"Seventeen Days"
Silently, he prayed to God they'd knock him out, for even though they'd clearly shot him up with something, he felt it. All of it. If whatever it was wasn't working, Elphinstone didn't want to know the full extent of the excruciating pain coursing through his body. It literally crawled underneath his skin and surged through his nervous system. Why had he gone into that greenhouse? The yellow umbrella had broken underneath his weight.
A minute ago, some Healer jabbed him with a needle and his jaw unclenched. They all spoke at once and tossed out ideas, although one brave soul reminded them of protocol. There was a plan, a tried and true plan for this? Elphinstone didn't imagine people got attacked by Venomous Tentacula very often. On the flip side of that coin, people chose common sense and stayed away from dangerous plants on the other side of the greenhouse at Hogwarts.
Deep breathing did absolutely nothing. He reached out, purely out of instinct, as they rolled him onto his other side. Her hand had gripped the railing on the side of the trolley. Elphinstone blacked out when the spine serum kicked in, though he stayed very present. When they entered a private room, he supposed he ought to feel special. Fear, crippling fear, consumed him. He couldn't feel his legs!
A girl with a round face stared back at him. A pretty thing with dark auburn hair and brown eyes, he immediately pegged her for a Scottish girl. Deathly white, she wore lime-green robes like the rest of the small crew bustling around him. She was scared as hell.
"It's all right," he said, failing to squeeze her hand. Convulsions, an experience he'd already crossed off his list at Hogwarts Castle three times today, took him. The pretty girl, listening to the Healer, locked his head in place. Elphinstone screamed like a little girl and locked her hand in a death grip. For an old man, he still had his strength, his mind, some of his looks, and his teeth.
"Oh, my God, he's awake," said the girl, terrified.
Elphinstone thought he shouldn't call her this. It really wasn't fair because she was a young woman. He needed to drop the generation speak. Minerva had pointed out to him countless times that that "'girl", "young lady," and " woman" weren't not synonymous. Whenever he made this and similar slips of the tongue, he forfeited money over to this blue mason jar in their bedroom, though he had no idea why they continued this ritual.
The Healers, taken aback, checked their patient charts. Their panic did nothing to calm him, so he picked the Scottish girl as his friendly, ghastly pale, face in the crowd.
"Talk to me." Coaching her through this, Elphinstone felt stupid because the roles felt oddly reserved. Shouldn't she be the one holding his hand and feeding him nonsense about how he'd be back to normal in no time? She glanced away from him for the briefest moment, nodded, and pulled up a chair. Breathing hurt. As the convulsions abated, he asked, "What's your name?"
He guessed she already knew him intimately from the patient chart.
"Margery," she said, placing her hands on top of his, a clenched claw. The massage eased the pain. "It's my first day after certification."
"Oh, you don't know want to say such things aloud," said Elphinstone.
Hours later, he found it easier as some burly Healer force fed him potions like a small child. It tasted like licorice, followed by burnet meat, followed by a course of something worse. This reminded him remarkably of when his mother kept him at the table until he'd finished his haggis and butter beans, for the very memory made him gag. He threw up twice, which meant they had to start over again. When they finished, he declined water, exhausted and lay back. The last potion, a nice one, tasted like milk and honey, although the aftertaste of the others completely ruined it.
"That's the Lotus Leaf," said Margery, conjuring light blankets and wrapping them tightly around Elphinstone's body. "You'll be sleeping soon."
"It's nice," he said, feeling a sense of calm wash over him. "Where's my wife, Margery?"
"She's coming. She's on her way, sir." Margery helped him into a sitting position. After helping him to the bathroom, she scooped him up, not complaining about his dead weight, and got him back in bed. On his request, she conjured a warm brew, a blend mirroring the Lotus Leaf, warm milk and honey, blended with some vanilla extract. "What's this?"
"Vanillin," he said, taking a sip of the stuff and traveling back to his childhood. Reciting the recipe from memory, Elphinstone didn't actually know what it was called because the house-elf always made it whenever the other remedies failed. His mother, a socialite with new money, never had time to be a mother, and he was often sick as a child. Vanillin, a component of the vanilla bean, sounded like a good name. His mother and his father had treated the house-elf like vermin, pure vermin, but Elphinstone had always treated the creature as an equal. "Silas, the house-elf, kept this as a last resort."
