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0678 The Curse
🕑 Added 2025-04-07 09:54:36 +0000 UTCHermione had already lost all control of her body. Moody had to roughly pinch her chin between his fingers and forcibly pry her jaw open. He removed the cork and poured the liquid emitting green lights carefully between her split lips.
Bryan narrowed his eyes but did not stop Moody's actions.
As the glowing green liquid trickled down Hermione's throat, the paleness of her appearance eased a little. Yet the danger remained obvious as black smoke continued to rise from her body. The only reassuring sign that she hadn't succumbed to death was the faint light that still flickered in her eyes.
Ron was considerably worse fortunate in the chaos. He hit his head on the stone pavement when he landed and was now motionless on the ground several feet away, apparently unconscious from the impact of his fall.
But Harry didn't go to check on Ron's condition His attention remained focused completely on Hermione's face. His eyes appeared completely dazed and helpless behind his glasses, showing the shock and disbelief.
Not a single person among the gathered crowd dared to break the terrible silence on the scene before them. The young wizards and witches from three magical schools, who moments before had been enjoying their Hogsmeade visit, scrambled to their feet in small, frightened clusters of twos and threes.
They all stared with horror, at Hermione Granger's lying body and at Professors Watson and Moody working frantically beside her. It was as if some powerful silencing charm had stolen their ability to speak, leaving only wide eyes and expressions of rising terror.
The atmosphere was heavy pressing down on everyone present with the solemnity of impending tragedy. Even the constant mountain wind that typically whistled through the narrow streets of Hogsmeade seemed to have vanished, leaving behind an unnatural stillness.
"Oh, my goodness... dear Merlin, no..."
The horrified exclamation pierced through the silence. From the shattered remains of the Three Broomsticks pub entrance emerged Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout rushing toward the commotion.
They ran hurriedly across the debris-scattered ground stepping over shards of glass and cracked wood chips that crunched beneath their boots. From a distance, they could make out only the silhouette of a young student lying motionless on the street. But as they got closer, they realized the student on the ground was Hermione Granger.
Professor McGonagall's face drained of color and her body trembled. If Professor Sprout hadn't urgently supported her, she might have collapsed to the ground as well.
She couldn't believe what was happening before her eyes. Professor McGonagall raised a shaking hand to cover her mouth. Her eyes glistened with tears as she stared at Hermione and approached the scene unsteadily step by step.
"What on earth happened here?" She finally managed to gasp out.
'What happened? How could this possibly have happened?'
The unspoken questions were buzzing in everyone's minds. Every single person present wanted the answers, including Bryan, but before they could begin to untangle the mystery, they needed to save Hermione's life, and quickly!
"Are these Hermione's belongings?" Bryan asked calmly as his gaze swept carefully over the ground, taking in the smashed pastry box and the delicately shaped cookies scattered across the cobblestones like colorful casualties of war.
Though Professor Watson's sharp eyes weren't directly looking at him, Harry instinctively knew the question was directed his way. He managed a slow, wooden nod of confirmation, his lips moving silently as he tried to voice the words, but no sound emerged from his throat.
Professor Moody had finished feeding the entire bottle of potion to Hermione, then gently laid her on the ground. When he finally looked up and met Watson's intense gaze, his cheek twitched violently.
The surging anger emanating from those pale purple eyes was bone-chilling in its intensity the kind that even made her want to take several steps backward or simply run away from here.
"She won't be in immediate danger for now," Moody said, his lips barely moving as he spoke, "but she needs more professional treatment quickly. I'm not particularly familiar with the details of wizard curses of this level."
Clatter——
The cookies and shredded pastry box scattered on the ground repaired themselves as if time had reversed. Surveying the fear and bewilderment in every pair of eyes around him, Bryan finally raised his wand.
A silver light erupted from the tip of his wand, shooting toward Hogwarts like a comet, streaking across the sky before merging with the snowy landscape in an instant and disappeared from view.
"Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang—" Bryan's icy voice resonated with magical enhancement, echoing in every corner of Hogsmeade Village, reaching every student regardless of their location. "All students present in Hogsmeade, return to Hogwarts immediately without any delay."
After saying this, Bryan lightly hooked his finger, and a stretcher appeared out of thin air beneath Hermione gently lifting her body an inch off the ground before stabilizing.
"Please supervise the young wizards' return to school—" Bryan said to Professor McGonagall and the other Hogwarts staff.
"Bryan—" Professor McGonagall's eyes now brimmed with tears as she looked at him. "Granger, she... will she...?"
"Don't worry—" Bryan said calmly. "She will recover, I give you my word. But the safety of the other students here is equally important. Professor McGonagall, you must ensure they return to school as soon as possible—"
With those words, Bryan placed his hand on the armrest of the stretcher. Immediately, a protective magical barrier shimmered into existence around them, emitting a soft, milky white light that covered both Bryan and Hermione in a perfect sphere.
After casting a brief glance at the still-dazed Harry, Bryan let out an inaudible sigh. His figure suddenly blurred, becoming blurry as he and Hermione broke through the air with tremendous force, launching into the sky with such speed that several onlookers gasped aloud.
'Nothing must happen,' Moody thought to himself, watching the rapidly leaving Bryan which quickly shrank to nothing more than a distant black dot against the winter sky.
The violent surging wind and atmospheric resistance that accompanied such high-speed magical flight were completely neutralized by the powerful barrier surrounding them, creating not even the slightest disturbance within their protective bubble.
Hermione lay motionless on the stretcher with her head hanging limply to one side, occasionally shifting slightly with the momentum of their flight.
