A dish best served cold

10

Harry laid there looking at Luna for what seemed like an eternity. His eyes just stared at her prone form, and his thoughts raced. He was thinking so many things. Who did this? Why did it happen to her? What would he do to the person when he found them? That last question led to so many more thoughts, much more graphic in nature than the questions he had been asking. After only 30 seconds, which felt like an hour, he turned his head away from her and stared at the ceiling.

He took a deep breath and laid there just looking up, while breathing calmly. Nobody moved or spoke a word, waiting for his reaction. When the words finally came from his mouth, they caught everyone off guard. They were completely calm, with a cold and sharp tone. "Everyone out. Now. I want to be alone."

They looked around at each other, trying to figure out what to say. The looks on their faces ranged from surprise to dismay to sadness. Neville tried to say something, perhaps to change his mind, but Harry, seeing the boy prepare to speak, held up his hand and gave him a look that suggested it would be best not to say anything at that moment. Neville, upon seeing just how serious Harry was, simply nodded and stood up. "Come on, guys," he said, "Let's let Harry rest." A couple looked like they wanted to argue, but decided against it. No point in angering the strongest person in the room, even if he was bed ridden. He wouldn't be that way for long.

Once the last of the group had left, Harry got a chance to look around. It was at that point that he realized what time it was. It was 9 pm. And he and Luna were far from the only ones there. The Hospital Wing looked as though it had been expanded to fit all of the extra beds that it now held. At the very far end of the Hospital Wing, Harry caught sight of a sad and heart breaking sight.

Body bags. There weren't many. In fact, Harry only counted three, but in his opinion, three was too many. Harry just mentally added this to the list of things that Voldemort was going to pay for.

Harry was lost in his thoughts, when Headmaster Dumbledore came in. "Ah, Harry, how are you feeling?"

The green-eyed boy turned to look at him, his expression not revealing much at all. His penetrating stare looked into the eyes of the old man for a moment, before looking away again, coming to a rest on the still form of Luna.

"What happened?"

"With Ms. Lovegood or with the battle?" the Headmaster inquired.

"Either. Both." The headmaster was picking up on the fact that Harry didn't want to say much, but was certainly looking for answers.

"Well, after we drove off Voldemort, you collapsed from exhaustion after using so much magic in such a short amount of time. The number of Patroni that I suspect you produced in such a short period of time strained your magic slightly. Then, you came back into the stadium and were fighting there. Poppy says you just ran out of juice, so to speak" Dumbledore explained. It had been worrying when Harry had slumped over and fallen off of his broom, but he had landed on the seats, and was breathing steadily, so the Headmaster hadn't freaked out.

"I see." Harry said. It explained why he couldn't remember anything from just after Voldemort fled until when he awoke. "And Luna? What happened to her?" Harry's voice was low as he requested an answer.

"Well, we can't be too sure. Her body was found near the Ravenclaw locker room in the aftermath of the attack. One of the Aurors had gone over to stabilize a beam that had broken and saw a foot sticking out from behind the door. He found her, and there were indications of a fight. Spell marks lined the walls. She likely put up a good fight, but she ended up being hit by a Back Breaker Curse." Harry's eyes narrowed in anger and a bit of anguish at the sound of that curse.

"Aside from the obvious, what does it do?"

"Well, in the worst case, the victim's spine is slowly twisted and contorted, until it snaps. However, it is a very slow and painful way to die because the magic of the spell keeps the victim conscious." Dumbledore had seen this curse in action in the past, and as such, disliked even talking about it. But Harry deserved to know. "It takes a special kind of person to cast that spell. Someone with purely selfish motives must cast it; otherwise it will not work as intended. Luckily for Luna, the person was most likely either not purely selfish or lacked the sufficient power level to pull of this attack. Because we don't know who it was that cast the spell, we have no way of being sure. We have only speculation." The headmaster said all of this in a somber tone, sad that a good student like Ms. Lovegood had fallen victim to such a potentially deadly and painful attack.