"I've got to get some of this in my life," said Margery.
She got to her feet when there was a knock on the door. She was dead on her feet, and she was off shift, though a complaint never passed her lips. Elphinstone learned she wasn't a Healer, nor a Trainee Healer, but a matron. She was twenty-three. She was not, it turned out, a Scottish girl.
When Minerva came in, ashen white, he exchanged introductions. "Minerva, this is Margery Finnigan. Margery, I assume you remember her?"
"Professor McGonagall," Margery said, offering her hand and her chair. "It's Maisie. I've been assigned to your husband's case, and I don't know if you remember me, ma'am."
"Margery Edgecombe," answered Minerva automatically, there, but not really present.
"Yes," said Margery, checking Elphinstone's blank expression.
"She does that," he said in a bored tone. "Go home to your boy, Margery."
"It's Maisie," she corrected him, checking his patient chart, "though we're going to argue over this till you're out of here. I can see that. See you in five hours. Don't die. You have one job because I want that brew. Good night."
"Good morning," he said, feeling like he got a double dose with the Lotus Leaf and the Vanillin.
She placed the patient chat by the door and left. Minerva came over to the bed. When this had happened on school grounds, although he'd been in and out of it, he'd remembered seeing her face and hearing her voice. She'd found his body. Professor Sprout had stabbed him in the chest, directly in the heart, with the world's largest needle, and unfortunately, he'd been wide awake at that point. He'd cried harder than he could remember during that hell.
Minerva, completely hysterical, hadn't been allowed to come along on the ambulance during transport.
"How are you?" He offered her the half-empty cup of Vanillin.
"I should be asking you that question," she said, running her fingers through his white hair and pressing her lips to his forehead. Elphinstone closed his eyes at her touch, content for the first time in what felt like ages. Was it only Friday morning?
Elphinstone kissed her softly. "I love you."
"I love you, too," she said, her voice catching in her throat. She sat down. After explaining that she'd only just gotten out of a conference with no less than seven Healers, including two Healers-in-Charge, she admitted most of it went over her head. Minerva sighed when he offered her the Vanillin again. "I cannot drink after you because you're contagious."'
"It helps." He had no idea why.
He set it on the beside table. Or he tried. Contagious? Why hadn't he thought of that? It explained the private room, although the truth offered him no comfort. When the convulsions washed over him again, Elphinstone accidentally knocked his Vanillin over and spilled it all over the carpet. He bit down on his tongue, hard, and the waves of renewed nerve pain erased any hopes of sleep. Minerva jumped up, shushing him, and cried out desperately for help.
By the fifth day Elphinstone was tired of this shit. He kept his mouth shut, for it was easier on the hospital staff. Although Margery insisted she didn't care and she'd shoulder whatever whenever, he remained silent. As a lawyer, especially working at the Ministry, he was a talking man. On Tuesdays, because he'd worked through a lot of Saturdays, he'd devoted those quiet days to research. Some days, and Amelia Bones had loved this gesture, he put his legal brain aside and jumped into the trenches with the law students, the newcomers, and he showed them tricks of the trade.
This Tuesday, after he promised his team, which had a couple more Trainee Healers because his was a really interesting case, he'd travel to London and come back before six o'clock. Margery Finnigan would accompany him to London. Things had changed rapidly in no time. Yesterday, Monday morning, Healer Hawthorne, a man Elphinstone supposed not even God even played with, confirmed what Elphinstone already suspected: he lost complete control his right side, so his arm and leg were dead weight.
Margery pulled some strings and got him out of jail. After she'd helped him dress in a casual suit, she grabbed necessities and helped him into the light wheelchair. He needed a day out. After returning from Hogwarts late Sunday evening, Minerva said she'd taken a sabbatical, although Elphinstone had reason to believe Professor Dumbledore had forced this decision upon her. He might've presented it as a request, but it was no offer.
