Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

An Auror's Tale: Big Mouths and Missing Fingers

He flattened his slim frame out as much as possible on the broom and streaked across the night sky. A blur of light whizzed up from the earth below, but passed well behind him, hitting nothing but the disturbed air in his wake.

Well, this definitely isn't going according to plan.

There were shouts from below and behind. If Potter was correct then they'd be having company soon. Atherton cursed the fact that he'd never invested in a broom of his own. The piece of junk provided by the Ministry might end up costing him more than a race.

Two more colorful blurs raced past him on either side, this time coming from the rear.

Yup, definitely have company.

Atherton began to bob and weave, trying to make himself a harder target to hit. Ahead of him, Potter would be reaching the edge of the wards soon. Once he did the mission was complete and the only thing Atherton had to worry about was escaping in one piece.

That's all, just worry about continuing to live.

His mother had always told him that his mouth would get him killed some day. As it turned out, his lack of flying expertise was increasingly looking like the culprit. He'd played a game of Quidditch or two in his day, but when Potter had asked him if he was comfortable on a broom, somehow Atherton hadn't thought about the fact that the answer might be the difference between life or death.

A slower moving spell came upon him and he avoided it easily. The sickly green ball of light stopped a few meters beyond him and then suddenly exploded outward. The force from the shockwave sent his broom downward—or at least he thought it was downward. The bright explosion had temporarily destroyed his vision, and the fact that he didn't hear his own shout of pain told him at least one of his other five senses wasn't doing too hot either.

Shit.

Without being sure which direction he was flying, Atherton only saw one option. And it wasn't a good one.

Shiiiiiiiiiiit.

He let himself fall off the broom and began casting cushioning charms all over himself. They were much more effective when used on the surface being impacted, but in a pinch using one on yourself would help you survive what would otherwise be a particularly squishy landing. He just hoped that it would—

Merlin's bloody arse!

Okay, that was a new level of horrific pain. But on the bright side, horrific pain trumped horrific death any day. Now he had to try to repair the damage. His casting arm appeared to be broken, but Atherton has some training casting with his off-hand. The eyes were easy to fix, and he managed to regain his vision without horrifically disfiguring himself. He tried to sit up and survey the damage to his own body but—

Fuck that!

Yeah, that wasn't going to happen. He only made it about a quarter of the way before the pain was unbearable and he collapsed onto his back. He tried to pinpoint what was giving him the worst of it and quickly realized that a number of his ribs were no longer intact. On top of that, there was a searing pain along almost the entirety of his left side. Throwing fanciness to the wind, Atherton started liberally casting bone mending charms on himself. He mended his left arm first and then switched his wand between his hands to give himself an easier time casting. Each successive CRACK informed him of a successfully mended bone—although the accompanying sharp agony would have done the job even without the audio cues.

What do you know, my hearing came back.

He supposed there was a silver lining to every cloud. By the time he had reached his pelvis he was even able to sit up, though not without a considerable amount of pain. His right leg was miraculously intact, but his left was a mangled mess. Bone was poking through the leg of his pants in two different places. A quick CRACK, CRACK, and stifled screamlater the appendage was mostly healed.

He tried to stand, but his leg was too shaky to hold the weight and he wound up on his hands and knees. Then he started coughing up blood.

That's probably not good.

Although Atherton had to admit he wasn't a trained healer, so maybe it was completely normal. Just his time of the month?

Regardless of the normalcy of his condition, he wasn't well-versed enough in healing magic to fix an internal injury like that. Bone-mending was fairly easy—although he was somewhat worried that his mends might not hold up and he'd collapse into a jumble of bone-twigs as soon as he exerted himself too much—but injuries of dubious origin were something else entirely.

If his mouth didn't get him killed like his mother had thought, then his lack of experience with healing magic might. Atherton had the sudden realization that the lectures on healing magic that he'd received in Auror training might have been important after all. Unfortunately he'd never been great at paying attention to such lectures. In his defense, his partner for that class had been Trainee Thompson, and she'd always had a way of distracting him.

