#SILRP:TheReckoning

[burningstarsirius-blog]

Sirius idly wondered how life had suddenly gotten so hellish, tapping the ash off the end of his cigarette into an already fairly full ashtray. Just a matter of days ago, things had been relatively normal, at least as normal as they could be with the war going on. He’d mostly been busy with work and Order business, especially after the death of that Travers girl, but that had been easy compared to what was happening now. James, Regulus, Alice, and Edgar were all sick and no one seemed to know what had caused it. They weren’t the only ones, though, since the second floor of St. Mungo’s was also flooded with members of pureblood families Sirius least wanted to see: Blacks, Lestranges, and Zabinis, specifically. He couldn’t just sit by his friend’s bed side in peace, no, he had to dodge through that literal minefield of distant relations and people who either refused to acknowledge his existence or took it upon themselves to berate him openly and loudly about being a disgrace and a blood traitor, etc. At least he’d managed to avoid a confrontation with his parents, though they no doubt knew he was here by now, so it seemed inevitable. Sirius’ stomach dropped just thinking about it. He felt taut, like a string pulled too tightly, and he couldn’t afford anymore added tension or he just might snap. 

He’d managed to escape for the time being up to the fifth floor, the visitor’s tea room, and had settled in by a window. The tea at his elbow had long gone cold but he still sipped from it occasionally, when he wasn’t fervently chain smoking. Sirius was both exhausted and too wired to sleep, even up here keeping a watchful eye on anyone who came through the doors in case it happened to be one of the people he was trying to avoid. He’d already had a minor altercation with the Zabinis and was sure there would be more to come with others. If he hadn’t been so worried and in such a bad state already, he would have welcomed it. Sirius wasn’t usually one to shy away from a good shouting match with the many despicable members of the pureblood community but right now...right now it felt like too much. James was sleeping and his parents were too close to Regulus to visit him so now was as good a time as any to at least attempt to relax a little, though so far he’d been unsuccessful. Sirius refused to think of it as hiding, he was Sirius bloody Black and a Gryffindor so he definitely didn’t hide, but he was hoping for at least a few minutes of something close to peace. 

Apparently, he wasn’t about to get that as someone approached his table and he stiffened. Maybe he would get lucky and it would be someone who didn’t hate him. Given the way life had been going lately, however, he doubted it. 

[viciousvisagearchived]

The Dog Days Are Over | R & R

Rodolphus had spent every moment not at the Lord’s side, with Rabastan. He’d left the hospital only to sleep and attend necessary meetings. The Lestrange Heir had even requested a leave of absence from the Ministry, his first ever...But with Rabastan looking the way he had, and Fenrir too? It was too much to handle. Bella was a mess after Amycus’ accusations towards her and part of him couldn’t help but wonder if she had truly done it...a thought he regretted the instant it had formed in his mind. Had the screws in her head not have already started to come loose, no such thing ever would have occurred. Ultimately, he knew it wasn’t his Bella. Fenrir, perhaps...but Rabastan? No way would Bella hurt him. 

When the news hit the front page of the prophet today announcing the culprit and what had really knocked them for a six, he felt the weight of a small world leave his shoulders. Not only was her name cleared, but those he cared for so deeply would survive. They’d all be okay, it was going to come out in the wash.. And as he watched his brother’s sleeping form, his face was peaceful in a way that no longer mirrored death, but satiated happiness. His breath left his chest in a rush of relief as a darkened hand found his sibling, rubbing circles against his wrist. He felt warm to the touch and were he able to cry, he most probably would have in that moment. Rodolphus had never felt such happiness... “You’re fine, brother mine. You’re going to be just fine.”

@rabxlestrangex

[angelusxxmortis-blog]

Poison Thy Blood | A & B

It had been days since the first victim had entered St Mungo’s yet Amycus remained as baffled as ever...unsure of what was causing the sick and fallen to stay as such. At first it had only been two but now? Eight in total were affected, eight victims who suffered endlessly. After conducting every kind of test possible, Amycus was able to eliminate curses, jinxes most potions and all spell related sicknesses...the only thing left was poison. Specifically? Angel’s Trumpet Draught.

The only reason he hadn’t detected it sooner was because the potion had been brewed improperly. The person had failed...thankfully. It meant that all those afflicted would survive, especially now that they had the antidote he had brewed earlier this morning. The only issue was who? Who could do this? And the answer had just strolled by him after visiting her sick and soon-to-be brother-in-law.

Bellatrix Black was the only witch crazy enough to poison her own people whilst trying to get back at the other side... Calling out to her, he closed the distance between where he stood and the space she now occupied...”Got a minute?”

@ladybellatricks

[magicalminerva]

Making a Scene :: Alastor & Minerva

@talldarkandmoody Safely installed in her modest cottage on the end of Hogsmeade nearest the castle, Minerva felt the sweat heavy upon her forehead. She had convinced Pomfrey to release her to her home, with a promise that she would send an owl if anything got worse, and another in the morning no matter what. Spending the night in the infirmary was nigh upon unbearable to her, for a number  of reasons. Her escort home had caused far too much commotion for her liking as it was. 

