The man threw his wand away from himself (he threw away his wand!) and a second later, his form blurred and vanished entirely.
A green snake lay motionless on the ground, unmoving even before Bahry's next stunner spell, fired in sheer reflex, hit it without resistance.
As the dreadful flux and pressure began to dissipate, as the wild wizardry died back down, Bahry's dazed mind noticed that the scream was continuing. Only it sounded different, like the scream of a young boy, coming from the stairs leading down to the next lower level.
That scream choked off too, and then there was silence except for Bahry's frantic panting.
His thoughts were slow, confused, disarrayed. His opponent had been insanely powerful, that hadn't been a duel, it had been like his first year as a trainee Auror trying to fight Madam Tarma. The Death-Eaters hadn't been a tenth that good, Mad-Eye Moody wasn't that good... and who, what, how in the name of Merlin's balls had anyone blocked a Killing Curse?
Bahry managed to summon the energy to press his wand against his rib, mutter the healing spell, and then press it again to his shoulder. It took more out of him than it should have, took far too much out of him, his magic was within a bare breath of utter exhaustion; he didn't have anything left for his minor cuts and bruises or even to reinforce the scraps left of his shielding. It was all he could do not to let his Patronus go out.
Bahry breathed deeply, heavily, steadied his breath as much as he could before he spoke.
"You," Bahry said. "Whoever you are. Come out."
There was silence, and it occurred to Bahry that whoever it was might be unconscious. He didn't understand what had just happened, but he'd heard the scream...
Well, there was one way to test that.
"Come out," said Bahry, making his voice harder, "or I start using area-effect curses." He probably couldn't have managed one if he'd tried.
"Wait," said a boy's voice, a young boy's voice, high and thin and wavering, like someone was holding back exhaustion or tears. The voice now seemed to be coming from closer to hand. "Please wait. I'm - coming out -"
"Drop the invisibility," growled Bahry. He was too tired to bother with anti-Disillusionment Charms.
A moment later, a young boy's face emerged from within an unfolding invisibility cloak, and Bahry saw the black hair, the green eyes, the glasses, and the angry red lightning-bolt scar.
If he'd had twenty fewer years of experience under his belt he might have blinked. Instead he just spat something that he probably shouldn't ought to say in front of the Boy-Who-Lived.
"He, he," the boy's wavering voice said, his young face looked frightened and exhausted and tears were still trickling down his cheeks, "he kidnapped me, to make me cast my Patronus... he said he'd kill me if I didn't... only I couldn't let him just kill you..."
Bahry's mind was still dazed, but things were slowly starting to click into place.
Harry Potter, the only wizard ever to survive a Killing Curse. Bahry might have been able to dodge the green death, he'd certainly been trying, but if the matter came up before the Wizengamot, they'd rule it was a life debt to a Noble House.
"I see," Bahry said in a much gentler growl. He started to walk toward the boy. "Son, I'm sorry for what you've been through, but I need you to drop the cloak and drop your wand."
The rest of Harry Potter emerged from invisibility, showing the sweat-soaked blue-trimmed Hogwarts robes, and his right hand clutching an eleven-inch holly wand so hard his knuckles were white.
"Your wand," Bahry repeated.
"Sorry," whispered the eleven-year-old boy, "here," and he held out the wand toward Bahry.
Bahry barely stopped himself from snarling at the traumatized boy who'd just saved his life. Instead he overrode the impulse with a sigh, and just stretched out a hand to take the wand. "Look, son, you're really not supposed to point a wand at -"
The wand's end twisted lightly beneath Bahry's hand just as the boy whispered, "Somnium."
Harry stared at the Auror's crumpled body, there was no sense of triumph, just a crushing sense of despair.
(Even then it might not have been too late.)
Harry turned to look at where the green snake lay motionless.
"Teacher?" hissed Harry. "Friend? Pleasse, are you alive?" An awful fear was taking hold in Harry's heart; in that moment he had entirely forgotten that he'd just seen the Defense Professor try to kill a police officer.
Harry pointed his wand at the snake, and his lips even began to shape the word Innervate, before his brain caught up with him and screamed at him.
He didn't dare use magic on Professor Quirrell.
Harry had felt it, the burning, tearing pain in his head, like his brain was about to split in half. He'd felt it, his magic and Professor Quirrell's magic, matched and anti-harmonized in a fulfillment of doom. That was the mysterious terrible thing that would happen if Harry and Professor Quirrell ever got too close to each other, or if they ever cast magic on each other, or if their spells ever touched, their magic would resonate out of control -
Harry stared at the snake, he couldn't tell if it was breathing.
(The last seconds ticked away.)
He turned to stare at the Auror, who had seen the Boy-Who-Lived, who knew.
The full magnitude of the disaster crushed in on Harry like a thousand hundred-ton weights, he'd managed to stun the Auror but now there was nothing left to do, no way to recover, the mission had failed, everything had failed, he had failed.
Shocked, dismayed, despairing, he didn't think of it, didn't see the obvious, didn't remember where the hopeless feelings were coming from, didn't realize that he still needed to recast the True Patronus Charm.
(And then it was already too late.)
Auror Li and Auror McCusker had rearranged their chairs around the table, and so they both saw it at the same time, the naked, skeletally thin horror rising up to hover outside the window, the headache already hitting them from seeing it.
They both heard the voice, like a long-dead corpse had spoken words and those words themselves had aged and died.
The Dementor's speech hurt their ears as it said, "Bellatrix Black is out of her cell."
There was a split second of horrified silence, and then Li tore out of his chair, heading for the communicator to call in reinforcements from the Ministry, even as McCusker grabbed his mirror and started frantically trying to raise the three Aurors who'd gone on patrol.
Chapter 55: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 5
In a scarred and ruined corridor, lit by dim gas lights, a boy slowly crept forward, one hand stretched out, toward the unmoving snake that was the body of his teacher.
Harry was only a meter away from the snake's body when he first felt it, tickling at the edge of his perception.
Ever so weakly, a sense of doom...
Professor Quirrell was alive, then.
The thought engendered no feeling of joy, only a sort of empty despair.
Harry would still be caught soon, and no matter how he tried to explain, it still wouldn't look good. No one would trust him again, they would think he was the next Dark Lord, they wouldn't help him when it came time to fight Lord Voldemort, Hermione would give up on him, probably even Dumbledore would look for another hero...
...maybe they'd just send him home to his parents.
He had failed.
Harry looked at the crumpled body of the police officer he'd stunned, the already-drying blood from the minor cuts and slashes, the burned places on the intricately embroidered red robes.