A shout overhead and a jet of red light charring the ground next to him informed Atherton that he was out of time feeling sorry for himself. He summoned a nearby branch and transfigured it into a splint around his wobbly leg and then set off at a dead limp towards the treeline twenty meters away.

Spellfire peppered the path around him as he shuffled rapidly along. It seemed his friends in the sky were being kind enough to light the way for him. How considerate of them. He refrained from counter-attacking—mostly because he wasn't an idiot. His chances of hitting anything were slim, and he'd only be making himself an easier target.

Not an idiot? Says the guy who just jumped off a broom intentionally.

Atherton ignored the voice in his head and threw himself into the trees. He rolled into a bramble, ignoring the scratching pain of the thorns and blunt pain of his fragile bones. He heard some brooms whiz past overhead, doubtlessly looking for him. But that was good, it meant that he had lost them for a moment.

"I think he's in the bushes!"

Well that didn't last long.

He was going to have to counter-attack soon if he wanted to have any chance of escaping. It would probably be best if he could ambush one of them. If he waited it out long enough they'd probably start searching on foot, then he could take one out and steal his broom.

"Ignis!"

A huge gout of flame spewed from the wand of a wizard above, and suddenly Atherton found himself surrounded by a passable replica of the sixth circle of hell. So much for the "wait and ambush them" plan. The bramble that Atherton managed to entangle himself in technically wasn't on fire, and he toyed with the idea of trying to wait it out. Then the first bit of heat washed over him.

The hell with this.

He rolled out of the bramble and started furiously casting aguamenti's to clear a path back out of the forest. Like a figure out of Muggle mythology, he managed to part the sea of flames, and moments later he stumbled out of the now-scorched trees, coughing from the smoke and the blood that he seemed to be making a habit of choking on.

A cutting hex from above caught him in the leg and Atherton let himself collapse like a sack of potatoes. He'd run out of options at this point. The best thing he could do would be to play dead.

Better get some practice in. The real thing is coming up at any moment.

He clamped down on that thought hard and flung it out of his mind like an unwanted garden gnome. He'd never found fatalistic thoughts very useful. On the other hand, it seemed that the Occlumency training required by the Auror's Office was coming in handy.

A soft thump hit the ground a few meters away, and Atherton almost punched the air in triumph. The bastard was actually dumb enough to get off his broom to finish him.

Two more thumps took the wind out of his sails.

Well, shit.

Three against one weren't very good odds unless your name happened to be Harry Potter. And Atherton's name did not happen to be Harry Potter. There was only one thing left for him to try. It was a strategy that he had used when facing multiple opponents in training. Atherton liked to call it "wands blazing."

Three stunners came blasting out of the end of his wand as Atherton leapt to his feet. He could see the surprise in the faces of his opponents from the glow of the firelight behind him. Unfortunately his grand attack plan didn't go quite how he'd hoped. All three of his opponents got a shield up in time, and his leg had apparently had enough of his roughhousing for one day. It buckled sending him spilling to the ground.

Or perhaps his leg was secretly a seer, as a vivid green blob flew through the space that his body had been occupying just seconds earlier.

Sometimes you'd rather be lucky than skilled, I guess.

Atherton stabbed his wand into the earth and muttered a curse. The ground split open, and the created fissure widened as it raced towards his three opponents. One of them closed the gap in the ground and got rewarded with a blasting hex to the face from Atherton's wand. Now it was his turn to collapse like a sack of vegetables.

Two-on-one odds aren't so bad.

Atherton scrambled to his feet. This time he managed to keep his footing. A spear of ice came flying in his direction, but it splashed—literally—harmlessly against him after a quick warming charm. The spear was followed by what looked like a tendril of smoke from the other man. Atherton had never seen the spell before, but judging from the disposition of his opponents he didn't expect it to be anything very nice.