"You've never actually taken a day off," he said, glancing over his shoulder at Minerva as they entered the Ministry through the visitor's entrance. He'd never then this route before. Even after he'd retired, his privileges had stayed in place for the longest time. When he presented his wand to Eric, the security wizard, he noticed Eric stared a little too long. "It's not really that strange on this side of the fence. When she said nothing, and Eric thrust Elphinstone's wand back at him, Elphinstone added, "The day after we married doesn't count. You really don't know what to do with yourself."
"Shut up." Minerva followed Margery into the lift. Margery laughed quietly.
When they got onto the second floor, Margery asked if he needed anything. Elphinstone, thinking this a favorite question in her arsenal, pretended not to hear her. When Minerva asked for his keys, he gave her a list of cases, reeling them off easily. She didn't ask him to repeat himself, surprising him.
"Do you need the codes?" he asked. She rolled her eyes and joined them in the conference room minutes later. It was a large room with a polished wooden table and comfortable leather chairs. Margery parked him at the head of the table and stood against the wall. When Minerva placed the case files on the table, along with a blank legal pad and quill and parchment, he raised his eyebrows. "Okay, now you're just showing off."
"You're welcome." Minerva sat beside Amelia Bones. "You forget I was one of these people."
"Concepts conference, twelfth April," said Elphinstone, unscrewing an ink bottle with his good hand. He stopped, realizing he was stuck in this chair. "I need a runner, please."
The second witch to his right raised her hand. Elphinstone beckoned to her with his dead hand out of pure habit, for he had a quill in his left hand and jotted down notes, and the useless thing flopped around. He expected someone to say something, and when his runner gave a simpering laugh, he relaxed a little. It was what it was at this point. Elphinstone turned to face her, noticing she resembled a toad.
"Self-depreciation. If you don't have it as a lawyer, or an officer, whatever you plan with your law career, folks, learn it. You are not God." Elphinstone nodded at Amelia, who he knew was simply here to hide out for a while. He'd told her this only about fifty times when she worked with him. He flipped through the cases, feeling his mind go blank. This, among countless other things, was a side effect from one of the many potions they coursed through him. "Minerva?"
"Habeas corpus." Minerva gave him the answer, covering up his lapse.
"Yes. Habeas corpus. Which translates to?" Elphinstone shook his playfully at Amelia, whose hand shot up straight in the air so the surrounding students laughed. "Not you. Wait."
Amelia dipped her quill on an ink bottle. He imagined her sitting there doodling on scrap parchment or else crafting a plan. When nobody said anything for about three minutes, she said, annoyed with the whole lot of them. "Someone. Anyone?"
"You have the body," said a quiet voice at the end of the table. Elphinstone cupped his hand over his ear, asking him to repeat himself. He also asked for his name. "Kaspar Williamson. You have the body. Whenever a man is detained in prison, you have to tell a judge why."
"Correct. And why is that?" Elphinstone studied the group and waited for an answer.
In their first couple years at the Ministry of Magic, the teachings between an Auror and officer of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement didn't differ too much. Everyone needed to understand the law. Elphinstone paused, for Margery's hand distracted him. He smiled at her, thinking if she knew this answer, he'd eat Mr. Diggle's hat. He sat on the other side of the table. When he gestured at the group, including his runner who he had his back to at the moment. Thinking they needed a little, he pointed at Minerva.
"What's stopping me from arresting her?" If Minerva insisted on coming along, she was going to play along.
"Because she's your wife?" Amelia flipped through a folder and didn't disguise her laughter. "Conflict of interest, for one thing. Secondly, you're not an officer."
"I'm teaching here? Did you drag me up here for a reason?" Elphinstone frowned at her, deciding to go off her example. Because his was obviously a bad one. "People, come on. Unlawful confinement is illegal because…?"
"A man looses his voice," piped up Daedalus Diggle, the very last person Elphinstone expected to speak up. When Elphinstone gestured at him to stand up and told the runner to sit down, Daedalus took over her position, so he tapped the blackboard with his wand and dropped his hat. Words appeared on the backboard. It was nothing more than habeas corpus and its definition. "Men are not animals because they possess reason. Not that you should lock up an animal. Because man thinks through his problems, he gets to be brought in front of a judge to say his piece. It's only right."
"Why?" demanded Elphinstone, shifting in his wheelchair to face him.