Her vision was still blurred. The constant rumbling sound filling her ears made it impossible to understand what was happening. Yet through this fog, she could still recognize that the person who had appeared beside her was Professor Watson.
The fear of death began to dissipate, replaced by an unprecedented sense of security. Since Professor Watson had arrived, she felt instinctively that she was no longer facing imminent doom.
But simultaneously, an overwhelming sense of grievance welled up from deep within her heart feeling injustice at having been targeted, at the unfairness of it all.
This grievance made Hermione cry, and the tears were streaming down her pale cheeks as she could not control her weak body.
"Don't worry—" With his gaze fixed on the approaching silhouette of Hogwarts Castle, Bryan suddenly seemed to notice something. He lowered his head and observed Hermione crying silently on the stretcher. His eyelids fluttered briefly, before he gave her a reassuring smile. "Don't be afraid. We'll have you healthy again very soon—"
For reasons she couldn't quite understand, Professor Watson's gentle voice somehow drowned out the howling and rumbling noises filling her ears. His words reached her with perfect clarity, penetrating the fog that had covered over her senses.
Hermione tried desperately to blink away her tears, to try to see Professor Watson more clearly, seeking reassurance. But the unexpected warmth rising in her chest began to spread throughout her body, making her muscles relax.
An overwhelming wave of exhaustion came over her consciousness, dragging her deeper away from the waking world. Finally, unable to resist any longer, Hermione's eyes rolled back beneath their lids, and she fell into a deep sleep.
Whoosh!
Bryan flew directly over the stone wall surrounding the Hogwarts grounds. As he crossed the Black Lake at tremendous speed, the powerful gust generated by his passage compressed the broken sheets of ice floating on the surface, creating rustling sounds as frozen shards smashed against one another.
In merely the blink of an eye, Bryan had already flown over the snow-covered lawns of the castle grounds. He landed at the castle's main entrance, where Dumbledore and Severus already stood waiting vigilantly, having been alerted by his message. Above their heads, Fawkes circled in loops.
The moment their eyes met across the distance, Bryan immediately saw the same surging anger he himself felt reflected in Dumbledore's twinkling blue eyes. Under the influence of such intense emotion, the magical power contained within Dumbledore's body seemed to be roaring like a sea caught in the fury of a typhoon.
Perhaps influenced by the fierce aura emanating from the Headmaster, or perhaps due to having run frantically across the castle after receiving Bryan's urgent message, Severus' normally emotionless face was also tense. His forehead glistened with sweat despite the winter chill, and his eyes now stirred with emotion.
"I've managed to temporarily suppress the poison and the curse's erosion of Miss Granger's body and magic," Bryan explained as he supported the hovering stretcher, striding up the steps. "Moody administered some strange but apparently effective potion to help restore her damaged life force—it bought us time."
With a flash of orange-gold firelight that momentarily blinded them all, Fawkes transported the three wizards and the unconscious Hermione directly into the headmaster's office.
Dumbledore immediately waved his wand in a sweeping arc and a sofa normally used for receiving guests rolled smoothly across the office floor on its own. As it moved, the furniture transformed extending and flattening until it had become a proper hospital bed.
Bryan then directed his magic to lift Hermione's unconscious body gently from the stretcher. Her body floated upward, suspended in mid-air for several seconds before slowly falling onto the newly conjured bed.
Dumbledore, Bryan, and Severus stood around the hospital bed as they gazed down at Hermione, who had fallen victim to such a wicked attack. Fawkes glided down from his circling position to land beside Hermione's pale face. After a moment, Fawkes blinked solemnly and let several tears to fall from his eyes precisely on Hermione's lips.
"It's no use—" All three wizards had been observing Hermione in their own way, each using different magical techniques to assess her condition. Severus, his thin lips dry and cracked with tension, was the first to speak. "The poison and curse afflicting her are intricately intertwined, creating a self-sustaining cycle of dark magic. As long as the curse remains active, the poison will continue to regenerate regardless of our efforts to neutralize it. This kind of curse..."
"A very powerful curse, indeed," Bryan interjected, his eyes cold and fierce as he spoke to Dumbledore. "The perpetrator clearly intended to take her life."
From Dumbledore's rising beard and ashen face, one could see how angry he was, but he said nothing. Instead he bent down over Hermione's face and used his sharp gaze to dissect the frozen black cloud inside Hermione's body. This cloud had already bonded with Hermione's life force and magical power. If it were not for Bryan's intervention and magical suppression, Hermione would certainly have died within minutes.
Severus' gaze swept over the pastry box at the foot of the bed. He strode over, took a piece, and sniffed it under his nostrils, then squinted and observed it himself. After a thorough inspection, he shook his head slightly at Bryan.
"There's no detectable poison in the food itself—" he confirmed in his silky voice. "The curse must have been triggered through some other mechanism."
Dumbledore finally straightened up and a look of concern appeared on his face. "Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley—"
"They're fine——" Bryan shook his head slightly, "The caster probably wasn't targeting them... They're currently on their way back from Hogsmeade with the rest of the students under Professor McGonagall's supervision ——"
"I'll need to collect a large amount of Fawkes' tears—"
Severus stated matter-of-factly, clearly understanding why Bryan had specifically brought him into this urgent consultation. He looked at Dumbledore, his dark eyes conveying the seriousness of the situation.
"With the proper ingredients, I can brew some specialized potions that, when taken continuously, should help Granger suppress the poison's effects and perhaps even allow her to regain consciousness temporarily. But we must resolve the underlying curse as swiftly as possible, Headmaster, otherwise even my most potent concoctions will only delay the inevitable—she won't be able to withstand this for long."
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