Harry Potter: The Healer

We crossed a particularly rough stretch of forest in silence, one where you practically had to lift your legs up to your ears just to push through the undergrowth and deadfall.

"Suspicious..." Potter began, once the going got easier again. "That you have such extensive... knowledge of Dark Magic."

"I want to become a Healer," I answered indifferently. "And Healers frequently have to deal with treating the after-effects of Dark Magic, curses, and other unpleasant things. We're required to know them, to interact with them, to channel magic through them, through their after-effects, which inevitably affects us, unless we protect ourselves properly. You've no idea how much Dark Magic my mentor's had me learn and understand."

"Mentor?"

"Well, yes. I'm already apprenticed to a Master Healer."

"I thought you were Snape's apprentice..."

"Ah, I finished that apprenticeship already. Journeyman Potioneer. Blimey, Potter, do you actually participate in school life at all? This isn't exactly secret information."

"Just hadn't gotten round to it, I suppose," Potter scratched the back of his head, looking rather lost, ruffling his already unruly hair further.

"Well, now you know."

"By the way, what do you need all these ingredients for? And what was that clearing with the flowers?"

"What's it to you?"

"Er... dunno, just curious. You usually answer questions, as long as it's not a secret."

Well, there wasn't much I could say to that, since I really do tend to answer questions about magic and the like.

"True enough," I smiled. "It's simple. I need to modify, to alter my wand."

"Has something happened to it?" Potter asked, sounding a touch concerned. "I've seen you use it without any trouble."

"Let's say — it hasn't broken, but it's in the process. My core's unicorn hair. Whether I like it or not, I already have to work with Dark Magic now, and in future I'll have to do so even more. Unicorn hair doesn't tolerate Dark Magic well, it degrades."

"But it's not you using Dark Magic, it's, well... you're treating its after-effects. Right? If I've understood correctly."

"I did tell you a connection forms with the object during such procedures. And through what does that connection run?"

"Through the wand," it seemed some understanding was finally dawning on Potter.

"Precisely. Unicorn hair simply can't work with Dark Magic. Yes, you can force the issue through sheer power, but then the hair will start to change. But a unicorn is a remarkably one-note magical creature, in essence. Too strong a change distorts it, kills the hair, and it becomes... hmm... toxic isn't quite the right word, but it's close enough to the truth."

"I don't follow."

"Know about the unicorn's curse?"

"Like, drinking its blood by force?"

"Well, Harry, you've surprised me. Where'd that thought come from? But the direction's right. Unicorn blood, if drunk, embeds itself permanently in the body, mind, and soul. If the blood was taken by force, it carries a dose of negativity, fear, and pain from the unicorn itself — a dose of darkness — and that distorts it. The wizard drinks it, and the process of the blood's distortion continues, since whether we like it or not, there's always a fragment of Darkness, of negativity, of dark emotion inside us. The blood, having lodged itself permanently, keeps changing, poisoning the body, mind, and soul, and it only ends either if the wizard somehow becomes an absolute Saint, in the truest sense of the word, incapable even of dark thoughts, or when they die."

"I see..." though from the look on Potter's face, I could tell he didn't see all that much, or else he simply thought he did. "And the hair in a wand?"

"A wand, however you look at it, isn't an inseparable part of the wizard, Harry. Small emanations of Dark Magic do a little harm to the hair, but as long as the wizard isn't casting, it recovers. Quickly, too. But as a Healer, even now, still only an apprentice, I already have to deal with darkness constantly. Degradation is inevitable. And a wand isn't just a conduit for magic — it's also a kind of buffer. It absorbs part of the negative or positive influence the magic carries. In short, as an acquaintance of mine likes to say: 'It's a right mess, comrades.'"

"Listen, what do you think of a phoenix feather as a core?"

"I don't know, I've only really looked into the matter regarding my own core. But thinking about it... a phoenix is a semi-material creature, embodying fire and the cycle of life and death. Death almost always produces a release of Dark Magic, distorted magic. And that's true of violent death and natural death alike. Sometimes natural death releases even more, since a slow, agonising death from illness, alone and in agony, is a fairly natural process in its own right. Never mind violent death."

"And...?"

"A strong core wouldn't much care what kind of magic you channel through it, though it'd be better suited to attacking magic, anything tied to fire, healing, and curses. That's my sense of it, anyway. And it wouldn't have any trouble with any powerful magic in general."

"That sounds decent. Ollivander said something similar to me, though without any specifics about the magic itself. So what was that flower in the clearing?"

