Fi woke with a head full of unhappy Thunderbirds.
A low groan left her as she wondered just what in the world she'd done the night before to feel so utterly woebegone. Chugged a bottle of Firewhisky? Eaten a bag of poisoned flobberworms? As she tried to move about and open her eyes, the aching in her head became more insistent, and the pain heightened, evolved from a throbbing to a sharp, keening agony that did not come from a bit of over-imbibing or a bad dinner. Something was wrong.
Soon, her last memories returned to Fi, and though she damn well wished they hadn't, Fi wrenched her eyes open.
She was in the hospital wing. She knew that and felt grateful for it, because Fi did not want to end up at St. Mungo's, not where they could maybe poke around a bit in her head and discover some of her...abnormalities. Every inch of her felt stiff as a board and just as itchy from laying there in that bed, and Fi wrinkled her nose. "P—." Her breath caught, and she licked her lips, trying again. "Poppy?"
It took a moment, but Madam Pomfrey came hurrying into view. "Oh, you're awake. Thank goodness."
Fi tried to sit up, even if just a little, and grunted at the pain. "The children, Poppy. Potter, Weasley, Granger—?"
"All well and accounted for, don't you worry, Delphinia."
The curious sensation of utter relief hit Fi and she deflated, dizzy. She had fallen unconscious listening to their screams. "Thank merciful Morgana. What about that bastard Quirrell?"
"Dead."
"Good."
That said, Fi began to poke at herself, at her wrapped middle and bound arm, at her sore jaw and head, until Poppy smacked her hand away with a glower. "That is quite enough, Professor Dullahan. You should rest."
"Actually, Poppy, I could really use something for the pain." Truly Fi had never felt so wretched, and she had literally been trampled by a hippogriff once. That was one of Ever's favorite "Fi can be a bumbling moron" stories.
"I—." Pomfrey took a steadying breath. "Can you recall what happened?"
"Most of it, yes."
"Your stomach was injured, and a few of your other internal organs. I've set it to rights with the, ah, rest of it, and you've lost a kidney—."
"Cursed, I assume? Can't regrow it?"
Poppy nodded. "We've not been able to give you anything more substantial than water for the past three days, and once you're properly healed, you will have to follow a very strict diet plan. I've been reapplying compressions topically for pain relief. It's all I can do for now." She looked regretful at that admission.
Fi made a series of faces because, frankly, her face was the only thing not trying to do her in and she had to have some outlet for her frustration besides resurrecting Quirrell and killing him herself. Maybe a few times. She could get creative, write a few friends who dabbled in things that would curl both of Quirrell's faces right off his bones. Fi sighed. "Thank you, Poppy."
"You've some visitors, if you're up for it."
"Alright."
Fi didn't know who to expect, maybe Dumbledore and Aurors with their pesky questions—but she was surprised to see bright-eyed little Gryffindors rushing past the curtain, almost bowling Poppy over in their haste. Granger, Weasley, and Potter all looked down on her expectantly, relieved and excited. Fi was touched.
"Professor Dullahan! You're awake!"
"That I am." She reached out with her good arm and cupped Hermione's cheek, the child nearest her. "You've a bit of a bruise there. Nothing serious, I hope."
"No, ma'am. Almost healed."
"That's good."
After that, they all began to chatter at her at once, heedless of the glassy set to Fi's eyes or the slight tremor of her hands. Fi was quite exhausted and pained, but seeing the three of them there, alive, after she had been so certain of her failure, almost brought Fi to tears. She did not like to subsist on blathering or denial: her Tracking spell had almost gotten them all killed. What if she'd gone to breakfast, or lunch? What if the spell had activated when Quirrell approached the head table? He could have turned and thrown a bombarda at a table of students and Fi would have been helpless to stop him. She could have inadvertently triggered a massacre.
Of course, she couldn't have suspected a fellow professor of being a slithering, half-mad, unicorn killing beast, but Fi's actions had placed them in danger, and she felt wretched about that. They were children and they wouldn't blame her, but Fi swore to herself to be more circumspect in her future actions.
Fi was no longer the lone hedge witch with no one to think about beyond herself, a coven of bones, and a few select friends. She was responsible for the lives of children now, responsible for their safety and their education. She couldn't fail.
