The next morning, dim sunlight was coming through the tall windows of Hogwarts' hospital wing, casting rectangular patterns across the white linens and stone floors.
"Mmm..."
Harry slowly opened his eyes, his eyelids feeling unnaturally heavy, as if tiny weights had been attached to each lash. His head felt thick and foggy, his consciousness was swimming up through layers of dreamless sleep like surfacing from deep water.
Following closely behind this general grogginess came a sudden, sharp headache that pounded behind his temples. The ache spread from his temples to the back of his head, settling there with uncomfortable persistence.
Instinctively, without much thought, he tried to raise his hand to rub his throbbing temples, to massage away some of that ache.
'Wait!'
'My hand!'
The realization hit him like a Stunning Spell, driving away the fog of sleep in an instant. His eyes flew open wide, all traces of drowsiness was vanishing as adrenaline flooded his system.
His heart began pounding against his ribs as memory came rushing back—the maze, the Death Eaters, the terrible curse spreading up his arm like creeping death, the sharp pain of severing his own limb...
Harry jolted straight up, his gaze was down to his right arm. Even though his vision was still somewhat blurred from sleep, even though his eyes hadn't fully adjusted to the morning light gushing through the windows, he could clearly see that his right forearm was completely intact.
It was as if everything that had happened yesterday had been nothing more than an extraordinarily vivid nightmare.
Of course, Harry knew in his heart, that it hadn't been a dream at all.
That agony, that bone-deep pain unlike anything he'd ever experienced, was still vividly baked into his mind like a brand burned into flesh.
He would never forget that as long as he lived.
Cautiously, almost afraid of what he might discover, Harry tried moving his limbs one by one, testing each carefully. His left arm responded normally, fingers flexing and extending without issue. His legs seemed fine, toes were wiggling obediently beneath the white hospital sheets.
Then, holding his breath unconsciously, he focused on his right hand—the one that shouldn't exist anymore.
Though it felt somewhat unfamiliar and stiff, like wearing a glove that didn't quite fit properly, like trying to write with his non-dominant hand, it responded to his mental commands.
Just then, breaking the silence of the hospital wing and interrupting his exploration, footsteps echoed from the corridor outside. They were accompanied by voices in conversation.
Harry held his breath instinctively and listened intently, his body going still beneath the covers.
Years of eavesdropping on the Dursleys and sneaking around Hogwarts had made him quite good at this.
"...truly remarkable, Professor Westeros," came what was unmistakably Madam Pomfrey's voice.
"I've examined it thoroughly—multiple times, in fact, with every diagnostic spell I know and that arm is... it's perfectly flawless. The nerves, muscles, and bones are connected seamlessly. How on earth was this done? I've been a Healer for over thirty years, Professor, and I've never seen regenerative magic like this. Never even heard of it even in theory.
Skele-Gro is like a child's parlor trick compared to this and even that takes weeks of painful bone regrowth. This is... this is something else."
Harry's heart leaped in his chest, a surge of hope and curiosity flooding through him. This was his biggest question as well, the mystery that had been forming in his barely-conscious mind even before he'd fully woken. How had his arm been restored so perfectly? What magic could possibly accomplish such a thing?
Then he heard Adrian's familiar, calm voice responding.
"Honestly, I don't know either, Madam Pomfrey... No matter how many times you ask me, no matter how many different ways you phrase the question, it won't help or change my answer. I genuinely don't understand the mechanism."
He paused, and Harry could imagine him shrugging in that typical way of his.
"That's the Treant's ability, their gift. It's not wizard magic as we understand it. All I know with certainty is that they can restore severed limbs, regenerate lost tissue. The centaurs have received their help before too, in the Forbidden Forest. The Treants can't explain how they do it, and I haven't found a way to analyze or replicate the process."
"Oh, very well."
Madam Pomfrey's tone shifted, becoming somewhat huffy, the way she sounded when students didn't follow her instructions or tried to leave the hospital wing before she'd declared them fully healed.
She probably thought Adrian was deliberately hiding something from her.
As the footsteps and conversation grew closer, approaching down the corridor and nearing the hospital wing, Harry made a quick decision. He threw back the white sheets covering him and sat up properly in bed, swinging his legs over the side.
Unexpectedly, he didn't feel any discomfort at all.
When Adrian and Madam Pomfrey finally reached his ward, pushing open the door, he was already standing beside the bed, fully up and steady on his feet.
The door swung open, and Madam Pomfrey stepped through first, her arms were filled with a collection of bottles and jars.
When she immediately saw Harry standing there beside the bed rather than lying where she'd left him, she was so startled that she nearly dropped the entire armful of bottles and jars in her hands.
"Merlin's beard! When did you wake up, Potter?"
She exclaimed loudly, her voice sharp with alarm and concern. She rushed forward, and hastily grabbed Harry's shoulders with both hands, pushing him backward toward the bed with firm, no-nonsense pressure.
