Barty Crouch, Jr. is not Oedipus Rex. (culling) wrote in blurred_lines, @ 2008-09-14 04:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! [1979-09] september, anzhelina dolohov, barty crouch jr |
Who: Barty and Anzhelina.
Where: St Mungo's, Spell Damage Ward.
When: Saturday night/early Sunday morning, post-BFOB.
What: EPIC SAD. Also, Antonin has a coma, and Barty and Anz are fretful blondes.
Rating: Probably PG/PG-13ish.
Status: Logged!
Barty was not sure that he had properly felt anything since he and Anzhelina had brought Antonin to Saint Mungo's and watched as Healers Barty knew and worked with took over the situation, whisking Antonin off to Somewhere while taking Barty and Anzhelina to separate rooms to have their own injuries treated. When he had told one of the story Antonin had told him and Anzhelina to use -- there had been an attack against Antonin, regarding his remarks at the eugenics convention, and Barty and Anzhelina had sustained injuries as well -- to the Healer treating him, Barty had not even felt the normal way that he did while lying to someone who never would have thought him capable of it. There wasn't any rush; there wasn't any notion of being better than the person he tricked; there wasn't even a sliver the optimistic determination that Barty had felt for most of the day before the attack on Hogwarts. He tried to feel something, anything, and all he wound up feeling was sickness and a persistently throbbing sense of dread.
Antonin is going to die -- no. No, that wasn't true; it couldn't be. Saint Mungo's had the best Healers in Wizarding Britain; they had to save Antonin or else they were not doing their jobs.
The only real comfort that Barty had right now was that his injuries had been treated quickly: damage to his legs and torso from hexes taken during the battle; damage Lily Potter's Stinging Hex; damage from taking a fair few hexes before dueling the Mudblood; and damage to his ankle from slipping in the tunnel during the escape; which had apparently inspired his Healer to look at Barty's medical history, see the sprained ankle he had gotten in the attack on O'Hare's commune (or from "falling down the stairs," as the charts said), and make the uncalled for comment, "Well, you sure take a lot of spills on that ankle, don't you?" As though making light of the situation really helped anyone.
After having his own injuries treated, Barty had briefly sent an owl to Olga, asking for his journal -- he had no doubt that his fellow Death Eaters and supporters were busy in their own right, but Mr Lestrange would no doubt be doing a head-count soon and people needed to know where Antonin was -- before being shown back to the part of Spell Damage where Antonin was being treated, where Anzhelina was already waiting. Naturally, they were not going to be allowed inside while treatment was still in progress; they were too potentially unsterile; something could have gone worse.
Entirely unsure of what else to do, Barty made his way to the wall where Anzhelina stood -- favoring his injured ankle somewhat, but not excessively -- and leaned against the space of wall to her right. He wrinkled his nose and grimaced slightly as he accidentally shifted his weight onto the bad foot, but he took the pressure off it quickly enough. After a brief moment of silence, he wearily half-sighed and half-whispered a small, genuine, "I'm sorry."
Anzhelina slowly paced back and forth across the waiting room, her teeth sinking hard into her bottom lip. She wasn't an optimist, but an uncompromising realist, and even though she knew this battle would not turn out well, she hadn't expected an outcome like this. More than anything, it made her sick, as she didn't have the presence of mind to feel anger towards anyone in particular. She was too worried right now to blame anyone, and even wondered if the blame should go to herself for not begging her father to stay home.
At the sound of Barty's quiet voice, she turned to face him, looking grim.
"Why are you sorry?"
"Because," Barty answered softly. It was hardly an adequate response, he imagined, but he was not entirely certain of his ability to say anything more than that. Naturally, Antonin was not his father, and his mother, unlike Anzhelina's, was still alive, and so Barty could not even think to approximate how she had to feel right now, but that hardly meant that he could not feel sympathy for her -- or anger towards James Potter's Mudblood bitch, or the pounding anxiety over whether or not Antonin would come through this with his life, or any of the other feelings that he could sometimes make out of the dull, swirling mess currently inhabiting his brain. Finally, he managed to add on: "Because I like you and your father very much, and because those responsible for this will not regret their actions. And because you should not have to suffer so, Anzhelina."
Despite wanting to argue, wanting to tell him that he couldn't say or do anything to make the reality of this go away, his response seemed to pacify her. She opened her mouth to try and utter something that would sound intelligent, but her train of thought was lost in her current state of distress.
She didn't want to cry in front of Barty; she had cried more than enough for her mother long ago, and now that the pain from that was somewhat exhausted, crying was supposed to feel good. Before her cheeks began to feel wet, she stepped forward and cautiously pressed her face into Barty's torso, keeping his injuries in mind.
What -- of all of the reactions that Barty could have expected from Anzhelina, had he been in the state of mind to expect anything from anyone, this would have been one of the last. She had evidenced before that she had no trouble with infringing on his personal space, which he did not mind from her as much as he would have from anyone else, but he hardly considered that she considered him someone worth turning to in a time of trial. Had the circumstances been different, had it been anyone but Antonin currently being treated, Barty might have even found this comforting. As it stood, though, all that he saw to feel was a brief glimmer of hope before returning to the quagmire of his other emotions.
Wordlessly, and trying not to cry himself, Barty wrapped one arm around her shoulders and let his other hand rest gingerly on her head, being careful in case she had sustained any head injuries.
Her hand slipped around him, tugging on the hem of his shirt, and she did her best to keep her sniffles and whimpers to a bare minimum. She hated feeling weak in the presence of people she wasn't comfortable with, even in circumstances such as these, and she didn't want to admit that hugging Barty calmed her concerns down considerably, to the point where she didn't really want to let go.
Hugging Anzhelina calmed Barty down a good deal as well, which, given his anxious disposition and tendency to worry himself sick, meant a great deal. It occurred to him that the situation still merited anxiety -- after all, Anzhelina's father could presently have been dying; with Antonin's pre-existing health concerns and the amount of damage that he had sustained, Barty supposed that it would not have taken much to finish the job, just one poorly applied potion, one miscast spell, or one slip of someone's fingers -- but anything he felt was dulled considerably with her in his arms.
Abruptly, Anzhelina pulled her body away from him and quickly wiped the remaining tears from her face with the back of her hand. Lifting her head, she looked him in his eyes, feeling a lot gentler than she had before.
She wanted to be terse, so when she spoke, all she did was offer her own apology before turning on her heel and vacating the area.
Barty supposed that, given his ankle, he really should have sat down in the first place, but watching Anzhelina leave, he very much lacked the desire to do so. He vaguely wondered if he had done anything wrong, before supposing that, perhaps he hadn't and the only real reason she had left was simply that she was upset. It seemed to fit, and, given the circumstances, Barty would hardly begrudge her that; had it been his mother in need of medical attention, and not Antonin, he would have been upset in a different fashion, but he still would have been in a similar place to hers. Or Barty supposed so, anyway. He could not properly say for her.
He stayed standing for quite some time -- long enough for one of the Healers to come back out and brief him on the situation -- only sitting when an owl came rapping on the window. As expected, Olga had not been in the best of moods (and how could she have been? Getting roused at some inhuman hour of the morning), but she had sent his journal, and that was the important piece, right now. Borrowing a quill and ink from one of the receptionists, Barty finally sat down to write; Mister Lestrange's head-count would be coming soon, and he could at least make it known that three of their number were safe.