one_eyed_jack (one_eyed_jack) wrote in whatprice, @ 2009-06-03 23:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | george weasley, ginny weasley, seren fawcett |
Backstory: Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, i
Who: George Weasley and Ginny Potter (with special guest star Healer Finnegan-Fawcett)
What: Up in the Air, Junior Birdmen!
When: In the Summer of '04
Where: Ginny's farm and a nearby mountainside
Warnings: None
Ginny leaned over a tourist map of Snowdonia laid out over an old crate. Behind her, Sirius's old motorbike sat in the middle of the barn where she'd been tinkering with it, surrounded by oily rags, half-empty potion bottles, and a smattering of Muggle tools.
"There's an old trail just here that we like to use," she said, tapping the map with the tip of her wand; a faintly glowing twisty red line appeared on one of the mountains. "Nobody's been there for ages -- nobody but us, that is, and we've laid down wards to keep it that way. It should serve our purposes nicely." She looked up, grinning impishly. "Do you even know how to read a proper map? One that doesn't tell you where you are at all times, I mean?"
"A proper map is one that tells you where you are at all times," George replied. "But I can muggle through with this one. How long is that line?" He stared at the map, smelling the odd, sharp smells of her machine works.
"Couple miles or thereabouts as the broom -- or the bike -- flies, plus maybe another half-mile or so added by these twisty bits." Ginny laid her thumb beside a particularly wiggly spot that looked like a series of switchbacks. "And this bit" -- her thumb tracked forward, along the relatively gently-curved section that followed -- "is a mountain face on one side and a cliff on the other."
"So what we're looking for is someplace where there's a good straight bit, followed by a sharp turn and it's at the edge of a big cliff. You race towards it, and I leap over the edge just as you throw yourself into the turn." He looks at the map. "Where's that on the map?"
"That's a little further down -- just here." Ginny tapped the map again, and the glowing line lengthened itself. "We'll want to toss up a quick obscuring charm before we get to the recklessness and maybe-flying, though: once you get to that turn, you're possibly-visible to anyone in this village" -- she pointed at a dot near the line -- "who happens to be looking that way at just the right time. But that should be simple enough." She looked up from the map and eyed her brother skeptically. "You have performed other tests before this one, right?"
George nodded. "Yeah, off a broom. The problem there is that I can't tell if it's good for falling starts. It was in the telly play. They jumped off a building."
"Well, this should work nicely, then." Ginny gave a decisive nod. "Are you ready to try? I'll just pop in and tell Harry we're going for a little drive...." She stood and began moving toward the door to the main house.
"Yeah, he needs to know in case he has to take us both to hospital, but maybe not exactly what the plan is..."
George opened the valise he'd brought into the barn and began rapidly taking off his clothes. He pulled out what looked like a brightly colored, baggy prison jumpsuit, and he began to put it on. His arms only came about 45 degrees away from his sides and the legs were like a skirt that had been sewn shut. The material didn't quite itch, but it felt wrong. He'd be amazed if this worked. Alive, too. That would be good.
Ginny returned a few minutes later. She'd changed, too, into riding leathers in deep Harpies green. She had once opined to George that she felt certain the Harpies had chosen their colours, way back when, to match the most common dragonhide in the region entirely on purpose. They were, after all, an entire team of women who preferred flying as fast as witchingly possible and beating the shit out of things for fun; it seemed only sensible that they'd want to make it easy to outfit themselves appropriately.
She gave George and his attire a slow once-over; her bottom lip twitched in evident amusement. "May I interest you in a helmet?" she asked. "Or perhaps a kite-string?"
George turned around like a dancer, or at least as close to 'like a dancer' as he could manage, being not-at-all-a-dancer and wearing this contraption. "It feels odd, like I've got something slimy on me. It's like Ron's cooking. Yeah, a helmet sounds like just the thing." He flapped his arms. "The key for me to remember is that it's a gliding suit, not a flying suit. If I flap, I'm falling." It wasn't clear if he was talking to himself or to her.
