Who: Roland Harper and Declan McLaggen, with Cormac NPCed just lying there. When: The aftermath of the battle. Where: St Mungo's. What: Roland is searching for someone familiar and finds Declan's room. Rating: PG-13 for language.
The lobby of St Mungo’s was jam-packed with people as Roland Harper appeared within, having practically fallen through the wall that hid the hospital from the Muggle street on the other side. There was an air of panic, fright and heightened energy flying around the place, patients mingling with visitors, visitors trying to push their way through to different areas, and Healers and other staff trying their best to calm the situation. It wasn’t easy, of course. This was an event like no other, for despite the joy felt by the general wizarding populace now that Lord Voldemort was defeated, the number of dead and injured from the final battle was unprecedented.
That was why the teenager was here, in fact.
Carefully brushing past a mediwizard who was doing his best to console a distraught looking woman, Roland’s stomach tightened in nervous anticipation as he waited behind a man arguing with the welcome witch about access to one of his relatives. He saw, however, that the harassed looking employee had slipped up with regards to security, and had left a clipboard with details of which patients had been moved to where in the emergency, and snuck closer to have a look. Being a seeker, and therefore light of touch, he swiftly grabbed the sheet from behind her, and scanned the list of names as quickly as he could. Before the poor creature was able to stop him, the Slytherin, still in his dark green pyjamas, was able to replace the list and head for the stairs, identifiable only by his blond head and the way he stood taller than most of the other visitors running around the place.
Declan was feeling frustrated. No, scratch that. Declan was beyond frustration. He was tired, and in pain, and angry, and no matter how much Calming Draught they’d give him, it didn’t seem like it would change anytime soon. What he needed was to fall asleep, but he was finding it impossible to achieve with everything that was going through his head. What he needed was some sleeping potion, but the Healers had told him he couldn’t have any. It would interfere with the potion that was working on whatever it was that bitch had done to him. Well, right now he didn’t care if he would bleed to death in his sleep, as long as he could be sleeping while it happened. And he didn’t think of Andrew, or the she-Carrow’s eyes, now empty, pierced and dead because of him.
It also didn’t help that he was all alone. Well, almost. Uncle Tiberius, with what Declan knew had been the best of intentions, pulled some strings in order for him to have a private room, away from the noise and the confusion, and away from the other injured. The problem was, he wanted to see the others. It was killing him not knowing how everybody was. And it was also killing him to have Cormac and Neely as his only company. Well, Neely was okay, and she was only there for a bit as Uncle Tiberius didn’t want her to get too upset, but it was strange to have Cormac around - and worried about him. After years of estrangement, they were starting to learn how to be brothers again, and it was an awkward process for both.
With a heavy sigh, Declan looked at his older brother, snoring loudly on the empty bed next to him. If only he could do the same...
Meanwhile, as Declan was thinking over his current predicament, Roland was wandering along the corridor that led to the private rooms on the floors where he had seen that the injured were being treated. His eyes scanning the labels on each door as he walked, he did not see many names that he recognised, as these rooms were generally reserved for the rich, the important, or others with connections (including some Ministry officials, he noted). He knew that Declan’s room had to be somewhere along here - he was assuming that someone had called in a favour to get his friend away from the noisier part of the hospital - and Roland was now beginning to think that St Mungo’s had an infinite supply of these rooms, just to piss him off.
From one of the rooms, however, he heard the sounds of deep snoring. Male snoring, in fact, if he could hazard a guess. Approaching carefully, he could see that he had at last found the place he was looking for. Quietly, he clenched his fist and gently knocked, hoping that it wasn’t Declan whom he was about to disturb...
The sound of the knock made Cormac stir a bit, but he didn’t wake up. Declan, on the other hand, looked at the door with some annoyance. Now what? Were they going to change his dressing again? How many times would it be necessary for the burn marks on his now no longer broken arm to be soaked in healing balm before they vanished?
“Come in,” he said.
