Chapter #4The Boy-Who-Lived-To-Shrink by: chaos   You stomp out of the muggle doctor’s office, frustrated and at a loss for words. Behind you, Dumbledore is saying something to you, probably about faith, potential or something else that sounds like it came from a fortune cookie. You’re not listening, everything that has happened is still going through your head. The great Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, adversary of Dark Lords, was going to die not from a dark wizard but some strange disease that magic can’t explain. It would be funny if it wasn’t so horrible.
For the last couple days, you’ve lost several inches, which sucked, but not as much as another problem you’ve been having. Your magic has been acting strange, sometimes you can’t cast the simplest spells and other times your spells come out too strong. Yesterday you had cast a simple levitation charm, the Wingardium Leviosa, on Ron and he had gone flying up fifty feet. Luckily, Hermione caught him with a Wingardium Leviosa of her own, saving Ron from a very unpleasant fall. Since then, you haven’t used your wand once, afraid you could hurt yourself or someone else.
For days now, you’ve tried to figure out what was wrong on your own and when that failed, you went for help to Dumbledore, who was baffled by your condition. He took you to see Madam Pomfrey, Hogwart’s resident healer, who also came up with no reason for the erratic magic or shrinking. Then you spent a day being poked and prodded at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, before being told they were clueless about what was wrong with you too. It was you who came up with the crazy and completely ridicules idea to try a real doctor, but now that you knew what was wrong, you’re starting to wish you had continued to remain oblivious to your condition’s full ramifications.
You snapped out of your thoughts when Dumbledore placed an ancient hand on your shoulder in a sign of sympathy. “Don’t worry my boy, we’ll find someway to help you.”
You stare at Dumbledore skeptically. Magic couldn’t even identify what had been wrong with you, what chance did it have of curing you? Magic couldn’t help you and muggle medicine couldn’t either. It was a awful thought, but you were doomed and their was no way around it. Sighing, you try not to fall too much into a spiraling depression or else you worry you might give up all together. You never really thought you were going to live through the war against Voldemort, but you had at least been hoping you would be taking the snake bastard down with you. However, it seemed like you weren’t destined to kill the Dark Lord, but rather die an inconsequential death by shrinking.
“I’m sure you’ll do your best,” you say to the old headmaster, faking as much earnestness as possible. Dumbledore was a powerful, wise man, but you don’t think even this is within his powers, not that your going to tell him that. You avoid looking into his twinkling eyes, afraid that you might lose control and start crying if you met his ice blue gaze,
“For now, you should have this back,” Dumbledore smiled and reached into his robe. Your eyes widened when you see your wand clutched in the old man’s hand. After the Ron incident, you handed your wand over to Dumbledore for safekeeping. Most wizards would rather have their arms cut off then walk around without their wands, but after nearly killing your best friend, you didn’t want to even touch anything magic.
“Why are you giving me this?” You ask politely, trying not to sound impolite. It’s nice to hold your wand again, but what use will it be when your too small to hold it?
“To help you in this troubling time. You will be going through much tribulation until we can find a cure and I think it’s for the best that you carry something familiar to comfort you.” You open your mouth to state the obvious, that you won’t be able to carry the wand soon, but Dumbledore halts you with a wave of his hand. “Don’t worry about being too small to hold your wand. I’ve cast a powerful spell on it so that as you shrink, your wand will shrink with you.”
Under your breath, you mutter sarcastically, “Great, now I can hex protons when I’m the size of an atom.”
“What was that?” Dumbledore smiled benignly. You manage a weak smile yourself, not as thrilled as you should be that you’ve gotten your wand back.
“Thank you headmaster, for everything.”
“Now Harry, no need to sound so conclusive. We’ll get this little shrinking problem handled and everything will return to normal. I promise.”
“Of course, headmaster,” you say with a strained smile. He might feel confident, but it’s not his life that’s going to be ending. You had no faith in magic fixing what was wrong with you or anyone else for that matter. Things couldn’t get much bleaker, which was most likely the only good thing you can come up with. You are going to die and right now the only thing you wanted was to get back to your friends and away from Dumbledore’s benevolent smile. You had no clue how you were going to break this to Ron and Hermione; maybe since Dumbledore wanted to help so much he could break the bad news.
“We must get going. I’ll start researching a cure right away. Don’t worry my boy, everything’s going to be fine.”
You nod, wishing he’d stop saying everything was going to be fine when it wasn’t. It was getting very annoying. Dumbledore pulls out a portkey, an old soda can. Placing your fingers on the cool aluminum service, you feel something pull on your navel and you disappear from the hospital.
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