Ginny took what looked like a leather aviator's cap from a hook and pulled it on, then found another one and offered it to George. It only took her a moment to conclude that he was unlikely to be able to maneuver it onto his own head while wearing that... thing. "Well, stop flapping a minute so I can... there." She pulled the cap down over his head and buckled it securely under his chin. The protective spells cast onto the leather tingled faintly as it went on.
She took a step back and regarded the suit with brow furrowed, tilting her head almost completely sideways to take it all in -- particularly the flared, skirt-like bottom. After a moment she asked, "Were you planning on riding sidesaddle, princess?"
"I..." George turned and looked at the bike. "Well, I have to leap off it anyway, so maybe I just stand on the saddle behind you and crouch down. D'you think?"
Ginny arched a skeptical eyebrow. "Maybe once we're up there and on to the sudden-death portion of this adventure, yeah, but we do have to make it halfway up the mountain first." She eyed the row of hooks and pegs along the barn wall, laden with odds and ends and useful things. After a moment's consideration, she selected a long strap of leather with a line of holes punched in each end that looked as though it could've been one of Hagrid's old belts. Then she gestured at the back of the motorbike. "Here, sit down and we'll see what we can do to keep your skirt from getting caught up in the wheels." She was grinning just a little too much.
George looked ill-at-ease. "Perhaps I should just carry it up to near-the-top, and we can stop and put it on there. It's reasonably important that we not rip it."
"Yes, well, I suppose that's sensible," Ginny agreed, although it was clear that didn't sound as fun to her as forcing her kite-clad brother into weird contortions. "I'll just pretend I'm doing something really important over in this corner while you change, shall I?"
George shrugged and began to unbutton the suit. "I'm not totally starkers under here." Nevertheless, he waited until she'd stepped over to the toolbox to finished stripping down and dressing. He put the suit back into the valise, and turned back to her. He still had the helmet on, although it didn't seem to be a perfect fit. Perhaps the ear was a problem.
Ginny pursed her lips slightly as she considered the fit of his helmet (and tried very hard to refrain from turning "fit of his helmet" into a naughty euphemism). She'd spelled it herself, many times over -- as she had all the caps and helmets scattered around the barn; Teddy used them sometimes, after all -- so she felt confident it would keep his brains on the correct side of his skull, regardless of what that suit did to the rest of him. She decided not to sweat it. He was a big boy, after all. Which would of course explain the ill fit of his helmet...
...she smirked. Damn. "We look a fine couple of cocks, don't we?" she opined, and adjusted her own helmet. She gestured for George to open the barn door while she made sure the bike was ready to go -- or at least willing to start.
"Yes, magnificent. It runs in the family." He said, willfully misinterpreting her. He pulled the barn door all the way open, and waited for Ginny to take the bike out. "How does this thing work, then? Other than 'loudly'?"
"Also 'temperamentally'," Ginny replied brightly. She ran her hand over the leather of the saddle as if petting the old beast, and continued in a soothing voice that was obviously not addressed to George, "But you've had rather a rough go of it, haven't you, sweetheart? I daresay you've earned the right to your little quirks."
She rolled the bike out of the barn and into the pleasant sunshine. "So, this big red button here," she said, indicating a cheery circle the colour of a ripe strawberry, "is supposed to make it fly. I haven't yet gotten it to work for any sustained period of time, though. Conveniently for our purposes, on the ground it handles like a horny hippogriff: convince it that it wants to be going in the direction you want to go, and you can get it to go very fast."
George looked at the button as if it were likely to bite. "Fly like Dad's old flying car, or fly like something that flies? Nevermind, doesn't matter. You planning on stopping or is this a dual-test?"
"I plan on cornering," Ginny replied. "We'll see what the beast has in mind when we get there, though. You ready?" She settled into the saddle and patted the space behind her.
"To ride? This'll be the dull part. Mind if I have a quick nap?" He threw his leg over the bike and got as comfortable as he could. "I may have to get one of these. For dates and such."