Laying in her bed, Minerva reached a shaky hand for the glass of water on her bedside table, only to find herself drifting towards darkness once again. Biting her own tongue, she found the sharpness of the pain helped draw her back towards reality. Unsure what was occurring, she reassured herself yet again it had to simply be some sort of bug a student had given her. At least, that was the thought that let her mind rest the easiest. 

Giving up on the drink, she lay back in her bed, the room spinning a little too quickly once again. A knock came at the door and she groaned, unsure she had the strength to answer it. Again it came, although this time with more force and vigor. However, before she could make up her mind to answer it, the door blew in with a magical bang, a large figure silhouetted in it. 

[rabxlestrangex-blog]

Rabastan first noticed something was wrong while he was sitting at one of the informal dining tables in the manor, his elbow on the table, hand propped against his temple as he leaned over the copy of Witch Weekly he’d dug out of his pocket to flip through again. The whole mess with the Ministry break-in had set him on edge. It wasn’t random, and it had to mean something. He just wished he had more information. His head was throbbing, and he entirely blamed whoever decided to turn his brother’s office upside down. Rab blinked, blearily, and got lost in the middle of a paragraph, rereading the same line again. And again. And again. And suddenly his head was slipping out from where it was propped against his hand, and he saw the hard wood of the table rapidly approaching through unfocused eyes. Rab caught himself before his nose found itself bashed against the tabletop, heart beating wildly, and he straightened sharply where he sat. 

Shit. He hadn’t been having trouble sleeping, nor did he remember feeling tired- everything had been fine at lunch with Val and Regulus. He’d have written it off as a fluke if, as he blinked, looking around the room, he didn’t feel as though whatever parts of his head weren’t repeatedly being bashed with a blunt axe were wrapped in cotton wool. Sleep. He should go to bed. It must be at least evening by now. Or maybe the late afternoon, there was no telling how long he had sat staring at the magazine. Rabastan’s gaze shifted to the pages open before him, and he was slightly alarmed to see it was open to the wrong article entirely- something about a trend for a particular cut of robes. Clearly he had been distracted, and the headache might have been getting to him. His internal reasoning wasn’t particularly convincing. Bed, though. That seemed sensible. 

Pushing the chair back from the table was reassuringly easy. Standing up was not. It was as if the floor had been pulled out from under him the moment he stood, and Rabastan swayed dangerously sideways, clinging to the edge of the table to regain his balance and checking it with a hip as he did so- sending the magazine sliding to the floor and his wand skittering off the table and rolling off after it. He didn’t notice either, eyes closed, breaths shallow. Screw bed, new plan. Rab knew exhaustion and this wasn’t it. Rab needed Rodolphus and he needed him now. 

Opening his eyes again was an effort, his stomach roiling as if he'd just been spun upside-down. Sucking in a breath, Rabastan stared with narrowed eyes at a doorway which seemed to sway before him, and thanked any number of gods and fates and ancient powerful wizards that he could navigate the Lestrange mansion in pitch darkness anyway, and that some whim had placed him fairly close to Rod’s bedroom. A hand leaning heavily on the wall, Rab stumbled out of the room and into the hall, fumbling around ornamental tables and muttering confused apologies to portraits his hand bashed into the frame of, knocking askew. The portraits in question babbled questions and commentary- their voices too loud, too shrill- but the words seemed to bleed together as Rabastan processed them, and something told him that if he stopped moving he wouldn’t start again any time soon. And so he kept moving forward, eyes locked in a sort of tunnel vision on the hall before him. 

It took millennia, eons, to get to Rodolphus’ room, and yet as Rabastan slid down the wall next to his brother’s door he could barely remember how he had gotten there. His arse hit the floor and he continued sinking further into an awkward slumped position, one leg bent and trapped under the dead weight of the other. The single-minded determination that had driven him to Rodolphus’ door was leaking out of him, and it showed physically. 

Sure that his brother would appear at any moment and fix whatever it was that was wrong with him, Rabastan let his eyes flutter shut. It had never occurred to his foggy and addled mind to knock. 

@viciousvisage

[theyrexeno]

The Mulpepper Mystery | X & F

Xeno tried the door of Mr. Mulpepper’s Apothecary and frowned disapprovingly down at it when it turned out to be locked. “Frank?” They moved to look through the large front windows, pressing their nose against the glass, eyes slightly narrowed as they looked into the shop, “Oh, it’s not even been broken into,” they muttered quietly. Raising their voice slightly again, as if addressing the general area would make Frank appear out of nowhere, Xeno spoke again, “Frank, your coworkers aren’t very helpful people.” 