Somewhat tentatively, Roland peered round the door, the expression on his face far more restrained than usual. He’d never been the calm sort, but the sounds and sensations of the over-full wards he’d passed on his way here had certainly quieted him, and made his spirit more anxious than it had been since he had left Hogwarts, following the period just after the battle where the remaining students, staff and family members had mingled in the Great Hall. It was now beginning to sink in that if Declan was in need of an actual hospital bed - unlike the members of their cohort who had remained at school to receive basic first aid - he was likely to be in a pretty bad way. Noting that Cormac was the source of the snoring and that Declan was sitting in bed, very much awake, Roland walked in, looking around.
“Well...shit” he said, unable to express himself further. Oddly enough, it was also all that needed to be said. “Thank fuck you’re here...”
The moment the door had opened, Declan had looked the other way. He wasn’t really in the mood to put up with the Healers, no matter how well-intentioned and helpful they were. However, the familiar voice - not to mention the swearing - made him start. Finally, someone he didn’t mind seeing.
“Roland?” He tried to get up, but the pressure on his chest made him think twice and he slumped back on the bed. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you here.” How happy he was to see anyone at all, really.
“Not as happy as you’d be to see me somewhere other than here, I take it” Roland replied, taking in the uncomfortable looking sight of his friend, propped up and wrapped in bandages that to him smelled of all kinds of unpleasant things. He only hoped that whatever the smell was, it was doing something useful. Mind you, it would be one of the few useful things that appeared to be happening in the chaos that was St Mungo’s at that very moment. He stepped carefully around Cormac and sat down, glancing at Declan’s older brother, checking that he was not likely to wake any time soon.
“No offence, but you look bloody awful. What the hell?”
He shook his head, more in awe and surprise than in reproachment, which was the last thing on his mind right now. He continued on, quickly -
“You don’t want to see the state of it downstairs, I can tell you. Doubt I’m the welcome witch’s favourite person right now... if anyone asks, tell them I’m someone you don’t like.”
Gabbling a little, and not his best attempt at humour, but it was better than sitting and saying nothing. That would only allow the awful thoughts that had been creeping up over the past few hours to flood back into his brain again... and that would be self indulgent, given that he was here to see Declan.
The Gryffindor only got about half of what his friend was saying, partly because of Roland’s nerves, and partly because of the only thing he really cared about, more than his own recovery. “Did you see anyone else downstairs?” he asked anxiously. “Anyone at all?”
Roland shook his fair head. “It’s mostly relatives downstairs, I think” he said, surreptitiously glancing at Declan’s injuries again. “I went up into school again, you know, after it was all over.” Roland paused. “People with minor to moderate injuries seemed to stay behind, looking for each other, swapping information and stuff. From what I’ve heard, it’s only people who need more immediate or complicated treatment who are here at the moment. There’s...” he gulped. “this bloke, downstairs. He was yelling, trying to get up here... something about his kid, lost a leg.”
Changing the subject slightly, he tried to stay on topic to what Declan had actually asked. “Anyway, it mostly seems to be adults in the private rooms. Yours was the only name I recognised, anyway. There’s a few Slytherins downstairs, and some kids I didn’t recognise - second years from the look of them.” Roland looked up, meeting Declan’s eyes. “I haven’t seen anyone from our year yet, anyway.”
At the mention of someone losing a leg, Declan’s eyes widened with panic. Was it someone he knew? Another one of his housemates? Geoff? He had to shake his head at this thought. It wasn’t helpful, but he couldn’t help it - they had already lost Andrew and Colin, and Godric knew who else would be part of the list. He was especially anxious for news about Geoff and Molly, though he also wanted to make sure everybody else, even those who had aggravated him in the past, were safe.
He rushed for his handkerchief and gave a little cough. Trying hard for Roland not to see, he looked at it and saw a bit of blood. Shit, he thought, it was still going.
He tried to focus on what Roland had said next. “Second years?” he frowned, as he tried to put the handkerchief back discreetly. He hoped they were only visiting - if McGonagall knew kids had been injured, there would be hell to pay.
