A/n: Hey. Well, I said I was aiming for the end of April, and now its the second week of May. Lol. Anyways, here is the (drum roll) ... CONCLUSION! to UnbornThreat. Thank you to everyone who ever reviewed this story, evento stay it sucked, lol. No,no one said that. Even huger, more appreciative thanks, accompanied by hugs and chocolate (or w/e floatsyour boat, LOL) to anyone and everyone who has stuck with me from beginning to end. You guys are the best and I doubt I could name you all, because if I leave someone out I will never forgive myself, lol. Anyways, I also wanted to let you know of a couple things but Ican save those for the end of the chapter. :)
Enjoy.
Chapter 12
Sirius slowly opened his eyes and was met with bright sun light pouring in the open window beside the bed he was in. He hastily closed his eyes against the glare, and wasn't sure where he was. He could hear someone quietly talking nearby.
He didn't exactly know why he wasn't in his dorm room or how he'd gotten to wherever he was now. He thought hard for a moment, trying to remember. He thought of a badly injured Remus, Peter flailing about in a hospital bed, a dark creature followed by pain, a white being, and the name "Harry".
Sirius scrunched his brow. Something wasn't right. That was part his dream. He immediately tried to recall all the details of his dream and grew silently frustrated when he could not. Seconds ago, it seemed, he'd been immersed vividly in it. But now he could only bring vague images to his mind, which were fast fading.
He sighed and slowly cracked open his eyes again, squinting against the sun's brightness. When he'd finally adjusted to the brilliance around him, he recognized the slightly yellow walls nearby to belong to the Hospital Wing.
The Hospital Wing? Sirius thought. Why on earth I am in the Hospital Wing? He blinked a few more times to help clear his head from sleep.
"Ah, Mr. Black. Finally opening your eyes." The distinct voice of Madame Pomfrey said loudly. "'Bout time."
Sirius unsteadily sat up, feeling a bit dizzy, disoriented and achey like he'd been in the same position for an extended length of time. He took a deep breath and blinked several more times to try and rid himself of the disorientation and dizziness.
James was sitting up in the bed next to Sirius, propped up by pillows, both of his hands heavily bandaged. He had some large bruises on his arms and smaller ones on his face. He had a healing split lip and other cuts across his skin all ranging in length and deepness. He looked pretty roughed up and about halfway through the healing process.
"Morning sunshine." James greeted with a wide grin.
Sirius half-smiled. "Morning to you too, Buttercup."
James chuckled and Peter, two beds down, snorted loudly in his juice he was just taking a sip of. Sirius leaned forward to check out how is other two friends were doing, since they were apparently also in the Hospital Wing.
Peter looked mostly alright, though like he'd had the flu for significant amount of time. He look thinner and paler than usual, though bright and recovering. Sirius naturally assumed Peter must be indeed recovering from the flu.
Remus, situated on the bed between James and Peter, also looked rather worse for the wear. He gave Sirius a little wave. Remus looked even more bruised and cut than James, though one is arms was in a sling and he had quite the healing black eye.
"You don't look so good yourself." Remus said when he noticed Sirius' eye catch on the sling.
"What?" Sirius shrugged. He didn't feel any pain…
James smirked and handed his friend a mirror from his bedside table. Sirius took it and proceeded to study his reflection. Even though he had already seen what his friends looked like, he was still rather stunned by how the face looking back at him appeared nonetheless.
He had a deep, scabbed cut on the side of his face, starting at about the level of his eyebrow and ending at about his cheek bone. There was a large red and pink burn of some form on his chin, like the type one would get if you were to skid across a polished floor. There was a dark black and ring under his right eye, suggesting he too was healing from a particularly nasty black eye.
He lightly touched his eye dark eye and smiled wryly. "Well…"
The other laughed while Madame Pomfrey bustled about the otherwise empty Hospital Wing doing her duties.
Sirius waited another moment until Madame Pomfrey was nearly on the other side of the room before he took a deep breath to ask the question was beginning to burn a hole inside him. And one he felt rather embarrassed to ask.
"Prongs?" he started hesitantly.
"Yeah?" James said through mouthfuls of chocolate frog.
Sirius' face became a bit hot. He felt really silly asking, but…
"What… exactly happened… to us?"
James smiled kindly. "S'alright mate. I don't remember either."