Troubled, Fi gave the Gryffindors a gentle lecture about not staying under cover and pinched their cheeks for good measure, though she hoped they'd never have to remember her warnings about what to do if caught in another duel to the death. Stay down. Don't distract.
"Professor..." Hermione asks, her voice hesitant, eyes flicking back toward the Healer's office. "How'd you learn to do magic like that?"
Laying in her bed and trying to pretend her spleen doesn't feel like it was trying to escape, Fi wrinkled her brow and cleared her throat. "Like what, Miss Granger?"
"Without a wand. Were those runes you were signing?"
Bugger. Fi wasn't in any kind of condition able to handle this conversation. "Years of study, Miss Granger, from a group of very particular teachers. No, I cannot teach it to you." Not without the Aeter Coven. Not within Hogwarts, where such magic was viewed with suspicion, where the knowledge of the hedge witches directly defied many of the school's direct tenants. "As a favor to me, I would appreciate it if you three didn't discuss that particular skill of mine with others."
Slowly, the Gryffindors nodded, though Hermione appeared conflicted, like she wanted to ask more questions and didn't understand Fi's need for secrecy. Of course, Miss Granger had only been told by her books and by upperclassmen that wandless and wordless magic was difficult and mastered only by the likes of wizards like Albus Dumbledore or some such guff. There was quite a difference between watching a wizened, venerated man like Dumbledore wave his hand over some candles to ignite them and seeing a young, no-name Magical Theory professor distort the universe with her mind. What Hermione was too young to understand was that those like Fi, those capable of magics not well-known or understood, could be feared or ostracized in wizarding society. That had been one of the many stressors to drive the creation of the Aeter Coven centuries ago.
The children chattered a bit among themselves, quiet as to not earn the wrath of Madam Pomfrey. Fi discreetly attempted to sketch runes for pain relief under the edge of the sheet, her fingers clumsy against her bound middle—but the spell fizzled, an answering burn emanating from her depleted magical core. Fi grunted and held back tears. Stupid, hedge witch. Stupid.
Fi blinked when a sudden silence fell over the chattering students, and she peered through scrunched eyes at the blurry form of the Headmaster. Oh, I thought his name and summoned him. Great.
Albus smiled at the Gryffindors, hands folded into his sleeves. "Hello, you three. Have you been keeping Professor Dullahan company?"
They nodded.
"Would you mind stepping out of the wing for a few moments? You must excuse an old man, but I have a couple pressing questions I must ask before I forget them entirely."
The children scuttled off with a curious look tossed between the Headmaster and Fi. The doors closed with a gentle thump behind them, Dumbledore's bright eyes settling on the hedge witch as he flicked his wrist and retrieved his wand from his sleeve. Fi stiffened despite herself and stared at the wand, sensing something quite odd about it, though she wasn't in the mind to say what it was. Dumbledore turned his wand, muttering a light incantation, and Fi sighed as a cooling sensation poured over her and stole some of her throbbing aches.
"Thanks," she said, relaxing once the wand was returned to its hidden holster.
"Not a problem," Dumbledore replied as he sat in the visitor's chair and smoothed his beard. "The children adore you so, Fi. I'm afraid I've had to take over your classes these last few days, what with exams approaching, and they've not taken the same shine to me."
Fi snorted. "Somehow I doubt that." The Headmaster smiled and folded his hands over his middle, declining to say further on the subject. Fi desperately wanted to sit up, but decided she wasn't quite stupid enough to attempt it. "I have to admit, I expected to see Aurors."
"Aurors?"
"Poppy told me Quirinus is dead."
Albus hummed, inclining his chin, expression grim. "Yes, though I don't think we need the tender skills of Aurors in this instant. It is a very...hard thing to see, when one fails their students. Not your failing, of course, but my own. I knew Quirinus as a lad, saw him flourish, hired him to teach Muggle Studies here—but Quirinus sought more in his limited experience, though we will never truly know what happened in his sojourn abroad, whether he went to Voldemort willingly or if his mind was twisted by him. I knew something odd had occurred in his travels and thought, perhaps, he had become one of Voldemort's agents. We had something in the castle Voldemort dearly wanted to obtain, something that would help him return to power, and it was my hope that by allowing Quirinus to do as he wished, he would be discreet and leave the students be, and we'd entrap not only him but his master as well." Dumbledore rubbed a hand over his brow and down his nose in an uncharacteristic gesture of frustration. "I did not suspect possession, however, and that was my failing."
