Who: Padma Patil and Adrian Pucey, maybe Gus Pye What: Padma is released When: Sunday, July 24, 2005 Where: The Ministry of Magic, elsewhere Rating: Medium Status: In Progress
She didn’t know what day it was. She could barely stand. As it was, an Auror had to walk her out into the discharging area. He sat her on a chair, and he left her there to wait. She looked horrible, and put together all at once. She was in her work clothes again, still clean and fresh as they had been when she’d been stripped of them, but beneath her clothes, she wore days worth of absolute filth, her ankles, her wrists, her shoulders—all swollen horribly. She was dehydrated, lips chapped and dry. She’d lost weight, even in the few days it had been, and clearly sleep deprived.
When the cell opened, and the other soldier had announced her release, the redheaded soldier had been furious, enough to leave a parting gift of a hard slap across the mouth. She was handed her clothes, and shoved into them when she couldn’t get them on herself, which she thought he enjoyed too much. But she was away from him‚ and now was thrust onto a hard wooden chair, waiting again. Was she supposed to get up and walk out the door on her own? What was she walking to? Was this the next phase in whatever plan they had? The Auror returned, thrust papers into her hands, spoke to her, though she barely registered the speed at which his lips moved. Releasing her? No charges? Sign here?
“Sign,” the Auror repeated, thrusting the parchment and quill further under her nose. “It’s your discharge papers, just sign.” She managed a scrawl and he snatched them back, magically sealing them and sending them flying off to wherever they were destined to go. He didn’t ask for permission, only placed a hand under her arm and pulled her to her feet, then helped her enough to keep her from falling. She’d exited, once again, shoeless into the waiting area of the DMLE, shoes, purse and sweater all clutched tightly in her hands. The Auror sat her on a chair once more, turned and left.
The Auror looked back over his shoulder, eying the woman as she stared, dazed around the room, looking absolutely lost. Her papers has said simply, Detained ST; brought in for questioning. He shook his head. She looked like she’d been beaten properly, and he wondered if she’d come in that way. Knowing the STs, it was likely.
If someone came to pick her up, they would. Otherwise, he was sure she would figure it out.
Adrian had forgot just how insistent owls could be. Or maybe it was just this one. Damn thing had even found him comfortably sleeping in Angelina’s bed in Appleby. Though he wasn’t sure he would actually call it comfortably sleeping. He hadn’t done that in nearly a week now. He was slightly less tense, his shoulders didn’t ache with held tension and... no it certainly wasn’t worry, just tension. And there was no arguing with him on that particular terminology. The owl tapped at her window. Tapped and then made some sound that finally woke Adrian. He hadn’t known an owl could make that particular noise. He pushed from the rumpled sheets and padded to the window. It took a moment for the words to sink in, he wasn’t always the quickest on the uptake and especially not at whatever damn early o’clock it was. But once the words did.. every bit of tension that had slipped away from his shoulders came back with full force. He didn’t even say much, just hastily threw on his clothes and made some gruff statement that he had to go, owl crumpled and tossed into the rubbish bin.
What time was it anyway? By the pale light light in the sky he had to guess that it was somewhere around 5. But looking at a watch had not been high on his priority list. The ministry was disturbingly quiet when he stepped through the floos. He made his way to the DMLE division, not liking it at all. The only times he’d been in the department were clearly not of his free will and some part of him was rather certain they’d just decide to keep him for even showing up.
The waiting room was surprisingly free of menacing officials. But it wasn’t free entirely. Sunk into a chair was a lone figure. One he recognized at once even if she looked far from her normal self. It wasn’t that she was in perfectly clean work clothes at 5am on a Sunday morning, it was the look on her face, the chapped lips and the haunted look in her eyes. And that didn’t even cover the wounds. He clenched his jaw tightly and stepped forward toward her, crouching down in front of her. “Padma?” He looked over one shoulder to see if anyone was going to object to his taking her away. He wouldn’t put it past them. He lifted a hand to reach for her wrists but stopped, looking at the swollen rubbed raw state of them. He didn’t know why he did it but he somehow felt he needed to ask her and gain some kind of permission before he even touched her. “Can I take you home love?” And by home he meant a healer but details.