Roland’s eyebrows raised slightly as he heard Declan’s cough, which, despite his friend’s attempt to seem calm, didn’t exactly sound as though he was in peak condition. Trying to subtly look away from the handkerchief, the Slytherin thought back to the state of the children he’d seen downstairs, still in their night clothes, but in a much better state than his own, which were looking rumpled from when the kids he’d looked after in the Hog’s Head had clung to him. “Yeah, I’d guess so” he said. “They looked pretty small, but in decent nick. Looked like they were with their parents, actually, so I’d guess they were among the ones who got picked up first, you know, after McGonagall ordered all the underage kids to leave.”
“Oh...” he thought suddenly, wondering how the information had left him so soon. “...and I tell a lie about not knowing about anyone in our year. Parkinson’s dead.”
Blunt, yes, but to the point. That display by his dorm-mate upon leaving the castle did not exactly serve their house well.
Well, that was a relief. Declan shuddered to think what could have happened if kids had been hurt, especially after they had had so much trouble trying to make sure they were safe.
Roland’s next bit of news, however, made him start. “Parkinson? Which one?”
“Aspen” Roland supplied, clarifying that he meant the boy he’d shared a dorm with for six years now, and who had been one of the more vocal supporters of the Carrow regime. “Dunno exactly what happened... but you know when we” - he tugged on one of his Slytherin green sleeves to emphasis the point - “were ordered to leave because of his daft cow of a sister? Well, he got into some kind of fight with Bulstrode as we were lining up to go into the Hog’s Head. It must’ve carried on when they got outside, because those of us that stayed behind, well...” he paused, his brow furrowing as he tried to remember the details. “...we could hear duelling, or what sounded like it. A big row, I can tell you that much.”
“Bulstrode’s body was one of the first they picked up.” he went on. “She was sort of lying there, you know? I’m not sure how he got back in, but he did, because I heard someone say he was fighting with the Death Eaters. They found him pretty quick, too.”
Declan listened, torn between scorn and panic. He had known the Parkinsons all his life. He had never been as close to them as to, say, Elisabeth Higgs and her brother, and these past few months he had began to loathe them - Pansy’s taunting when Kevin Entwhistle was killed, in a clear attempt to make his fellow Ravenclaws mad enough that she could put them into detention later on just for the fun of it was one of the first things that made him start having doubts about the merit of being in the IS. It also made him doubt his father’s judgment for the first time, as Dermot McLaggen practically urged his sons to flirt and tease with the Parkinson girl, in an attempt to make her move her attention from Malfoy. She never did, of course, but allowed both he and Cormac to have a quick grope from time to time, a memory he now found revolting. Aspen, on the other hand, he never really cared much for, always looking at everybody as if they were not worthy to be around him, even Purebloods like the McLaggens. Declan wasn’t at all surprised that the little worm had reached such a sticky end. But still, it was a nasty shock.
Now Millicent, on the other hand... He liked Millicent. She was blunt, and awkward, but she had always been pleasant to him. They had thrown Bludgers together on the Quidditch pitch whenever one of them was so mad they needed to hit something, and they had had long conversations about Aethonans and any other magical creatures that appealed to them both. And what was worse, it seemed from what Roland was saying that Aspen had been the one responsible.
He covered his face with his hands, taking a deep breath. He shouldn’t cough. Not now. Cormac could wake up, or a Healer could walk in, and if they thought Roland was distressing him and making the coughing return, they’d kick him out - and he needed this. He needed to hear what was going on.
Looking back at Roland, his breath apparently normal again, he said simply, “Shit.”
Roland nodded ironically. “Yeah. Shit.”
Rubbing the side of his face, he wracked his brain for any more information he could give. There wasn’t much, he having been in the Hog’s Head for the duration of the battle, and he figured Declan probably knew a fair amount of what went on then, anyway. More than Roland knew, at any rate.
“I dunno what else to say, truth be told... most of the IS left, though you probably figured that out. You might have seen Ian, I heard that he came back when Slughorn brought reinforcements.”
Another pause.
“Dorny’s all right, too. She was one of the ones who stayed to look after the kids whose parents didn’t come to get them in time.” He swallowed, thinking that he and his brother were among them. That wasn’t a thought he particularly wanted to dwell upon much right now.