"What was it?"
"It, my dear?"
"What was in the castle? You make it sound as if it is no longer here."
"It is not." Albus moved his hand and Fi felt the thin spark of magic lift from him, covering them with a quick muffling spell. "The Philosopher's Stone was in our keeping for a time."
Fi snorted again, harder this time, her disbelief plain. "Bloody wizards," she muttered, never mind the presence of Britain's most beloved wizard sitting at her bedside. "And? Did Flamel come to collect his stupid rock?"
"No. He and his wife have decided it best the stone is destroyed, though they've retained enough elixir to get their affairs in order."
A sudden, sharp pang went through Fi's middle that had nothing to do with her injuries. Her jaw clenched. "Just like that."
"Just like that," Albus concurred.
Silence fell between the pair, ponderous and filled with their respective moods. Fi hadn't a clue what thoughts whirled inside Dumbledore's head, but she couldn't stop thinking about a cavern in the Scottish highlands filled with chatting skulls, a raven-haired witch in black robes stretched out like the space between stars, and a tomb in the desert where Fi's worst regrets had been born.
She thought about the Aeter coven, a coven of witches cursed to never die, how they yearned for release from their prison of bone, and how Fi continued to fail them at every turn.
Fi exhaled and stuffed the thoughts behind her Occlumency shields.
"Harry," she said, shaking herself. "What did he do to Quirinus? I remember him leaping at him, then nothing much after that."
"Ah," Dumbledore remarked as he stroked his beard and contemplated the truth of the matter. "Magic is such a wonder, is it not? It lingers in a way that we don't, staying even long after we die. You see, Fi, when Voldemort tried to kill Mr. Potter, he had to first kill his mother, Lily, a witch he had promised one of his followers he wouldn't kill. Lily gave her life for young Harry, and that kind of sacrifice—that kind of love—is a magic that Voldemort will never understand, the antithesis of his very being. His vessel crumbled beneath Harry's touch because Lily's love lingers on."
Fi knew exactly what he was talking about—and it had a lot less to do with lingering love and a lot more to do with blood magic and death. "They called it 'Gràdh Màthair' in the past," she murmured, brow scrunched. No matter the intent, it was Dark magic, some of the very Darkest, magic fueled by a broken promise and a mother's love—a mother's death. There was no incantation, no ritual. It simply occurred, as some magics were wont to do. "It was more common in ancient times, when mother's threw themselves between their children and their husbands, when the children were weak and the men believed they needed to be culled. Savaging, they call it amongst wolves, you know. Marriage is a promise to love and protect; wizards broke that promise when they turned upon their witches and their children. Such betrayal, such sacrifice on the witch's part....Le mo bheatha, dìon mo fhuil. By my life, protect my blood."
Dumbledore's brow rose, but he said nothing. Instead, he stared at Fi in consideration, as if he couldn't quite decide what she was exactly. He rose at length and nodded his head, and the half-moon spectacles perched on his nose glittered. "I will leave you to your rest, Fi. I believe we have a different kind of conversation to have, but today is not the time for that. Sleep well."
And so Fi did. Poppy bustled in as the Headmaster departed and, after the briefest of chats catching Fi up on the castle's gossip, spelled the hedge witch into sleep. Her dreams were varied and strange, men with purple turbans crying in the dark, Severus Snape staring at a grave with wilted lilies in his hand, Ever as she used to be—red-haired and green-eyed and tall as a redwood—eating beetles and telling Fi to do the same, though Fi was fairly certain she'd never eaten a beetle before unless on a dare. Yuck.
She stirred and came to a groggy awareness, blinking heavy eyes open, a darkened hospital wing awaiting her blurred vision. Above her leaned the scrawny form of a child—a Ravenclaw with multi-colored eyes, mussed hair, and an eerie, all-consuming grin. "Have you found me yet?" Seth Mortimer whispered.
Fi woke in the morning with no memories of her dreams—nor of her midnight visitor.