"Oh, that's a special story. Though, actually, the flower isn't all that rare, there are just some nuances to it. It grows on burial mounds, barrows, where very powerful magical creatures or wizards were laid to rest, but whose soul was too strongly attached to their body, to their life. Because the soul didn't depart right away, the corpse kept generating magic, eventually turning it into something like a source. They vary, depending on the surrounding environment, and this particular one you saw is tied to the forest, to life, to creation, and to inevitable fading and death."

"Sounds rather bleak."

"Perhaps. What matters most is that this nectar has genuinely powerful cleansing properties. I mean cleansing magic and matter of anything — anything unwanted or incompatible, for instance. I got remarkably lucky finding this particular flower, and finding it in the forest specifically. Nectar from other flowers can be used for the same purpose, but the preparation involved would reduce the cleansing properties, and the further removed something is from the concept of life, growth, forest, and so on, the weaker those properties become."

"This is for your wand too."

"Yes, naturally. I won't go into the finer details, that's my secret, but you've understood the purpose correctly."

Silence settled over us, and we walked on towards the castle, to the sounds of the Forbidden Forest at night. Towards the castle, more or less. Judging by Potter's expression, he still had more questions, more he wanted to say to me, but for some reason he kept quiet, and I can't claim that didn't suit me just fine. I just don't like him much, for whatever reason, and that's that! Though Ron I dislike a good deal more, which is odd, given that even towards Nott himself — thoroughly troublesome as he is, much like his father — I feel no particular animosity. I'd even go so far as to say I feel nothing towards the Notts at all.

"Stop," I raised a hand sharply, sensing something was off in the night forest.

Potter — my thanks to whoever managed to train you even somewhat — stopped dead at once, heeding my command, wand already in hand.

I could sense something amiss, peering into the dark canopies of the trees, their thick trunks, the ground and roots underfoot, at the seemingly unchanging mist at the edge of visibility, giving off that dim mystical glow that was the only light source here.

"Something's off here..." I said quietly, not looking at Potter. "Throw on that wonder-cloak of yours."

Potter quickly and silently produced his Invisibility Cloak, threw it over himself, and vanished at once, while I pulled out the mask Professor Hunt had given me, put it on, and pulled up my hood. Drawing my wand, I swept it along the horizon, casting out diagnostic charms in every direction, meant to detect magical distortions and other manipulations of space or perception.

"Found it..."

A pulse of magic, and with a single gesture I tore straight through the fabric of the concealment. A strange sight, I have to admit. As if through a portal, I could see some sort of camp in the middle of the forest — tents, campfires, a couple of wizards standing guard, but not on our side. Tilt your head away from the "rift," and it was just the ordinary Forbidden Forest.

Without a shadow of hesitation, I walked straight onto that ground, stepped right into the camp. Potter kept pace, wand at the ready.

"And who the hell are you?" one of the guard wizards demanded, storming towards me, though without showing overt aggression just yet.

"Ooh, unexpected," echoed the second one, likewise moving in our direction.

Taking in the whole scene in a single instant, assessing the positions of potential opponents and the exit points from the tents, I decided to try something like a conversation first, and only if that failed would I set the whole place ablaze.

"Who are you," I asked, my voice distorted by the mask, lending it a certain weight, "and what are you doing on Hogwarts grounds?"

"And why should I answer some snot-nosed brat?"

Snot-nosed brat? I'll have you know I'm a fair sight bigger than a good few men, not just here but in general, and here's some little runt, knee-high to a grasshopper, mouthing off, the poor sorry monkey... Right, seems I'm getting a bit too deep into the elf shard.

"Shut your mouth, scum, or an Avada will come flying your way," a flick of my fingers silenced him.

At the same moment, a couple of the other guard wizards levelled their wands at me, though not rushing to cast just yet, and barely another second later more wizards began pouring out of the tents, in a variety of clothing, but plainly practical, some of it even utilitarian, all of them one way or another trying to take up positions convenient for casting against me.

"Have you lost your fear, brat?" one of the wizards standing closest to me squared up, jabbing what was practically the tip of his wand right at my mask.

Flicking my hand, I set a Protego Diabolica around the entire camp — blue flame three metres high enclosed a couple of blocks' worth of territory within a single instant, since I did make a bit of an effort. A terrifying sight, and even some of them were shaken by it, recoiling; a couple even collapsed straight to the ground, sitting down in an undignified heap.

"I'll ask again. Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

"Just off the brat and be done with it, no witnesses, and the spell'll collapse too!!!" someone alternatively gifted shouted.