Another wave of panic came over Declan at the mention of his cousin. “No, I didn’t see him.” Merlin, if anything happened to him, Abigail would probably have his liver - and possibly Cormac’s - in Ian’s absense. She might do it anyway, even if he was unharmed, though.
Declan paused as Roland mentioned Dorny. He figured his friend probably didn’t know anything else beyond what he had just mentioned, which was too little for Declan’s liking but was better than nothing anyway. It was his time to explain how he had ended up in that hospital bed, his brother-dash-old-foe snoring loudly next to him after a few hours of miraculous brotherly worry.
Surreptitiously, he reached for the handkerchief, just in case it would be necessary, and with a deep breath said, “Andrew’s dead.”
As he’d seen Declan’s face begin to cloud with worry at his mention of Ian, Roland waved his hand in a gesture that clearly told the Gryffindor to settle. “He’s OK” Roland added. “I haven’t seen him personally, but one of our lot” - he meant his fellow Slytherins, naturally - “told me he was all right.”
His own worry began to show as Declan paused, obviously steeling himself to tell Roland something. Upon hearing Andrew’s name, he paled slightly. “Andrew? Wait - you don’t mean Kirke, do you?”
If it was, this was clearly a greater loss to the school than the likes of Future Death Eater, Aspen Parkinson.
Knowing that someone had seen Ian made Declan relax a little, but he knew he’d only calm down completely the moment he could see his cousin face to face. Hopefully he’d be well enough by then to thump him for being so stupid.
He nodded at Roland’s question. “Yeah. Saw it happen.” He couldn’t cough. Or cry.
Roland’s blue eyes widened, staring at Declan for a moment. He knew that people had died, he knew people had been injured... but by staying in the pub, he’d heard sanitised versions of the news that came from the battle. He didn’t know anything of the brutal realities of the actual fighting, and it hadn’t occurred to him that the fallen weren’t anything other than fighting one minute, and lying dead on the floor in another.
Declan had actually seen someone die. Seen the moment where life left a person’s body, and the moment that meant that person would never come back. Andrew would never walk into class with them again, or laugh at a classmate’s bad joke, or go and watch Gryffindor play Quidditch. He wouldn’t go out and celebrate getting his first job after they all left school, he’d never get to settle down with someone who loved him, and he’d never have children. All the sort of big milestones that everyone had vaguely expected to happen to them before the war began.
And Andrew Kirke would never have that. Not now.
Roland put his head in his hands and sighed as the reality of what was happening to them sank in. “Fuck.”
“Yeah,” Declan said bitterly. “Fuck.”
He looked to the side (Cormac was still fast asleep, the lucky bastard) before continuing. “It was the she-Carrow. Gave me these, too,” he added, pointing at his left arm.
Roland peeked between his fingers, eyeing his friend’s injuries once more. “What did she do to you?” he asked, figuring that having all the information would at least make his rant well informed if the urge to do so came any time soon.
“First she threw me around,” Declan said. “I broke my arm in the process and hurt my legs a bit, but that’s fixed now. She also threw the Incendio curse as me and... and Andrew. I think he escaped, but it hit my broken arm. That’s on the mend.” He pointed at his bandages with a wince. “Then she... she killed Andrew. And when I tried to attack her she threw this curse at me that’s caused something nasty.” He stopped. He didn’t feel like carrying on - repeating that Andrew had died had been bad enough, and he didn’t feel like describing what he had done to Alecto.
“Bitch” Roland spat, doing his best not to imagine the scene in his mind as Declan spoke. Obviously, the Carrows weren’t exactly in education for the same reason as the other adults teaching at Hogwarts that year, but bloody hell... they were in a position of power, and damn did they exploit that. The more he contemplated it, the more it sickened him and the more he couldn’t believe that he’d been in league with that for the past few months.
He ran a hand through his hair, trying to think of something to say that was actually useful or helpful, and drawing a blank.
“I hope they caught her.” Horrified as he was of what he had done to her, Declan was still mad that she had been able to escape. “I doubt she managed to go far, though.”
Cormac gave a loud snort and kept on sleeping.
