InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Hail to the king, baby"

bl_neville (bl_neville) wrote in bloodlines_rp,
@ 2017-08-01 19:01:00

Entry tags:

!retcon, loc: blackthorn ridge, mandy brocklehurst, neville longbottom, peter malotti (oc), type: rp

Till....
Date & Time: 26 December 2002
Post Type: RP
Status: In Progress
Character(s): Neville Longbottom, Mandy Brocklehurst (Peter Malotti?)
Location: Magnolia Manor, then St. Mungo's
Summary: Neville spends a sickly but pleasant day home alone.
Retcon Info: Retcon of this thread with the date pushed.

Neville hadn't slept well last night. It was more worry than illness, though, so he hadn't brought it up to Mandy that morning. He wasn't going to let this bloody disease change his mind about getting married, or Mandy moving in, or any of it...but he was completely terrified that Mandy and the baby were going to catch it now. He'd move to touch her, then hesitate, have to remind himself that she had really good charms in place already. He hadn't quite realised until today just how tiring it was.

She'd made him promise to rest today while she was at work, though, and he'd had a bit easier time resting when he was alone. He'd taken a nap after breakfast, curled up in front of a blazing fireplace. It was the one place in the flat that he wasn't so cold he could barely breath for shivering. There, or in a hot shower, but he still got too dizzy to stand up for long spurts without having trouble. The one he'd managed had been brilliant, though. He'd very nearly washed away all feeling of having been in the hospital.

After a meagre sort of lunch--he still found that he wasn't terribly hungry--Neville sat down at his desk with a few pieces of parchment and wrote some letters. His hands were a little shaky, but they were getting steadily better, too, like everything else about him. He knew it would take some time, but his friends who'd caught this illness seemed infinitely better from their first month, so he was hopeful that Christmas would still be a good time this year.

And soon after that, his wedding.

He wrote to Dean, Seamus, Ron, Harry, Hermione, Ginny, and everyone else he could think of, suggesting they get together one evening to celebrate New Year's. Nothing fancy, of course, but he thought he'd like a small gathering of friends. Maybe they could even tell everyone about Prawn--he rolled his eyes at himself even thinking about the baby that way, but he no longer tried to fight it--then instead of waiting until after the wedding. He really wanted to tell everyone now.

Setting those aside for sending later, he pulled out another piece and stared at it for a long while. He didn't need to write Mandy a letter, but after all of the others, he wanted to. Their relationship had been conducted in large part by letters, for years, and while he definitely preferred having her in person, there was something nice about having words in such a concrete, permanent form. He was sure she felt the same way about it.

By the time he got to the end of the letter, it was getting late. Mandy would be home soon, likely with dinner, and he wanted to be clean and ready to spend the evening with her. He considered the parchment in front of him, then folded it up and moved carefully to his dresser, pausing once as a dizzy spell hit him. It wasn't as bad as some others he'd had, though, and for that he was thankful. When it had passed, Neville pulled out the little jewellery box where he stashed all important things and put the letter inside. When he was feeling better and able to go back to work, and they had a day apart, he'd leave it for her.

He didn't quite feel up to a shower, but he scrubbed off with a flannel and changed into clean clothes that were meant for something other than sleeping. A check of the clock confirmed that Mandy was getting off work. He felt restless, wanted to do something for her. She had to be exhausted after the stress of the last couple of weeks, even if she didn't actually want to tell him that. He wasn't able to do much, but surely there was something....

Then Neville smiled. There were those little tomatoes she liked so much, growing on the roof of the building. Hopefully the protection charms he had around them to allow them to grow out of season had held; usually he went up every day to check on his little garden, even if it didn't actually need daily maintenance. He was supposed to be relaxing, but that wasn't technically work, was it? It would only take a few minutes.