She didn’t know how long she had been waiting. Her concept of time was severely skewed, and the way she kept drifting in and out of consciousness wasn’t helping. She started to drift off in the chair, convinced that it was just another ploy to break her, that it was a transfigured room, that any minute, the awful redheaded wizard would come back in, sirens blaring to bind her and force her to stand again. But she couldn’t keep her eyes open, though, so if the interrogators were coming back in, they’d have to come. All Padma wanted was to sleep and she couldn’t hold her eyes open any more.
She jerked at the sound of her name being spoken close, eyes widening and dilating sharply. Panicking at the sight of someone so close, she jerked back into the chair. With all their threats and ploys, she half expected one of them to come in Polyjuiced as Michael just to screw with her perceptions. But it wasn’t Michael, and she frowned as she focused on Adrian, wondering how they had known about her relationship with him to come in disguised that way. Her eyes watered and her bottom lip trembled.
Adrian would never call her love. She pulled back from him, her movements slow and foggy as she shook her head, trying to swallow enough saliva to wet her throat.
“You’re not real,” she managed to get out.
What in the hell had they done to her. He did his best not to show just how much her appearance shocked the hell out of him. Somehow that didn’t seem like the best way to handle the situation. Not that he had a clue how to handle this. The ‘v’ that was cut into his forehead only deepened s she pulled back from him abruptly, voice sounding harsh and pained. He wasn’t real? When he’d first been given his mark and had been paired up with others on tasks that he never did and quickly made him realise that he was far better off living far away from England, he had seen things that he had always wished to forget. And this- her appearance and reactions were all too familiar of that.
“I know I’m that good looking Padma, but I am real.” He finally replied trying, no forcing, one corner of his mouth to pull up in an expression other than a frown. Whatever they had done to her, it was now his job to prove that he was real and she was getting the hell out of there. By whatever means necessary.
She frowned at his words, at the little quirk of his mouth. She tried to focus, her dark eyes searching his lighter ones. It really did look like Adrian. She licked her lips slowly, wincing as she brushed over the large split in her lip. Swallowing, she looked back towards the discharging area. It did look just like the same room she’d come through when Anthony had picked her up.
“Is it?” she reached out, hand touching his hesitantly, clearly afraid of the consequences of doing so, but being too persuaded by what she was seeing to resist temptation.
“It is true that I’m devastatingly handsome and it’s also true that I want to get you the hell out of here.” Adrian said, his voice hushed, he couldn’t shake the feeling that no matter how empty the room seemed that they were never alone in the ministry. Or just call him paranoid. He didn’t really care. He tilted his head to the side slightly. “I’m going to get real good at healing charms knowing you aren’t I?” Adrian put a hand out, giving her the choice to place her hand in his, something told him she hadn’t had much of a choice in anything for the past few days.
“Let’s get out of here and get you cleaned up alright?” And damn if sounding as nonchalant as he was, wasn’t killing him. But he wasn’t serious. He didn’t care and if Padma needed to believe it was him... then he’d do his damn best to sound just like both of those things were true.
Padma raised her eyebrows as he spoke, eyes softening at his words. It really did sound like him, and when he mentioned the healing charms... she hadn’t said that aloud, had she? The Ministry didn’t know she had turned to him that night, did they? Hell, maybe she was dreaming, she thought, but the idea of Adrian taking her away from all this, even if for a few seconds of unconsciousness, was something she had a hard time resisting.
She nodded slowly, hand slipping into his. “I can’t—” she swallowed, trying to wet her throat. “I can’t stand.” She looked down at her barefoot feet, swollen and dirty, before letting her eyes drift back up to Adrian’s.
Adrian slowly nodded his head as she finally spoke, her hand sliding into his. He curled is larger roughened fingers around hers and gave a reassuring squeeze. “I know, think I can handle you, wouldn’t be much of a professional quidditch player if I couldn’t.” She was a tiny slip of thing, at least in comparison to him.