"Because humans err, and we are wrong." Daedalus grinned at Elphinstone when he smiled. When Elphinstione smiled wider, preferring the clever Daedalus who rarely showed up on a good day, his face went lax. Amelia, noticing it first, jumped to her feet and dismissed the meeting. Daedalus, lost, looked crestfallen. "Why?"
Elphinstone tried to say something to comfort him as the room cleared, but he couldn't speak. It was like a spider crawled underneath his skin and weaved its magic with his nerves. Panicked, he grabbed for Margery with his useless arm before his wife got to his side. His jaw locked in place. Margery released the brakes on the wheelchair and spun him around. Only Amelia, Daedalus, Minerva, and the dedicated matron stayed in the conference room with him.
Minerva rushed over to him, leaving her handbag at her seat. "Elphinstone, talk to me. What's wrong? What hurts?" Everything, absolutely everything, he thought, locked inside his head.
"This is what he shouldn't have left the hospital," Minerva shot at Margery.
Elphinstone, needing a target, focused on the panicked Daedalus by the blackboard, and he'd thought he'd terrified the fellow he'd coaxed out of his shell. Margery blocked his target a moment later. She massaged his neck, moving her fingers in quick circular motions. Elphinstone had no idea why she did this, but it slowly relieved some pressure. Or perhaps he only imagined this.
"Okay. You need to shut up. Shut up!" Margery stood her ground against a woman most people feared, which impressed Elphinstone. "You want to help? Call an ambulance. Get out."
When they left, Margery lifted Elphinstone out of the wheelchair and placed him on the floor before she closed the door. She paced the room, weighing her options as Elphinstone watched her go back and forth, back and forth.
"You have clots in your neck," she said, sounding as though she talked herself through this procedure. A moment later, she held his face in her hands. "I need you to trust me, and do not look away from me. You got that?"
Elphinstone stared at her as she opened a bag and snapped on gloves. She took a scalpel out of a sleeve and cleaned his skin with a brown liquid. When she held it above him, Elphinstone shook his head ever so slightly because it hurt so badly. Margery lowered the blade, and it clattered onto the floor as medical transport arrived. Before they got whisked away by the ambulance, Margery locked the doors of the rig.
"Go!" She shouted at the emergency medical personnel in the driver's seat. When the EMP chatted with her, she relaxed a little, holding Elphinstone's hand. "What's going on?"
"Been a while since I've had Maisie Finnigan in my rig," said the EMP, putting the ambulance in drive. "What's up, baby? Still married to your layabout Muggle?"
Elphinstone wanted to laugh when Margery threw up her left hand, catching it in the rearview mirror. The EMP grumbled, seeing the ring, and his partner laughed at him.
"Got a neurosurgeon in my bed. What've you got, Tom?"
She explained to her dumbfounded EMP that a neurosurgeon performed brain surgery, and he gaped at her as they got put of the ambulance. They met Healer Hawthorne at the entrance doors, and she reeled off information at lighting speed. The Healer took over, calling her Maisie as she tried to back off the case. Margery doubled back, taking Elphinstone's hand again, and they traveled up the lift.
Nine days later, on the fourteenth day, Elphinstone seriously doubted he'd leave his hospital room again. Although the staff, especially Margery, kept him in high spirits, Elphinstone felt his life slowly slipping away from him. He wanted death. It had been the longest two weeks of his life, which certainly said something because he used to work eight hours at the Ministry of Magic regularly.
As he laid in bed thinking about his life, he wondered why much of it really mattered. Amelia Bones. He'd handcrafted that woman out of nothing, literally nothing, for the Ministry of Magic. Benjamin Fenwick had been his, too, his right hand man (or his lefthand man, for this was Elphinstone's dominant hand), though he was dead now. The two of them, Amelia and Benji, had married.
In his life, his personal life, things dwindled down to his best mate and his family and Elphinstone's life and her family. No regrets. Other than the part where he and Mitchel Burke had lost seven years over some woman, Mitchel's first wife, he held no regrets here. When it came to Minerva? Elphinstone chose not to dwell on this. In the end, he'd gotten what he wanted. He slept at least half his life away nowadays because he got to escape the pain, and it make life easier.