He spun left and fired off a few earthquake charms in random directions as he did. As soon as he finished the dodge he applied a sticking charm to his shoes. Predictably, his opponents weren't thinking on their feet—and now they aren't casting from their feet either—both of them tumbled to the ground, but Atherton wasn't able to take full advantage because of the shaking of the earth. His first stunner missed wide during a potent shockwave.

Okay, who needs to aim then?

Chunks of dirt flew into the air as Atherton bombarded one of the men with blasting hexes and anything else explosive he could think of. He couldn't tell if his opponent had managed to shield in time or not, but he prayed that his barrage was effectve before dodging to the left to avoid the cutting curse of the remaining wizard.

Or rather, he would have dodged to the left if not for the sticking charm on his shoes.

Wow, that was dumb of me.

The other wizard had managed to cancel the earthquake, and his counter-attack had added another to Atherton's growing collection of wounds as the cutting charm sliced through his shoulder.

Thank god for those numbing charms I used earlier.

Even with the charms he could feel a dull burning sensation growing in that part of his body. The fact that he had been using most of his energy to fight off his attackers meant that some of the spells he had used for the upkeep of his own body were going to suffer.

Sticking charm successfully unstuck, Atherton managed to jump out of the way of the next attack—a killing curse—and return fire with a series of stunners. Another killing curse forced Atherton to the ground again.

This guy must be some hot shit to keep up the unforgiveables like that.

Trying to put his opponent back on the defensive, Atherton shot red sparks in his direction. They weren't actually very harmful if they connected, but most wizards didn't know that they could penetrate magical shields. His opponent turned out to be no exception, and Atherton was rewarded with the sights and sounds of the man being stung in the face. His follow up stunner was reflected off the man's shield. Atherton shot a gout of flame out of his wand, but his opponent swept it aside easily. Atherton began to—

"Stupefy!" came an angry shout from behind.

"Wake up!"

A great deal of pain shooting up his left side informed Atherton that his numbing charms had been cancelled. The two men standing over him—one of them caked in dirt—staring at him angrily informed him that he'd been hit with a stunner. The fact that he was unable to move informed him that he was under a full-body bind. And the fact that he was staring at two wands in his face informed him that he was in a great deal of trouble.

The treeline behind the two dark wizards had been extinguished, but the area around them bore the marks of their duel. The grass was charred all over the place, and a small canyon had formed in the earth where Atherton had unleashed his salvo of blasting spells. It was a wonder that the second wizard standing over him didn't look any worse.

"How many more are there?" The wizard that had been casting the unforgiveables—Atherton thought of him as "Hot Shit"—lead the interrogation.

There was an odd sensation as the body-bind was lifted from Atherton's head so that he could respond. The rest of him remained hopelessly immobile.

"Fifty," Atherton answered immediately. After practicing stunning spells so many times it hardly took him more than a moment to wake from one now.

Hot Shit gave a Slytherin smirk, but the only vocal response he offered was a sharp "Crucio!"

Well this is a new level of horrific agony.

The torture spell, combined with the broken bones all along his side, and the inability to thrash about and fight the pain were all mixing into a cocktail of otherworldly hurt. Atherton desperately tired to use his occulmency training to compartmentalize the pain. He imagined that he was on a faraway beach, and the only pain he felt was yesterday's sunburn acting up. Unfortunately, even an accomplished occulmens had his limits, and with pain like this it was a bit like trying to bail water out of a rapidly leaking ship. The sunburn was becoming something more akin to a third degree burn with lava being rapidly caked onto it.

Then it ended as abruptly as it had started. Well, not exactly abruptly. The feeling of a hot needle being shoved into every pore of his body lifted, but following it were waves of pain that seemed to follow every heartbeat. Still, it was preferable to the prior sensation.

"Care to try again?" Hot Shit asked. He was clearly the more senior of the two. Mud Face was doing little more than standing beside the other wizard and doing his best to look intimidating. Thus far it wasn't working.

"Okay, okay," Atherton said, feigning desperation. It was surprisingly easy. "A hundred. The rest of us are hiding in the trees. Come on out, boys!"