He pushed up to his feet slowly, he gave her hand one final squeeze before letting go. He lifted the papers from her lap and looked down at them. Questioning his arse. This was not questioning, this was torturing. And the two were never the same. “Gonna pick you up alright, promise not to throw you over my shoulder at least this time.” Never in all his life had it been quite this difficult to be so damn glib.
He tried to be as careful as he could, reaching one arm behind her back, the other under her knees, pulling her up from the chair. He wasn’t going to attempt some half-arses walk limp business. They both needed out of here. “Gonna have someone look at you before we take you home, sound good?”
She couldn’t help the whimper as he lifted her, the deep bruises from the caning still painfully sore. She felt reassured, though, at his words, knowing it really was Adrian. She wrapped both arms around his neck, squeezing tight. She had brought so much extra into his life, extra she knew he didn’t want or need. She was going to get him into trouble, and she’d have to fix that—take extra care to protect all her friends now. The Ministry would come down on them just like they had come down on those surrounding Terry after his murder.
Gods, it was selfish of her, but she was so fucking thankful she was alive, especially after her last visit from the younger solider. Whoever had sent in the older one, for whatever reason, was a godsend, even if they were Ministry, because Padma was quite sure the other man could have killed her.
She tucked her face into the crook of Adrian’s neck, her own mortally painfully overwhelming her. Her fingers slipped up into his hair and squeezed, thumb curling over the nape of his neck. She’d make this up to him—protect him, whether he liked it or not, from being brought in like this. This Ministry wasn’t going to let anything else happen to her friends.
His jaw set as she made a sound of pain. If the Ministry wanted to be the good guy, they sure were doing a damn bad job of making that point. How on earth did they think this had any basis in law or- stupid question.
Once she was up, bare feet dangling over the crook of his arms and her papers folded and tucked into the back pocket of his sloppily donned jeans, he started out. Heading directly to the floos. “You’re not going to object if I take you to a healer instead of my flat?” He asked, voice near her ear. No, he didnt feel as though the ministry needed to know jack and shit as to where they were going. Hence he planned to floo through at least one other place. His understanding was this clinic was only on a need to know basis. And the Ministry sure as hell didn’t need to know.
“And no I’m not going to ask what they did to you because I don’t think my getting arrested right now would do anyone any good.”
She shook her head against his neck, fingers curling tighter in his hair. “S’okay,” she said. He could take her wherever he wanted. “Just wanna sleep,” she murmured. She wouldn’t tell him if he asked, she didn’t think she could, but she would acquiesce to being taken care of, and letting him hold her. Actually, she would let him hold her as long as he wanted. One steady thing in her life was Adrian making her feel safe.
“Good, I was ready to argue my point though, just for the record.” Adrian replied as he let out a puff of air he’d been holding in for Merlin only knew how long. This healer was going to put everything to right. Or he’d personally- He moved to brush a, well he supposed it was supposed to be a reassuring sort of kiss on the top of her head, but whatever they’d done to her and the fact that apparently keeping her even remotely clean hadn’t been high on their list gave him pause. That might have to wait for later. For fuck’s sake... what had they done to her. “Go ahead, close your eyes. We’ll get there soon.”
Adrian stepped into one of the many floos available at the Ministry and first called out the floo entrance that led directly into a pub in Falmouth. He knew the owner and would explain the random early morning floo’ing later and he didn’t care if the Ministry tracked them to Falmouth, no surprise there. He stepped out of the floo and dug his wand out of his back pocket where it was nestled next to her papers. “Sorry for this. Going to apparate to outside this clinic now. Didn’t want them knowing where we were headed.” Probably ought to have thrown a few more stops in but somehow he felt that time was of the damn essence. He hoped the pull of a side along apparation wouldn’t be anymore jarring than the floo had been. And with a pop he had them settled outside the address he’d been given.
Within a block he had them tucked away inside, who the hell knew what they looked like walking the street as they were. Thankfully, Sunday mornings at 5am didn’t exactly translate to rush hour. He could only hope they had the right address as he gave the door a couple kicks to serve as a knock.