Slipping on his shoes, he headed out into the hallway, running one hand along the wall to make sure he stayed steady on his feet. It felt nice to be out on his own, without someone trailing after his every move, and he hummed some tune whose name he didn't know. It hadn't looked like it was raining out, and he smiled as he climbed the stairs, looking forward to a few minutes alone with his plants. They always had calmed him, even when times were trying.

The stairs hit a landing and then twisted upward again, and a fresh wave of dizziness hit him about halfway up the second portion. Neville gripped the railing and closed his eyes, willing it to pass. This was one of the worse ones, the ones had usually landed him back in bed, but he was determined. If he could just make it up to the roof, then he'd be able to lounge up there until he felt better.

He managed one step, then another. Then his foot slipped, and he flailed for purchase for a split second before tumbling to the landing below.

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bl_mandy
2017-08-02 01:02 am UTC (link)

Could this day have gone any more slowly? Anything that could have gone wrong had, and by the time her shift was over, Mandy was beyond ready to go. She stuffed work robes into her locker, grabbed her handbag and her coat, and Apparated home without even putting it on. She'd been waiting for to get out of there all day. To get home. Not to the house she shared with Rachel, but to Neville's. It was home now. Or would be, soon enough. It was amazing how quickly she'd got used to the idea, she thought, heading up the stairs to get out of her work things.

Mandy showered quickly, then dressed, throwing a few more things into a bag. She'd been taking clothes and things slowly, a bagful at a time, and had most of the little stuff moved already. She was staying there more often than not anyway, and it only made sense to have everything she'd need. In the bathroom, she tucked a few things into the top, then zipped it shut and headed down the stairs.

She made her way through the kitchen, pulling a dish from the refrigerator. Rachel had made an enormous chicken pie and set half of it aside for Mandy to take to Neville's this evening. "You won't feel like cooking, but he needs to eat, and it's better than takeaway." Mandy had laughed, but agreed to come home and pick things up before going to Neville's. She set the dish into the hamper that sat ready, and she could see that Rachel had added a bottle of her favourite fizzy lime drink, as well as what looked like chocolate cake in a plastic container.

Neville probably wouldn't eat much of it, but she and Prawn could certainly put a dent in the rest.

She shut the hamper, then retrieved her bag and Apparated to the landing outside Neville's flat. She didn't want to startle him by Apparating into the flat, and if he was sleeping, she didn't fancy waking him. He was getting stronger slowly, but he still tired easily, and she knew that would likely last for a while. She didn't mind resting with him, actually…

She moved into the flat, dropping her bag by the door. It was quiet, so she called out softly, "Neville?" No answer told her he was likely sleeping, and she took her basket into the kitchen, putting the pie into the refrigerator and leaving the rest on the counter.

Her feet made no sound on the carpet as she walked into the bedroom. But the bed was empty. The bathroom door stood ajar and she pushed it the rest of the way open, turning on the light. Mandy frowned. "Neville?" It was odd that he wasn't in the flat, but maybe he'd gone across the hall?

She didn't really think so, but she walked back through the bedroom, checking the balcony on the way by, making her way through the flat, checking the table and the countertop for notes, and fighting the growing sense of unease she felt. He'd better not be overdoing things, wherever he was, she thought, walking back through the empty sitting room and into the corridor.

Mandy paused to think. Where would he have gone? Her fingers tapped at the doorframe as she thought, looking down the hall, then back in the other direction.

Of course. The stairway that led to the roof. "You'd better just be sitting in that lounge," she muttered, turning to pull the door shut, then headed up the steps.

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	bl_mandy 2017-08-02 01:06 am UTC (link)
	Mandy noticed the shape on the landing first; the dim light nearly hid the dark stain that lay under it. She went up the next two steps slowly, a knot of horror building in her chest, then froze, one hand over her mouth. Neville… The shape on the landing. Neville. Sprawled in a shadowy tangle of limbs, a pool of darkness under his head. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

bl_mandy
2017-08-02 01:31 am UTC (link)

It felt like forever before she could breathe.