The Department of Magical Law Enforcement had looked like an anthill that had been unfortunately tripped over, people rushing back and forth, engaged in hurried conversations, desks left empty. Xeno’s entire trip to the Ministry had been spent reassuring themself that everything would be sorted if only they could report the break-in of their flat to someone at the DMLE. After wandering around the level two of the Ministry for nearly thirty minutes, nothing had been sorted. Actually, things were probably worse.

Apparently someone had broken into the office of one of those men who thought they were very interesting and important. Someone had stolen prophecy records. And someone had turned Xenophilius’ flat upside down and could very well have stolen something. Xeno didn’t think that was a coincidence. No one in the DMLE seemed to agree. 

The Aurors they’d approached had responded with varying levels of sympathy, but all had more or less agreed that they were currently too busy to consider the case immediately and ushered them along to the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol, who concurred on the call of being too busy, though Xeno wasn’t terribly certain they believed them- the wizard doodling at the reception desk didn’t seem to have much to do, anyway. No one seemed to understand there must be a connection between the break-ins. Xeno thought it might have to do with the fact that the DMLE had stopped responding to their letters years ago, apparently unconcerned about all the potentially dangerous creatures and beings Xeno was simply trying to bring to the attention of the proper authorities.

It had taken a considerable about of cajoling, but Xeno had at least managed to figure out that Frank was investigating some apothecary’s disappearance and so was most likely in Diagon Alley. Even if Frank couldn’t drop everything to help- which would be nice, but no one had stolen an entire live person from Xeno’s flat so they figured he probably wouldn’t- he’d probably at least listen. And so here they were, nose pressed against the window of the shop, one hand braced against the wall and the other very gently holding the broken off head of a blue ceramic dragon, fished out of the chaos of their flat nearly an hour before.

“Frank?” 

@frnklongbottom

[ehhdgarbones]

At Least it Can’t Get Any Worse | Open Starter

“Could you please stop looking at me like that. I’m fine.” The two words had been on repeat since the first morning he’d woken up in St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. The fussing was getting to be a bit much, and was wearing on him more the longer he was confined to the tight space of the hospital bed. He was fine. Right as rain. Nothing to worry about.

Edgar wasn’t used to sitting on his arse when there was shite to be done. Like find out what had happened to Regulus to land him in the room down the hall. It was a nagging pressure at the base of his skull to be so far away from the younger male while he was hurting the way he was. The night he’d dragged himself into his room, Edgar had made himself dead-weight, a boulder, refusing to budge for the whole rest of the night. 

It was the threat of Walburga Black that finally managed to wedge a begrudging Edgar from Regulus’s bed. If the family had disowned Sirius for the simple crime of being housed in Gryffindor, then he could guess what her reaction would be to discovering Regulus in bed with another man. A man that looked like him, no less. To spare him the family drama, Edgar shuffled out of the room of his own volition and threw himself back into his original bed. 

It wouldn’t keep him for long, but there were hours between now and the end of visiting hours. A heavy sigh collapsed his chest and he glared up at the ceiling overhead. He hated this. He hated every ruddy bit of it. Every last one of Edgar’s instincts demanded that he be up on his feet and finding someone to beat the ever living piss out of. Trouble was that he barely had the strength to keep his head up, or the energy for that matter.

A sideways glance was aimed at the figure occupying the seat beside his hospital bed. The corner of his mouth twitched, his smirk there and gone. He tried for reassuring, but felt like his tone might have landed somewhere closer to impatience when he spoke again. “Really, I’m fine. Nothing to worry about. I’ll be out of this bed in no time, just you wait.”

He reached over, his arm outstretched, hand held palm up in offering, or pleading, he didn’t rightly know which. All he knew was that he could use the physical contact both to reassure that he was alright, and to siphon some strength back into his own resolve. 

[itsalcprwtt-blog]

Sick Leave | Open Starter

Blue skies were visible through the open blinds on the far wall of her room. Daylight flooded the space in a soothing flow of effulgent yellow. She watched the dark shape of a bird flap across the cloudless background, her thoughts far from the scene she was staring off at.

Something was wrong. Beyond the fact that she’d woken up in a hospital bed, which had been an unpleasant realisation in and of itself. Her natural dislike of hospitals made being admitted to one a test on her adaptability. She hadn’t had a nervous breakdown yet, and she’d take her victories where she could. 

It wasn’t the firm mattress or the thin sheets, the white walls or sterile smell that lingered in the air, that made her thoughts whirr noisily in her head. It was the fact that she’d needed a hospital at all. Not long after waking up Alice had learned that she wasn’t the only one to be admitted with a mysterious, inexplicable illness. She heard the nurses whispering, had seen the figures pass by her door. Alice knew that Edgar and James were both here, too. And that was how she knew that something was wrong.

The last thing she remembered was their breakfast meeting at the Three Broomsticks. It’d been on Order business. Then they all three end up sick, hospitalised, with the same mysterious illness that no one could name or recognise. Alice didn’t think that was a coincidence. She just didn’t know what do with the information, if anything at all. Her head was still so foggy that her thoughts were going in circles and each iteration made less sense than the last.