However dubious the effectiveness of such a rallying cry might have been, quite a few responded to it, and beams, blobs of magic, and other magical nonsense came flying at me, against which I shielded myself with massive protections covering every conceivable form of attack, extending the coverage to include Potter's location too, just in case. My shield flared in various colours, occasionally flashing deep purple, along with other dark shades, at times hinting at spells and workings that were anything but wholesome, though the shield never wavered.

Before long, the wizards' enthusiasm faded, and they stopped pelting my shield with spells, at which point all the flashing and glinting of the shield died down.

"I repeat, who are you, and what are you doing here?"

"Just break his Diabolica already!" one of the wizards shouted.

I could even feel someone attempting to interfere with the workings of my magic, and in the end I simply "pressed" harder, causing the flames to leap even higher. One of the wizards, apparently too terrified by this point, transformed into a wisp of smoke and tried to flee upward, but the moment he crossed the boundary high above the flames, the smoky mass he'd become caught fire in blue flame at once and plunged downward. Not even the remains reached the ground.

Another wizard tried to brazenly Apparate away, but the very instant he vanished, a swift streak of blue flame cut across the sky. Where do such idiots even come from? You can't escape a Protego Diabolica without tearing the ward itself, or without creating a spatial passage. Idiots...

"Idiots!!!"

A sharp female voice caught everyone's attention, mine included.

A girl in classic maid's attire wheeled something like a wheelchair through the camp across the clearing, only a good deal more comfortable-looking. Sitting in it, quite calmly, was a lady I recognised, in a long black dress, with a black blindfold over her eyes, her red hair falling in waves below her shoulders.

"One can't even leave you alone for a second," she was scolding, loudly and rather imperiously, as her maid swiftly and inexorably wheeled her chair towards me. "You'll find a way to part with your lives the very first chance you get. If you don't want to live, jump into the ritual site, at least you'll be some use that way..."

In the eerie blue glow of the Diabolica's flame, the whole camp looked, at the very least, rather peculiar, but I paid that no mind, focusing instead on the red-haired witch I recognised.

"You should calm down, Mr Granger," she said to me with a faint smile, looking up at me from below, while her maid, as ever, betrayed not a single flicker of emotion. "We are not your enemies."

Should it really surprise anyone that a witch with a blindfold over her eyes saw more than the sighted ones, recognising me even in this cloak, under this mask and hood?

"My question remains the same," the mask distorted my voice, though not too heavily or dramatically, simply rendering it poorly recognisable.

"Our small group poses no threat to Hogwarts or its students. We're here for entirely different purposes. You do know me, Mr Granger — I won't lie to you."

"The fact that we're acquainted, Amber, doesn't mean much."

"In any case, one ought to say hello properly."

Amber flared with Dark Magic strongly enough that the very air rippled, and the sorry wizards who'd unsuccessfully attacked my shield very nearly bolted straight into the Diabolica's flames themselves, anything to get away. Only the maid stood there as though nothing at all were happening, though my magical sensitivity made it clear enough — she genuinely didn't care, since her own magic was dense enough to let her simply ignore such displays from Amber.

Since we'd already started down that road, I decided to let my own magic loose as well, especially since Amber was blazing a whole order of magnitude "brighter" than at our past encounters.

By now it seemed even the grass underfoot wanted to disintegrate into particles, small clumps of earth flying up from the collision of the two magical fields. A couple of the wizards dropped to the ground, curling up into foetal positions, muttering something. A rustle sounded off to the side — Potter is magically strong, no arguing that, but he has no experience being in an environment like this, and so he'd flopped straight down onto the ground, though the Invisibility Cloak was still over him.

"I see..." the magical pressure from Amber vanished, as though it had never been there at all, "you've brought along a... friend?"

"Debatable claim."

A barely perceptible gesture from Amber let her maid know to wheel the chair to a particular spot, right in front of Potter, who was still sitting on the ground, but had decided to pull the Invisibility Cloak off himself.

"Remarkable," Amber said with a faint smile, looking at a thoroughly stunned Potter, "how carelessly wizards can handle such incredible artefacts. Isn't that right, Mr...?"

Why was Harry silent? The blow from the magical surge hadn't been all that severe, and even the other wizards, far weaker and far less fortunate ones, were already coming back to their senses.

"Mum?"

"Bloody hell, Potter," I couldn't help myself, slapping a hand against my mask. "I knew it was better not to get mixed up with you..."

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