This time Hot Shit didn't seem amused. It probably wasn't often that someone didn't start talking after they got hit with a cruciatus. Atherton allowed a cheeky smile to creep across his face. It was the same smile he'd used a thousand times after being reprimanded by Auror Captain Hollis. He'd been told by a number of people—mostly women—that it was insufferable. Auror Thompson in particular hated it with a passion, and Hot Shit didn't seem to enjoy it either.

"Had training to resist the cruciatus? That's okay, I'll just have to get a bit more creative."

Atherton did not like the sound of that. Hot Shit didn't look like the artistic type, so he doubted his idea of creativity would involve portraits and sculptures.

There was a yanking sensation in his stomach, and the next thing he knew Hot Shit and Mud Face were standing on the ceiling. Or rather, Atherton was suspended in the air by his feet. His left arm was maneuvered so that it was sticking out in front of his face with the fingers of his wand hand splayed outward.

"I'll ask you a question, and for each answer I don't like I'll take a finger," Hot Shit gave him a sadistic little smile. The kind of smile that would be cover material for Dark Wizard Weekly.

"What if you do like the answer?" Atherton quipped.

"Then I'll obliviate you and leave you here. If you can get back to civilization without a wand then you get to live."

It was such an obvious lie that Atherton had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Of course Hot Shit couldn't tell him the truth. A quick death wasn't great motivation unless someone was truly desperate (although Atherton had to admit that a short drop and a sudden stop was sounding more and more appealing by the minute).

That's great. Start fantasizing about my own death. If my shoddy healing doesn't get me killed my overactive imagination will.

"How about an obliviation and you let me keep my wand?" Atherton asked, trying to keep his captors on edge. It was a tactic that he had excelled at when being trained to resist interrogation. Often times he had angered the instructors so such an extent that they had "killed him" rather than continue with their questions.

"This isn't a negotiation!" Hot Shit spat. "How many others are there?"

Atherton thought for a moment. The truth would be betraying his comrades, a lie would be betraying his fingers. Ultimately he decided to go with an in-between option.

"Four," he tried his best to inject a dejected tone into his voice. Most dark wizards thought they were the coolest kid in Hogwarts, so it probably wouldn't occur to Hot Shit that his surrender was fake. "Four counting me that is. So three others."

Hot Shit stared at him for a moment, but Atherton didn't feel any probe of legilimency. Although if Hot Shit were an accomplished legilimens there wouldn't be much point in asking him questions directly. Apparently the dark wizard was satisfied with his answer. He nodded sharply.

"What were you doing here?"

"We got a tip about some suspicious activity in the area. We were just investigating," that particular lie wasn't likely to stand up to scrutiny, but Atherton hadn't been sorted into Slytherin, so he didn't have a great deal of experience with this sort of thing.

"The wards here would have repelled a routine investigation." Hot Shit made a quick slash with his wand and Atherton found himself short a pinky.

Nice of them to remove the numbing charms.

Atherton howled in pain. Beyond the fact that he had always been fond of his fingers, he recognized the curse that Hot Shit had used. Dark spells like that were designed to prevent healing magic.

"Care to try again?" Hot Shit asked, his sadistic smile spreading.

"Fuck off," Atherton told him. "I'm not telling you anything."

"You know," Hot Shit began twirling his wand between his fingers, something that annoyed Atherton to no end, especially now that he was short a finger, "I don't actually like using the killing curse. I do of course, because its useful, but it just doesn't feel satisfying enough."

Killing curse isn't satisfying enough? Yeah, you're definitely one sadistic fuck.

"You know what my favorite way of killing someone is?" Hot Shit asked.

"Right now I'm thinking it's talking them to death," Atherton ground out.

Hot Shit ignored him. "I like to hang them upside down and slit their throat. It's what muggles do with cattle."

"You have a lot of experience cattle farming?" Atherton would be damned if he was going to let this guy get through his evil monologue in peace.

Before Hot Shit could snap at him, a third broom-rider joined the two wizards interrogating him. From his upside-down vantage point Atherton couldn't get a good look at him, but the man's voice sounded panicked.

