Amy's physical condition didn't look very good at all, even in unconscious rest. In fact, it looked genuinely alarming to anyone with basic medical knowledge.
Though she was trapped in a deep state of unconsciousness, her eyebrows were tightly furrowed with distress. Her breathing was scarily irregular, coming in shallow gasps that occasionally hitched as if she were choking.
A layer of sweat covered her forehead and temples. The sweat kept beading and running down the sides of her face, as if she were trapped in some horrific nightmare from which she couldn't awaken no matter how desperately she tried to escape.
Dumbledore bent down and carefully examined the girl's pale, almost translucent face with his sharp gaze.
"An Obscurial..." he murmured to end, his usually warm, grandfatherly voice was somewhat heavy with sorrow. "And her life force is nearly completely depleted."
He was all too familiar with this particular tragic category of people, had witnessed far too many such deaths over his long life.
Adrian walked over slowly from where he'd been standing by the wall. His own gaze likewise fell on the girl's suffering face.
"How long does she have?" he asked directly.
A very simple yet brutally cruel question.
Dumbledore straightened up slowly. He was quiet for a long, heavy moment before answering.
"If we do nothing," he said softly, "perhaps a few days. Perhaps a few weeks."
Adrian nodded once.
This was actually within his general expectations, even slightly better than he had initially anticipated given how utterly depleted and fragile she appeared. He'd honestly expected Dumbledore to say hours, not days.
But regardless of the specific timeframe of days or weeks, the vital truth remained unavoidable: the life of this girl named Amy lying in front of them was like a candle flame flickering desperately in a strong winter wind. One good gust, one more eruption of the Obscurus, one more drain on her worsening condition, and it would simply... go out.
"We need to find another, more suitable place to have this discussion properly," Dumbledore said, glancing around at the utterly devastated living room with its collapsed walls, scattered rubble, and exposed pillars.
Cold winter wind was blowing in completely unchecked from outside through the multiple holes in walls and windows, bringing the sharp smell of snow and frost. The temperature had dropped considerably, making everyone shiver despite their warming charms. Their breath misted in the air.
This was no place for careful planning, detailed discussion, or the recovery of a critically ill child.
Remus and Tonks exchanged a glance across the destroyed room.
Then Remus stepped forward decisively and said with a serious face,
"We'll go outside immediately to deal with the Ministry people who are undoubtedly already gathering and asking questions. Handle the official response and all the tedious paperwork that follows these incidents... Should we tell them the actual truth about what really happened here tonight?"
Everyone knew that revealing the presence of an Obscurus would trigger investigations, regulations, possible removal of the child from their care.
Dumbledore looked at Adrian, his blue eyes searching, silently conforming to him given his role in the evening's events.
Adrian shrugged with complete indifference.
"Just tell them it was a violent attack by a Dark wizard," Dumbledore decided pragmatically after a moment's consideration. "They should be able to detect traces of Dark magic throughout this house easily enough. I'll go talk to Fudge personally afterward to smooth over any complications or inconsistencies that arise."
After delivering these clear instructions, Dumbledore turned and led the remaining people back through the corridors toward the dining room.
Fortunately, the Obscurus's widespread destruction had not quite reached that area of the house. The dining room remained remarkably intact, warm, compared to the devastation elsewhere.
Mrs. Weasley immediately took charge of creating comfort and safety, as was her natural instinct. She lit the fireplace with a wave of her wand, coaxing the flames high and warm. Then she moved to the sofa, carefully and gently settling Amy's unconscious body on the nearest couch.
Adrian then recounted everything that had just happened to Dumbledore, who listened with grave, focused attention.
Adrian covered every detail he could remember: capturing Bellatrix during the pre-dawn raid in Southampton's dock district. The strange girl Amy appearing at the door with signs of magical control and the Imperius Curse.
Bellatrix's triumphant revelation and apparent immunity. The violent manifestation and rampage of the Obscurus through the house. The desperate attempts to fight it with conventional magic. Bellatrix's protective immunity that had mysteriously failed when he'd thrown her into the darkness.
The desperate, chaotic battle as the house collapsed around them. And finally, how he had desperately improvised, using a modified Binding Curse to forcibly suppress and seal the Obscurus back into Amy's body.
It did sound somewhat incredible when spoken verbally in sequence—like an adventure story rather than events that had occurred less than an hour ago.