"Neither do I." Remus added reassuringly.
"Me too!" Peter piped up.
For an instant, Sirius was relieved. So I'm not the only one. But in the next instant, when Peter had finished speaking, Sirius stared in shock from Peter to Remus to James. Not one of us can remember?
"Wait a minute. Not one of us know what happened and why we're all banged up?"
"Only what we've been told." Remus offered with a shrug.
"Well, do enlighten me, then, dear Moony." Sirius crossed his arms over his chest expectantly.
"Alright then. Apparently, you knobs were trying out some random and highly advanced spell and blew a hole in the wall on the fourth floor. Broke a marble statue, sent a suit of armor crashing, charred a couple portraits, and seriously injured yourselves." Remus explained quite matter-of-factly.
"So then why are you injured, if Prongs and I were the 'knobs' attempting this dreadful spell?" Sirius questioned.
"Ah. I know this part." James raised a finger and swallowed the last of the chocolate frog he'd been steadily munching on. "Dear Moony was trying to stop us 'knobs' from trying such magic. He was close enough when it got out of hand that he suffered as we did."
"And good ol' Pete?" Sirius jabbed his thumb in Peter's direction.
"Trailing behind Remus far enough to only 'catch' the 'contaminated wind' that resulted from the magic catastrophe." James finished,
"I see." Sirius bit his lip thoughtfully. None of this seemed familiar and something felt wrong. He didn't understand what. "And not one of us can remember anything about this incident?"
Peter shook his head immediately. Remus looked thoughtful for an instant before also shaking his head. James seemed to silently struggle for a moment, as though he could almost remember something, but he couldn't figure out what, or that something just wasn't right about this whole thing but he had no choice but to go along. But he finally sighed as he shook his head as well.
Sirius knew exactly how he felt.
"Neither can I." he mumbled.
The rest of the week, the boys spent their time in the Hospital Wing, healing and mending under the skilled hands of Madame Pomfrey. Many people visited them over the course of the week, some bringing them "Get Well" gifts and others reluctantly presenting the even more reluctant boys with missed homework and assignments.
Although the boys, Sirius especially, felt uneasy about how true the story of the magic-experiment-gone-wrong was, everyone believed it and would swear it happened, including all the Professors. The boys had no choice but to ignore the nagging in the back of their heads and believe the story everyone was telling.
Professor Ogland sent her greatest sympathies and hoped they healed well and soon. She was looking forward to having James return to her class.
Professor Smelski, the Astronomy teacher, said they ought to have picked a less complicated spell to work on and he hoped they'd learned a lesson.
Professor Slughorn, the Potions teacher, told them they were arrogant and foolhardy but thanked them – out of earshot of the other teachers, of course – for destroying that statue on the fourth floor – accidentally or not – for he'd always thought it very ugly indeed.
Professor Flitwick raised a fuzzy eyebrow at Sirius and James, and heartily commended Remus on his efforts to keep his friends from harm.
Madame Hooch chided James heavily for putting himself in such a situation, as the Quidditch team had been and was still being forced to practice without him while he pulled his ridiculous stunt, and while he continued to heal. And was he really so selfish as to jeopardize Gryffindor's chances at the Cup this year?
Professor McGonagall also talked to James about her concerns for Gryffindor's possible ruined chances, but emphasized that she was very thankful that they were all alive and well. But really, she needed to know, WHAT were they thinking?
And lastly, Professor Dumbledore congratulated on not blowing up the entire school and asked them to please proceed with more caution and smarts during other risky or, preferably non-risky, endeavors.
Professor Dumbledore hummed softly to himself as he made his way to his office, his robes wishing softly as he walked. He had just been to visit Potter, Black, Lupin and Pettigrew in the hospital wing and though he was humming as he often did, he had an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach.
It was a pity, really. An awful, terrible shame. They could not know the truth. Things had to run their natural course. Time should never be tampered with. He understood that, though the being had repeated it to him in the gravest tone, the weight of the world evident in her voice and the urgency and secretive nature of her mission etched on her face.
Dumbledore smiled sadly. He could tell the boys were finally accepting what everyone believed. But he could also tell that in their hearts, they felt that it was somehow not the truth and they couldn't figure out why. Dumbledore rubbed his temples tiredly. It was hard to be the only one who now knew the truth.