"They got away with the runestone!"

Now it was Atherton's turn to smile sadistically.

"I was wondering when you'd realize."

That had been the plan all along after all. The dark wizards themselves were small potatoes compared to the potential dark magic the runestone could have performed. Atherton himself didn't understand much about them, but Undersecretary Weasley had seemed seriously perturbed when the Head Auror had relayed the fact that there was one in the possession of a group of known dark magic users. Atherton had no trouble recalling her shrill insistence that the Auror Department retrieve it immediately.

Atherton's job had been to distract the wizards while Potter swept in and made off with the artifact. That plan had become more complicated when Potter told him that he was pretty sure the men on the ground had brooms. Regardless, they had gone through with their original idea. It had worked well enough, Atherton had briefly exchanged spellfire with the wizards before running off to bait them out. One he had gotten back to his broom and lifted off he saw Potter swoop in and grab the artifact. At that point it seemed like everything was going well. Of course, Atherton getting caught hadn't been part of the plan...

A string of swear words flew out of Hot Shit's mouth. He turned to Atherton and cast another cruciatus at him. Pain was becoming par for the course at this point, however, Atherton's pleasure at discovering the mission had succeeded allowed him to block most of it with occlumency. Unsurprisingly, it was a lot easier to picture a beach when you were filled with satisfaction than it was when you were fearing for your life. That wasn't to say that it didn't still bloody hurt though.

When the curse was lifted, the dark wizard marched up to him and crouched down so that he was face-to-face with Atherton. His features were twisted with rage and he conveyed his displeasure with a carefully placed blob of saliva projected onto the auror's face.

"Merlin, at least take me out to dinner first," Atherton mumbled.

"What was that?!" Hot Shit said coldly, leaning in closer.

Atherton returned fire with a bloody bit of phlegm. He unleashed a maniacal cackle that would have made Peeves proud as the dark wizard recoiled in horror.

"When I finish with you you'll be begging for death."

Hot Shit said some other evil things, but Atherton tuned him out. Just because he was going to spend his last moments in the company of the scum of the Magical Britain, didn't mean he to pay attention to them.

The dark wizard pointed his wand at Atherton's ring finger.

Sorry ladies, looks like I'm about to be off the market.

But instead of the dark severing curse from before, Hot Shit muttered a longer spell that Atherton didn't recognize. The skin on his finger began to peel back slowly, revealing the raw flesh underneath. With it came a sensation akin to dipping one's finger into boiling water.

He tried not to scream in pain, but it was only seconds before he forfeited the battle along with his dignity. Even over his own wailing he could hear Hot Shit's laughter rising.

There was a flash of light and suddenly Atherton was face down in the grass. The sound of his own screams had been replaced by panicked shouting from the three dark wizards. A stream of spellfire came raining in from above like god's judgment of the trio. Mud Face took a stunner to the head almost immediately and dropped like a bag of rocks. Hot Shit was moving laterally, trying to track the target above him. Atherton himself couldn't make out anything more than a dark blur flashing past every now and then. It seemed that they were being swarmed by aurors. Potter must have returned with reinforcements.

The last dark wizard had jumped back onto his own broom and kicked off from the ground. He rose rapidly, and soon there were flashes of light bouncing back and forth between him and the riders in the air. No, the rider in the air. With the light produced from their duel, Atherton was able to trace the flight path of his rescuer. What he had mistaken for multiple aurors turned out to be the same attacker flying at high speed.

Merlin he's fucking fast.

The aerial battle stopped just as abruptly as it had begun, and a THUMP from nearby informed Atherton that one of the combatants had fallen from his broom. He doubted that it had been intentional. Only an idiot would intentionally jump off a broom.

The remaining duelist made a slow descent to the earth. Hot Shit was eying him warily, wand at the ready, clearly unsure if he was friend or foe.

"Steiss?" the dark wizard called out uncertainly.

That's not Steiss, you idiot.

