Thud… thud…
Something was banging against the wall. The noise woke Ron, half-asleep and irritated.
"What's that soun—?"
He grumbled, only to realize the noise was coming from inside their dormitory. He reached for his wand. "Lumos."
With the lit wand, Ron pointed it toward the source — Harry's bed.
"Harry? What are you doing?"
He mumbled, but got no reply. That forced him to climb down and peer at Harry's bed — and what he saw shocked him.
Harry's body was curled up like a shrimp, his face contorted in pain, smashing his forehead against the wall over and over — there was already blood.
"Harry?"
Ron tried to grab him, but Harry flung him off violently.
"Wake up! Wake up! Harry's cursed!"
Ron shouted to the others in the dorm. While he yelled for help, Harry kept pounding his forehead into the wall in agony.
"Use magic to hold him! Ron, Dean, come on!"
Neville thought fast and gave orders.
Thanks to Harry's influence, the first-year Gryffindors — who'd had a peaceful spell of no trouble — had all been practicing self-defense spells during free time. So there were at least two who could handle this.
As for Neville — he was better with his fists anyway.
And Seamus? He was their designated "blow up with the enemy" guy in any fight.
"Leg-Locker Curse first — hold his legs. Then we wrap him in a bedsheet and carry him to the hospital wing. One of us has to run for a professor too."
Their usual Gryffindor "battle plans" now turned into an emergency rescue op. In minutes, they'd wrapped Harry tight in bedsheets and floated him toward the common room exit, all using Levitation Charms they'd mastered far too well.
Harry still tried to bash his head sometimes, but the bedsheets held firm.
"Five points from Gryffindor."
Just as they crawled out through the portrait hole, struggling to keep Harry steady, a voice they all knew far too well stopped them in their tracks.
"What are you carrying?"
"Harry."
???
Snape, for a second, even had the impulse to award Gryffindor points — but realization hit him at once.
"Put him down!"
"He's cursed! We have to get him to the hospital wing!"
Ron shouted.
"Another five points from Gryffindor — for yelling. I said, put him down."
"He's going to die! Let us through!"
Ron shouted again, swinging his wand, but Snape blocked it effortlessly and pinned it midair. Neville dashed for the door but froze mid-step as a spell locked him in place.
Seamus and Dean just stood there, stunned. They hadn't expected this.
Snape shot them a glare — they turned into quivering quails.
Then Snape raised his wand, flicking it to unravel the bedsheet. Harry dropped free — thud, thud…
The banging started again.
Snape's eyes widened, then his face turned an ugly shade of pale.
He flicked his wand; a roll of bandages flew out, wrapping Harry tightly again. He floated the bound Harry up with his wand.
"You two—"
He started to bark an order, but saw the other two students had already bolted down the corridor in opposite directions.
Muttering a curse under his breath, Snape didn't waste time. He dragged Harry straight into his office and began tearing through his private stores like a madman.
"No, this won't work…"
"Maybe this one will."
Potions worth a small fortune — counted drop by drop under normal circumstances — were now poured into Harry's mouth like water. But Harry stayed unconscious, his face growing paler.
Snape's expression turned grimmer as he tore through his potions cabinet, throwing Galleons at the problem — but Harry's color didn't improve one bit.
Hm?
Even after pouring his precious Felix Felicis down Harry's throat in desperation, Snape suddenly sensed something strange — a weird power that began to drain Harry's life force at an alarming rate.
In Snape's astonished eyes, a shiny fragment emerged from Harry's scar, then began to grow rapidly.
He didn't know exactly what it was — but years of dark magic study told him at once: this was bad, very bad. It was sucking Harry's life away.
Hesitation flickered for an instant — then Snape's eyes hardened.
He raised his wand, trying to look Harry in the eyes one last time — but they were shut tight, unconscious.
With no more doubt, Snape flicked his wand. A jet of green light shot out, hitting the fragment dead-on — it pulsed, tried to resist, but was swallowed up in the light.
"Again!"
Moody had never seen something so stubborn — he finally understood why Dumbledore had dragged him out in the dead of night.
He'd already watched Dumbledore unleash a dozen different, completely unheard-of spells. Each one only weakened the shadowy mass bit by bit — but the good news was that it was weakening.
Yet just as a new round of spells hit, the shadow suddenly exploded with power, stronger than at the start — and somehow, the surge caused even their own spells to rebound against Dumbledore's supposedly unbreakable wards.
Even Dumbledore's own attack misfired under the distortion, striking his own shield. The shadow — weakened to the brink — used the moment to shoot toward the window.
The team lunged to intercept, but the shadow hit the ground and vanished without a trace.
…
They'd arrived at the castle on Thestrals, asked the house-elves for layouts, drawn up a plan, set the trap — and still, it had slipped through.
Moody looked downright sour.
But to his surprise, Dumbledore didn't seem nearly as frustrated as he'd expected.
"Didn't go quite as planned — but I learned a lot…"
Yet even as they left, Moody still hadn't figured out what exactly Dumbledore had learned — or what that shadow really was.
When Professor McGonagall, still in her pajamas and looking skeptical, escorted the two students back through the corridor, she still didn't quite believe their story.
But when she arrived at Snape's office, her anger finally broke free.
Harry lay at Snape's office door, still unconscious — though at least he didn't look like he was cursed anymore, as the students had described.
"Severus," McGonagall said through gritted teeth after banging on his door, "why is Harry lying outside your office?"
"Because I removed the curse, Minerva."
Snape looked at her like she'd asked the world's dumbest question.
"My students told me you took him from them—"
"Not took — saved. They said Potter was cursed; curse-breaking happens to be my area of expertise. So I treated him. You're welcome — and if there's nothing else, Minerva, I'd like to get some rest. It's late."
McGonagall was furious — but in the end, she held it in. Just like he said — the curse was lifted.
"Anything else?"
"No, Severus."
T/N: For twenty chapters ahead on all my fics become a P@tron at [email protected]/LordHipposApostle