In which Hestia Jones gets some advice and misses the point. Written for the Song Challenge.
Hestia Jones walked around the battered and bruised halls of Hogwarts searching for more survivors and looking at the scars in the ancient stone with a strange blend of gratefulness and sadness. Each of these curse marks on the walls meant a spell that hadn't hit a person, but it still pained her to see her beloved school so battered. A light, painful cough and the sounds of quiet, soothing promises alerted her to someone wounded and she hurried to help, shoving thoughts of the school's walls from her mind. Hestia had been a fully-qualified Healer for almost fifteen years now, and she was one of the best that had been able to respond to the disastrous fight.
As she cast numbing spells all over a young girl's leg, focusing especially where it jutted out at strange angles, she took a look at the face of the girl's friend. It was a young man who was maybe a year older than the girl, maybe only a few months. His face was smeared with dirt and blood and she made a mental note to examine him after the girl was tended to. He had brown hair and bright green eyes, though he looked exhausted beyond all belief.
Hestia turned back to setting the girl's leg straight once the numbing spells had had a few moments to work their way into her system. The girl's eyes were glazed from both pain and the relief of the spells, and as always, Hestia took care to set the bone as gently as she could. The girl passed out after only a few more seconds and once the bone was set and splinted, Hestia checked her breathing. She appeared to be only asleep, and the older witch couldn't help but smooth her hair back in a motherly fashion. The girl was so young, probably only sixteen.
"She's just asleep," Hestia reassured the young wizard. He let out an audible sigh of relief, looking at the girl with tenderness. "Now. Come here," she commanded.
"I'm fine," the boy said, his voice cracking from lack of water.
Hestia rolled her eyes. "What are they teaching you at this school now? Here," she said, conjuring a simple wooden cup and filling it with water from the tip of her wand. She passed it to him and he drank greedily, then refilled it with a spell of his own and sipped it slower. "Where are you hurt?" Hestia asked.
"I got some rocks dropped on me at one point," he said, motioning to his left shoulder. "That's why I couldn't take Lissa to the Great Hall. She couldn't walk and I couldn't carry her. And Icouldn't just leave her."
Hestia moved around to his back to work on his shoulder. It was nothing too bad, and she easily patched the skin back together and removed the blood from his shirt. She ran a few examination spells over his whole body and then satisfied herself that he was just exhausted and sore, both of which the best cure for was time.
She took one more look at his face as he gathered the dark haired girl into his arms and stood slowly. He was still so damn young, they both were, but there was a new hardness in his eyes that shouldn't be there. It was like seeing a younger Benjamin Fenwick and Emmeline Vance. They'd always been so close, like siblings, and Benjy had always taken care of Emm. She watched as their sixteen year old reflections walked away from her and sighed.
Hestia knew she should be happy that You-Know-Who had finally gone, and she was, but there was still something missing. She knew exactly what it was too – all those that had died to get to this point. She was a Healer, she knew better than most how wars were won, but she'd be damned if she didn't mourn for all those gone before her. Before they were old, even. Thinking through the members of the Order's ages, she suddenly gasped and fell against a wall, sliding down it to the floor.
She was the last one of her friends from Hogwarts. She had been friends with sweet Lily and kind-hearted Emmeline and gentle Alice and bold Marlene, with laughing James and protective Frank and handsome Sirius and soft-eyed Remus and even quiet Peter. With dashing Benjamin Fenwick, fiery Fabian and witty Gideon Prewett, and Caradoc Dearborn who'd had to grow up too fast.
"Oh, Merlin," she whispered, head in her hands. She'd recognized all the deaths, of course, and cried for them all many times over. But this... this was different. She was the last person who had known them all, who had shushed their tears and held their heads over toilets after too much drinking and had patched them back together after fights and grown up with them. She was one of the very few who had been through both wars and back again.
She drew racking, shuddering breaths to steady herself. She had work to do, she was supposed to be searching the castle and helping keep these kids alive. But Hestia felt like she was on the very of breaking, like she was only a gasp away from curling up on the floor and letting the past wash over her. If she closed her eyes she knew she would see Lily holding baby Harry with James prancing around like a lunatic to make the child laugh. She would see Caradoc Dearborn struggle to care for his two younger siblings after the murder of his parents before the first war had even really begun. She would see Edgar Bones and his whole family slaughtered, his wife's arm around their youngest child trying to protect him even in death.
Alice Longbottom holding baby Neville, dangling a bright toy above his nose as he giggled while Frank reading a book aloud. Fabian Prewett flirting with Emmeline Vance as she rolled her eyes. Sirius and Remus walking through these very halls, Peter beside them and laughing at a joke. Beautiful Marlene whirling around in a fight with a smile on her lips, the most powerful witch Hestia had ever seen. Gideon smiling quietly, telling a joke during the best and worst moment.
