigers being held behind rusting bars, he said, gritting his teeth, "And why not?"

Somehow the Healer kept her wits about her as she told the Minister, "Because, sir, connecting two minds under the best of circumstances is difficult. In a situation such as this, it helps if the two people concerned already have a close connection, someone they know and trust..."

Ginny cut in, "And Harry doesn't know Dawlish, and certainly wouldn't trust him, or you, for that matter."

Alexander, acknowledging Ginny's statement with a nod, obviously happy that someone else had taken that pronouncement off of her shoulders, continued, "Which is another reason why this is so rarely done. It has to be a very close connection---a deep friendship or powerful and understanding love, a relationship where both would be willing to risk their own life for the other. Actually, it is a requirement, because going into someone else's mind like this is a very dangerous thing. The volunteer would find themselves in the coma-dream, but since it would not be their dream, or, even a true dream, so their mind and the spell combined would make it real, meaning that it would be lacking the mental protection that would wake them in the case of danger. If the volunteer were to die in the dream, he or she would die out here. Also, since they would be mentally bound to the pat... to Mr. Potter, if he dies in there, if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named kills him, the voulnteer would die with him." At this, the overheated warmth of the crowded room seemed to cool significantly.

Ginny, however, seemed unperturbed by this dire statement. Instead, she seized on what the specialist Healer had said before.

"So, just to make sure I understood, for someone to be able to join with Harry like this, they have to be close to him to begin with?" she asked, anxious.

The Healer nodded.

Hermione spoke up, "So that means the only people who are qualified for this are myself, Ron and Ginny. We're the only ones close enough to him for this to work." She took a deep breath. "I'll do it."

"Me, too!" Ron and Ginny both eagerly said in unison.

"No. Absolutely not," Mrs. Weasley said. "Do you hear me, Ron, Ginny? You will not do this. Hermione can go, if she wishes, not that I could stop her, but you two are my children, and I will not stand here and watch you put yourselves in danger fighting that... that monster."

Both of younger Weasleys immediately protested their mother's edict. Loudly.

"Mum! How can you say that?!"

"But I'm of age!"

"Harry has saved half of the family..."

"He's my best mate..."

"...including me when I was being possessed..."

By the looks of him, Scrimgeour would have been amused at their protests if their wands hadn't also been pointing at him and his party at the time, their agitation making red and gold sparks shoot out of the tips. Instead, he looked somewhat worried, making sure that none of the sparks landed on him, and most definitively irritated at having been shoved off to the side.

Nobody noticed the Healers conversing with each other quietly by the door as all of this was going on, not even Umbridge, whose beady little eyes were darting back and forth between Scrimgeour and the Weasleys as if she was watching a hyperactive tennis match as she lay on the floor.

Pomfrey was saying softly to her subordinate who had dangled this carrot in front of Harry's friends, "Lyta, you're not suggesting that we use...?"

"...Harry would do the same for me..."

The petite Healer whispered back, "...the Communicus Morpheus potion? Yes. It's the only way we can help Mr. Potter under these circumstances."

"...Mum, please, he's practically family..."

"Are you certain?" Pomfrey asked, still whispering. Alexander nodded.

"...he needs our help, Mum! We can't make him fight Voldemort alone!"

Hermione looked around at the adults who were cringing and wincing at the name with a bit of disgust as Ron and Ginny continued their pleading rants and said, irritated, "Oh, come off it. Would you prefer if we used his real name?"

"...he's in danger in there, and I'm going to help him and you can't stop me!"

"There is a problem with that," Pomfrey whispered to Alexander, indicating the three teens with a nod of her head, as she straightened her glasses.

"...you should be ashamed of yourself, Mum. We owe so much to Harry as a family..."

"I know," the younger Healer said softly back. "Do you want to tell them, or should I?"

"...Dad with the snake bite, and myself with the poisoned mead, and..."

"I will," Pomfrey said, and, raising her voice, she suddenly cut into the din of objections coming from the two youngest Weasleys.

"As good as it is to see how loyal the three of you are to Mr. Potter, I have to inform you that we only have enough of the potion required for this procedure for a single dose."