There was a rap on her door. Alice’s gaze was still out the window, her focus was still caught up in unravelling the mystery, when she spoke the words were reflexive and far off to her own ears. “Come in.” She didn’t turn to see who’d come to visit, didn’t fully realise that she even had a visitor at all.

[thehunteternal]

Mossbed in Moonlight | Drabble

The tree stood solid under his grasp, an anchor that kept the world from swaying. Deep and guttural, the noise that vibrated up from the pit of his lungs was a frustrated sound. His lips twitched with a snarl aimed at no one. There was none but the night, and all her creatures, to witness his stupor. Nails dug into bark.

With an irritated grumble he pushed off of the tree and continued to stumble through the forest. Fenrir wove between the trees, narrowly managing to not catch exposed roots with the toe of his boot. It was slow progress. He had to move from tree to tree, launching off of each one and shambling through the dry leaves and foliage in between. He moved like he was in a drunken stupor, and his waning control of his too heavy limbs was driving him mad.

Fenrir felt weak, exposed. It was why he was scuffing through the forest instead of throwing himself into his bed at the compound. With his sluggish reflexes and numb muscles, he was walking deadweight. He wasn’t in any state to fight for his life. In this state he was vulnerable. It didn’t matter that he’d changed and raised a majority of the wolves that inhabited that compound. Sleeping there was like exposing his belly. Fenrir didn’t trust them not to take advantage of his deteriorating condition.

Especially not after that fight with Garrison. The wolf was challenging him at every turn, questioning him. While Fenrir admired the male’s strength, he’d still needed to bring him to heel. They’d sparred, again. And Fenrir had put him in his place, again. The male had still been kicking his wounds when Fenrir left for the Hog’s Head that morning.

If ever there was a time to rethink the compound’s leadership it was now, when Fenrir was too weak to remind the other wolves that fear and strength kept them alive. More specifically the fear of HIS strength.

No, he couldn’t risk it. Fenrir’s strength, his savagery, they were his armor and shield. He wouldn’t be seen weak. Not by his pack. Not by anyone. It was why he was blundering through a familiar forest toward a familiar cave.

Dull as they were his senses were still strong enough to guide the way. A twisting path snaked through the trees. Moonlight poured in silver streams through the canopy, illuminating his meandering path. He was breathless and shaky by the time he spotted the yawning mouth of a cave, carved from the earth and marked by the roots of a tree as old as time itself.

Fenrir ducked inside. The rock ceiling was low and he had to crouch to keep from scraping his head on it. He strode to the farthest wall and collapsed onto a bed of moss. It took some shifting around before he could get comfortable but, once he didn’t have a rock stabbing into his back, Fenrir succumbed to the unsettling exhaustion that had been tightening its grip on him all day.

He didn’t know what the fuck was wrong with him. At this point he was too tired to care. Once he’d slept it off he’d find answers. If a person was to blame for this he was going to make them suffer before they died. Thoughts of the torture he’d inflict was fodder for his dreams as Fenrir faded into the encompassing black that swallowed him whole.

[magicalminerva]

Unseemly : A Short Drabble

It had been a long day. A stretched out so far that the morning seemed like yesterday by the time four o’clock in the afternoon rolled around, sort of day. Minerva wore the behavior, or rather, misbehavior, of her students on her face in the deep circles under her eyes. Sighing, she pushed back from her desk and set the stack of papers she was grading aside. They weren’t promising, and suggested that the only thing her fourth years should be transfiguring were their marks. 

It was time for dinner in the Great Hall, but as she left her office, the staircases seemed to be moving faster than usual. Or perhaps, it was that she was moving slower. It had suddenly become hard to tell. Laying a shaky hand on the banister, she began to descend, uncertain footsteps echoing strangely against the stone. 

By the time she arrived at the head table, the students were already tucking in. She noticed a few odd looks thrown her way by her colleagues, but assumed they related to her tardiness rather than the fact that she had begun weaving slightly as she walked. Taking a seat, she stared blankly at her plate, appetite vanished. 

Moments passed but it was hard to tell how many. Her eyelids weighed more with each passing second, and her bones had begun to ache with a fatigue that was unfamiliar. Vision swimming slightly, Minerva stood, “Excuse me....” she heard her words slurring, coming out less clearly than she intended. Her chair scraped against the floor and the noise grated against her like nails down a chalkboard. 

It was a step, a simple step, and she felt her knees buckle. Falling to the floor with a feeling almost similar to relief, she collapsed. Blinking heavily, she muttered something unintelligible, a noise lost to the gasp that ran through the Great Hall, student’s cries and teacher’s exclamations drowning her out. 

