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aesopsharpmybeloved · 11 months ago

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Tess' Sharpuary - 3. Wheelchair

Aesop hated that he needed it, and that he felt grateful to have it. But now it was time to say goodbye.

chapter specific tags: trauma, healing, friendship

relationships: aesop sharp & reader, aesop sharp & abraham ronen, aesop sharp & dinah hecat

3. Wheelchair (2k)

tw: trauma, grief, canonical character death

Aesop hated that wheelchair.

No, that was not entirely right - he hated the fact that he needed that wheelchair. From the first moment they sat him into it to wheel him over to Ashley’s funeral, he hated the blasted piece of wood and metal. That first day, he felt entirely powerless to do as much as try to operate it himself, and instead let people push him around. The healers, his mother, Dinah… He barely spoke, only gasping for breath occasionally when a particularly insistent sob fought its way through him. He didn’t even climb back into his St Mungo’s bed from it afterwards. He felt so completely empty, that he wouldn’t have cared if they left him sitting in it the entire night.

Later, he hated that he was grateful for it.

The healers insisted that while he was in pain, he was able to walk. He’d just have to use a cane and pain-relieving potions. The Auror was very tempted to tell them to go fuck themselves. They couldn’t heal him, and they were making it out to be some sort of blessing that he’d be able to walk as long as he drank copious amounts of Wiggenweld potion and hobbled around with a cane. A blessing, in Aesop’s opinion, would’ve been the ability to walk like he once had. Walking hurt, even with the use of cane and potions, and Aesop found himself to be glad when they allowed him to sit back down into his wheelchair again.

After they finally allowed him to go home, the first thing he did was check up on his stock of alcohol - and promptly started to get rid of it down his throat. He didn't know how many days passed then. All he knew was that while he was in his own house, the wheelchair was now his only home, and it was his prison as well. He hated it like he hated himself, but it would seem he’d have to learn how to live with both.

Or did he?

It was this thought that brought him back to the hospital, and into Dinah Hecat’s wrath.

His second stay in St Mungo’s was even less pleasant than the first one, as now he had to suffer through near-constant surveillance, and the only time he was allowed outside of his room was when Dinah herself was pushing him around the pale corridors and bringing him outside for some fresh air. Aesop still believed that it was what he deserved. It was what he deserved for causing her, and the other people who for some reason still cared about him, distress. He deserved it for what happened to Ashley.

It would seem he would be forced to accept the reality after all.

—

But then he didn’t.

After all, while Aesop’s home had been slightly modified to accommodate him, namely his bedroom moved to another room downstairs, there were still things he couldn’t exactly do while sitting down, like shaving in front of the mirror or brushing his teeth. That is, he could do these things while sitting down, he could enlarge the handheld mirror to be able to shave properly without leaving his wheelchair, or he could ever bring the new mirror in his bathroom down to his current height, but being used to do things one way for so many years made it all seem like more of an inconvenience than it already was.

And this, along with much, much pestering by Dinah, resulted in him bracing himself into a standing position to tend to his routine. More and more, he found himself leaving the comfort of his wheelchair to perform his tasks. And then, when instead of going through the tedious process of lifting himself onto the bed to remove his clothes, then moving to the wheelchair again to traverse the short distance from his now bedroom to the bathroom, awkwardly covered by his dressing gown, only to once more transport himself out of the wheelchair and onto the seat conjured in his bath, he actually got up and walked. Aesop knew he couldn’t rot away in that blasted contraption forever.

It wasn’t an easy process - he got tired quickly and had to either sit down, or brace himself against something often, but every single day, he found himself relying on his wheelchair less and less. His leg hurt, but it was far from the unbearable pain it was when the wound and the memory were fresh.

And then one day, he looked for his wheelchair throughout the house, only to realise that it was in his bedroom, and it had been there since the previous day. He had not used it at all.

He looked at the device with contempt, his head held high as if mocking it. Aesop Sharp stood mostly straight, only partially leaning his weight on the doorframe. He suddenly remembered why he was looking for it - him standing over his cauldron, working on yet another experimental cure didn’t do his leg much good, and he was hoping to rest a bit. He wouldn’t. He stared at the wheelchair, barely blinking, and reached into his pocket for a vial of Wiggenweld potion. He made it this far already, he was not about to give up now.

And yet, when he sent his things to Hogwarts for his very first year of teaching the young minds the art of potion-making, the wheelchair had been one of them.

Better safe than sorry, Aesop reasoned. After all, even after he began using his own bedroom on the first storey of his home again, Hogwarts still had a considerably larger amount of stairs, and one never knew when he’d need the rest. For the first few months, he carried it around in his coat pocket, shrunken to the size of a playing die, and ready to be used whenever. It almost happened a few times - but then, just when Aesop thought he’d fish it out of his pocket, enlarge it again, and sit down, he stopped. The tip of his finger traced over the miniature object. He considered for a few seconds, but in the end, he always decided to just power through it.

