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Healer! We Need a Healer!


“Where did you get your tattoo?” Sirius asked when Dorcas Meadowes reached for a paintbrush from a cup of water. They were in the game room again and Dorcas had suggested they do art and she’d produced muggle watercolour palettes and brushes and special paper that they could make their creations on. She wore short sleeves today so that her tattoos showed and Sirius had realized for the first time that there were more than just one or two, there were several that encapsulated her arms, disappearing into her sleeves so that her arms looked like artwork with flowers and words and little pictures, a mural of Dorcas-ness. Some of them moved, some of them were still.

She looked down at her arm and up at Sirius, “Some I got a muggle shops about London…” she pointed to one of a blue bird flying, his wings spread wide, carrying a branch of peppermint in his beak, “Like this one.” But others I got at this little shop off of Diagon Alley - Pendleton’s Permaink Spot.”

Sirius asked, “How do they do it?”

“You tell them what you want, where to put it, and they do some spell work and the sparks from the spells do the work.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Not as much as the muggle shops,” Dorcas laughed. “The muggle shops use needles and work one little dot at a time. It takes hours. Pendleton’s I was in and out with this entire cuff here within about twenty minutes - and ten of that was waiting for my turn.” She pointed to the blooming morning glories.

Sirius hesitated. “Do you reckon… if I brought them a picture… they could put it on me?”

Dorcas nodded, “I reckon they could. You’ll need an adult present, though. You’re underage.”

Sirius stared at his wrist, at the place where the scars stood out against his pale skin. He looked up at her. “Dorcas,” he said, “I reckon it would be very therapeutic… very important for my healing. Don’t you?”

She smirked.

“It isn’t like my beast of a mother is going to be angry if you helped me, either,” Sirius pointed out. “She’ll probably never see it at all. If I have any say in the matter, she won’t, that is,” he laughed.

Dorcas thought for a moment. “Okay, Sirius. But before I agree to take you, I want you to do something for me.”

“Really? Okay. What?”

“Tell me what is it you’re thinking to get, and explain to me why it will help your healing?”

Sirius reached into his pocket. “That’s easy.”




That night was the full moon.

Remus pulled open the slanting door of the bomb shelter and hesitated. The last time he’d been down in there had been the last time he’d stayed at home - the full moon over the holiday of third year. He stood staring down into the darkness below and he frowned.

Ned Veigler stood beside him.

Remus shivered. “I hate this place,” he said.

Ned Veigler gently rested a palm over Remus’s shoulders. “We could floo back to Fallengunder,” he suggested.

Remus shook his head, “I don’t want to be that far from James right now. I’m worried for him.”

“I understand,” Ned nodded.

Remus took a deep breath and climbed in. It reminded him of climbing into Newt Scamander’s briefcase in a way - and he climbed down the ladder into the little cellar and waved his wand to light the room - lanterns hanging from the ceiling sparked on and the dismal little space was illuminated - no change from the last time he’d been there. Ned followed, dropping to the floor beside him and Remus waved his wand to close the doors, and they locked heavily with great iron bangs, sealing out the sun and soon the moon.

There wasn’t much there. A thick mattress in one corner covered with blankets that were strewn about, and a basin beneath a faucet that could be filled with water. There was a broken chair in the corner. Every full moon, Hope used to have Lyall repair that chair so she could sit with Remus as long as she dared before the moonrise came and she had to go. She would sit and sing or read to him for hours before she’d go… but then he’d be alone, encapsulated in the four walls of that bomb shelter, a prisoner.

He felt the sinking feeling of loneliness like a lead weight in his belly - even with Ned Veigler standing right there. This bomb shelter had such a dark history to him, it was hard not to feel it’s weight.

Ned half-sat-half-fell onto the edge of the mattress, groaning and letting his legs splay out before him. Despite how strong they’d both been trying to be - for James and Sirius and for each other’s sake - they were both in a good deal of pain from the moon’s cycle shifting within them. Remus’s knees hurt so much that he felt like he was on the verge of crying every step he took, and the ach was starting to reach his hips, too, and Veigler’s muscles were so tight that they were practically all one giant throbbing muscle by this point… “I’ll be glad for this moon to be over,” Ned murmured. There wasn’t enough aconite in all the world to relieve the pain he felt.

Remus nodded. He turned to the chair in the corner. “Reparo,” he said and he watched the chair come together, the bits of it reuniting until it stood as sturdy as it ever had and he lowered himself into it rather shakily.

They sat in silence, neither having the energy, really, to carry conversation.




Sirius handed the paper to Patrick Pendleton, the wizard who owned the little shop off Diagon Alley. He stared up at the bloke as he looked over the imagery. “What do you think?” Sirius asked, “I want it to be accurate. Can you do that?”

Patrick reached for Sirius’s arm and ran his thumb over his left wrist and forearm and then laid the page upon it. “Here? Like this?” he asked.

“Yes. And it moves across here…” Sirius moved his finger over his arm.

Patrick nodded, “Yeah. I can do that.”

“Let’s do it then,” Sirius said with a shaky breath.