[theyrexeno]

Broken Locks | Self-Para

It wasn’t uncommon for Xeno to spend days on end without setting foot in their flat. It was never particularly intentional, but a couple hours wandering around the outskirts of London seeking out ghosts would morph into a wildflower collecting expedition, and then they’d have to make their way up to Hogsmeade to give Edgar a handful of flowers and a cheeky smile, and then Alice, or Pandora, or Dorcas would be in the Three Broomsticks having a drink, and that would be an adventure all of its own, after which Xeno would turn up in Sybill’s quarters at Hogwarts with a mostly-full bottle of wine and they’d caper around the Black Lake for a bit and suddenly it was two days later and probably time to head home. It was after such a series of adventures and distractions that Xeno bounded up the stairs, skipping every other step with long, ungainly strides. And it was after such a series of adventures that they stopped short on the landing as if coming to the end of a string, eyes growing wide at the sight of the door to their flat. 

The door, painted in a cheerful riot of colours and abstract designs, was wide open, the knob hanging limply from where it had either been jostled aggressively or wrenched askew. And through the open doorway, it was as if the normally disordered clutter of the flat had been animated and compelled to attack itself. Books and papers littered the floor, completely obscuring the rug that lay underneath. The couch was shoved to a side, one foot practically in the fireplace, its cushions ripped and pulled apart, bleeding stuffing onto the floor. A shelf had been knocked off the far wall, the plank resting against the hulking mass of the printing press in the corner and the jars full of curiosities it had held shattered and scattered across the ground. 

Xeno didn’t know how long they stood there, a couple steps outside of their flat, just looking, but suddenly it was as if they were released and they let out the breath they’d been holding in a very quiet, “Oh.”

They crossed the distance to the doorway in a few rapid steps, and then proceeded to inch their way into the middle of the chaos, wincing as their boots crunched on shards of broken glass. It was impossible to avoid stepping on things, but they tried regardless, gently tiptoeing around ripped papers and a collapsed stack of Quibblers as if the objects couldn’t possibly withstand any more abuse. They didn’t think they could bear leaving bootprints on their notes and photographs anyway, regardless of the state the objects been reduced to. Nothing about the chaos seemed real, but it tied knots in Xeno’s stomach and had their heart in their throat regardless. 

Xenophilius had always desperately envied the resolute optimist. But the world was often a dark place, riddled with unfairness and useless anger, and they’d learned long ago that people were not always kind. And so, as they picked their way through their flat, finding the happy chaos of the rooms to have been replaced with indiscriminate destruction, the part of them that had adapted to roll with the punches competed with the part of them that wanted to shove all the assorted debris of their life off of the bed and hide there forever. 

It was a silly thing that broke the hazy surrealism of the scene for Xeno in the end. Long fingers, which had been brushing over misplaced objects and items with a delicacy incongruent with the chaos, stopped sharply. They blinked down at the little ceramic dragon, its neck and leg broken off when it had fallen from the mantle to the ground, bright blue paint standing out starkly on the pieces of parchment scrawled with their looping script that littered the floor. And then they hitched a startled breath and crouched down to scoop up the pieces in their palm, dropping back to sit on the uneven surface of books and magazines behind them in a clumsy stumble of a movement, attention entirely on the dragon resting in their cupped hand. 

Xeno couldn’t remember a time when they didn’t own this particular dragon. It had been a birthday gift, or so their parents had told them when they were six years old and suddenly inquisitive about the origins of the unassuming ornament which they hadn’t been allowed to play with because of its fragility. When they were left alone in their room they would pull over a chair to reach the dragon where it sat, safe on a shelf, and pick it up with a reverent sort of delicacy, bringing it with them to sit on the floor and trace little fingers over the pattern of the scales. 

The dragon lay, broken, in Xeno’s palm. They stared at it, eyes half hooded and expression detached, biting down too hard on their bottom lip. And then, in a sudden burst of movement, they scrambled to their feet and started towards the door with much more determination than they had entered the flat with. They needed to go to the Ministry. That seemed like a sensible thing to do. They’d go to the Ministry and say their flat had been broken into, and someone with some sort of fancy badge would sort it and they could come back and clean up and everything would be back to normal again. 

They tucked the dragon into their pocket as if it could shatter at any moment.  

[primaballerinazabini-blog]

Curtain Call | Drabble

She only half heard the clink of a glass being set down in front of her. Valerian’s face was in her hand, her fingers working over her brow as she struggled against the queasiness rolling around in her belly. Pressing the firm tips of her fingers into her abdomen, she pulled a deep breath through her nose and into her lungs. The breath held for ten seconds before she let it out slowly past the purse of her lips.

The feeling had started earlier in the afternoon, lightheadedness and slight nausea. Well after her meeting with Rabastan and Regulus her condition had worsened as time went on. Her mouth was producing too much saliva that she was constantly swallowing down, her throat working hard to keep bile from climbing up her esophagus. It wasn’t pre-show jitters. Val was familiar with those and was mostly immune to them by this point in her career. What she felt was sick, unfamiliarly and unexpectedly sick. Only the discomfort wasn’t entirely in her stomach.