The rider had reached the ground now and dismounted slowly. Harry Potter wasn't the biggest man around. Atherton himself had a good half a foot on him, and their frames were similarly slender. But something about the way that the Head Auror carried himself when he was fighting dark wizards was truly intimidating. There was a sort of serene anger that he had when he dueled that made him seem more like a force of nature than a wizard.

If Hot Shit was intimidated he did a good job covering it.

"I'll be crowned as the next Dark Lord when it comes out that I was the one to kill Harry Potter."

"I'll give you a chance to come with me peacefully. You'll get a fair trail in front of the Wizengamot." Potter completely ignored the other man's comments.

That was apparently all the talking that either man was interested in doing. Hot Shit led with a killing curse, but Potter conjured a wall of stone between them to intercept it. Funnily enough, most dark wizards tended to forget that although the unforgiveables couldn't be blocked by a magical shield, they were largely ineffective against physical barriers.

The stone wall exploded towards the dark wizard as Potter banished it in the direction of his opponent. Hot Shit was forced to redirect the flight of the stone projectiles, which gave Potter plenty of time to conjure vines that sprouted out of the ground and gripped the dark wizard's legs. The man shouted in anger and blasted the vines away, but he was immediately forced onto the defensive as Potter sent a barrage of spells his way. Many of them weren't particularly powerful spells, but they were crippling enough that if Hot Shit didn't block them he'd be left at a major disadvantage. Plus they didn't take much out of the caster to use.

Another angry shout accompanied Hot Shit's retaliation. He threw up a shield and then sent it hurtling towards Potter with a sweep his wand. Clearly the dark wizard was no slouch when it came to dueling, as that particular bit of magic took more than a little power and experience.

Potter bisected the shield with a strong slashing curse that he sent hurtling towards his opponent. The dark wizard rolled out of the way and came up firing another killing curse, but his aim was wild and Potter didn't even bother to dodge before returning fire.

Wait, why am I just watching them fight?

Atherton had been deprived of his own wand, but Mud Face's supine form was less than two meters away, a thick wand clutched tightly in his right hand. Atherton rolled over to his former captor, ignoring the pain along his left side as he did, and pried open the man's fingers. He instinctively grabbed the wand with his left hand, but dropped it immediately from the pain in his third finger.

Shit, time to put my practice at off-hand casting to work.

Grasping the wand in his right hand, Atherton quickly began working on a tricky piece of transfiguration. Normally he would have joined the fight with dueling spells, but in his current condition it would probably be best if he supported Potter in a more indirect way. Within a minute the transfiguration was complete, and where the bramble he had hidden under once was there now stood a grumpy-looking grizzly bear.

"Sic him, boy!" Atherton commanded, pointing his wand at Hot Shit, who was currently dancing around a series of spells Potter was throwing his way.

The bear complied immediately, and Atherton allowed himself to copy Hot Shit's sadistic smile as the creature blindsided the dark wizard. The bear's roaring mixed with the wizard's surprised shout, and the creature had the man on the ground in seconds. There was a flash of green light, and the bear collapsed, but it had done its job. Potter's stunner struck home, and Hot Shit lay unmoving next to his new furry friend.

Potter quickly summoned the spare wands lying about, and Atherton allowed Mud Face's to leave his hand. He collapsed onto the grass, which was surprisingly comfortable, although in his given state a bed of nails would have felt like heaven.

"Are you holding up?"

Atherton cracked his eyes open. The Head Auror was standing over him. The anger that had marred his expression previously had completely vanished. In its place was concern.

Merlin I must be bad if that's how he's looking at me.

"Great," Atherton replied. He punctuated his sentence by coughing up a glob of blood.

Potter shook his head and got to work. He levitated Atherton into the air and rotated him as he applied some battlefield healing magic. It wasn't much more than Atherton himself could have done, but numbing charms had never felt—or not felt, rather—so good. A few meters away Atherton could see the two dark wizards bound tightly to one of their brooms next to Potter's Firebolt. He'd probably cast a slave charm on it so that he could get the two back to the Ministry quickly.

