WHO: Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet & Joe Bell WHAT: Welcome back! WHEN: Today WHERE: Leon’s super secret clinic WARNINGS: None!
It had become something of a habit for Katie, spending a couple of hours sat by Joe’s hospital bed every day. Sometimes she was alone but sometimes she was with whoever she’d asked to go with her on that day, and while the routine of going to visit Leon’s clinic was the same she wasn’t always doing the same things. Alone she’d fill Joe in on something tedious about her day, with others she’d usually chat with them as if he were there too and just — couldn’t answer for some reason. Or sometimes she was just quiet.
Katie scuffed the toe of her trainers across the floor before turning her attention back to Angelina and Alicia. An unfolded Muggle newspaper in her hands (she brought them for the crosswords, for Joe, thinking sometime he’d wake up and be bedridden and want to do them), she was already scanning her horoscope ready to read it out to the others.
“This is the worst Sag horoscope I’ve read in ages,” she complained, showing the others.
Angelina pulled a sympathetic face down at the newspaper. “It’s a good day to be a Scorpio!” But then her eyes drifted to Scorpio and she laughed, a little hollowly, at the not so great advice. “Or not. But hey, look at Joe’s.” She gestured at the newspaper and pretended to read, “‘Rise and shine, Gemini. Today you’re waking up from a long nap!’”
“Yep!” Alicia chimed in with a glance in Joe’s direction. “Prince Charming is on his way, so you’d better get ready to pucker up, beautiful!”
Katie glanced to her brother, as though the jokes would make him respond. But, upon seeing nothing, she turned her attention back to the horoscopes. “I swear, if it tells him that getting some rest is a good idea,” she muttered.
That made Angelina actually read Gemini’s horoscope and the ‘take it easy’ their staff astrologist advised probably wasn’t what Katie had in mind either. She reached for the edge of the newspaper, lifting it a little and tilting to peer underneath. “Where’s the crosswords? We should do that instead.”
“Don’t look at me to get any of the clues,” Alicia warned. She lifted a page of the paper to look for them anyway. “I’d have spent a lot of nights sleeping in the corridor if I’d been sorted to Ravenclaw. Terrible at riddles.”
Crosswords were usually Joe’s domain, but Katie looked down at the page anyway. She frowned at it. “I mean, it looks like this one is easy to start. Four letters, cry of an owl,” Katie rolled her eyes. “‘Noisy’ is more than four letters though.” She tried to joke.
"Hoot." A raspy voice responded.
The owner of said raspy voice moved his eyes a tad, though he didn't open them just yet. "Hoot," he responded again, and his eyelids protested as he tried to prop them open. The light was incredibly bright and he squinted, not sure where he was or who he was with or how he wound up there.
"Hoot?" Joe offered again, as he blinked, trying to adjust his vision to the best of his ability.
“Well,” Angelina said, after a moment of shocked silence, “I think Joe’s an owl now. He keeps hooting at us.” Her lips twisted into a smile as she reached out and carefully tugged the newspaper out of Katie’s hands.
Katie’s breath caught in her throat, and she wasn’t quite sure if she’d even released it in her shock. She’d have dropped the newspaper if Angelina hadn’t taken it, standing up and scraping her chair against the floor in her urgency.
“Joe-Joe?” Katie asked in a hushed whisper, staring down at him as he moved and his eyelids moved and — “Can someone get Leon please?”
Alicia couldn’t take her eyes off Joe as she got to her feet. “I’ll go,” she said, looking halfway between having seen a ghost and being flooded with relief. She didn’t look away until she made it to the door, and when she did, it was only to rush down the hall to find the healer.
Joe blinked again, still trying to piece together random bits of information. He glanced around the room, and then from Alicia to Angelina to Katie. "Wh — where am I? What's going on?"
And suddenly, memories from the Ministry came rushing. "There was a fight, I was dueling someone and I barely remember seeing Hestia and —"
Angelina’s eyes darted between Joe and Katie and she realized she should give them a bit of privacy. One person explaining everything he’d missed was probably all he could handle. “You know what, I’m gonna go help Alicia!” She stood up, too, reaching out and giving Katie’s shoulder a squeeze before slipping out after Alicia.
Katie hesitated, wildly out of her depth and hoping desperately that Hestia could just appear and take over this conversation. “It’s okay, you’re okay,” she started, trying to use her best soothing voice and hide her own panic. “You were hurt but you’re better now.”
Katie cleared her throat softly. “I guess there’s a lot to catch you up on.”
That didn't sound good. None of that sounded good. Joe watched suspiciously as Alicia and Angelina left the room, and then his eyes focused on Katie. "What — who died?" he asked, assuming the worst. He gulped, almost bracing himself for the impact of that answer.
Katie hesitated. “You've been out of it for weeks, Joe, I don't think going through everything all at once is the right thing to do. The important thing is you're safe, okay? And Mum and Dad and everyone you care about, I promise. Except they think you're a Phoenix and we had to move you here and —” Katie grimaced, “You'll be safe here though. Promise.”
"For weeks?" Joe stared at Katie in disbelief, as though he expected her to start laughing and say that she was only messing with him. But she wasn't relenting and the more he started to think about it, the more he supposed it was possibly true. He'd been out of it for weeks.
He quickly interjected: "Where am I?"
There were already more questions than she was comfortable answering. “Here? Leon Stebbins set up this place for people who aren't welcome at St. M’s,” Katie started to explain, leaving out Leon’s own connection to the Order. It was his thing to tell, not hers. “He'll be here in a minute, you just need to rest.” Katie reached for her own glass of water she'd placed earlier by Joe’s bedside. “Water?” Katie offered him.
"Yeah, thanks," Joe responded absentmindedly, taking the glass of water and taking several large gulps, before setting the glass back on the table. He frowned again, stealing curious glances around the room, trying to place exactly where this place was. Leon Stebbins had set it up… that seemed only mildly curious, in the large scale of things.
Joe's attention wavered, however, and finally he turned to Katie. "Can I see mum and dad?"
“Course we can,” Katie promised, even though she wasn’t entirely sure of that. “Soon as possible, yeah?”
"Do you know where my phone is?" he asked after a moment. "There are some people I want to talk to."
Katie nodded silently, standing up to fish in the drawers by Joe’s bedside. “I kept it here in case no one was here for you when you woke,” she told him, passing it to him. “Do you want me to leave you?”
Joe nodded briefly, powering the phone up. "I just have a call to make…"