“Forget my injuries,” Declan said with an eyeroll, trying to alleviate things. “The hardest part of being stuck in this room is having this noise.”
“Rumour is the DMLE and the Aurors are out in force already, trying to track people down. Don’t know if they’ve picked anyone up yet, though” he added, thinking vaguely of Lucy’s dad, and whether he’d been at the battle or not.
At Declan’s comment about the snoring, Roland turned around and grinned at the sleeping Cormac. Quietly slipping his wand from his pocket, he made a sort of jabbing motion towards the older McLaggen’s nose, at which point the noise stopped, though his chest continued to rise and fall with his breathing.
Looking back at Declan, Roland raised his eyebrows quizzically. “Better?”
“Much better, thanks.” Declan grinned, for possibly the first time since forever. “I would have done it myself, but they took my wand away and gave it to my cousin for safekeeping. Apparently I’m a difficult patient.” Yeah, maybe threatening to hex that dumpy Healer if she didn’t let him leave the bed was a bad idea. Calling her “dumpy” probably didn’t help, either.
“You? Difficult? You do surprise me” Roland quipped, also beginning to smile. It was weird, being in this situation and yet still being able to find humour in it.
“I take it they’re not letting you do much?”
“They’re not letting me do anything,” Declan said grumpily. “That last curse hit me straight in the chest, and if I overdo things the injuries it caused come back, so they’re keeping me stuck in bed until they fix this.” He nodded at Cormac. “That’s why he’s practically living here, to make sure I stay put.”
Roland turned and looked at Cormac again. He didn’t look like he’d be much use fast asleep, although he wasn’t going to say that out loud, of course. “D’you want me to get you anything while Sleeping Beauty here has a snooze?”
Declan shrugged. “The only thing I really need right now is news.” He pondered. “I don’t suppose you could snoop around and see if you can find anything else?”
Roland nodded. “Sure. Anything in particular you want me to find out? I can always have a look around on my way out... I’m getting a portkey back up to school later. They need people to... um, help with the clean-up.”
He looked a little sheepish, then. He didn’t exactly want to say “they need people to pull injured and dead people out of the rubble” when Declan was in this state.
“I want to know what happened to my housemates,” Declan said, his anxiety stopping him from noticing Roland’s hesitation. “Any of them. And...” He wanted to name Molly, but thought better of it. “Anything else you might find, really. What happened to that Carrow bitch, or that idiot uncle of mine.” He spat the last words with just as much venom as he had uttered her name.
Roland nodded. He didn’t think he’d be able to find out much that had to do with classified information - as any location or arrest of Death Eaters was likely to be - but he’d give it a whirl. Not to mention that by the time he got back up to Hogwarts, more news might have reached those who had remained at the castle since the end of the battle some hours ago.
Unfolding his long legs in his chair and standing up, he reached over and offered his hand to Declan’s (the one not attached to the injured arm, of course) and spoke softly as he prepared to leave, not wanting to wake Cormac right at this moment. “I’ll try and make it back as soon as I can” he said, wondering if his mother had picked his brother up from his classmate’s house yet. “I’m going to go and see Michael’s got home yet and then go back to Hogwarts, so, if you don’t see me, I’ll send you a note with anything I find out, yeah?”
“Thanks, mate,” Declan said, shaking his hand. He knew he was probably asking too much, but he was getting desperate. He was sure Uncle Tiberius would be able to provide him with some information from the Ministry once he came back with Neely, but he doubted he’d have the courage to give details on the actions of his worthless twin. And he desperately needed to get news of his closest friends. “And if you see anyone I know, like Geoffrey Hooper, just tell them where I am and how to get in touch with me, all right?”
Nodding once more, Roland released Declan’s hand and walked towards the door. “Of course” he replied once he’d arrived at the door. “I get the feeling everyone’s going to be going round and checking on each other as soon as possible. Not to mention trying to get hold of the Muggleborns who are still out of the country - fuck, that’ll be a job and a half as well...”
Shuddering slightly, he gave his friend a nod, and snuck out of the room and into the hall before another Healer could spot him.