"Did you get the runestone to the Ministry?" Atherton found himself being floated over to a third broom, standing next to the first two.

Potter reached into the pocket of his robes and produced a stone the size of his palm. It was covered in tiny runes that appeared too small to have been written by a person. Of course, Atherton knew that the stone was shrunken; at its full size the stone would have stood taller than a wizard. Potter casually tossed it into the air and caught it before pocketing it again. No doubt Weasley would cringe to see him handling a powerful magical artifact so carelessly.

"Why didn't you take it to the Ministry and come back with help?"

"Only the two of us were prepped to get through the wards, remember? It would have taken too long to get another Auror through, and even longer to take them down completely. After I took care of the two that tried to intercept me I noticed that you weren't with me anymore. I wasn't going to leave without you and I figured the two of us could handle the others.

"Glad I could be of assistance," Atherton said sarcastically.

Potter conjured some rope and used them to help bind him to the broom. A sticking charm probably would have sufficed, but Atherton wasn't going to complain about someone taking precautions with his life.

"So does this get me a promotion?" Atherton asked.

Potter chuckled. "I'll think about it."

"Well in the meantime can I ask you for a favor?"

"Go ahead."

"Can you appoint Auror Thompson as my healer?" Atherton waggled his eyebrows.

Potter chuckled again and rolled his eyes. "I'm not sure that she'd be up for that. Now stop talking, you've definitely got a punctured lung."

"Oh, is that why it's so hard to breathe?"

"I said stop talking," Potter reprimanded him sternly.

"Sorry sir. Oh, shit, sorry again."

There was a frustrated exhale and suddenly Atherton found his lips sealed shut.

Well, there goes the promotion. Turns out my mouth cost me something today after all.

"When we get out of the wards I'm going to portkey you to Saint Mungo's. Until then I'm going to stun you. Enjoy your rest." If Atherton didn't know better he would swear there was a hint of satisfaction in the Head Auror's voice. Potter produced his wand and pointed it squarely at Atherton. He tried to complain but all he could managed was a few disgruntled mumbles.

As usual, awaking from a stunner was an odd sensation. You didn't dream after being stunned, so it felt a lot like blinking and then waking up an hour later. Or if healers had been dosing you with dreamless sleep potion, it felt more like blinking and waking up a week later. That's what it was like for Atherton as he opened his eyes to find himself in a hospital bed with a healer fussing over him.

"Oh, you're awake," the witch said. She was fairly young to be a Senior Healer, but her name tag indicated that she was indeed "Senior Healer Faden." She definitely had the stern bedside manner down pat though. "Now let me tell you how stupid you are.

"I've been at Saint Mungo's for over ten years, seen all sorts of wizards injure themselves in all sorts of completely idiotic ways, but never have I heard of someone intentionally jumping off a broom." Every word that she emphasized came with a poke to the chest.

"At the time it seemed like a good idea," Atherton replied weakly.

"Oh it did? Well I'm sure your three broken ribs, fractured humerus, ulna, radius, pelvis, and shattered tibia, fibula, and femur disagree. Do you have any idea how hard it is to shatter a femur?"

The healer moved to the other side of the bed and began running what looked like diagnostic charms all along his left side. Atherton flexed his fingers and toes experimentally. There was a moment of vertigo when the space he expected to be occupied by his last two fingers turned up empty.

Looks like I'm never eating with chopsticks again.

Other than that he appeared to be in decent shape. His entire left side felt tight, and there was still some aching but it was much better than the pain from before.

The nurse clucked her tongue and seemed satisfied from whatever she had seen.

"You've been here ten years, and now I'm wondering exactly how long I've been here," Atherton said.

"Five days," the healer said absently, running another set of charms.

Atherton grumbled and Faden gave him a sharp look.

"You should be happy you were asleep for that long. We had to vanish your bones and regrow them. Trust me, that's not a fun experience, especially when you've recently been exposed to the cruciatus curse."

