Insufferably Stubborn
Summary: In any universe, Ellen will do as she damned well pleases, ya hear.
Notes: AU Howgarts was a multi-fandom game where anyone from any canon could have been "tweaked" into being part of the Harry Potter Universe.
This snippet came into being while discussing how Jo Harvelle's background would have to come together, to make her both a wizard with the kind of attitude she had in her show, and the kind of girl raised in America in the kind of world her show always had her set in.
William Harvelle is a wizard, and damn good one at that. He works in a high, high specialized department among the Auror's. Ellen Harvelle runs a bar, for a very specific rough and tumble "clientele," in America. I really don't want to ruin any of the rest of it for you.
.
.
.
It took twelve hours for her to wake up. And everyone could hear it when she did, even if she probably couldn't hear the snickers in the hallway. The reaction to realizing she couldn't move from the bed had shaken the whole bed itself.
"It's called a Binding Charm." A smooth voice announced from the door.
All her panic at being unable to move and changed it, with lightning-like metamorphosis, to a livid anger of being bound up on purpose by someone who knew better. Dark brown eyes throwing daggers at the man in a way her hands could not.
She watched - his hair always needing a trim, and his coat that boasted of never falling apart no matter how close it looked like it might - walk slowly toward here, while tucking the wand behind his back.
"They said you'd need two more days of bed rest." Sitting on one side of the frozen blankets, he raised a hand as though, perhaps, to touch her, and thought better of it. The way one might with a rattled snake. "And that you'd never stay once you were awake."
"Unspell me. Now." Might as well have hissed from her. The furious demand in her voice made those three words more forceful than any missing slur. A direct promise of what would happen if he did - and if he didn't.
"In two days." William tilted his head, considering the head board above her hair. "And if you're good, maybe use the bathroom. You really don't want to know the things we've worked out for the infirm and insane. A tour of St. Mungo's really is enlightening."
"I hate you."
"That's fine." An Ellen who could talk of hate this passionately was completely welcome over the silent, slow breathing one, who'd barely moved and taken up so little of the bed, that shivered to contain her now. "You'll have time to change your mind."
She also seemed to be totalling just how many hours there were in two days. "I'm fine. I have things to do. Someone has to run the bar, all of-"
"Someone else can do it until you're better." William frowned, scrubbing his fingers through the far more than five o'clock shadow loitering on his face. "Maybe not then. Maybe a week, or two after even, if I can swing it. You'll be busy right after."
Ellen's hate for him seemed to morph into a face that was asking, without her mouth, how crazy he thought he was. "I will?"
"Yes." William said sternly, expression unwavering.
"Doing."
"Getting married." Her eyebrows went high, with a combined clash of anger and startling surprise. But he went on before she even seemed to get words to form from the small 'o' her mouth had split to. "You were supposed to wait for me."
Ellen seemed very antsy to move and yet almost incapable of figuring out which way to go suddenly. She'd shifted to twitch in a direction, only to move back half a second later. Swallowed and knit her expression, uncertainty with a clear shot of unwillingness to waver.
"I didn't spend the first half of my life waiting from a man on a broom to sweep out of the sky and save me."
His posture seemed to gain some of the exhaustion of the many hours waiting, as he looked at her incredulously even though he spoke with such a bared solemnity. "You can't even fly and I want to nail your feet to the ground when you are out of sight for five hours."
Ellen let out a huff of a breath. That was it, wasn't it. They were from two completely different worlds, even if they were doing nearly that same job. Completely different. It hadn't made any of this simple. Fun. But not simple.
"You wouldn't have ever come back, if I was content with staying put. If it wasn't like this-" Except her mouth stuck and she grimaced, having seemed to have tried to move some part of her leg and discovered she couldn't at the same time. "You do know you're supposed to ask if someone wants to marry you."
"If I've learned anything about you, Ellen," Bill said as he found where her hand was under the blanket, and patted it lightly - not exactly awkwardly, nor like he was anywhere near used to comforting anyone. "It's that asking is for...pussies? Besides, I can just bind you to the altar, too."
"Then, I really would hate you." But her mouth twisted in amusement, at his searching faced and locating such a 'muggle' term, such a term used here and not there, despite the resurgence of the seriousness at his reference.
"What? It'd totally be an improvement on your day," he said, voice getting deeper and warmer, an undercurrent of humor breaking out again. "At least I wasn't trying to harvest all your inner organs to raise a god that died two millenia ago when I did it."
"I wouldn't kid yourself. You want me to believe the power of love knocked William Anthony Harvelle, and his no time for women and hunters and muggles, outta the sky. That sounds like it might be far worse, and terribly more dangerous in the long run."
He shrugged, and finally leaned over to place a simple, if scratchy, kiss on her forehead, saying quietly. "At least then I'd known you'd have to come home to me, even if I couldn't convince you to stop running out after the worst of our monsters."
"You don't even like America." Ellen said, studying him far more closely.
"I'm pretty sure at least one part has infected me terminally."
"Just keep digging that hole of yours deeper, who don't you."
"Then just say yes already, you insufferably stubborn woman."
"Never." But Ellen, all dark eyes and pleased smile, kissed him.