He woke up laughing in the middle of the night. Surprised he wasn't sleeping alone in the single bed, Elphinstone pulled his wife closer and breathed in her rosemary and lemon scented shampoo. Minerva's hair fell damp, though she'd changed into robes after taking a shower.
"What is it?" she asked, her eyes still closed.
"Oh, nothing. Thinking about Mitchel, I suppose. " He glanced at the lantern on the bedside table, wondering why she always kept the lights on. Thinking there was no time better than the present, he leaned on his good side, running his fingers through her hair. "I'm pretty sure this is against hospital policy. You're breaking the rules, Professor."
"I don't care," she said, turning to face him. "The chair is uncomfortable. And I couldn't sleep."
"Why not?" Elphinstone knew why.
If they didn't knock him out with three different sleeping potions, including the Lotus Leaf, he'd probably never fall asleep. They force-fed him everything, and he refused to eat unless he was hungry. He'd lost thirty pounds in a short period of time. On the plus side, the Healers had thrown most of the rules out of window, so he could eat whatever he wished when he got a hankering. He'd barely touched food today.
"Maisie came up an idea to get you to eat," she said, lighting the lantern on the other bedside table.
"Calling her Maisie now, are we?" He smiled. "I knew you liked her. No. I'm not smoking again. I can't believe you'd agree to that."
"I don't care. If it eases your pain, I don't care anymore. It's not a cigarette."
"Minerva." He chuckled, brushing her hair out of her face and kissing her. "I grew up much less sheltered than you. I grew up with Mitchel, all right? Give a man some credit, okay? I know."
"Oh. You never told me that."
Elphinstone relaxed a little, trying to make this as comfortable as possible for her, though he'd never thought of her as the pious reverend's daughter. He knew, he simply knew where this conversation was headed. The substance was an illegal one. Mitchel would go through lengths to not see his friend, his brother, in pain. They'd known each other since they were small boys. Elphinstone knew this was why Mitchel hadn't visited him in hospital; he couldn't watch Elphinstone die.
Minerva had visited the Three Broomsticks last night, and as the barman, Mitchel got his hands on this stuff.
"He gave you some?" Elphinstone shook his head, laughing before she even answered him. He would've paid money, good money, to see that awkward exchange. He held out his hand. "Give it here."
"Are you sure?" she asked.
"You want me to have an appetite?"
Minerva found a bag in her handbag and handed it over before she went to open the window. She handed him a lighter. "I can't believe a matron suggested this."
"I can." He lit up, took a drag, and closed his eyes. What did it truly matter at this point? He hadn't smoked anything in nearly twenty years, and he'd missed it without knowing it because it stayed dormant in the back of his mind. She wouldn't want to discuss this, especially not in the middle of the night, but Elphinstone needed her to hear he had set his affairs in order. "Minerva."
"No." She recognized his businesslike tone.
But he was running out of time. As an estate lawyer, the last thing he was his possessions contested in probate court. Not that he'd care, really, because he'd be in the ground. He worried about her.
"My lawyer is Jonathan Harkin."
She knew this already. But Minerva nodded.
"Everything's yours."
"Except whatever you've gifted," she said. "You're leaving Rosmerta your shares to the Three Broomsticks? She's Mitchel's granddaughter."
"And one hundred and fifty-thousand Galleons to cover expenses."
"Elphinstone, she's nineteen." Minerva raised her eyebrows, surprised. She chose not to argue with him when he shrugged it off like it was nothing. She moved onto her nieces and nephews. "Do I even want to know what you've left the kids?"
"Not really." He smiled, wrapping the contraband and handing it back to her. "Amelia gets a fourth of the estate. Though her children can't touch anything until they're thirty."
"That's generous of you," she said fairly, climbing back in the bed. Elphinstone understood this was the end of the estate discussion. When he started kissing her neck, she closed her eyes and enjoyed his touch. "You're tired, Elphinstone, I can tell by your voice."
"I'm exhausted," he admitted, exhaling deeply and resting his head on her shoulder. He nodded off for the first time without slipping into an induced coma in days, and she stayed by his side for the next few nights.
On the seventeenth day, Elphinstone simply drifted off to sleep.