Her breath felt like a sob, and she scrambled up the last steps, dropping to her knees beside him. "Neville!" She knelt over him, shaking his shoulders gently at first, then more vigorously. "Neville. Gods… Neville!"

This couldn't be happening. Couldn't be real. Her wand was in her hand in a flash and she'd cast a charm, a desperate, whispered renervate on her lips, and she shook his shoulder, crying out the incantation again.

"Renervate!"

But there was no response. No breath. Nothing… Only the chilly feel of his skin, and the sticky wetness on her hands. She lifted them in the dim light of the stairwell, looking with horror at the deep red that covered them before falling across his body, clutching handfuls of his jumper.

She scrabbled for her dropped wand, and gripped it tightly. He needed a Healer. She was a Healer... Her wand moved out of instinct and she whispered a sobbing litany of spells; everything she could think of, and some twice.

"Wake up... Please wake up," she whispered, her fingers stroking at Neville's hair, across his temple. "Open your eyes, love. Please wake up..."

The chill that had been building inside her felt absolute now. Nothing around her mattered. Only Neville. He had to wake up, open his eyes, move... "Breathe," she sobbed helplessly, praying that he'd hear her. This couldn't be true. He couldn't be...

"Don't you dare leave me..."

And then there it was. A warmth across her cheek. Mandy froze, staring at Neville's face in the dim, then gathered him into her arms, unmindful of the blood he lay in, and Apparated them both to St Mungo's.

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bl_mandy
2017-08-02 02:08 am UTC (link)

A&E was blindingly bright, and Mandy sagged to the floor, eyes tightly closed, breathing through her mouth as gentle hands urged her back and took Neville away.

Don't be sick...

The combination of Apparition and stress proved too much, though, and she heard voices even over the sound of throwing up, and someone murmured the spell to vanish the mess. A cloth touched her lips. She caught hold of it, wiping at her mouth, then spat into it before letting it fall, crumpled, to the floor.

"Where is he?"

Mandy struggled to get to her feet, but she'd been kneeling so long. Her foot was numb, and she collapsed back to the floor. "Neville," she whispered, pulling her wand against her chest, arms tight around her body.

The orderly held her up, urged her into a chair. "I'm going to check on him. I'll be back..."

She pressed her lips tightly together, nodding, willing herself not to be sick again.

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bl_mandy
2017-08-02 02:25 am UTC (link)

Time seemed to slow. Someone pressed a paper cup of water into her hand, and she managed a drink without spilling before handing it off to someone else.

Mandy sagged against the wall, staring down the corridor at the curtains that cordoned off the beds. There was a bright red smear on one of them, and she couldn't take her eyes off of it.

She could hear voices, but they were muddled; either her head was fuzzy, or they'd cast a charm... Every minute that ticked by doubled, no, tripled the hollow feeling inside her. Soon there wouldn't be anything left.

Her hands clasped together around her wand, and her fingertips grazed the stones in her ring. Her ring... Their thistle...

She stared off toward the end of the corridor, unwilling to look at the smears of blood on her clothes, or the dirt from the stairs ground into the knees of her trousers. She managed to find a nick in the wall and focused her attention on it. It was shaped like the end of a trolley; someone had bumped the wall rather hard to make that sort of impression. The top corner of it was rounded off oddly, and she tried to figure out why.

A gentle voice pulled her back to the moment, and Healer Svindle stood before her, no-nonsense in every way. "Give me your hands..." A spell cleared away dirt and blood, and another murmur cast the familiar barrier charm. "Now. Come vith me..."

Mandy followed obediently, allowing herself to be led to that dented doorway, that brightly smeared curtain, pausing as Healer Svindle pulled it aside.

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neville_long
2017-08-02 05:16 pm UTC (link)

Neville awoke unsure where he was for a moment, but trying to follow the voices around him made his head swim even more than it already was, so he mostly didn't try too hard. As things got clearer, the swimming became a throbbing, and he was more and more aware that he felt queasy and generally wrong. Then again, he hadn't much felt right for a while, so maybe that wasn't anything new?