When Dumbledore had witnessed the electric blue storm all those days ago, he'd guessed it'd been a Time Alter Cloud. He hadn't been able to figure out what or why the spell was occurring, especially since it was supposedly impossible. He'd brushed it off, though remained slightly uneasy and more observant that usual.
When Peter Pettigrew had gone missing and Remus Lupin turned up badly injured, Dumbledore still hadn't been able to piece it together. Not until Peeves had retrieved him and Professor McGonagall for a severe emergency on the fourth floor involving Black and Potter had his worry spiked and the pieces began to fall into place. Whatever had come with that unnerving cloud had found its target.
The being visited him in his office that night to explain everything, including that she knew from the future that he was the man to come to. Sirius and James were safe and everyone had their memories altered completely. The only one left with any memory – the memory of the true events – was Dumbledore, and he could choose what to do with that memory. Time was frozen as she explained everything to Dumbledore, and that Sirius and James were comfortably sleeping in the Hospital Wing.
She then went on to fully explain everything behind the motives of Voldemort in sending Vadamir to destroy James – Sirius, Remus and Peter had merely been casualties along the way. At that moment, Dumbledore had looked to the right across his desk, and Professor McGonagall was sitting quite still in her chair, looking quite frightened and not blinking. Time was indeed momentarily frozen.
When the being had been satisfied she had told Dumbledore everything, she'd disappeared in a flash of light, leaving Dumbledore temporarily blinded, blinking dumbly in her wake. McGonagall took a big breath and time was unfrozen.
"They're alright, then." She had said quite calmly. The previous fright was erased from her face. "Poppy's taking care of them."
Dumbledore had nodded thoughtfully, recalling the story he had been told had happened to the boys. "Fortunately."
Dumbledore reached his office and murmured the password. The gargoyle leapt aside revealing the spiral staircase which Dumbledore calmly ascended. He said a soft hello to Fawkes, who promptly burst into flames. Dumbledore retrieved an old Pensieve that he didn't use anymore from his cabinet and set it on his desktop. He sighed heavily as he sank into his chair. He quietly watched Fawkes rise from the ashes and sighed heavily, his thoughts still centered on the four boys and what he ahd learned from the being about their futures.
In time, he supposed, the boys would completely forget the images from their "dream" and the sinister thing that had tried to murder them. In a way, their memories would in part, erase themselves.
Dumbledore placed the end of his wand to his temple and pulled a long silvery strand from his head. He let it slide into the otherwise empty Pensieve. He then pointed his wand at the Pensieve and murmured a spell. The Pensieve broke with a loud crack. He whispered another spell and the pieces disappeared off his desk. The silvery thread dissolved in thin air.
Dumbledore sighed heavily again. He, too, would forget completely in time. He had just destroyed the original memory.
Fawkes gave a tiny squawk.
Dumbledore said, "I just wish it could be different."
THE END
A/n: (big sigh) Wow. I am so glad that's done. Don't get me wrong, this is actually probably one I really, really enjoyed writing, but it's a small weight off my fanfiction shoulders, lol, so it feels good. Please let me know what you thought, give me advice, tell me it wasn't your cup of tea - I don't care. Just leave me a review. By now you should know how much I adore them, lol. ;)
I also wanted to mention a few things here. If Diggory Hadn't Died has momentarily been skipped over in the update rotation b/c my beta and I are having some rather sticky issues with a rather large portion of the last chapter (sticky as in we never have time to work on it, and when we do its just little by little, and its taking a very long time b/c we know what we're going for but we're not getting there). Anyways, so I'm just letting everyone know that.
Secondly, when I'm done my "big five" - which has now just been whittled down to my "big four", lol - I'm going to be editing all of my stories. And by that I mean attempting to fix glaring plot holes, fixing grammar, spelling, typos and the like. It may not be for a long while, but I do want to let everyone know that. You'll know if a chapter/story has been edited b/c I'm going to be putting another author's note or changing the current one in a chapter/story to let the reader know that it was edited.
Thirdly, I just updated Keeper's Heart yesterday, edited and reposted Stay, and submitted a new one called Nightmare. Give 'em a read if you get a chance, and I'll love you forever, lol.
Anyways, enough of my extensive author note. Thanks again for reading me. You guys are the best.
Red Bess Rackham