Dinah occasionally said that while she was delighted Aesop seemed intent on getting better, perhaps he truly should take a break from time to time, but a single look from him was enough to discourage her from saying anything else on the matter. He was a stubborn bastard, and he knew it was one of the qualities she liked about him the most.

The wheelchair stayed in his room the other year. And the one after that. And the one after that as well.

In the blink of an eye, he hadn’t used it for years, the very object he thought he’d never truly leave. And yet he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it.

A voice in the back of his mind kept discouraging him from doing so. ‘What if you need it again?’ it asked, its voice unbearably annoying, ‘what if it gets worse, and you’re not able to walk again?’ Aesop always angrily shut it down. There was no way he’d allow himself to once more descend into that blasted thing, he’d do anything he could to prevent such a scenario. And yet… and yet it remained there, in the mess that he called his chambers, catching dust that would only be wiped down over the summer when he wasn’t present.

—

When he returned to his bedroom, it was already getting light outside. He was completely exhausted. It’s been a decade since he last had a chance to fight like this, and his body kept the adrenaline in his veins for hours afterwards, only to cut him off the moment he stepped over his threshold. He sat in the armchair of his sitting room, looking into the flames. Twenty-four hours prior, he was certain the worst that could happen today was Garreth Weasley blowing up yet another cauldron. And then, suddenly, he was hurling spell after spell at goblins and trolls in caverns under Hogwarts.

He hadn’t felt this alive in… in over a decade if he was being honest with himself. But then again, even though they won, they lost Fig. Fig was a good man, a good colleague… And Aesop might have even gone as far as to call him a friend. He never thought it imaginable that the two people to save Hogwarts from certain doom would be his elderly professor friend and a sixteen-year-old girl. The world was getting stranger by the day.

Those involved in the battle sat in the staff room for hours, discussing what the official story should be. The potions master knew there was more to it, but they’d hardly know just how much more until the young woman who went to the caverns with Fig woke up.

He was the one who brought her all the way to the Hospital wing, not taking a single pause, barely feeling his leg at that moment. He stayed there with her until his presence was required with his colleagues, but promised to return. Not that she heard him…

Now he felt exhausted and restless simultaneously, and he fidgeted with his finger like he usually did when feeling a little lost. The following several days, weeks perhaps, would be mad, of that he had no doubt, and yet, instead of getting some sleep, he was just sitting there, doing nothing. Finally, he scoffed and got up to walk into his bedroom.

But then something caught his eye - his wheelchair. It was, once more, covered by dust, unused and unnecessary, now more so than ever before. Aesop Sharp, who some ten years ago thought he’d never be able to walk again, slayed several trolls and countless goblins tonight, all without the use of his cane. And while the adrenaline was gone now and the pain in his leg was slowly seeping back, his hands closed into fists.

“Can’t sleep either, can you?” sounded from the fireplace after he tossed a pinch of Floo powder into it, and called into Dinah’s rooms. “Meet me by the ruins en route to Hogsmeade,” he said simply, “and Abraham too, please.”

Mere minutes later, the three professors were standing within the remains of the ruined building by the road. All of them knew it well, having passed it hundreds of times during their years both as teachers and students. All of them were in various stages of wear, exhausted and heartbroken, and yet neither of the potions master’s friends questioned him when he summoned them, and simply just came.

Aesop made it a little before his two friends, and he set the wheelchair some ways from them.

“Aesop?” Dinah asked, her normally authoritative voice weighed down by the things that occurred on this cold night. He didn’t answer, only breathed deeply, eyes fixed on the object in front of him. It would seem he needn’t answer, as his colleagues soon guessed why he asked them here.

“My friend,” Abraham said quietly, voice still hoarse from both his tiredness, and the tears he shed for Eleazar Fig, “You know I’m not one to question your judgement, but… are you certain?” Aesop didn’t say anything for the longest time but then gave a single short nod.

The former Auror raised his wand.

“Incendio.”

Not a second later, the wheelchair was engulfed in flames. His friends repeated after him, first Dinah, then Abraham. Soon the flames began licking up his skin, making him feel warmer in the dark night turning into pale morning where they stood.

And even though he knew the following days and weeks would be difficult, even though he now had one more person to mourn, and even though it was now obvious the new Fifth-year was far from being a regular student, Aesop Sharp felt strangely light as he watched his wheelchair burn.

“I bloody well hope classes are cancelled today, I’m way too old to teach after no sleep,” Dinah grumbled next to him.

And despite everything, Aesop grinned.

[AO3] - [Sharpuary] - [Masterlist]

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