"I can attest to that," a voice from the door called.

Atherton looked over to see Head Auror Potter being let into the room by an attractive blond in Auror's robes. Potter smiled at him and the blonde shot a dirty look his way before shutting the door and returning to the hallway.

"You've had experience with that sort of thing?" Atherton asked.

"Yup. Courtesy of a late friend of mine," Potter came over to the bedside not occupied by Faden.

"Was there something you wanted, sir?"

"Not particularly. I thought I might stop in and see how you were doing."

Faden answered on his behalf. "He's almost fully recovered, he should be out of here by the end of the day."

"No worse for wear, then?" Potter asked.

"I don't know if I'd say that," Atherton said. He held up his injured hand, a sight that made the Head Auror cringe.

"Ah, I'm sorry about that." Potter ran a hand through his hair. "If I'd been a bit faster you'd be good as new."

"Don't worry about it, sir," Atherton said, mustering a smile. "I'll never be able to use chopsticks again, but that's no big loss. Auror Thompson will be happy to know that the bastards didn't take any of the important fingers."

Faden scoffed and said something about incorrigible men before exiting the room. Potter ran his hand through his hair again, but there seemed to be a hint of a smile on his face.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."

"I appreciate it, sir. Thanks for bringing her along by the way. I didn't think you'd take my comment about assigning her as my healer seriously."

Potter smile widened. "Well, it seems that the Auror's Office received information that some dark wizards might try to retaliate against you for your actions. Auror Thompson was assigned to guard your room during times when the hospital is at high-volume. We wouldn't want any dark wizards slipping into your room, would we?"

Atherton chuckled, creating a stiff feeling in the left side of his chest.

"And here Captain Hollis almost had me convinced that none of the senior Aurors had a sense of humor," he said.

"You should go on an assignment with Ron sometime."

The small smile on his face vanished and Potter became serious. "I wanted to thank you for what you did Atherton. I lobbied the Minister for a possible Order of Merlin, but the secretive nature of the mission meant it was a no-go."

That was a shock.

"An Order of Merlin? For me? I didn't even do anything other than play the role of Punching Bag Number 1."

"You saved my life," Potter said earnestly.

Atherton laughed aloud at that. There was that same tight feeling in his left side, but no blood came up with a hacking cough, so that was good.

"You did," Potter insisted. "I'm the Head Auror, but I couldn't take on six wizards at once. You gave me a distraction. You took two of them down. Because of you, a powerful magical artifact is now in safe hands. I talked to Hermione, by the way, and it turns out the runestone could have been pretty bloody bad in the wrong hands."

"But still, you did far more than I. If anyone deserves an Order of Merlin, it's you," Atherton complained.

"I already have one," Potter said, the corner of his mouth quirking into a smile. "Do they give out duplicates?"

"They give out duplicates of reprimands, so why not awards?" Atherton had plenty of experience with reprimands.

Potter nodded sagely, and his demeanor turned serious again.

"I've led more people than I care to think about to their deaths. I'm glad you're not one of them," he paused for a moment, and the shred of tact that Atherton possessed let him know that now would be a bad time for a wisecrack. "I've always wished that I could talk to those people one more time, if only to let them know that I'll honor the work they did and the sacrifice they made." He turned to Atherton. "I'll honor the work you do. I'm glad that I don't have to wish for the chance to speak to you again."

"Thank you, sir." It was all Atherton could think to say.

"You're a good Auror." At Atherton's questioning look, Potter amended his sentence. "You're a good Auror when you've got your mind on the job and not Auror Thompson, or how to best antagonize your captain." Potter rose and headed towards the door. "It was a pleasure working with you."

"Sir?"

The Head Auror stopped and turned around.

"Yeah?"

"Could you send Auror Thompson in? I'm afraid there might be a dark wizard hiding under the bed and I'm too scared to check." Atherton did his best to look like a pouting child.

Potter shook his head and laughed aloud. He left the room, and Atherton could hear his laughter echoing down the hallway as he departed.