It was the recall of his recent illness and time at St. Mungo's that made him realise why the sounds around him were so familiar--because he was back there. He opened his eyes a slit and tried to turn over, but his body wasn't cooperating. He groaned lowly and squeezed his eyes shut again, willing something to function the way it should. His mouth felt dry, but he managed to say, "Mandy...."

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bl_mandy
2017-08-02 05:16 pm UTC (link)

Mandy gave Healer Svindle an uncertain look, but moved through the curtain and into the tiny cubicle.

There was blood in his hair - on his clothes- on his face - but his eyes were open. Mandy sobbed softly, rushing to his side and reaching for him.

"Neville... oh you..." She scattered tearful kisses across his face and clutched at his sticky jumper. "You stayed. I knew you would stay..."

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neville_long
2017-08-02 06:26 pm UTC (link)

Stay where? Neville thought, but his mind was too muddled to articulate the question into words. He raised one hand to put it over Mandy's--more instinct than a real decision to move--and the contact was nice, grounding. He struggled to put thoughts together, but the more conscious he became, the more he was aware that his head hurt.

"I think--" he started, but the words were too quiet and somewhat slurred. Neville swallowed, squeezing her hand ever-so slightly and drawing on that connection to steady himself. "I think I fell."

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bl_mandy
2017-08-03 02:02 am UTC (link)

"You did," she whispered, turning her hand under his so she could clasp it as well. "I came home and you were on the landing..."

She touched a finger to his lips. "But you're okay. I'm sure you'll have to stay and be looked after, but you're okay..." Another rush of panic swelled in her chest and she took a breath, pushing it back down. There wasn't time for panic now; she needed a level head. Neville needed her clear thinking self.

A tear welled and she blinked it away. "I was so scared," she whispered after a moment. "So scared that you were..."

Mandy shook her head and managed a faint smile, leaning to press a kiss to Neville's forehead. "But you're going to be fine."

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neville_long
2017-08-03 05:37 am UTC (link)

Ah, that's what she meant. It should have unnerved him, the thought of dying, but he'd faced the very real possibility of death before, and he'd found that it didn't particular scare him. What did terrify him was the thought of leaving Mandy alone.

He managed to drag his eyes open a little wider, enough to see her more clearly as she leaned down and kissed his forehead. "I wouldn't leave you," he said softly, squeezing her hand a little harder this time. Though the pain in his body seemed more pronounced now, it was slowly getting easier to think. "You or...do I really have to call the baby Prawn?"

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bl_mandy
2017-08-04 01:49 am UTC (link)

But you wouldn't have had a choice, she thought, an almost-argument, and she considered putting into words until he spoke.

Prawn?

Mandy burst into laughter through a fresh trickle of tears, and shook her head. "Oh... only you would ask something like that, at a time like this." Her fingers brushed at his hair, more for the excuse to keep touching him than because his fringe was a mess, although it was.

"Of course you don't. But I can't imagine what else we'll call it, until we know if it's a girl or a boy. Unless we pick a name that could be for either."

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neville_long
2017-08-04 03:19 am UTC (link)

Neville found himself smiling at the sound of her laughter, though it was more reactionary rather than intentional.

"How long is that?" It sounded like something that would take awhile, but then he'd been shocked that they could listen to the heartbeat when they had. The memory of that healer visit was surprisingly sharp in his mind, given how everything else still felt rather distant. "I don't want to name him...her...after my parents. It's too...." The words weren't there to describe his feelings on it aloud. He knew others who'd survived the war had done similarly, naming new babies after people they'd lost, but his parents weren't dead.

He tried to shift on the bed again, find a more comfortable position, but the movement drew a groan from him. He closed his eyes against the nausea and pain, clinging tighter to Mandy's hand. "My head...."