There was a pounding in her head that pulsed with a force so strong it made her eyes water. Valerian felt as though someone had stabbed into her skull and was swishing the knife around, dicing her brain to bits. The pain was awful, it was stomach-churning. She’d already been sick once and it was all she could do to keep her stomach settled.

Lifting her face from her hand, she reached for the glass of water that one of the stagehands had brought her. With her other hand still on her middle, as if she could settle her stomach with physical force, she raised the glass to her mouth tested the smallest sip. There was a quiver in her belly but, after a few deep breaths, it calmed. Trusting that her stomach would finally play nicely, she pulled a few more, deeper gulps of water and immediately regretted it.

Val doubled over the wastebin and expelled what little contents was left in her stomach. The force of her retching quadrupled the pain in her head. White hot agony seared her vision. She cradled her face in her hands and groaned miserably. What was wrong with her? What was happening to her? She’d never felt this sick in her entire life, it was a torturous kind of pain.

“Miss Zabini?”

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, flinching from the pain the sudden voice sent shooting through her skull. Dragging her hands down her face, she glared across the room to the flighty looking stagehand shifting from foot to foot. Her irritation over not knowing why her body was mutinying against her put a sharp edge to her tone when she spoke.

“What.”

The young woman held the clipboard to her chest like a security blanket. The searching look she aimed at Valerian was nervous. “You’re on in five, Miss. Are you feeling alright? You’re looking a little pale. Do you want me to get--”

“I’m fine,” she bit out sharply, furious with the girl for the worried look in her eyes. If the bitch thought for a second that the talentless Sujet was going to take her place on stage, she had another thing coming. Valerian didn’t care if she was bleeding out of her eyes, nose, and ears, the only way she was sitting out a performance was over her dead body. It didn’t matter how terribly she felt. The show went on.

A curt swivel in her chair had her seated upright in front of the light encompassed mirror. Valerian gave her reflection a hard glare. The stagehand was right. She did look a little washed out, but it wasn’t something that a heavy application of stage makeup couldn’t fix. Reapplying her blush and contouring her features, Val pierced the woman’s reflection with an annoyed glare.

“Are you here to work, or are you here to watch? Because if you wanted to watch you should have paid for a ticket. Though, judging by the fit of those rags, I doubt you could have afforded one. If you don’t mind, I’d rather finish up without having to endure your repugnant reflection in my periphery. Merlin, you droop like a basset hound. I never thought that a diet of pastries could sustain life and yet here you stand. A scientific phenomena. Unfortunate and alive. Have you ever eaten a fruit that wasn’t baked into a pie first?”

With wide eyes, the girl turned on her heel and left the dressing room to go join her peers backstage. Valerian rolled her eyes, uncaring that she’d taken her foul mood out on the basset hound. Her jowls had irritated her.

Satisfied that her appearance had no resemblance to how she was feeling, Val lifted herself from her seat and smoothed out her costume. She took a step and had to grip the back of a chair to keep her balance. The room was spinning. After several deep breaths she tried again. Valerian cut through the backstage toward the wing she’d be exiting from.

Other dancers were stretching, hopping in place, loosening up as the orchestra played and their time neared. This close to the lights and sounds, Val felt worse than ever. Even off to the sides, out of view from the audience, she had to squint against the stage lights. She winced against the blaring music. The ground beneath her feet felt unsteady.

If not for a nudge by another dancer, Valerian would have missed her cue a second time. She forced a brilliant smile onto her lips and skipped out onto stage to the thunder of music and blinding lights. Her head swam, slamming hard against the walls of her skull as she twirled and pranced, spun and jumped and kicked, moving lithely.

She was faintly aware of the other dancers. She was faintly aware of the music, of anything beyond the growing ache in her head. Her limbs were becoming harder to move. Grace fled her body like she was a colander. Tempo lost to the pain in her head, Valerian came out of an arabesque penchée with misplaced and sloppy footing.

The momentum threw her weight and Val felt herself falling, though all she saw was black. She was distantly aware of muffled screaming, but it felt miles off, like she was hearing it through water. There was a dull pain in her head, too. Different from the ache that had settled there. It was a silent throb that faded quickly into black like the rest of the world. Soon there was nothing. No light, no music, no screams, and, blessedly, no pain either.

Eyelids fluttered. She could see lights through the weave of her eyelashes. She was moving, levitating. Or maybe she was being carried. She couldn’t tell and didn’t care. Distantly, Valerian head the urgent muttering of voices she didn’t recognize.

“... don’t know what happened… say she just fell off stage…”

“... on duty… need to get her to Healer Carrow… know how to treat her…”

Amycus.

Her eyes shut again. Valerian surrendered herself to the enveloping black nothingness that gladly swallowed her whole.

[angelusxxmortis-blog]

Curtain Call | A & V

“Healer Carrow! We need you in the upper level, Stat!” 

