valesco ; a harry potter rpg

With a great push, Althea threw open Jason's front door. A second later she slammed it shut, calling out her friend's name like he had been expecting her unceremonious arrival- or, had been aware why she left his flat earlier in the first place. After receiving Beau's letter, she had--- she had just gone to him, but now that--- now that she knew---!

"JASON?" Althea shouted, tears still in her eyes as she looked about his flat wildly for him. She knew--- she knew she had to--- follow this feeling within her, let all that had built up and been uncovered sustain her into saying what she now knew needed to be said. To Jason, for Jason, for herself, aloud for--- for their sanity, for some kind of--- sense to all this--- pain!

"JASON!?" Her voice spiked this time. Althea curled her fists by her sides, angry-- angry that her body had betrayed her in such a dirty way because she really was---!

At the sound of movement in the back of the flat, Althea shot forward. She rushed toward Jason's bedroom, her mind whirling and swirling faster by the second until---

When she saw him, all her hot, burning energy deflated. Althea stopped in the doorway, messy and out of breath. She had caught him by surprise, though strangely, she felt equally overwhelmed and surprised staring at him. Her chest constricted, and to shake herself, she wiped her face with the back of her forearm.

"I---" Althea hesitated for a moment, now in desperate need to catch her breath. "I have to tell you something."

Oh! She was nightmaring!

Yes, of course, that was it. In reality, she was asleep in her little tent, tossing and turning at the sight before her. She was not, in reality, seeing Jason unceremoniously hop out of the jungle and onto the tiny path to camp, calling out her name like he was looking for her. That was impossible! He couldn't be here. The campsite was deep in the Amazon, they did not get visitors or random people because of where they were, and that was why she had joined this expedition in the first place. To get as far away from England as possible, to stop thinking about--- all that and how it made her heart ache and how she didn't know what to do about---!

She was having a nightmare. Everything she had been shoving down, refusing to think about, was finally coming up to haunt her in this reality because it couldn't in the real one. Obviously! Obviously, obviously. A very simple and easy explanation, that made perfect rational sense.

So why couldn't she move? Althea was frozen, locked as she stood and unable to look away from Jason. He hadn't seen her yet, but he would if she didn't move herself out of this corporal plane! How did one do that? She didn't know. But it was something she desperately wanted to achieve before she was forced to look at Jason's face. It would turn sad, angry, or worse yet, morph into---

Althea really did try to move her feet, pull her heels up and tear her eyes away from Jason. But she couldn't, it wasn't possible (had she gotten herself cursed again? Potentially, this tribe was seriously ancient and nasty powerful). Which left her... standing like an idiot, feeling like her skin was about to jump off her body any second and her stomach ready to follow as soon as it could. How bloody---!

Her eyes widened to the size of quaffles when Jason finally saw her. Should she hold her breath? Yes, maybe he'd only approach her if she made movement.

WHO: Jason Smith and Beau Winogrand
WHAT: Talks?
WHERE: Winogrand Gardens!
WHEN: Now!

( HUMANTRAP! )

❧ ❦ ☙

( table arrangements )

WHO: The Smith Boys (Jason, Alex, and Zacharias!)
WHAT: Morning talks
WHERE: Alex's flat
WHEN: TODAY!

( Please don’t cry on my birthday )

This was so not okay and Althea really couldn’t be sure what time zone her body currently thought it was, but she did know that this was Jason’s parents’ house! Should she be eating lunch? Should she be sleeping? Who knew, it didn’t really matter right now. What mattered was something was not right with Jason and she hadn’t made the sudden and urgent trip from Greece to here (Manchester) to let that continue happening to her friend. Even if that meant---

She’d give Jason’s whole family the business if she had to, she didn’t care if it was not her place. What was going on in this house was wrong, and nobody, especially Jason, deserved to be made to feel--- guilty for living life! What was his father thinking, what about his siblings? Why weren’t they--?

“BEAU?”

Althea reached for the front door, one hand going to handle as her other thudded against the wood. She wanted to kick the door open, but in that split second, she thought better. What if she accidentally broke it? What if she hit Beau in the process? He should’ve gotten here a while ago, maybe he had already managed to help Jason out of the house and… she was just... intruding?