"Yes, if you had one of these, you might get some dates," Ginny teased. "I do recommend them. Dates and bikes. And I'll try not to make the ride too boring. Just for you." With that, she kicked the bike into noisy life and eased it onto the path that led from the farm out to the main road.
"Thank you for your dating advice, Mrs. Potter. I'll surely take it to heart."
It was a glorious day for a ride, and Ginny was happy to go tearing through the countryside at speeds rather above the legal limit. She handled the bike expertly on the paved Muggle roads, weaving around the very little other traffic they encountered. Soon enough, they were pulling off the main road and onto the trail she'd indicated on the map. She tore up the switchbacks, cornering so hard it was a wonder the bike didn't slide right out from under them. She slowed down a little on the long straight section, though; and when they came to the tight turn where George would be flinging himself to his hopefully-not-death, she rolled to a stop to give her brother a chance to inspect the lay of the land.
"Will this do?" she asked, gesturing at the sheer drop before them. The little guard-rail would be easy enough to clear with a good leap.
"You're mad. It's how I know you're really a Weasley." He grinned at her. "So, we get to almost there, me riding all crouched behind you, you throw it to the side, I take that as my signal, leaping up, out and over, like I'm diving for a medal in some mad quidditch skills rodeo. At the top of my arc, I snap open my arms and legs and glide, glide to victory." George's hands are moving like little flapping birds. "You pick me up at the bottom of the mountain where I, covered in glory, am surrounded by spontaneously-appearing flying-suit groupies who have taken a plaster cast of my flying apparatus." He nods. "Simple, really. Yes, this will do. I'll try to come down by the place that bridge meets the stream." He pointed down to the base of the small mountain.
"Good, good," Ginny said. She had her wand out and was tossing up a few simple wards to keep anyone from paying too much attention to this section of the mountain. "And where will these spontaneously-appearing flying-suit groupies be appearing from? ...Because I'm afraid if they come out of the nearest village, they'll mostly be over-sixty and smell of sheep. Or if they're under-sixty, chances are they'll be actual sheep." She grinned.
George shrugged. "I'm the ideas man, not the details man. Ron will be raiding them from Charlie's supply of surplus loose women, I think. Hmm. Given our brothers' luck in that department, may be best if I don't set off the groupie-flare at all..." George continued to look over the edge and unbuttoned and removed his shirt and trousers. He pulled the flying suit from the case and carefully climbed into it. "Good and windy here," he said.
Ginny, who had no particular desire to watch her brother strip off, touched her pinky to the tip of her tongue and held it up to test the wind. "Good direction, too, if it holds," she opined. "You... ah... you can maneuver that thing well enough to keep from getting smushed into the side of the mountain if the wind decides to shift, can't you? Because I didn't pack a spatula."
"No idea!," George replies, seemingly relishing the prospect. "We'll find out if we find out. There's a healer around here somewhere, isn't there?"
"If by 'around here' you mean 'in the general vicinity of Wales', yes, I think we might be able to scare one up. Dunno whether she makes side-of-mountain-calls, though. I suppose we'll find out if we find out." Ginny smirked at her brother. "Anyway, scars are sexy, right?"
George rolled his eyes. "Some birds fancy them. Apparently. Doesn't matter how the bloke looks otherwise, if he has a keen scar, she's all over him." He shook his head. "Let's do it."
They climbed back onto the bike and Ginny brought them back down the straightaway to their starting-point. She got everything lined up, and then held the bike steady as George situated himself in his precarious daredevil crouch on the seat behind her. He's a Beater, she reminded herself. He's been knocked off a broom at higher speeds than this.
At his signal, she kicked the bike into motion, accelerating as fast as she dared with George half-standing on the saddle. They hurtled toward the cliff; when they were seconds away from it, Ginny lifted her left hand and counted down with her fingers:
Three---
Two---
One---
...and then the bike swerved hard to the right as she cornered it with all her might.