The voice could be heard down the length of the hall he’d just crossed, the desperation in the callers voice enough to bring his head around on a fast whip. Puzzled, he doubled back, approaching the nurse quickly. He opened his mouth to ask what was going on when she shook her head, her skin pale. “It’s Miss. Zabini, you need to come...now.”

The shock ran down his spine, ghosting him in the ass as his body went into autopilot. Given the look on the nurses face, shit was mission critical and he had to act f a s t. Without another word, he went straight for the stairs, taking them 3 at a time with long legs working overtime to power him through the distance.

He was at her side in no time, chart in hand as he barked out orders to the staff around him. “Who brought her in? What’s going on?” It wasn’t long before he heard all he had too. Eyes assessing her body for damage other than the obvious, the nasty gash across her head. There was definitely trauma, though how deep? He had no idea.

Apparently a nurse had tried to wake her up and she was non-responsive. For the first time in the history of his career as a Healer, his hand shook slightly whilst reaching for her too-cold hand. “Get her into a private room, the one in the corner. We can’t leave her out in the open like this, the DP will have a bloody field day. No one else comes or goes from her room, got it?”

By the time she was set up, he was ready. Wand in hand as he pointed the tip to her skin, murmuring spells under his breath, praying one or any of them would work... at first, there was no luck, the regular spells that would wake a comatose patient up failed him. Scrunching his eyes shut, he shot a quick word to the heavens- to a God he didn’t believe in, and continued...

- 

It was two hours before a spark ignited from the end of the acacia wood in his heavy hand. Slowly, achingly so, the bruising started to heal, the blood drying up as the skin knitted itself together. It was taking too long, far too long to work but at least something was happening.

“Come on, baby. Wake up, I need you to open your eyes...” The sweet nothings fell from his lips without him even tracking the words as he desperately tried to rouse her from her slumber...”Don’t do this, please, you’re stronger than this...Baby, please.”

@primaballerinazabini

[ehhdgarbones]

Breakfast Beer and Irish Coffee | A, E & J

“Thank you,” murmured Alice with a kind smile on her lips as he poured freshly brewed coffee into a mug and set it down in front of her. 

Edgar nodded in acknowledgement of her gratitude, returning her smile with a half-smirk of his own before returning the pot to the burner he’d lifted it from. It was early, earlier than he usually worked, and Edgar was having a helluva time getting himself to wake up. Thoughts of his bed tantalised him to forget whatever Order related business required that him to be awake at this ungodly hour.

He glanced at the wall clock. 8 AM. Merlin, he missed his bed.

From behind the bar he lifted his own steaming mug of hot coffee and weakly nursed the bitter blackness. It scalded its way down his esophagus, warming his chest before settling in his gut like a heated blanket. His eyes shut to savour the warmth, but he pried them apart quickly when he felt himself start to drift. Ruddy mornings. How did people function any earlier than 10 AM? He didn’t get it.

The only reason he’d agreed to a meeting this early in the day was because working the morning shift meant he’d have more time to prepare for his date with Regulus later that night. He was still surprised that the younger male had agreed to go on another with him. The first had gone well, Edgar had just been expecting the novelty of himself to have worn off by now. He understood acts of rebellion and shows of stubborn independence better than most. If one was looking to rile up their parents, sneaking around with the likes of him seemed a fine way to go about it.

Thinking entirely too much, Edgar shook his head clear and sipped another taste of the black coffee in his cup. He pulled a stick of tobacco from its packaging and lit the tip, dragging smoke into his rib cage as he strode across the pub to the table Alice had slunk into. 

She glanced up from the Daily Prophet and smiled quietly when their eyes met. The girl was an unassuming little thing that kept mostly to herself. Her eyes were observant, though, watchful even in their warmth. Under all that reticence was a surprising fount of strength. Edgar could see why Frank fancied her.

“Any word from James?” asked Edgar as he settled in the seat opposite her.

Her gaze dropped to the watch on her wrist and she offered another mild simper his way. “He should be here soon.” Focus falling back onto the paper she’d been reading, she murmured, “Might’ve gotten held up rescuing a cat from a tree on the way here.” 

If Edgar hadn’t seen the twitch at the corner of her mouth he wouldn’t have believed his ears. Alice, crack a joke? Maybe he was still dreaming. He leaned his head back and rested it on the booth’s back behind him. Staring at the ceiling, he pulled another lungful of smoke into his chest and held the breath to relish the sting. Nope. Not dreaming. Just really bloody tired.

@maraudingstag

[itsalcprwtt-blog]

What Ails You, Darling? | Drabble

The flaps of her coat were pulled tight against her body. Alice nestled as deeply as she could in the warm fabric, and still a shiver shot down her spine and reverberated through her limbs. Teeth chattered when another stronger tremble detonated from her bones and rippled outward. Lifting her hand to her face, to wipe the bleariness from her eyes, she felt a thin film of sweat coating her skin. The motion caused a pulse of sharp pain to stab deep into her skull and she pressed the heels of her palms to her eyelids, waiting for the ache to subside. Merlin, she didn’t feel well.

