bigmouth (pursuits) wrote in cultureic, @ 2017-03-10 22:39:00 |
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Entry tags: | bertie higgs, philip avery |
WHO: Elizabeth Higgs, Phillip Avery
WHAT: Old frenemies meet on the moors
WHEN: Seven years later
WHERE: Rannoch Moor
WARNINGS: Language, some wizardly medical description
“So she’s out there somewhere?” the magizoologist from the Cadwallader Sanctuary for Magical Creatures asked, looking out across the distance. The Great Moor of Rannoch was wet and wreathed in mist, the day grey and drizzly, mountain peaks towering in the distance. The rolling heather had a grim sort of beauty to it. “Yep,” his dispatcher said, consulting a list on her magical tablet. “Injured thestral. Sounds like it got tangled up with a herd of graphorns, they fought, and it’s in need of some help now. They can be vicious when they’re hurt, as you know, so make sure you’ve got your wand ready. DRCMC’s on its way too, so keep an eye out in case you run into the Critters’ representative.” A muscle in the man’s jaw flickered. “That wasn’t necessary,” he said stiffly. She shrugged. “Not my call, bruv. Someone in the area called us while someone else called the Ministry. Just a bit of overlap, no biggie.” Most people old enough to have experienced the Wizarding War could see thestrals. It didn’t have to be him on this assignment. He almost asked it then: send me back, please. He’d trudge to the railroad tracks, apparate back to the warm office at the sanctuary, settle in at his work computer… The wind cut through him. “Point the way,” Philip said. Marching through the bog, he had to keep lifting his feet high to keep moving, the mud dragging at his wellingtons and trying to pull him down. He kept striding through, however, listening to the whistling wind and trying to pinpoint the distant, nearly-inaudible keening that would lead him to the injured beast. He’d learned some healing spells over the past several years. He had put them to some use. Not as much as his Healer sister, but enough. By the time he reached the wide open moorland and spotted the fallen thestral — its skeletal ribs rising and falling with laboured breaths, head flat on the ground, black blood splattering the heath — he also saw a too-familiar woman kneeling by its side, her hand resting on its haunches. Just my fucking luck, he thought, but there was no heat in it. “How’s she doing, Higgs?” the former Death Eater asked instead, his voice rough and wary. Seven years had done little to dim the fire in Bertie Higgs’ gaze. Too much sun had weathered her complexion, and the fine filigree of lines about her mouth and eyes spoke to her unchanged penchant for living hard, but she was still fierce as all hell. Still possessed that proud set of jaw, still held herself like she was halfway ready to leap headfirst into a fight. “Not good.” She sounded like a woman who had long ago given up on fear. Her hand stilled upon the thestral’s flank, and Bertie turned toward him. Her expression was guarded. There was a slash of dirt on her cheek. “Wing’s broken in at least three places. I’ve healed the minor lacerations but this gash in her belly is...deep.” The wind moaned between them, and finally Bertie shuffled back. A reluctant invitation for Pip to come and see for himself. It was more than he’d expected, and so the man came walked delicately over, the mud still squelching with each step. It had been ages since anyone thought of him as Pip, but being around Bertie again was disorienting — like the entire world had slid leftwards and deposited them somewhere else. Most of the past decade melting away and placing him right back in those shoes again, the eager protege at his mentor’s side. If he squinted, he could almost pretend they were back there. It felt like an entire lifetime ago. “Graphorn tusks are sharp as all hell,” he said, peering at the deep, glistening wound. “It’s a good thing w– you got here as quickly as you did.” There was no ‘we’. Hadn’t been for a while. An awkward silence fell in then, where once upon a time there would’ve been boisterous chatter, jokes, insults, her hand tousling his hair. He bit his lip, looking more at the thestral than at the woman he’d once tried to kill. It was far easier to stare at the wound, even oozing and ugly as it was, rather than meet her eye. “If one of us stabilises the insides, the other could… sew up the gash.” Bertie bit back an acerbic reply of I don’t need your help. Instead, she clamped her teeth down hard against the flat of her tongue, lips twisting at the sour taste of hostility that filled her mouth like blood from a broken tooth. “Fine.” The old scar that began at her breastbone and marked a diagonal trail of puckered keloid down her torso seemed to burn with new fire, and she shifted uncomfortably in her own skin. He’d done this to her, all those years ago. Sliced her open and left her to die. Her old mentee. Her old friend. Gently, Bertie lifted the thestral’s heavy head, wedging her knees underneath, so that the beast had an anchor to something good while Pip knelt next to the wound and started to dig his wand into the flesh, searing and cleansing with a sizzling fire. The thestral immediately howled and thrashed; it was too weak to kick or run or fly away, but its wings fluttered, and its head swung back and forth in Bertie’s lap. She kept it stationary with soothing words and a firm grip, however, while the non-governmental magizoologist pried through stomach and intestine and muscle and tissue, setting it all to rights from the inside out. Say this for him: his hands were sure and unwavering, though it screamed and screamed. When Pip had done all that he could, Bertie swept her wand across the beast’s prone body, her own brand of healing spells spilling out in warm gossamer tendrils, curling through the air and settling into the ghastly wounds, vanishing any remaining infection and knitting flesh back together until barely a pink scar remained. The thestral’s breath calmed, a