"Get back in bed this instant! Right now! Who gave you permission to get up and start wandering around... Yesterday you went through such a terrible ordeal, such a traumatic experience, you should be resting for days, not standing about like nothing happened!"
Her hands were surprisingly strong as she guided or rather, forced him back down onto the mattress.
Adrian stood to the side near the doorway, his arms crossed casually over his chest, and shrugged in Harry's direction with an expression that clearly said, 'Don't look at me for help.'
His smile showed he'd been through similar scenes with the overprotective professor before and knew better than to interfere with her when she was in full protective mode.
This was just Madam Pomfrey's way, her nature.
"I feel fine, really, Madam," Harry hastily explained, trying to sound reasonable and convincing rather than confrontational. He didn't want to upset her further. "Nothing's wrong at all. No pain, no dizziness, nothing. I actually feel better than I have in weeks."
Madam Pomfrey didn't respond to his reassurances with words, didn't acknowledge his protests at all. Instead, she pulled out her wand from the pocket of her robes with a motion and began poking it all over Harry's body.
The tip flashed with different colored lights as she worked, moving through what was clearly a diagnostic routine. She muttered incantations under her breath in concentration; her lips were barely moving as complex medical spells flowed from her wand.
Seeing this professional efficiency, recognizing that resistance was futile and would only lengthen the examination, Harry obediently lay still on the bed, trying not to fidget or move.
After ten or so seconds of intense examination, after running through what must have been dozens of different diagnostic charms, Madam Pomfrey finally put away her wand with a decisive movement, sliding it back into her pocket.
She nodded with evident satisfaction, though her expression still showed traces of professional concern and lingering disbelief.
"Incredible... absolutely incredible," She murmured. "All vital signs completely normal. There shouldn't be any effect on your ability to use magic either... It's as if nothing ever happened! As if you walked in here perfectly healthy rather than missing an entire arm!"
She shook her head in amazement.
Harry couldn't help but raise his right arm, holding it up in front of his face to examine it carefully in the morning light.
"Madam Pomfrey," He asked, his voice carrying genuine curiosity mixed with lingering confusion, "were you the one who healed my arm?"
Madam Pomfrey immediately denied it with a sharp shake of her head. She turned to look at Adrian, who still stood to the side with his arms crossed, leaning casually against the wall as if this were all perfectly routine.
"I'm not capable of such a thing, Potter—no one is, as far as I know. In your condition, with that level of curse corruption in the severed limb, even the best healers from St. Mungo's, even the specialists in the Dai Llewellyn Ward for Serious Bites, would have had to shake their heads and declare it impossible."
She paused, her expression becoming more serious.
"Professor Westeros was the one who brought you back from the maze, carried you all the way to the hospital wing, and he's the one who arranged everything. He's the one you should be thanking."
Her gaze shifted to Adrian, who stood to the side with a calm demeanor, looking entirely unperturbed by the attention.
Adrian shrugged in that casual way of his, as if regrowing severed limbs was just another ordinary Tuesday afternoon at Hogwarts, hardly worth mentioning or making a fuss over.
"Don't worry about it, Harry. There's really nothing to thank me for—I was just the middleman."
He pushed off from the wall and took a step closer, his expression becoming slightly more serious.
"Actually, this isn't your original arm—that one was beyond saving, too corrupted by dark magic to be reattached or healed through any conventional means.
The Treants gave you a completely new one, grew it from scratch basically... You should have seen the process—it was quite remarkable. Shalala, their medic, the small willow Treant—she's the one who did it. Evidently, their regenerative magic works perfectly well on humans too, not just on their own kind or on centaurs."
Harry nodded slowly, absorbing this information with a mixture of gratitude and lingering amazement. His mind was still struggling to fully process what he was hearing.
In that case, he would definitely have to go to the Forbidden Forest soon and thank the Treants properly, especially Shalala.
Perhaps bring them something as a gift, though he had no idea what Treants might appreciate.
Fertilizer? Water? Sunlight?
He'd have to ask Professor Westeros then for suggestions.
"So where did my original arm go?" He asked suddenly, struck by curiosity. "The severed one, I mean. What happened to it?"
The question was somewhat morbid, he realized, but he couldn't help wondering. It had been a 'part' of him for fifteen years, after all.
"It disappeared," Adrian explained straightforwardly. "Dissolved into nothing within a few hours. Probably the residual curse made it impossible for the corrupted tissue to remain intact for long once separated from your body.
The dark magic was literally consuming it from inside, breaking down the cellular structure. By the time we returned to check on it, there was nothing left but a small pile of black ash."
Harry shuddered involuntarily, his skin was prickling with goosebumps as a chill ran down his spine.
The experience of losing his arm, of making that terrible choice to sever his own limb to save his life, was not something he wanted to go through a second time. Not ever. The memory alone was enough to make his stomach turn and his remaining hand tremble slightly.
He pushed the disturbing thoughts away forcefully, focusing on something else.