A landslide of names. People she hadn't known as well entered the mix too – Alastor Moody, Dorcas Meadowes, Severus Snape, Emmeline's parents, Caradoc's parents, the entire McKinnon family. Hestia gripped her shoulders and tried to keep the tears from starting as she ran through the names, the list boring into her memory despite her attempts to block it out.
Alice, Emmeline, Lily, James, Frank, Gideon, Fabian, Marlene, Caradoc, Remus, Peter, Benjy, Edgar, Alice, Frank, Lily, James, Emmeline, Fabian, Marlene, Gideon, Remus, Alice, Emmeline, Lily, Alice, Lily, Emmeline... those three names turned themselves over and over in her mind, their faces dancing before her, laughing and screaming as they joked and died...
A grip on her shoulder brought her halfway to her feet, her wand in her hand and ready to attack. "Easy, Ms. Jones," a familiar and tired voice said.
Hestia took a few seconds to register the voice, then looked up into the calm eyes of Minerva McGonagall. "Professor," she said. "Sorry. You startled me." She lowered her wand and finished standing up. A trickle of dried blood alerted Hestia to a wound on her professor's head and she instinctively moved to take care of it.
"Ms. Jones, the day has not yet come where I cannot mend small hurts," Minerva said, pushing Hestia gently yet firmly away.
"Sorry," Hestia repeated, stepping back to her her shoulder rest against the wall.
"Are you alright?" The older woman asked, narrowing her eyes slightly.
Hestia thought for a few moments about lying, about plastering a smile on her face and nodding that she was fine, but then she closed her eyes and shook her head. "I keep seeing all their faces."
Within seconds she was crying, feeling the strong arms of her former teacher tight around her. She sobbed the names that wouldn't leave her head into Minerva's war-torn robes, staining the fabric dark with her tears. The older woman was whispering things that were probably nothing as Hestia cried her eyes out. So many times she had been in Minerva's place – Hestia had always been the one to hold it together, to be the shoulder for tears to land on, to murmur comforts until the crying had stopped.
For the first time in years, she allowed herself to collapse. Her former teacher made soothing noises and stroked her hair gently. The faces of her beloved friends swam in her eyes, mingling with the tears until everything was a watery blur.
When she eventually managed to calm down, the light coming in from the windows was shaded with twilight. Hestia pulled away and wiped her face, feeling embarrassed. "I'm really sorry," she said, not quite looking at the professor. "I just... I've practically built my life around war. When I was in Healer training there was a war on, and the past few years have been more of the same, and I've lost almost everyone I graduated with."
"Hush, Ms. Jones," Minerva said, an unexpectedly gentle smile on her face. "I cannot think of a single person who expects you to keep your head and be calm and focused all the time."
"But there are people that need me – I could do so much more to help and instead I'm a crying wreck."
Minerva looked at Hestia with a critical and yet still caring eye. "I have seen nearly all of the students that pass through these halls cry. There are very, very few who do not break down at least once for some reason or another. But you, Ms. Jones, even on your first day here you were always so cheerful. I watched you grow up taking care of people, of anyone who needed you. I watched you transform over seven years from a child who patched her loved ones up with anything she could find to a bold and caring witch who can heal with a touch of her wand and who on many occasions has thrown her own life on the line in order to help someone else. I cannot tell you how admirable that is.
"But," she continued, "that doesn't mean you aren't allowed to have a moment to remember your loved ones. I have loved and lost more times over the years than I care to speak of, and it took me a while to realize that I needed time for myself. I thought that if I threw myself into my work I could drown out my sorrow. And it did work for a few years, I will admit that. But there comes a breaking point in each of us, and it will just get worse if you don't accept your grief."
Finally Hestia met the older witch's eyes. "Believe me, Hestia. I see in you a younger reflection of me. Let yourself grieve. It helps keep the bitterness away." Minerva brushed Hestia's jaw with the backs of her fingers. "You're still so young. I know war has aged you beyond what you should be, but you're still so very young." She cleared her throat and blinked hard.
"Thank you, Professor," Hestia said quietly, a shadow of a smile on her face.
"Not at all, Ms. Jones."
Hestia watched her teacher walk away for a few seconds before she stared out the window. Dusk was falling heavily across the grounds, which were still ripped to pieces from the fighting. She laid a hand on the ancient stone of the castle and heaved a heavy sigh before continuing on her hunt for more trapped, wounded people. There would be time enough for grief after she was sure she had done all she could.