Restitution

"Restitution"

by Paracelsus

Prologue the First: An Anonymous Room

The room might have anywhere in the westernized world. It was a Spartan room, with walls painted off-white and a throw rug on the wooden floor. It contained a few chairs and a short table with a telephone. The windows had their blinds drawn; light came from the fluorescent electric bulbs in the ceiling. Anything that might have provided a clue to the room's location or purpose had been stripped.

At the moment it was occupied by half a dozen people. They wore dark robes reminiscent of academic gowns, but no outside observer would have mistaken them for academicians. Their faces were unmasked - it was easier to converse when the eyes and mouth could be seen - but there was an odd distortion of their features and voices, so that hair color, facial marks, even gender were impossible to determine.

Two of the figures were seated, while the other four stood before them. Our theoretical outside observer would have read several cues - the nervousness of the standing four, perhaps, or the ease and disdain of the seated two - and known that the seated figures were decidedly in charge, and the standing figures very much subordinate to them.

"Let me see if I understand this," said one of the seated figures pleasantly. "He was confined to a hospital bed - too weak to escape, too confused to defend himself. He had no wand, no magic, and no memories. No one was guarding him and the only people nearby were a handful of Muggles." The pleasant tenor took on a razor sharpness. "And you still couldn't manage to kill him?"

Three of the four standing figures looked as though they would have slunk away if they'd dared. The fourth was of sterner stuff: he held himself with a military bearing, and he spoke in clipped phrases as taught at Sandhurst:

"Sir. The target's very lack of magic prevented the location charms from operating as promised. By the time the target had been acquired, his friends had already joined him. Any attempt to carry out the mission at that point would have resulted in a public display of magic, which your own standing orders have disallowed. Sir."

"Failure with excuse, captain, is still failure," replied the seated figure, in a soft voice like a sword sliding from its scabbard. There was a deathly stillness in the room for a moment.

The second seated figure leaned forward and broke the silence. "Perhaps it's for the best..."

"For the best?!" The first seated figure sounded incredulous. "He was alone, he didn't even know who he was, and he had no magic! It was the best chance we've ever had..."

"Exactly. The best chance we've ever had. And it still may not have been good enough." The second figure raised a hand to quell the other's indignation. "Think about it. This makes the second time Potter's survived Avada Kedavra. Once might be dismissed as a lucky fluke - but twice? Can you honestly call it coincidence? Would you stake everything on that assumption?"

The first seated figure didn't answer. The second figure pressed on: "And if Potter is immune to Dark magic now, how were our operatives supposed to kill him? Considering we're still undercover, trying not to draw attention to ourselves... No, this may be for the best. Now everyone's attention will be drawn to Potter's miraculous recovery. No one will notice us... until it's too late."

After a moment, the first seated figure nodded agreement. "I knew there's a reason I keep you around. You're right, as usual." Turning back to the four standing figures: "Very well, you may go. Keep low profiles, and hold yourselves in readiness until I contact you again. Dismissed."

With a sharp series of cracks, the four figures vanished. The two seated figures showed no surprise, as if teleportation were the most natural thing in their world. The first figure stood and stretched, then remarked conversationally, "I want him dead."

"I know you do," the other sympathized. "But let's not lose sight of our main goal. We've begun some good work down here, and I'd hate to see it wasted."

"It won't go to waste," said the first. "In fact, it might prove the foundation of our comeback. I've been considering the matter... We can make better progress here than ever we could at home: the country's more isolated, and the locals are fragmented. And with the resources we've discovered here... This could prove the launching point for our Lord's dream just as surely as any place in England."

The other smiled and, taking a wand from an inner pocket, began to remove the glamour that had disguised her (now visibly her) features. "Our Lord never intended His work to be confined to a single country. We have an entire world to save." She grimaced. "And millions of vermin to eradicate... well, great dreams require great efforts."

"Not to mention the great wealth and power that come with success, eh?" The first figure was likewise dispelling a glamour, revealing his own features. "Ideology is all well and good, my dear, but it has its place. Our work is a means to an end, after all. Restoration of our fortunes... essential, of course. Destroying his life's work, and those idiots he calls friends... those are certainly pleasures. But to see him dead, dead at my feet..."

He turned and looked at her with the first suggestion of fervor in his face. His eyes began to gleam, even as his voice maintained that chilling calmness. "That may not be our main goal, as you put it, but it's certainly mine." His voice narrowed to an icy hiss. "You're a dead man, Potter. It's only a question of when."

*

Prologue the Second: A Woodland Pool

If one knows where to look, there are secluded spots where the westernized world doesn't intrude so strongly... where one can find trees and wildflowers, and streams, and occasional solitude. One such spot is Bottle Lake Forest, on the northern outskirts of Christchurch. Beside a still pool of water in the forest knelt Margaret Pohuhu. Her hands were outstretched flat, palms downward and nearly touching the water's surface.

She closed her eyes and tried again to concentrate on the sensations in her hands. She tried again to feel the eddies and nuances of the pool - to feel its comings and goings, its flora and fauna, its past and future - but succeeded only in feeling miserably cold and wet.

Which, considering it was midnight, midwinter, and drizzling rain, was hardly surprising. Tell me again why I'm freezing my bum off out here, she asked herself silently.

Knuckles rapped the back of her head. Oh yeah, that's right...