slow, temperate rhythm, her belly rising and falling and rising again now that the pain was gone. Bertie didn’t holster her wand, and her gaze swung up to meet Pip’s. They were leaning close together, heads bent over the wounded creature, fingers laced over their individual weapons — it was easy to remember, now, a time when they had to draw them instantaneously on each other. Muscle memory still recalled duelling for one’s life, blood pouring onto the tiled Ministry floor, a Healer’s hands desperately dragging Bertie away to safety… And the man cleared his throat and holstered his wand, withdrawing a couple extra feet. He even held up his empty hands, for good measure. Old scars nicking the calloused palms, werewolf wounds scrawled into his forearms, just like hers. He was thirty-one now, she realised: the same age she’d been during the war. “Everyone at Cadwallader’s calls me Philip,” he said suddenly. He wasn’t sure what had done it for his new colleagues: simply not knowing him as a teenager? or his face on WizVis and the Winternet at the end of the war? the grainy footage of Death Eaters being dragged out of Godric’s Hollow in chains? “So, like. It’s alright if you do too. We’re not…” He gesticulated emptily, not even sure what point he was trying to make. “I just understand, is all I’m saying. I’m not going to do anything to you.” Bertie didn’t answer for a long time. She simply watched him, dark eyes flicking down to his open hands, to the wand at his belt, to the tired expression on his face. “Philip.” She held it on her tongue like a curse yet to be hurled, let the syllables slide across her teeth, slick as oil. He had always been ‘Pip’ to her. Even later, when the mask slipped off and the blood stained his hands: Pip. She supposed Philip was a new skin for him to wear, once the war was ended. Another mask to affix for those who might not remember him from before. Remember what he had done. “Right.” Her wand burned hot against her fingers, and so she put it away before she did anything stupid. “I’m still Bertie.” Higgs to her co-workers, and Mum to Terrance, but to her: still Bertie. It was as much a warning as it was a promise. She stood. “Magizoologist, huh?” “Aye.” He didn’t bother saying What else could I do? or It’s the only thing I was good at; that would be a slippery slope, an opening for Bertie to spit his own crimes back at him. Pip tiptoed around the subject these days, anticipating the ugly reminders wherever he could, sidestepping them wherever possible. So: “It’s the only thing I like,” he added instead. Bertie was reluctant to give him anything in return — any sort of acknowledgement that they shared a common ground — and so she just nodded. She stooped, then, to help the thestral onto her knees, small deft hands a steadying presence, her voice soothing, crooning, almost. She ran a gentle palm across the animal’s abdomen and flank, and when the critter was happy with her examination, she stepped back. “Well. Looks like you studied hard.” Begrudging, almost. But honest; credit where credit was due. For a moment, both of them simply watched their patient as she laboriously struggled back to her hooves with Bertie’s help. The thestral gave a few weak, hesitant flaps of her wings, then started walking away from the humans, all wobbly-legged and knock-kneed. Still too weak to fly, but at least she could move on her own. Could find her herd now. Right when it seemed like the man might have chosen awkward silence, he finally answered Bertie. “I had a good teacher once,” Pip said back. Credit where credit was due. “Ha — Fuck off, Philip.” But it carried no vehemence — anyone who knew Bertie knew she wove her affection into her ugly words, and even now, she couldn’t help but soften her mouth, just a little. It just took too much effort to hate all of the time, and her jaw already ached from chewing on so much resentment. She added, quietly, “Takes more than that.” The swell of wind ripping across the moors moaned about them, tearing the hair from Bertie’s rough braid. She looked at her feet, uncharacteristically at a loss for words. (No, that wasn’t it. She had too many words. They crowded at the base of her throat, clamoring for a voice she refused to give them. Things could have been different, she wanted to say if you’d chosen to be good.) Instead, finally: “Glad your talents didn’t go to waste.” Pip’s gaze slipped involuntarily downwards, to her collarbone. If this day hadn’t been so chilly, he might have caught a glimpse of her scar. Evidence of his other talents, just like that faded discolouration on his left arm. “Thanks,” he said, a little hesitant, a little awkward — gratitude was the wrong emotion here, and Pip couldn’t exactly pinpoint that tense knot in his chest, because it was too many things all at once — and then the next word slipped out, before he’d even fully thought it over: “Sorry. That doesn’t cover it, but yeh. Hope you’re doing alright, all things considered. I mean…” There had been a lot of people he’d been unable to look in the eye after the Wizengamot released him, but Elizabeth Higgs, Philip now realised, was the foremost. “I’ll get out of your way,” the man said. He didn’t take his wand out to Apparate; he just turned his back on her (they’d taught him to never turn his back on an enemy—) and then started that long, slow, muddy walk back to the train station. Bertie stood very still, watching as his form became smaller and smaller against the grey tear of horizon. Her slender fingers slipped between the buttons of her shirt, tracing the raised scar he’d left her with, all those years ago. Beneath it, her heart beat a violent staccato. Phillip was right: sorry didn’t cover it. But maybe it was a start. Bertie had grown up enough that she could at least allow him that. A long exhale emptied her lungs of the anxiety she didn’t even realise been holding, before drawing her wand once more. A final glance at Pip’s dark silhouette, (her expression: impassive) and then she was gone. |