Harry Potter: The True Lord

Antonio's eyes fluttered open as a grunt escaped his pain. His body was sore, his entire body and every inch of his muscles were aching and there was a sense of lingering exhaustion and fatigue through his body and his head was throbbing in pain.

Antonio straightened his body as he felt his recharged magical reserve back in his body. He craned his neck as he tried to take in account of his surroundings.

He was lying on a small bed with a white bedsheet and a pillow with a white cover. The room he was lying in was small in size with a small window directly in front of his bed and the gate of the room was just next to the window. Through the window and the open door, Antonio could see a wide corridor and then an open space with green branches of a tree in his view. The walls of the room were made of dark brown coloured stones and the ceiling of the room was quite high. The sun was just about to set and Antonio could make out the orangish sky of the setting sun through the window.

He also tried to look for his wand and he did not find it in his wand holster. And somehow he was not really surprised by it. His eyes instinctively roamed around and to his much relief he found his wand lying on a wooden table just next to his bed.

Antonio groaned as he tried to get up from the bed but he had barely moved when a wave of pain assaulted his entire body. Even in pain, he tried to reach for his wand but even with the slightest movement of his body the agony running through his muscles only increased further. He was not able to reach for his wand.

"Ah!" He groaned as he slumped his body on the bed and took a couple of breaths.

"You should not try to push your body for a couple of hours more," a voice jolted Antonio's attention and he craned his neck and looked towards the gate.

A middle aged lady was standing at the entrance. She had ordinary features but there was a kind of empathy and softness in her eyes and in her voice too.

Antonio did not immediately reply as the lady approached close to the bed. She picked up Antonio's wand and handed it to him. Antonio took his wand back and a sense of confidence returned to him. Though he was capable of casting a lot of spells even without his wand, the presence of the wand in his hand was granting him an added sense of self assurance and confidence.

"Who are you?" Antonio questioned, his voice hoarse. "And what place is this?"

The lady did not answer his question immediately. She pulled out her wand and pointed it towards Antonio's body. And though he tensed a bit with a wand pointing towards him, he did not react. He somehow could guess what the lady was about to do. And he hoped that it was not a dangerous spell coming towards him.

The lady weaved her wand and a greenish coloured magical wave erupted from it as it brushed against Antonio's body. At the very exact moment, the pain coursing through his body eased by a bit and Antonio felt his muscles relaxing.

"I am a mediwitch," the lady finally said, placing the wand back in her holster.

"I can tell now," Antonio interjected with the I know it expression.

The lady continued unbothered.

"And this place is St. Mungo's Hospital," she said. "You had spent every single last shred of magical reserve in your body. And because of the magical exhaustion, every muscle in your body had turned stiff. And when I say stiff, I mean that your muscles had hardened like stone. Like rocks."

"I have cast healing spells on you at regular intervals of time, but even with the healing spells, you would need a couple of hours more to completely recover. Your muscles need some natural recovery time. Recovery which spells can not provide you."

Antonio nodded as he relaxed slightly. There were a lot of questions whizzing through his mind and he did not know where to start. There were a lot of things he was even afraid to think. Voldemort had crushed him. Yes. It was true that Voldemort had a runic formation to strengthen himself. Yes. It was true that he had spent all his magical reserve in a single spell. But it was also true that Voldemort had crushed him. If not for Dumbledore's intervention, he would have surely died.

"I assume," the lady said, attracting the attention back towards her, "that you would want to attend the funeral of Lord Edmund Bones."

A bulge formed in Antonio's throat as he feared that tears would spill from his eyes. This was a question, a fact, a situation, he did not know what to do about it. Since the very moment he had woken up, this was the biggest thing he had been dreading.

"When is the funeral?" he finally asked, almost choking on his own voice.

"It should be held tomorrow morning," the lady replied. "Everyone suggested that the funeral should have been held today itself, but Miss Bones was adamant that the funeral would be held only after you woke up."

Antonio nodded absent-mindedly, his mind drifting towards Amelia Bones and what she must have been going through, but then something suddenly clicked in his mind.

"You say that everyone was suggesting that the funeral be held today itself?" he questioned. "How much time has passed since I lost consciousness?"

"An entire day, Lord Olario," the lady replied.

"A day," he mumbled. "But this is just the evening…"

"Of the next day," she completed what he had already realized. "You have been unconscious for an entire day."

It was like a jolt of shock to Antonio and, if not for the pain in his body, he would have already been on his feet.

"The side effects of magical exhaustion are very severe, Lord Olario," the lady explained. "And given the situation in which you had arrived, I had assumed that you would take one more day before you would regain your consciousness. But your recovery has been faster than expected."

"In fact," she continued. "Just now, I forcefully sent your friends away, saying that you are fine but that you would not be waking up today."

"I will go and inform them that you are awake," she added, before casting a last glance towards him as she walked away.

Antonio did not even have the heart to ask who the friends waiting for him were. His mind was constantly replaying the scene of Edmund throwing himself in front of the spell to save his life.

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