One Hour, Thirty Seconds

Chapter 33

Moody raced through the atrium of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. By the time he negotiated the grand staircase to the third floor, he was winded. He pushed through the fatigue and kept his legs pumping all the way to the hospital wing. He opened the door to the waiting room, panting as he looked at Reuben and Jeff, who were standing guard outside the patient ward. He stopped when he noticed Minerva McGonagall fast asleep on one of the benches and paused to regard her gentle form; she hardly looked comfortable huddled atop the stiff wooden bench. He knelt beside her, righted her neck and draped his jacket around her. She awoke with a start.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

She sat up straight and spoke through the tiredness in her voice. "I was just resting my eyes."

"What are you doing here at this time of night, Miss McGonagall?"

"I would ask the same thing of you, Mr Moody."

"I'm on official Ministry business."

"It's about Dumbledore, isn't it?" McGonagall's eyes widened. "Is he... dead?"

"I'm sure he's fine; you mustn't worry."

"Don't patronize me," she snapped, her lip trembling. "I saw those two... Aurors carry him inside the hospital wing, but they won't let anyone in to see him."

"Really, you should go back to bed, Miss McGonagall."

"I'll do no such thing!"

"Suit yourself, then; I'll be off."

She grabbed Moody's arm as he rose. "Can't you get me in to see him? I might be able to help."

"Sorry. I really can't."

"Please... I have to know he's all right."

He looked into McGonagall's pleading eyes and sighed. Fuck! "Come on, then."

Moody was surprised when she clung to his arm, presumably out of her fear that he might change his mind. As he escorted her, he regarded her hand and made special notice that her wedding band was no longer present. Good girl. He grinned when McGonagall caught him staring. "How's your shoulder?"

"It's fine."

At the ward's entrance, the Aurors standing guard allowed them to go inside, though they continued to give McGonagall a most severe once-over. She tightened her grip on Moody's arm as they passed. Moody smiled to himself as he remembered watching Jeff and Reuben practice those same menacing leers in the mirror for hours in their dorm during their academy days.

Once inside, McGonagall released Moody's arm. She gasped when she saw Dumbledore incapacitated, being attended to by Madam Pomfrey. Her brisk footfalls clacked loudly in the deathly quiet ward.

Pomfrey greeted McGonagall warmly, but didn't have the same regard for Moody, who was not far behind. "You? What is the meaning of all this secrecy? Your lot has put Professor Dumbledore's life in danger by not sending him to a proper hospital!"

"That's why it's called 'secrecy', Madam Pomfrey," Moody replied, unperturbed.

"Never mind him, Poppy," McGonagall interjected. "How's Dumbledore?"

"The worst of it is over," Pomfrey told her reassuringly. "You just missed Healer Potter. He got a drip of serum going."

"Thank Merlin!" McGonagall said in relief. "What was the prognosis?"

"Australian sea snake venom," Pomfrey answered. "Quite deadly to wizards, as conventional treatments are useless."

"Will he live?"

"It depends if the anti-venom can do its work before the poison can affect his heart."

"How were you able to stabilize him?"

"I didn't." Pomfrey smiled and reached into her pocket. "I found these clenched in his hand."

"Alihotsy leaves?" McGonagall said excitedly upon examination. "The man is brilliant!"

"Alihotsy?" Moody questioned. "That causes hysteria, doesn't it?"

"Yes," Pomfrey replied aloofly. "By increasing acetylcholine levels in the brain, which, as it happens, could serve to offset the receptors in the snake venom."

Moody shrugged in response. "If you say so."

McGonagall embraced Pomfrey. "However did he get his hands on Alihotsy, I wonder?"

Moody smiled inwardly again. A treasure trove for any herbologist, indeed, Professor. He continued to regard his long time mentor. "He saved my life. I should be lying cold on the bottom of a cliff."

"He saved all of us, mate," said the familiar voice of Edgar Bones. He drew aside the privacy curtain from around the hospital bed next to Dumbledore's, cradling his bandaged forearm.

"Edward!" Moody greeted. "Welcome back to the land of the conscious."

"Who could sleep with all this prattling going on?" They shook hands. "Madam Pomfrey here has cleared me for release, but your two Auror friends out there tell me I can't leave yet."

"It's necessary for your safety, I'm afraid." Moody reached into his crowded sleeve compartment. "I have something of yours."

"Cheers, mate," Edgar said, retaining custody of the proffered wand. "So, things have really gone pear-shaped, I take it?"

"I need to ask you some questions, if you don't mind." Moody took on a serious air as he withdrew with Edgar to a remote corner of the room out of the women's earshot. "What can you tell me about the Rotfang Land Trust?"

"Rotfang...." Edgar rubbed his chin. "If I recall correctly, it's an umbrella fund. Its investments are tied into a little bit of everything: Education, Ministry retirement, the Dentist's guild.... Does this have anything to do with last night's events?"

"It appears so."

"Edgar!" McGonagall's footfalls clacked loudly against the marble floor as she approached. "I demand to know what happened last night.... Don't look at him; I'm asking you!"

Edgar shifted his weight uncomfortably. "Well, Minerva, we had a meeting with these giants..."

"Yes, the First Tribe." McGonagall hurried him along. "Albus told me all about it before he left. Did they do this?"

Moody intervened, much to Edgar's relief. "No, but someone killed their Gurg and made it look like the Ministry is responsible."