“It’ll be ten galleons.”

Sirius reached for his coin purse, counted out the money, and dropped it into Patrick Pendleton’s palm. “There you have it,” Sirius said.

“Very good.” Patrick said, smiling. Dorcas Meadowes stood over him as Patrick removed the page and put it down on the tray beside the chair Sirius sat in. He got a tub of salve and started spreading it on Sirius’s skin in gentle circles. “It’s a cool idea - but aren’t you afraid what people will think?” he asked.

Sirius shook his head, “I don’t give a fuck what anybody thinks.”

“Alright then,” Patrick chuckled. He took up the page again, laid it right over the salve on Sirius’s arm and he drew his wand. “Now… this is going to sting.”

Sirius grit his teeth in preparation.

And Patrick Pendleton waved his wand.




James sat at Charlus’s side in the hospital room. His father was asleep - the light of the moon coming through the window cut over his father’s scaled face. Mrs. Potter had gone to the Lupin house to shower - she’d been so thankful to Remus, but it was full moon so Remus was no where to be found, of course, and she’d been hesitant to go and use the house without Remus there, but James had talked her into it, promised not to leave Charlus’s side, and she’d finally, reluctantly, gone.

Now it was just James and Charlus, who was asleep, the hospital room silent. James rested his cheek against Charlus’s chest. He could hear the distant roaring of the dragon fire in his father’s lungs and it made his stomach turn.

He closed his eyes.

Suddenly, Charlus started coughing.

Horribly.

His chest heaved and his eyes sprang open and his entire body seemed to convulse with the coughs; deep, thick, heavy-throated coughs. James reached up to rub his dad’s back as Charlus struggled to pull himself up. “C’mon dad, deep breath, deep breath of that oxygen --” he coached him, patting his spine the way the doctor had showed them to do when this happened, thumping behind his lungs… but the coughing kept on and Charlus clawed at the bubble charm, ripping it open and smoke - thick black smoke came out of Charlus’s mouth, like a chimney stack and he choked upon it and he scraped at his throat with his hands and panic filled James.

This can’t be it. Not now, not without mum here, no.

“HEALER!” James shouted, “HEALER!!! WE NEED A HEALER! HURRY!” He turned to Charlus, “Breathe, dad! Breathe!”

And Charlus’s mouth continued to pour out the black smoke, far darker than any that had yet come from him and thin tendrils of it came through his nostrils and Charlus’s face was pale and his eyes were rolled back as he continued to convulse and James had never been so scared in his entire life.

Forget facing Voldemort, this was hands down the worse thing he’d ever seen.

The mediwizard came running in, followed by the lead Healer on Charlus’s case.

“Bloody hell!” the healer shouted. This was uncharted territory. “Get the boy out of the room, quickly, Basil… Mr. Potter, Mr. Potter, can you hear me?” and the Healer was drawing his wand and a mediwitch with kind eyes grabbed onto James’s arm and tried to pull him away.

“NO!” James yelled, “DAD!”

“Mr. Potter?” the Healer was thumping Charlus’s back, twice as hard as James was, and the smoke billowed, filling the ceiling of the room and Basil took a firmer grasp on James and tugged him away, even as he fought, her strength unexpected.

“DAD!” James yelled, “DAD PLEASE!”

And mediwitches and mediwizards were surrounding the bed as Charlus Potter’s eyes rolled to look at his son for just a second before they rolled back again and James tried to grab onto the foot of the bed, tried to anchor himself, tried to catch footing on something that would keep them from being able to take him away from Charlus’s side, but there was no stopping Basil, who dragged him, literally kicking and screaming, from the room, as the Healer called for fumigation charms.

“DAD!” James bellowed.

The smoke was so thick and so strong it was already in the corridor, and people walking by were looking up at it warily with nervous glances at the room, looks of pity directed at James, who Basil had used her wand to drag out and to constrain now as he struggled to go back, fighting the spell that held him back. “LET ME GO! I NEED MY DAD! I NEED MY DAD! I NEED TO BE THERE FOR HIM! LET ME GO!”

There was shouting from the room, frantic shouting, the Healer yelling instructions…

And then silence.

And James’s heart plummeted.

Silence could not be good.

Silence could not be good at all.

“DAD -- NO!”

And the Healer stepped around the curtain blocking the bed… stumbled really, staring at James through the frame of the door. He was pale, his eyes were wide… stunned…

James felt his knees about to go out from beneath him.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the Healer breathed.

James struggled against the spell.

“Release him Basil.”

She did and James practically fell forward as he sprang into the room, tears pouring over his face, sure when he stepped around the curtain it would be to find his dad, laying dead. But rather when he took the step it was to find Charlus Potter sitting up, breathing quite heavily but otherwise normally - with no smoke, no bubble charm, his eyes open and focused and his hands shaking in his lap.

“The fire went out,” said the healer. “Weeks of dousing charms and dousing potions, weeks of them! Countless fumigations… and it just… it just went out on it’s own… Entirely on it’s own.”

A chill shook it’s way down James’s back.

He looked up at the clock on the wall.

The ticking had never seemed so loud.