Albus did not wake up gradually. One moment, there was nothing but darkness and the next he was aware of soft voices, smooth sheets and a slight pain in his arm.
He opened his eyes. He was laying in a clean white bed in a clean white room. His father was sitting at the foot of the bed, talking to his mother, who was pacing up and down.
“Hi Al,” said Harry when he noticed his son’s open eyes. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay,” said Albus. He tried to move his left arm and found that he could quite easily. The pain was little more than a twinge. “What happened? Is everyone all right?”
“Everyone’s pretty much fine,” said Ginny, walking over and stroking her son’s hair. “James is a little bruised, Hugo was knocked unconscious and Rose twisted her ankle, but they’re not seriously hurt.”
“What time is it?” asked Albus. His mind was moving a little bit sluggishly. “Where are we?”
“It’s about three o’clock on Christmas morning and we are in St. Mungo’s,” said Harry. “James and Lily are in the waiting room downstairs.”
“But what about the Inferi? Are they gone? What happened?” asked Albus.
Harry’s face tightened a bit. “I’m sorry you had to be there for that, Al. The Aurors killed”well, destroyed all of the Inferi pretty quickly. There were some broken bones and three people were killed, but we’re pretty lucky.”
“What did they want? Why did they attack us?”
Ginny shook her head grimly. “We don’t know. There’s no way to get information from the Inferi and most of them are in pieces anyway. Some of the Aurors are trying to trace back to the controllers, but they probably won’t have much luck.”
“How did they get in?” asked Albus. He had dozens of questions which bubbled up to the surface of his mind one by one.
“The same way we did,” said Harry. “They entered through the public entry, killed Eric the security guard and went upstairs to the Auror Office.”
“Whoever planned this didn’t do a very good job,” said Ginny. “If they wanted something, why would they raid the place when all of the Aurors were there? If they wanted to wipe out the Department, why not send more Inferi?”
“I don’t know why this happened, but we’re going to find out,” said Harry. “I’ve got Preston and Winkers on it now. Hopefully we’ll have some leads soon.”
“You should get some rest, Al,” said Ginny. “The Healer fixed your arm quickly, but it was a serious fracture.”
Albus opened his mouth to protest, but found that he was too heavy with sleep to even speak. He wondered idly if he had been given a potion for the pain that was making him tired.
The next thing he knew he was opening his eyes again. The room was sunny now; the window had been opened. Neither of his parents was there, but James and Lily had taken their place at the foot of the bed.
“Al!” Lilly jumped up and hugged Albus furiously, sending a bolt of pain up his injured arm. “How do you feel?”
“Fine,” said Albus. “How about you? Are you guys okay?”
They both nodded. James had a noticeable bruise on his face”probably from when the door hit him.
“Mum and Dad are setting up our presents at the Burrow,” said James before Albus could ask. “They’ll be back to get us in a few minutes.”
Christmas. Albus hadn’t even thought of how they’d missed Christmas Eve, although it now seemed strangely irrelevant in the aftermath of the attack.
“What happened after I passed out?” Albus asked.
“Not much,” said James. “Some old coot put a protective charm on the doorway so none of the Inferi could get in at us. Most of them were down by that time anyway. The whole battle was over about five minutes after you fainted.”
A nurse entered as Albus was to about to tell James that he had not fainted. She wordlessly gave Albus a goblet of shockingly pink potion and left.
“What do you think it is?” Lily asked.
Albus drained the goblet in two gulps. It tasted vaguely fruity.
“What time is it?” Albus asked.
James checked his watch. “Nine-thirty. We had breakfast a little while ago. You hungry?”
Albus realized he was starving. The treats and snacks he’d eaten at the party could have been consumed years ago.
“Yeah,” he said. “Is there a vending machine or something?”
“Right outside,” said James. “I’ll go get you something.” He left and returned a moment later with a small package of Bertie Botts’ Every Flavor Beans.
It took Albus some time to find an edible Bean. He found and discarded Paint, Salt, Carrot and Hair-flavored Beans before finding one that was plain chocolate.
“Everyone’s okay, right? You saw them?” he said. “Uncle Ron, Aunt Hermione?”
“Yeah,” said James. “They were fine. Rose and Hugo are pretty shaken up, though. We saw”” James and Lily exchanged a conspiratorial glance-.
“After you fainted,” said Lily. “One of the Inferi started””
“We saw one of the Aurors get killed,” said James. His face, so often bright and smiling, was ashen. “It was”awful.”
They all lapsed into silence for a moment. Albus wondered what the Inferius had done, but he didn’t really want to ask or know.
A moment later, Harry and Ginny reentered the room. “Almost everyone’s over at the Burrow,” said Ginny. “Grandma was about to throw a fit when I told her you were in St. Mungo’s.”
“Can you get up?” Harry asked Albus.
“I think so.”
Albus pushed the sheets off of himself and climbed out of the bed. He felt almost as good as new, though his shoulder was stiff and difficult to move.
When he had gotten his shoes and jacket on, the Potters headed out of the ward and a Healer had a brief conversation with Harry and Ginny. They signed several release forms and then took the lift to the ground floor.
“Everyone’s over at the Burrow for Christmas,” said Ginny brightly. “There’s a pile of presents under the tree about as high as I am.”
The thought of the warm, safe Burrow, decorated for Christmas gave Albus an odd feeling. Such comforting, normal things still existed after what had happened at the Ministry.
