NOTES:
This is what happened when I had a plot bunny about a SOB-saga. ::dies:: Scary, hmm? Yes. Thalia has started another SOBfic. And a chaptered, long one, at that... Oh boy, oh boy...
DEDICATIONS:
This fic can't be dedicated to just one person. Not when all my SOBettes are awesome; the best (and hottest) group of girlfriends on the planet! Rock on, and keep SOBbing, darlings!
DISCLAIMER:
The girls belong to us. And it shall be made quite apparent that if you sue and thus piss them off... well, it will be very bad for you.
~*~ War Wounds ~*~
"Sodding Merlin, someone should bloody slap that raving wanker and put him in his place!"
Two women sat in a Spartan but oddly professional-looking tent. The older of the two, a deceptively docile-looking woman of about twenty-three with an almost Pre-Raphaelite beauty in her flowing mahogany locks and brilliant blue eyes, gave her companion a dubious glance.
"Fallon, as much as I share your sentiments, I don't think that it's quite feasible as of this time to slap the Dark Lord."
The younger woman scowled somewhat, and reached up a hand to brush back a wisp of dark hair behind her ear. Her head was bent over a cauldron, and her forehead was damp from the heat. "I know... but you must admit, it's a very appealing idea, Akasha."
"I suppose so..." Akasha said thoughtfully, "He is evil and all... But what brought on this new wave of resentment towards him?"
Fallon sighed, "Another C patient."
"Ah." There was no need for explanations. On the battlefields and in the tents, terms were made deliberately ambiguous, but also very concise. A C patient was someone who had been hit with the Cruciatus curse, and for someone like Fallon, battlefield healer, dealing with such a patient was nothing but trouble and trauma.
Akasha's voice softened slightly, "Who was it? How bad was it?"
Fallon gave a shrug, "No more so than the other two I'd dealt with today before him."
"You know, I'm glad that I'm an Interrogator, not a Healer."
"Ah well... to each her own," Fallon said as she stirred the contents of her cauldron. "And don't worry about me. I'm just tired."
"I can see..." Akasha reached over and gave her friend a brief pat on the shoulder, "Well… we all do what we have to do, hmm?"
"Yes… yes." Fallon knew this. She added a sprinkling of white powder to the potion, and took the cauldron off the fire. "All right. It's ready." She bottled up the potion in a number of small vials, and handed them to Akasha. "Truth potion… just for you."
"Thanks, Fallon," Akasha accepted the vials, and charmed them to fit into the small purse she carried, "Well, I had better get going. Good bye, and good luck."
* * *
The unmistakable cry and clash of curses broke Fallon out of her reverie. Head snapping up, eyes wide, she threw on the plain but functional dragonhide vest that lay on her cot and dashed out of her tent.
It was already over by the time she got to the scene.
Not that this was anything too unusual. There had been wards set up all over the place, for the sake of safety. And she could not Apparate. A good thing… because this way, neither could they.
Three bodies lay on the ground. Instinctually, Fallon steered clear of the one that was still glowing faintly green. Avada Kedavra. The person was dead. And whoever it was, the face was covered with a white mask.
Voldemort just lost a minion.
A good thing, and yet not. There would be retaliation. And she would have more patients.
She sighed and walked over towards another still form. Dead, too… not with the Killing Curse, but with a dagger imbedded in his chest. The ground underneath him was starting to dampen, to redden. An Auror, from his robes. Fallon did not know who it was.
She was too late to save either of them… and she sighed.
And there was a third, lying a little distance off from the others. And this one, Fallon could not place.
He wore neither the robes of an Auror, nor the robes of a Death Eater.
Was he a civilian?
If he was… what in the world was he doing here, on the battlefield? Was he crazy? Was she crazy and just imagining this?
Fallon knelt down cautiously by the side of the man, and brushed a careful hand along the side of his neck. All right… so there were no head injuries. Slowly and gingerly, she moved his head so that he was facing up, and then, she saw who it was. Cassius Warrington?!
A former classmate, a year above her, same house. She had no idea of his whereabouts after he had left school, but then… they hadn't exactly been friends.
She had not known him well, and though she certainly recognized him, there was no guarantee that he would recognize her as well. That is, if he were ever to wake up.
For he was alive. But barely.
Fallon paused, and looked uneasily at his still, tall form. He had been hit by a curse… or several. And at the moment, she had no idea which ones. Quickly, she strode over towards the dead bodies of the Auror and the Death Eater close by, and, after a quick pat-down of both, came up with both their wands.
"Priori Incantatem!" she called, holding her own wand over one, then the other. Dark, arching brows furrowed over slanted dark eyes as misty forms emitted from the wands.
Adoleo. A curse of fire. Suppuro. A festering wound. Converbero. Bruising and battering. Oh, God…
He was alive, but barely. And not out of danger. He would be in danger for a long, long time.
Without a word, she stuck the wands of the fallen into a pocket of her robes, and ran back to the fallen man. With a whispered "Wingardium Leviosa", he was afloat in front of her, and speedily, she took him out of the bloodstained battlefield.
* * *
She set him down on an empty cot. His face was flushed, the Adoleo curse heating his skin, embellishing the slightly tanned surface with sickly beautiful rosettes of coral red. He would burn with fever for at least two more nights, but that was not the most serious of her concerns. She had to find out where the Suppuro curse had impacted, and how serious it had been.
Silently, she took out a small, sharp knife, and cut away a section of his robe. No… not on his arms anywhere. Almost involuntarily, she looked at his forearms.
They were bare and free of blemishes and markings.
All right, so he was not a Death Eater.
Of course, this wasn't a complete reassurance that he was "safe"…
Sod that… she was a Healer. Whatever he was, whatever he did… she needed to find that wound…
Painstakingly, she continued cutting away at his robe, revealing more flushed, heated skin. Still no wound.
She had cut away almost a third of his robe before she found it. An ugly, weeping, discolored sore the size of her fist, the flesh loose and glistening with infection on his left side. She winced, and the grimace on her face only grew when loose threads of his robe stuck to the ooze of the wound when she pulled the fabric away.
Her face solemn, Fallon turned the unconscious man onto his side, so that the festering wound was facing upward, and not contacting anything. Keeping Cassius Warrington in the same position that she'd put him in with an immobilizing spell, she went to fetch a set of healing potions.
Soaking a white linen handkerchief in a pale brown healing draught, she dabbed at his wound, the handkerchief becoming sodden with bloody ooze, and the wound becoming slightly less poisonous-looking.
He had been hit with the curse at fairly close range.
She would have to keep the wound clean and doused with potion every several hours. Only then, would the healing potion be able to seep down through the layers of flesh and repair the internal damage that it had done.
It would take at least a month for him to heal.
And of course, there was also the fact that due to his feverish, weakened body from the fire curse, he would need to be protected from disease and infection from the wound. And then, there were the bruises.
He would be stuck here for a good few months.
As Fallon placed a handkerchief soaked in a cooling draught on his forehead, after brushing the shock of dark hair out of his eyes, she gave a slight shrug.
At least… here, she could keep an eye on him. And while he was indisposed, he would not be a danger to anyone in any way. No matter what side he really was on. Everyone would be safe from him.
She had no idea how mistaken she was.
~*~ End Chapter One ~*~
Tell me what you think! There will be more in the near future!