Even Dumbledore, who had personally witnessed and survived nearly everything imaginable over his extraordinarily long life, fell into deep contemplation at this account.
"You're saying you resolved or at least successfully contained—the Obscurus with just a modified Binding Curse?" Dumbledore asked finally, his expression genuinely complex, mixing deep impressed admiration with concern and perhaps a trace of worry.
"I didn't actually resolve it," Adrian clarified carefully, looking back at Amy who was still barely breathing on the sofa. "I merely forcibly controlled and contained the Obscurus within the host's body. The creature still exists inside her, still feeds on her life force."
He paused. "If you want to truly resolve the root cause of the Obscurus itself, I think you should know better than I what needs to be done. That's beyond my knowhow or capability."
That was honest admission of his limits.
"Love," Dumbledore said softly, speaking the word as if it were sacred, powerful, and the answer to everything. "That is the only power that can truly save an Obscurial from their curse."
"That sounds very ethereal and impractical," Adrian responded honestly, though not dismissively. "How exactly does one prescribe 'love' as treatment?"
In fact, he didn't deeply disagree with Dumbledore's somewhat mystical theory of "love" as a genuine healing force in magic. He'd seen enough to know it had power.
The eruption and focused application of intense positive emotion could indeed greatly, evidently influence a person's magical state and capabilities in documented ways.
Especially in wizards and witches, where magic was so closely, inseparably connected to emotion and will and belief, intense feelings could often produce unexpected power that surpassed normal limitations and achieved the impossible.
Adrian understood this clearly from both study and personal experience. His own inventions and developments had come from emotional intensity.
"In any case," Dumbledore said, shifting topics slightly. He nodded with approval at Adrian. "Congratulations, Adrian."
Adrian knew immediately what Dumbledore was actually referring to, what he was really congratulating beyond just saving the girl.
His modified Binding Curse had truly broken through that frustrating blockage he'd been struggling against for months.
The magical ropes he could now summon and control had far exceeded the simple, practical concept of mere "ropes" for restraining prisoners or securing cargo.
Sealing an Obscurus, one of the most dangerous and unstable magical phenomena known, back into Amy's body, accomplishing what should have been completely impossible according to conventional magical theory, was the clearest possible example of this qualitative transformation.
He'd achieved something that shouldn't have been possible. That was the breakthrough.
However, the exact full extent of what he could now do with this evolved, transformed magic would require considerably more experimentation and systematic practice to properly determine. He'd only scratched the surface of the possibilities.
At this moment, pulling Adrian from his internal thoughts, Mrs. Weasley gently brushed Amy's damp forehead with tenderness, checking her temperature with the back of her hand. The girl was feverish despite the sweating.
She looked up anxiously at the group of powerful wizards, her kind face was wrinkled with worry. "The question is, how should we actually help this poor child? What's the practical treatment plan? Should we send her to St. Mungo's hospital immediately?"
A hospital probably wouldn't be effective for this particular condition, Adrian thought privately.
He stood up from the sofa where he'd been sitting. He stretched, working out the accumulated tension and stiffness. "In any case, before we can do anything else, before we can even think about long-term treatment, we need to keep her alive first."
He began pacing slightly, his mind working through the problem.
"She urgently needs to replenish her life force. Every single violent eruption of the Obscurus consumes and burns through her life essence like fuel. Perhaps this requires some special potions...."
"Potions?" Mrs. Weasley looked startled, her eyes were widening with concern. "Specifically what kind?!"
Adrian rubbed his chin thoughtfully, considering available options.
The solution was actually very simple when reduced to basic principles: replenish what's lacking.
He reached into the deep pocket inside his robes and pulled out a small square wooden block about a quarter the size of his palm.
He casually tossed it onto the empty floor nearby with a flick of his wrist.
The wooden block transformed and expanded, almost explosively the instant it made contact with the ground, like a seed becoming a full tree in mere seconds.
It quickly became a tall, elegant wooden cabinet that stood higher than Adrian himself.
This was his personal traveling potion cabinet.
Adrian pulled open the cabinet door with, revealing a truly dazzling, impressive range of potion bottles inside.
Crystal bottles and glass jars in various sizes were neatly arranged on multiple shelves, sorted by category and effect with small labels. Liquids of various colors emitted enchanting, sometimes faintly glowing auras inside their containers.