George kicked up and out, realizing as he did it that he might've just kicked his sister over while she was trying not to join him in sailing over the edge. Maybe the "fly button" would work. It'd be a shame to be 0.25 seconds into your first fully wandless and broomless flight and get run over from behind by your sister's first emergency motorcycle launch. His mind was racing like a drunken seeker after the golden snitch, he thought. It felt like time was slowed down, but he was still going up, bulletting head-first over the Welsh mountainside.
Up, up, up he went, then a second that was like the start of a vertical stall on a broom, the forces balanced and nothing happening. It would be peaceful and quiet, except for the blood pounding in his ears. George leaned back to present what he hoped was the proper angle, and snapped his arms and legs out to catch the wind. They luffed like sails for a moment and then caught the wind. The force of the shock almost ripped George's arms from his sockets, but he'd expected it, this time. He laughed as he made his body into a lifting surface and began to body surf on the wind.
Back on the mountain, Ginny let out a loud and joyful whoop as George's suit arrested his fall. She'd skidded to a hard stop after George jumped -- more specifically, after he'd planted a boot in her ribs -- to keep from tumbling off the side of the mountain herself. She watched him glide for just a few moments, then righted her bike and made for the next set of switchbacks that would bring her down the mountain and to the little bridge below.
She made a mental note to give her brother a celebratory kick in the ribs, if he landed unscathed.
George laughed, loud and long and slightly hysterically. "Stay on target, old self," he said. It wasn't like flying a broom. There wasn't anything pushing you along. It was like falling off a broom... slowly. Yes. It might be like a broom if it didn't go forward, and the balance points where inside your body. George wished he'd brought a quick quill for taking notes. George looked up and swerved to the left to avoid a stand of trees. He went sailing over another small cliff and actually got some altitude. Balancing was really hard, he noticed. He couldn't play against the broom. It was a bit like that old bat Umbridge playing Quidditch, which was a hilarious mental image. Strap a few bits of straw to the stick up her bum and hey, presto, the only Quidditch player who could never be knocked off her ride. His mind went to another broom ride, this one under starlight because it wasn't allowed, and some free-falling they did, and George was suddenly glad he didn't have a quick-quill and he was quite near the ground. Last time he'd landed in a lake. What was nearby?
Ginny tried as much as possible to keep her brother in her peripheral vision as she made her way down the mountain. He'd certainly made it easy for her: the bright colours of his kite-suit-thing were like nothing that occurred in nature, at least not around here. And he wasn't so much falling or flying as wobbling-slowly-downward-ish. One particularly quick wobble to the left caught her attention, though, and she lifted her eyes from the road to make certain he was all right.
As she looked up, her tires caught loose earth, and the bike skidded off the edge of a switchback. Ginny spat a loud expletive and focused all her attention on keeping her arse in the saddle and the wheels underneath it. The bike bucked and bounced down the mountain like a racing-broom in dire need of a twig-trim, tearing stripes out of the grass and dirt each time the tires made contact with the ground. On the fourth or fifth bounce, it let out a spluttery coughing sound -- and the ride suddenly became much smoother. It took Ginny a moment to realise why: the tires had settled a few inches above the ground, and the bike was now purring along happily in very-low-altitude flight.
"Oh, good girl!" Ginny exclaimed with a laugh, and brought the bike down again on the far side of the switchbacks, not far from the bridge. She scanned the sky and the surrounding landscape for signs of her brother's progress.
He was nowhere to be seen.
George looked down, looking for something soft, or at least roomy. He slowed considerably, and came very close to the ground. He'd've been fine, probably, if it weren't for the hiker. He'd thought that there weren't any muggles for miles, but maybe he'd gone that far. It was as big a surprise for her as it was for him. He came over the ridge and he was headed right at her. She screamed and he cowered and that's how he folded up his flying surfaces. The ground was next, and the rolling. Over the embankment and down the rubble he'd gone, cursing the impatience that had kept him from waiting until the snows fell. He was hunched over to protect his wand--he didn't want to break it. His arms flailed about smacking the rocks and slowing his fall minutely with every painful bruising crack. He'd broken something, probably several ribs at least. His head hit something hard and metallic and he was grateful for Ginny's helmet.