"What about the tournament?" He asked, redirecting the conversation to safer topics. "What happened after I passed out?"
Adrian reached out and tapped Harry lightly on the head with his knuckles.
"Don't worry about the tournament, Harry," He said as if discussing something of absolutely minimal importance.
"The championship is the least important thing that happened last night, it's hardly worth discussing. If you must know the official result, Viktor Krum won the championship by default because he was closest to the trophy at the final moment when Dumbledore and I arrived, and because you were unconscious and unable to claim it for yourself..."
He paused, his expression showing slight amusement. "Honestly, it's a rather crude way of judging…..."
Learning that he hadn't won, Harry felt somewhat disappointed. But the disappointment faded quickly, replaced by genuine concern about Krum's safety and wellbeing.
After all, last night Krum had faced those enemies alongside him.
"What about Krum?" He immediately asked, his voice carrying concern. "How is he? Is he alright? Where is he? Can I see him?"
"He's fine, completely unharmed, actually," Adrian shook his head slightly, his expression becoming more serious and somewhat regretful.
"A few scrapes and bruises, nothing significant. But he and the entire Durmstrang delegation, along with Madame Maxime and all her Beauxbatons students, left Hogwarts in an emergency evacuation early this morning, just after dawn. Their ships departed before most of the school had even woken up."
"Left? Why so suddenly?"
Harry felt something was wrong about this, something off about the entire situation. Had the Triwizard Tournament really ended so abruptly, without any ceremony or celebration?
There wasn't even an award presentation, no formal conclusion, no speeches from the judges or congratulations to the champions. Just... over.
Everyone seemed to be fleeing in the night like refugees.
"They believe Hogwarts is no longer safe," Adrian paused. "Well, it does seem to be the case—even though everyone always says Hogwarts is the safest place in Britain."
The safest place?
Harry pursed his lips, suppressing a bitter laugh.
Every single one of his school years seemed to have been nerve-wracking and dangerous, filled with life-threatening situations that no student should ever have to face.
His first year had involved Voldemort possessing a professor and trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone. His second year had featured a basilisk and Tom Riddle's memory. His third year had brought Dementors and Prisoner of Azkaban. His fourth year... well, this tournament and everything that had happened.
Safest place indeed.
"By the way," Adrian said, his tone shifting to become graver and more serious. He sat down in a nearby chair, settling in as if preparing for a longer, more difficult conversation.
"The ones who invaded the maze yesterday, the ones who attacked you and Krum—they were Death Eaters. Voldemort's followers. They all escaped from Azkaban in a mass breakout the same evening."
"Death Eaters? From Azkaban?"
Harry sat staright upright. His heart began racing again, pounding against his ribs. He naturally knew what this meant.
"Has Voldemort returned?" He exclaimed.
The moment that name left his lips, the very air in the hospital wing seemed to freeze.
Madam Pomfrey drew in a sharp, hissing breath through her teeth and instinctively made a strange symbol over her chest with one shaking hand, as if trying to ward off the ill omen brought by that name.
Her face had gone pale, and she glanced around nervously as if expecting something terrible to emerge from the shadows at any moment.
Adrian leaned back slightly in his chair. His expression became somewhat obscured as he moved partially into shadow.
Honestly, he truly didn't know the answer to Harry's question with any certainty.
Voldemort's return was complicated. The timeline had shifted so intensely from what he remembered that the old certainties no longer applied.
"Who knows, Harry."
In the end, after a long moment of consideration, Adrian gave an ambiguous answer that was probably even more unsettling and disturbing than a simple yes or no would have bee
"He might have returned already, might be out there right now gathering his forces and planning his next move. Or he might not have."
He paused, choosing his next words carefully, wanting to be honest without causing unnecessary panic.
"What we do know is this: There was a mass breakout from Azkaban prison. Multiple high-security cells were breached. And the prisoners who escaped weren't petty criminals or accidental magic users—they were the most loyal, most fanatical, most dangerous Death Eaters.
They have regained their freedom and are obviously plotting something, organizing, that's an undeniable fact. Yesterday's operation specifically targeting you, the planning and coordination it required, the way they bypassed Hogwarts' defenses, the fog magic they used to facilitate their escape—that had a clear purpose. That's also a fact.
Whether Voldemort himself has returned or not, his followers are active and dangerous. They're coming after you. That much is absolutely certain."
Hearing this detailed explanation, Harry nodded slowly.
Yesterday, those Death Eaters' target had been undoubtedly him.
He had an ominous premonition that the world was about to undergo a major change.
And he was somehow at the center of it all, the central of the vortex around which these terrible events would revolve.
However...
Harry glanced up at Adrian, who sat calmly in the chair beside his hospital bed, seeming unruffled by the dark predictions he'd just made.
The presence of this professor, this powerful and knowledgeable wizard who had saved his life more than once, who had taught him so much, his presence gave Harry at least some sense of security.
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