"You are losing your focus, child," her Nana said from behind her. "Do not concentrate so hard. Relax your mind. You're trying to make it happen. Simply let it happen..."

Wonderful. I've wandered into an Oriental philosophy class. Zen and the art of Maoritanga...

"And you can keep your smart remarks to yourself, young lady."

Margaret seethed silently. I was!!

A sigh from behind her. "Begin again. Empty your mind, fill your hands. The water lives and moves. Let its mauri flow through your hands. The mauri flows as the water flows..."

Obediently, Margaret returned to her exercise, which Nana had insisted was essential to understanding her healing hands. She tried to calm herself again: a deep breath, a slow exhale, a forced relaxation of muscles. She was careful not to touch the water, keeping her hands a hairsbreadth above its surface. Her hands had power, she knew... they could register what the eyes could not, what the mind would not... let the pool talk to her through her hands...

Her palms began to tingle.

"They sleep," Margaret found herself saying. "The eels. Three of them, in the far corner under the rock that looks like a patella. They'll look for food at dawn... Someone threw an empty beer bottle into the pool last month, but a good person cleaned it out the next day. Young, female, pakeha. Tourist? I can't tell."

She jerked her hands away from the water and opened her eyes in surprise. "I did it," she whispered. She swiveled, still kneeling on the ground, and grinned at her grandmother. "I did it!" For a moment Margaret felt like a gleeful child with a shiny new toy.

Nana Pohuhu didn't return her smile. "You did it once. Once is nothing. The power is there all the time. You should be able to use it all the time."

"I'm trying!" Margaret's smile had been replaced with a scowl. "It's only been a few days since I learned about my, my... my gift." Despite everything that had happened, she still found it hard to say the word magic aloud - as though to say it would make it more real.

"I knew before you did."

"Yes, Nana, I'm sure you did. But it wasn't really here until I knew. And I had to learn about it the hard way." From medical miracles at the hospital. From an honest-no-lie sorcerer named Jim... named Harry. From the tingling in my hand when he kissed it.

She shook the distracting memories out of her head and addressed Nana more calmly. "Less than a week, either way. That's not a lot of time to learn how this works, and what I can do with it."

Nana regarded her serenely for a moment. "What do you want to do with it?"

"I want to heal," Margaret answered without hesitation.

"Oh." The word was said almost without inflection. "Nothing more?"

Margaret told herself she was imagining the reproach in Nana's voice. She rejected the 'smart remark' that first came to mind, and instead replied, "Nana... what more could there be? To heal, to save life... there is no higher calling."

"True. Although saving life can take many forms." Nana extended her hand to Margaret to help her stand, although she was too tiny to give much support. (She was, in fact, nearly pulled off balance.) "If you see yourself as a physician who's been handed a new medical tool, you won't end up saving that many more lives."

Margaret paused as she was brushing dirt from off her knees. "I am a physician," she reminded Nana with a touch of asperity. "Any newfound abilities won't change that."

"If that's the path you choose, you're quite right. Your new gift will hardly upset your life at all." Nana started walking away from the pool. "But if you were, let us say, the recipient of a special talent - who happened to also have medical training...? It's all in the emphasis, you see."

Margaret followed. "I'm here, aren't I, Nana? I'm out here in the woods in the dead of night - in freezing rain, in case you hadn't noticed! - trying to learn how to set everything I know upside down. So don't tell me I'm ignoring..."

"What have you learned about your father?"

The non sequitur took Margaret by surprise. "Dad? He... he was a government employee. He worked for - I can't believe I'm saying this - for the Ministry of Magic. Ministry. Like of course magic has to be regulated, why not, the government regulates everything else..."

"Yes yes yes, spare me... But you knew that already, didn't you? Our pakeha tohunga has already told you that. Did you call this Ministry as he suggested?"

Margaret stared at her grandmother. "How did you know he said...?"

"So you haven't called." Nana stopped in mid-stride, turned and glared imperiously at her granddaughter. "You will call tomorrow."

Dammit. Every time she looks at me like that, I feel like I'm six years old again. How does she do that? "I've already called," she said reluctantly. "They, um, they didn't want to discuss anything in detail over the phone. They wanted me to come to their offices..."

"Next week," said Nana with a note of finality.

When Nana got that look and spoke with that tone, Margaret knew it was futile to argue. She sighed and said, "I can juggle my schedule at the hospital, take a day and fly over to Wellington." Mentally she began to consider the details: clearing her absence with Dr. Wells, arranging for another intern to cover for her...

"And in the meantime," Nana concluded, "we can continue your lessons. Already your hands are sensitive to the currents of life - that's how you can heal. Now we have to train your mind to accept what your hands tell you... the water is just a start."

"Fine, but... Do we have to do it at night?" Her morning shift would start at seven.

"There was a full moon tonight. I thought it might help you find your magic. Moonlight is magical - ask anyone. Unfortunately, the rain came sooner than I expected. I'm sorry, child. At least it rained on both of us." Nana smiled slightly as she turned away and continued walking. "And it could have been worse. I could have insisted you wear what your ancestors would have worn for this."

And if I insist on arguing with her, Margaret realized, she still might. Margaret pictured herself in traditional Maori garb: a piupiu - a woven flax skirt - and not much else. She shivered and pulled her coat closed across her chest as she followed Nana home.