He tasted blood in his mouth and was feeling every second of the descent. The suit was ruined and he was pretty banged up. His vision was blurred and he landed, finally, on a pile of sharp rocks. He didn't have anything that didn't hurt, and he was sure he'd broken something, maybe several somethings.
George thought about getting up for a moment, but wasn't sure he could. He'd see how long it took Ginny to find him.
Ginny had cut her motor to listen, so she'd heard the scream. It wasn't her brother's voice, but she recognised the high-pitched tone of panicked surprise so frequently elicited by his antics. With the mountainous terrain, it was difficult to tell where it had come from, but it seemed far away -- farther than she expected. Carefully, she withdrew her wand from the sheath in her boot and laid it on her palm; with a muttered word she set it spinning.
It came to rest with its point toward a thick stand of trees. Beyond, Ginny knew, lay a village and several more hiking trails. Cursing under her breath, she kicked the bike into motion again.
The first thing to reach George, several minutes after his crash, was the distant sound of Muggle emergency vehicles; next, much nearer but weirdly muffled, the sound of a motorbike, which cut out altogether after a few moments; and then, very close by, the sound of crunching gravel, and Ginny's voice in a harsh whisper:
"George -- oh, Merlin's pants, George -- can you hear me?" The air above him shimmered faintly as his Disillusioned sister leaned over him.
"Only in one ear," he said. "I flew." He still hadn't sat up yet. He didn't think it was a good idea.
"Yes, dearest. And then you fell. And now there's a hiker with her mobile out, calling people -- Muggle people -- to come find you and scrape you off the mountain. Can you move?" Ginny had her wand out, whispering through the air over George's limbs, most likely in one of the quick diagnostic spells she'd learned for assessing Quidditch injuries. She made a harsh sound in the back of her throat. "On second thought, maybe you shouldn't. Can you feel this?" she asked, gently prodding the toe of his boot with the tip of her wand.
"Ow! Yes, it hurts. I wonder if you need a license to fly one of these suits. On the telly, the suits were bright yellow and orange. Prolly to help locate the remains." George reached down towards his knee, and felt the stickiness and the pain. He flinched but didn't cry out. "I'm not really going to walk out of here in the next few moments, if that's what you're asking."
"That's a big part of what I was asking, yeah." Ginny muttered a word, and the cool slickness of a Disillusion spell slid over her brother's supine form. "At least we don't have to make it too easy for them to find you in the meantime. I'm not even sure I can move you myself, not without accidentally pushing a broken rib through your lung or something." George could hear the concerned frown in her voice, even if he couldn't see her. "I think it's time to call in some professional help."
"Too right. That would look really stupid on my grave. Here lies George. His sister stabbed him with his own rib." George opened his eyes and immediately blinked hard and raised his arm to shade them. "Ow. I'm not paralysed, but I think I shan't do that again."
"Well, try to lie still so you don't twist anything else out of place. Also, it will hurt less." The cadence of Ginny's blunt matter-of-factness sounded remarkably like their mother, but -- mercifully -- with all of the frantic and most of the scolding filtered out. Perhaps it would've been different if it'd been Teddy rather than George lying there.
Ginny muttered something under her breath, and a faint silver mist spouted from what was presumably the vicinity of her wand. It dropped to the ground in a diffuse patch that would -- one hoped -- make it less conspicuous to any onlookers, and sped off in the direction of Eryri Ysbyty.
As soon as it crossed the wards to Snowdonia Hospital, the diffuse silver mist formed itself up into a bird that sped with all the haste it could muster through the mountain complex, looking for Seren. It wasn't the first time Ginny had sent a Patronus message to the hospital.
When it found Seren, the misty bird perched on her shoulder, weightlessly, and said softly in Ginny's voice: "It's George. He's had a bad fall -- out of the sky. He's conscious, he knows who he is, but he's broken enough of his insides that I don't trust myself to move him safely. Can you come? We're up the hill about a mile due west of Plas Gwynant." Her Welsh pronunciation was still kind of horrid to Seren's ears, but it was clear enough what she meant. "Oh -- and there are Muggles in the area looking for the insane... what-do-you-call-it, skygliding bloke... who fell out of the sky, so you'll want to be careful not to be seen...."