Throbbing pain filled her skull. It pulsed, echoing in her head like a grandfather clock chiming midnight. The pain was worse when she trembled and the Auror Offices were the coldest they’d ever been. No matter how deeply she burrowed into her coat the shivers that wracked through her body only seemed to get worse. In spite of the chill she was coated in sweat. Clammy and weak, Alice couldn’t get warm enough. The harder she tried the more she sweat and the more she sweat the colder she felt.

What troubled her the most was that she couldn’t force her eyes to focus. The chill, the sweat, the headache, all she could contend with but her blurry eyesight was making it nearly impossible to keep working. There was a stack of public records that she still needed to comb through for the Minister and at the rate she was going --having to stop and scrub her eyes every few minutes-- she’d hardly made a dent.

An annoyed sigh left her nose. Alice dropped her hands from her face and reached for the next few pieces of parchment the same time she lifted the cup of tea from her desk. The near full cup of half-warm tea quivered in her grasp. It felt heavier as the minutes dragged. Alice had to set the parchment down so that she could grab the cup with both hands to keep it steady.

What was wrong with her? She’d felt perfectly fine this morning, while she’d been at the Three Broomsticks for breakfast and Order business with James and Edgar. But, throughout the day her condition had began to slowly deteriorate. Energy was being seeped from her body, stolen by an illness she’d never experienced. This ailment, whatever it was, was slow acting. She’d been sure that she could power through it, but now, as she needed both hands to raise her cup to her mouth, Alice was vexed with how far she was dragging behind. She should have been more than halfway through that stack of parchment by now.

Rim touching the plush of her lips, Alice angled her cup a bit to spill the nearly room temperature tea into her mouth. Immediately her throat closed. Her body convulsed with fierce rejection of the fluid she’d tried to swallow down. Her stomach rolled so violently a wave of bile climbed her throat and she had to work her throat hard to push it back down. So hard, in fact, that the cup of tea fell from her trembling fingertips and crashed first on to her desk, the contents swirling into the air and splashing wide on the impact, before ceramic exploded across the floor.

Alice looked at the mess she’d made with frustration that was quickly overshadowed by the wave of exhaustion that seemed to have been building all day. Patience spent and emotions frayed by whatever it was her body was trying to fight off, the anger that rose at herself and her slippery fingers was enough to push her seat back and glare weakly at the mess she’d made. The mess she’d now have to clean up.

“Everything all right over here, Alice?” One of the senior Auror’s approached, beckoned by the clatter and crash of her broken tea cup.

Alice didn’t look up to see who it was. Her limbs felt so heavy, her eyelids even more so. The room was starting to spin and her head was swimming. Another pulse rang hard in her head. She lifted her hand to cradle her face. Stars lit off in front of her eyes as she rubbed her forefingers into them before pinching the bridge of her nose.

Quietly, she assured the Auror, “I’ll clean it up. Just… give me a moment.”

“Not looking like that you won’t,” argued the woman who’d come to investigate. When Alice looked up her eyes unfocused and the room blurred. She couldn’t recognize the Auror through the veil of haze that clouded her vision. Another throbbing headache stabbed into her skull hard enough to churn her stomach. Alice winced and the woman decided she’d seen enough.

The blurred shape of her crouched down near Alice’s desk. Even out of focus, Alice could tell that she’d began to collect the bits and pieces her cup had been reduced to. Not liking the thought of someone cleaning up her mess, she started to slide out of her seat so that she could help to gather the fissured ceramic.

The chastising sound of the woman’s voice pierced right into her brain through her eardrums, stopping her before she made it out of her seat. “You’re not well, Alice. Go home.”

“But--”

“That’s not a request, Prewett. You’re not any use to anyone like this. Go home and rest.”

Her words stung. Barbs of truth that made Alice clench her teeth then immediately regret doing so. Perhaps she had a point. Begrudgingly, she forced herself to concede. Again she tried to lower herself from her seat, feebly, almost incohesively murmuring, “At least let me clean up--”

“Home,” the woman ordered. “Now.”

An exhausted sigh deflated her chest. She didn’t have to presence of mind to be stubborn. Even trying had cost her a certain amount of energy. Alice collected her belongings from her desk and rose onto unsteady feet. “Thank you,” she said quietly, forcing the corner of her mouth to twitch. “I’ll… see you tomorrow then.”

The woman muttered something about a Healer, but Alice was too concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other to pay her any attention. It was a draining effort. Only a few paces and the blur in her eyes worsened intensely. Black edged along her vision. Each step made it close in. Distantly, as if her body wasn’t hers anymore, she felt her gait zig-zag and her knees buckle.

The tunnel her vision had been narrowing into closed with a snap. Blackness filled everything, or maybe everything faded to nothing. All Alice knew was that she couldn’t see. She couldn’t hear, or feel. Her senses were gone and, for a brief moment that lasted an eternity, she felt weightless, like she was falling, falling, falling. Gone.