“JASON?”

Althea marched into the house, hair askew from travel and her bag hanging from one shoulder. She stopped in what she assumed was the living room, toying what to do next; wait for someone to appear and take it upon herself to find Jason somewhere in the house? She frowned, feeling funny about indecision.

"JASON?" Althea hissed loudly, curling around the corner to stare down the hall to her left. She straightened when footsteps approached, her chest puffing out and her brow furrowing is discontent.

WHO: Jason Smith and family!
WHAT: Family emergency?
WHERE: England, definitely not Greece!
WHEN: This morning!

( I wanted to see you )

Happy, he was the happiest he'd ever been in his life, and boy, had he had some happy days. Beau wasn't sure if he was going to be able to focus on just one thing tonight as there were bright lights, great smelling food, music, fire!, family that he hadn't seen in ages, friends he had hadn't seen smile in what felt like forever and---it just---he was so happy! And grown up, he definitely felt grown up; when was the last time his brother had a whole conversation with him without grabbing him around the neck and rubbing his knuckles in his skull? Uh, never! But that had happened tonight, and Bibi hadn't whacked him (yet), and his mother cried, and his dad was doing that thing with his eyebrows that showed he approved without saying of things and--- "Aw, babe," Beau let out, stopping in his tracks at the sight of the reason for this wonderful gathering. "Don't move!" He whipped up his camera to capture the shot of his amazingly brilliant and brave and awesome and beautiful fiancée by a rather blazing campfire. Althea could make a fertilizer sack look like a Liddie Lynch gown, but the sight of her by the fire and looking just as happy as he was, well--he had to get that on film to keep the memory forever. Because Beau was the excitable bloke he was, the camera was one of those new fangled automatic ones, and the print slipped out immediately (he'd placed a bunch of these around the venue tonight, for guests to capture these sort of moments, too) and he bounced over to Althea to show her. "Okay, tell me that's not a great shot," he said with a bragging waggle of his eyebrows.

FIRST I WOULD LIKE TO APOLOGIZE FOR THIS BUT YOU HAVE LEFT ME NO OPTION

AGAIN I'M VERY SORRY

BUT YOU NEED TO REPORT TO ST. MUNGO'S IMMEDIATELY, ALTHEA!

I'VE CHARMED THIS HOWLER TO REPEAT THIS MESSAGE AND OTHER LOUD NOISES UNTIL YOU (PHYSICALLY, YOU) RETURN IT TO ME

WHICH MAY RESULT IN SOME ANNOYED PATIENTS AND STAFF SO I WILL BE WAITING FOR YOU IN THE LOBBY

I'M SORRY AGAIN I HOPE YOU'RE NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF A LIBRARY OR SOMETHING OF THAT NATURE

PLEASE REPORT TO ST. MUNGO'S ASAP (AS SOON AS POSSIBLE)

REGARDS,

HEALER SMITH

Maybe he should have taken the same portkey as Althea. Maybe he should have had a healer from Mungo's come to Greece instead of them coming back to England. Maybe he could have given up her case to the local healers even though they had said over and over again that they'd never seen anything like this because obviously he was not fit to remove this curse from his friend because he couldn't even find her.

He couldn't find her. He couldn't find Althea, he couldn't find his patient.

It was those last few thoughts that kept pounding on the walls of Jason's skull as he curled his legs underneath him at his desk. His eyes scanned back and forth over Althea's records, he went over all the testing he'd done already and the hypothetical he would like to attempt when he finally found her, and it was only the fact that he was about 72% sure that she was avoiding him out of spite that he was not hiding underneath his desk.

He was hiding in the little office he shared with some of the other healers in the department, to avoid answering the daily question of 'how's the curse-breaker you were supposed to be treating?'

Jason's hands went to wrap around the sides of his neck as he began to read out loud, to drown out the worried voices in his head.

"For the Greeks, magic was a wide-ranging topic which involved spells and evil prayers, curse tablets," Jason let out a sigh, "enhancing drugs and deadly poisons, amulets," he let out a bigger sigh, "and powerful love potions..."