"Oh, my," she gasped as she fully comprehended the direness of the situation. "Merlin! How long do we have?"

Moody curled his lip, but saw no point in tiptoeing around the issue. "Less than an hour."

The door opened. Everyone's attention was drawn to Shacklebolt as she entered the ward.

"That was fast, sir," Moody said in greeting.

Shacklebolt paused to regard the civilians in the room. "I left Healer Bunbley at the scene." She then approached Moody and presented her bracelet. "He brought back the results from his back trace of my Portkey: it turns out it wasn't compromised as we thought. In fact, it wasn't responsible for teleporting us into Wolf Squadron's trap at all."

"How did Bunbley come to that conclusion?" Moody queried.

"He found traces of residual energy from a Redirectional Jinx; that was our means of conveyance to the secondary site."

"You're telling me that four very capable wizards walked into a Redirectional Jinx unawares?" Moody said, nonplussed. "Chances are one of us would have felt something was awry in the thirty seconds it takes to engage one."

"Are you sure about that?" Shacklebolt said. "Dumbledore was grieved, you and I were arguing and Bones was scared shitless..."

"I was not scared 'shitless'."

"But Queenie, you engaged the Portkey yourself, didn't you?"

"Now that I think about it, Alastor, I don't remember actually touching it."

"But I just don't understand," Moody persisted. "Redirectional Jinxes by their very nature are location-dependent: they have to be laid out beforehand. There's no way Wolf Squadron could have known when and where we would be... led there...."

Shacklebolt confirmed Moody's revelation with a knowing look. "Precisely."

"We have another murder to stop."

Just then Reuben and Jeff burst into the room. The manner in their stride made it apparent that something was wrong.

Jeff formally addressed Shacklebolt. "Excuse me, sir; you might want to plug into the slug-line."

"What's today's colour?" Shacklebolt said in acknowledgement.

"Red."

Shacklebolt retrieved the magic slug from her provisions. She grazed it lightly with the tip of her wand, and it changed from green to bright red. "I hate these things." She inserted it into her ear.

"What's going on?" Edgar said.

Moody had likewise slugged in and was listening intently, pausing only long enough to answer, "All available wands have been called to the demilitarized zones."

"We're too late, then?"

"I'm not ready to give up yet," Shacklebolt said. She rallied the three Aurors together, saying, "You three head off the maestro on the battlefield...stall him."

Moody eyed her warily. "And what are you going to do, sir?"

"I'm going to take Stoker, along with all the physical evidence we've gathered, and make an emergency appeal to the Minister, herself."

"With all due respect, sir, she won't listen to you."

"She will listen to me." Dumbledore's assertive voice caused everyone to regard him with a start, in spite of his infirm condition.

Madam Pomfrey, however, was not impressed. "You are in no condition to walk, Professor! I must insist that you stay in that bed!"

"I agree, my dear." With a masterful flourish of his wand, Dumbledore's bed transfigured into a sturdy wheel chair. He waved his hand, and the chair locomoted at his will. When he passed by Moody and Edgar, he raised a finger and the chair stopped. "Slothbrain pollen... really evened you two troublemakers out, didn't it?" He pointed forward and the chair obeyed, leaving the young wizards speechless. McGonagall and Pomfrey accompanied the elder wizard as he left. "Shall we press on, Auror Shacklebolt?"

"I'm right behind you, Professor," Shacklebolt replied. She addressed her subordinates one last time. "Aurors, I don't need to impress upon you that this is the real thing, do I?"

"No, sir," Moody said. "However, you do realize that we don't exactly have the maestro's ear?"

"Your best is all I ask, Auror Moody." She reached into her provisions once again and took out Ozymandias' ring. "Take this. It might give you some leverage." She then dismissed Reuben and Jeff with, "I will speak with Auror Moody alone now."

Edgar took Shacklebolt's request as an imperative that applied to him as well, yet he couldn't resist asking of Moody, "You don't think Dumbledore heard us that day in his office, do you, about the detention?"

Moody shrugged, at a loss. "How could he have?"

With nothing more to be said, Reuben, Jeff and Edgar left the ward. It remained quiet after the doors closed behind them.

Although she was pressed for time, Shacklebolt paced about patiently to collect her thoughts. She turned to face Moody, folded her arms and stood as tall as she could. "Those two prats I pulled from the dance floor... you were very quick to tear them off of me, weren't you? Why was that?"

Moody did not answer right away, being caught off guard by the question. "It's... what is expected of a gentleman..."

"And your refusal to let me handle the Fiendfyre by myself?" she scolded. "And back in the forest...where you leapt after me, like an unthinking scab, when a simple Levitation Spell would have sufficed... I suppose that was also you being a gentleman?"

"Naturally."

They regarded each other.

Shacklebolt again broke the silence between them, but this time with a gentler tone. "Bravery is an Auror's greatest asset, but a gentleman's gallantry will get you killed."

He stayed at attention but bowed his head. "I understand, sir."

"Do you, Alastor?" She approached and placed her hand gently on his chest and whispered, "Today, I just want you to be an Auror. Will you do that... for me?"

Her touch brought to mind how fast his heart had been beating. Without the distracting bright lights and smoke from the dance floor, he had an unfettered view into those darkest of brown eyes, baring her intensity, her sex, her compassion and something else he had never before noticed: a sadness. "I will, Queenie."

She withdrew her hand. The morning sun started to seep into the room, and the two Aurors left, in defiance of whatever the day might bring them.