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bl_mandy
2017-08-04 11:09 am UTC (link)

"I..." Mandy paused, surprised to realise that she didn't know. "It's just a..." She shook her head. "I can't remember. Soon, I think." She reached to touch his cheek gently. "Something else is taking up every bit of ability to think that I might ever have had."

She moved as he shifted, reaching with her free hand to try to adjust the thin pillow under his head. "I know, love. You've got quite the bump. Just lie still for a bit longer."

She heard voices outside the cubicle, caught bits of Neville's name in their quiet chatter. "I'm sure they're talking just outside, planning out your next day or so. I can go check? If you want? Or I can just stay..."

He clung so tightly to her hand. "And we'll think of names," she offered, caressing his hand between hers, waiting for it to relax.

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neville_long
2017-08-04 04:13 pm UTC (link)

Neville started to nod, but then stopped himself. Quite the bump. Because he'd fallen. And now he was at St. Mungo's. "Okay," he said instead. He wanted her to stay right where she was, but also to be as far away as possible. He was sick. He'd already thought she was sick once before. He didn't want her to get sick. And there was the baby and--

All the thoughts started to get jumbled up again, and he squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to relax. "Okay," he said again, though he wasn't quite sure what he was answering. Yes, she could go see what they were saying about him. Yes, they should pick out names. So probably both. "I'm sorry."

That statement was for multiple reasons, too, but they weren't quite so easy to hunt down in his brain. Maybe if he slept for a little, it would get easier.

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bl_mandy
2017-08-05 08:46 am UTC (link)

"You've nothing to be sorry for, love," she murmured, continuing to pet gently at his hand, sighing as his fingers began to relax. "That's it. Just breathe. Close your eyes," she added, as his opened briefly. "You rest, and I'm going to talk to Svindle."

Mandy pressed a kiss to his forehead, then slipped her fingers from his grasp. "I'll be right outside, so don't you try any funny stuff, okay?"

Her throat tightened and she blinked back fresh tears; he'd tried enough funny stuff for a lifetime, just tonight.

She turned, pulling the curtain aside and tucking it into itself so she could still see Neville. Healer Svindle stood in the corridor with a chart, making notes and conferring with one of the other Healers.

"Amanda. He's resting?"

Mandy nodded. "For now. He's confused, and in pain. He'll stay a day or so?"

"Of course. James has a bed ready. He's going to move him in a few moments, and of course, you're welcome to stay vith him, if you like. There's a smaller bed in that room as vell."

"Thank you." There was more she wanted to ask, she was sure, but all the questions had gone, leaving only a rush of emotion and she found herself enveloped in a gentle hug, gentle hands stroked her hair and quieted her tears. "Oh, thank you..."

And she collected herself, wiping at her eyes, grimacing at the sudden realisation of how grimy she must truly be. There were clean things in her locker upstairs, and once Neville was settled...

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bl_mandy
2017-08-05 08:54 am UTC (link)

It took less time than she'd imagined for a shower and change of clothes, but James still beat her, accomplishing a move and a bath for Neville in the time it had taken her to freshen up.

"He's squeaky clean," James said with a smile, "and there's tea on the bedside table. I thought you could use it. I'll be around if you need anything. Just give a yell."

Mandy smiled gratefully, squeezing his hand before watching him disappear down the corridor.

Tea... Oh, didn't that sound good? She made her way into the room, toward the mug by the bed, dropping her things on the floor by the chair along the way.

"Now, don't you look better. Fresh jams and a clean face." Neville's eyes were closed, so she wasn't sure if he was sleeping or simply resting. Resting at least, she hoped. She pressed a kiss to his forehead, then sank into the chair with her tea, suddenly exhausted. It must be late; she'd packed dinner at home before finding...

She took a sip of tea and tried to relax, realising that it didn't matter what time it was. It only mattered that she was here, watching Neville breathe.

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