The Patronus nuzzled its head against Seren's cheek -- a habit that came as much from the nature of the particular phoenix it resembled as from anything Ginny had told it to do -- and dissipated in a fine, cool mist.
Seren's eyes squeezed shut and she stared at her lunch longingly. It was the first chance her entire shift that she'd had time to attempt to eat something more than a sandwich. Instead she went and sent everything to pack itself up and go back to the cupboard. Muggles, why were there always muggles about? It was a mountain. A very large mountain. Couldn't they find something else to hike up? A sandwich was grabbed from the stash that was possibly just hers but possibly left over from Eli's shift, and headed out to find a Mediwizard or a volunteer or someone who could generally be of use to her.
After her robes were shed in record time, Seren emerged from the quarters the hospital had for Healer's during their shift, originally intended for the overnight A&E healer, pulling on a jumper and explaining to Iain and Gwylim where they needed to get to. The two men had a sort of gurney fashioned out of two brooms and some canvas attached to each and the trio disapparated in quick succession of one another, all eyes searching once they appeared in the general proximity that was described in the patronus.
Gwylim found Ginny first and called Seren over who came running, a small bag slung over her shoulder with some basic supplies, not that she was sure any of it would do her any good. "Aye, what happened?" Her eyes went from Ginny to the area where she could tell there was a disillusionment charm on something. It glimmered a bit like a mirage and Seren assumed it was George but it was only an assumption.
Ginny scanned the area for wayward muggles and then muttered a word. The disillusionment charm slid off George's battered form. "See for yourself," she said. "And... thanks for coming, Seren. I owe you. Again."
"I take food as payment," Seren joked lightly, though her face remained serious.
The Healer knelt down next to George, her wand passing over him as she whispered spells. Her expression did not change as different coloured lights shimmered transparently over his form in different places. "You've a few fractures and broken bones. There's bruising and a bit of internal damage. There's nothing that can't be healed up, though you'll have to take some care for a bit. What I'm going to do is a few minor bone mendings here so that the men can get you back to the hospital without you getting any more injured, is that already?" In truth, she had to reorient a few of his ribs as they were broken in such a way so as to potentially puncture a lung if he was moved incorrectly. With the ribs taken care of mostly, even if not fully, they'd at least be able to get him back to Eryri Ysbyty where George could be put under so he wouldn't have to feel the rest of it.
"Ah, I was so looking forward to getting more injured, but do what you think is best. Did I break any new ones? I'm trying to be fair to all of them." George's voice was weak, but he was coherent. His pain was obvious.
"I'm sure you'll have ample opportunity to try again later, if you've missed any," his sister quipped, though her posture seemed tense as she watched Seren work. "How long do you reckon he'll have to stay in hospital?" she asked the healer.
"I won't know that until I've had a better opportunity to go over him. Initial diagnostics say not long but more thorough ones may say otherwise," Seren responded in a distracted tone. She was piecing together precisely where she was directing these spells and which ones she was going to do. "This will hurt a bit," she warned George before getting to work. The words of the spells were a hushed whisper as her wand outlined the ribs that needed the healing. The bones made a small crunching sound as a few of them ground over one another to properly position themselves so that they may be used together once more. When George's ribcage looked proper shape and size again Seren performed another diagnostic and the shimmering yellow over his chest was lighter this time. A satisfied nod to herself and the Healer turned to Iain and Gwylim.
The men stepped forward and laid their gurney down on the ground next to George after Seren moved out of the way. As gently as possible, they lifted the injured man onto the canvas, then counted to three and lifted him up. "I want him in A-and-E, examination room three," Seren told them before they headed off back to the hospital with their charge.
George spoke up from his place on the stretcher. "Seren, I've got to know. Will I be able to play the accordian after you're done with me?"
"I'm sure Seren knows better than to let you anywhere near her squeeze-box," Ginny replied, mostly under her breath.