The Potters reached the lobby and stepped out of the lift. A man with a chicken’s head was calmly reading a magazine next to a witch with ugly purple boils.
“I’ll take James and Lily,” said Ginny, taking her children’s hands.
Harry took Albus’s arm and turned on his heel. An instant later, the Potters were standing in the snowy front yard of the Burrow, which was wrapped with brightly colored tinsel. A huge star had been balanced on the roof, giving the house the appearance of a very large Christmas tree.
The front door banged open and Molly came flying out to hug her grandchildren. “Are you feeling all right?” she asked Albus as she squeezed him. “Do you want chicken soup? Pudding?”
“Mum, he’ll eat with the rest of us,” said Ginny. “He hurt his arm, not his stomach.”
A rather large crowd of people was gathering in the yard of the Burrow and Albus was passed from person to person for hugs and queries about his shoulder.
There was Arthur, almost completely bald now; Ron, Hermione, Hugo and Rose, all looking normal; Bill, Fleur, Victoire, Dominique and Louis, Fleur and her three light-haired children striking an odd contrast with Bill’s red hair and scarred face; George, Angelina, Fred and Roxanne, who was only six. Rounding out the group was Teddy Lupin and Hagrid, who was recommending remedies for broken arms to no one in particular.
When everyone had hugged Albus, James and Lily, the family adjourned to the incredibly cramped living room to open presents. Albus’s mother had not been exaggerating”the amount of presents made the tree almost impossible to see.
Chaos reined for several hours as all the grandchildren opened their gifts. The room soon became so filled with wrapping, tissue paper and boxes that Albus was up to his waist.
Albus received his usual sweater and a very large amount of fudge from his grandparents, a book on Quidditch from his Uncle Ron, a book on easy-to-learn dueling spells from his Aunt Hermione, a sled and a broomstick servicing kit from his parents, a mokeskin bag from Hagrid (upon examination, the bag contained several large worms which attempted to bite Albus’s fingers) and an enormous amount of candy, clothes and miscellaneous items from everyone else.
The unwrapping took several hours and when everyone had been thanked and all of the gifts stored (Hermione performed Undectable Extension Charms on several gift bags to help), the grandchildren trooped out into the snow dressed in an assortment of cast-off snow clothes that Molly had lying around the house.
Albus’s new sled was tried out by almost everyone and found to be satisfactory (it not only slid, but flew a few feet above the ground) and George and Ron amused the children by engaging in a magical snowball fight that left Ron half-drowned.
Soon the grandchildren joined in, pitting Albus, Fred, Dominique, Teddy and Hugo against Rose, Victoire, Roxanne, Louis, Lily and James. The snow battle ended with Rose buried up to her midriff in a snow pile.
After an hour or so, Albus’s arm began to ache, so he slipped back in the house for a bite of Christmas pudding in the kitchen.
The adults were in the living room, speaking in hushed tones. They had appeared jolly for most of the day, but Albus knew that what had happened in the Ministry was serious. Three people were dead and someone was behind it. Someone powerful.
Bill walked into the kitchen, carrying a plate. An experimental treatment at St. Mungo’s had greatly reduced his scarring three years ago, but his face still had deep lines crisscrossing it.
“How’s the pudding?” he asked Albus, who was sitting at the counter with a large plate.
“It’s good,” said Albus.
Bill scooped a piece onto his plate and flicked his wand at a bottle of milk. It upended itself over a glass, filling it for him.
“Uncle Bill?” said Albus. “I want to ask you something.”
“Of course, Al,” said Bill, leaning up against the counter and taking a drink of milk. “What is it?”
“The Inferi. At the Ministry. They were using spells, curses. I thought they were, you know, just puppets.” Only a few moments ago had this occurred to Albus. Everything he’d read about Inferi suggested they were just mindless zombies.
“Sometimes they are,” said Bill, taking a forkful of pudding. “But a powerful wizard can sort of”imprint things in the mind of the Inferius. Like the ability to make decisions or even use magic. The more complex the task, the more difficult the imprinting. Most Dark wizards don’t bother. The sight of a walking corpse is enough to cause panic in most cases.”
“But there were hundreds of Inferi at the Ministry,” said Albus. “How could one or two wizards have imprinted all of them?”
Bill’s scarred face was impassive. “That’s what’s so serious. One or two wizards didn’t do this. A group of them did. A powerful, well-organized group with someone very clever heading it up. This is enormous, Al.”
Albus had, of course, heard tales of Voldemort’s legendary evil and the war that had sprung from it. Was war coming again?
Seeing the look on his nephew’s face, Bill said: “But your dad has his entire department working on this and your dad is good at what he does. Great at what he does. These people will be caught and brought to justice.”
He walked out of the room, patting Albus on the shoulder as he left.
Albus could see the snow fight still in progress outside. Victoire was enchanting snowballs to fly at Teddy and everyone laughed as he pointed his wand at the ground and created a wall of snow to protect himself from the onslaught.
It was so peaceful here and at Hogwarts. But everything was different now. Tainted by the violence that Albus had witnessed, the hatred and cruelty exhibited by the senders of the Inferi.
What were they even there to do? Were they supposed to have assassinated someone? Stolen something? Wiped out the entire Department?
It was all a confusing tangle. A part of Albus”a large part”wanted to pretend that everything was all right, that nothing had changed. He wanted to lie to himself and couldn’t.
He stared out of the window, pudding untouched.