"In any case, let's try all the restorative potions in my collection," Adrian said pragmatically, beginning to scan the labeled shelves.
He efficiently retrieved more than a dozen different types of potions from the cabinet, selecting by label and instinct and memory. He placed them carefully on the dining table in a neat row, arranging them by likely effectiveness.
Pepper-Up Potion. Invigoration Draught. Essence of Dittany. Strengthening Solution. Blood-Replenishing Potion. Wiggenweld Potion. And several others whose names were in languages other than English.
Dumbledore's gaze was immediately drawn with interest to one specific bottle among the collection.
It was a bottle of dazzling golden potion, particularly eye-catching and beautiful even among the other impressive brews.
"This is..." Dumbledore said slowly, reaching out carefully.
He picked up that bottle of golden potion with both hands, holding it up to his eyes for very close examination, turning it to catch the light. Genuine curiosity and interest showed clearly in his eyes. "I've never seen a potion like this."
A potion that even the extremely well-traveled Dumbledore, with his century-plus of accumulated experience and study, couldn't immediately recognize was indeed remarkably, exceptionally rare.
This observation immediately piqued everyone else's curiosity as well. They leaned in closer to see this mysterious brew, crowding around the table.
"It might be able to help Amy with her condition," Adrian replied, watching Dumbledore examine his work with interest. "I developed it recently. It's still somewhat experimental."
In fact, this was his specially modified "Vitality Restorative" potion.
Based on the original traditional formula, he had carefully modified certain ingredient proportions through experimentation and testing. More importantly, he'd added one completely new, unprecedented ingredient—the fruit of Wika.
He had tested it on himself first, naturally. The effect was very good, better than he expected.
Even frighteningly good, honestly.
Moreover, he didn't quite know how to accurately describe the sensation of consuming it.
This potion gave him a powerful, overwhelming feeling of vigorous vitality coursing through his entire body when consumed. Or rather, that was life force itself made liquid.
"The magical flow inside is very active and potent," Dumbledore observed carefully, still studying the swirling golden liquid with interest.
He set the potion back on the table, and said with certainty born from his expertise, "It will work. This should help stabilize her condition significantly."
Mrs. Weasley breathed a long, deeply relieved sigh upon hearing this assessment from the most powerful wizard alive.
Dumbledore's words and judgments had always been trustworthy. If he said it would work, it would work.
"Poor thing," Mrs. Weasley sighed softly, looking at Amy's pale, suffering face with sympathy that made her own eyes water slightly.
She wrapped the girl more tightly in the blanket, tucking the edges with care, adjusting her position slightly. "She'll have to suffer through quite a bit of difficult recovery ahead. The road will be long."
"I specifically considered the taste issue during development," Adrian assured her, wanting to ease at least that small concern. "These potions have all been modified with sweetening agents. They taste quite good actually, like fruit juice."
"I think," Mr. Weasley interjected gently, walking over from where he'd been standing quietly by the fireplace, warming his hands, "effectiveness is more important than taste in this critical situation..."
"That sounds like you're of Snape's school of thought on potion philosophy," Adrian responded with mild teasing.
Mr. Weasley immediately denied this association.
For the next period, Adrian joined the others in returning to the devastated scene to help repair the house damage properly and make it structurally stable again.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Weasley remained behind in the dining room to continue watching over Amy's critical condition carefully, monitoring her breathing and temperature.
But possibly because of the Obscurus's unique dark magical contamination that had seeped into the walls and foundations, the repair progress was very slow and difficult.
This showed that Kreacher's slow pace earlier wasn't purely just deliberate slacking off out of spite and resentment. The damage was genuinely difficult to fix.
About ten minutes later, after significant progress had finally been made on stabilizing the structural walls and preventing total collapse, Sirius and Tonks appeared at the damaged scene with Cornelius Fudge.
The surrounding affected Muggles had basically all been dealt by specialized Memory Charm teams from the Ministry.
The protective Muggle-Repelling Charm had also been carefully reestablished around the entire property.
Fudge looked around nervously at the surroundings, taking in the full scope of destruction with wide eyes.
He pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his sweating forehead and muttered half to himself in disbelief, "This... was this really just an attack by a single Dark wizard? The residual dark magic at the scene is indeed very strong…"
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