The Healer
Pt1
Esme Lupin's heart almost stopped when the shivering boy was carried into the room. His lips were tinted blue; his eyes half closed and with the mop of mousey brown hair and fading olive eyes, she almost believed a ghost from her past had somehow made its way onto the stretcher.
Theodore Nott had arrived by the assistance of one, very frantic older sister who had revealed the story on how the boy refused to take the Dark Mark. Their father had chosen to lock him in the cellar of the manor house with no source of warmth other than the expensive but thin robes on his fragile son's back. Esme had all but gone into unconscious state there and then. It was too similar. He was too similar. Not for the first time Esme was wondering if life was testing her.
*FLASHBACK*
In Hell, they wouldn't have survived the winter if they hadn't curled up around each other like they did. He refused to light the fire in the room the orphans resided in, and instead taunted them by making them light his. They were all packed into one corner, trying to share what little warmth they had; the eldest rimmed the outside edges and the youngest in the middle in hope to survive; the little ones always came first. Esme was in neither the middle nor the outer but somewhere in-between. She and her closest friend in Hell, Lenny, were in balls around each other, in ways that required a great deal of flexibility. All of them wished for at least one blanket, even if it was to be shared amongst many.
Esme knew something was wrong with Lenny. He was colder than usual, his olive eyes slowly dying and his lips fading into blue. She tried her best to get him warmer, even calling for the help of others. Some had stripped down to bare necessities in order to keep Lenny alive- Esme herself only in the meagre pathetic underwear she had scavenged on the streets a year before. There were many tears and screams of denial that night. The boy died in Esme's arms as she cried, her tears freezing on impact with the ice cold floor. The orphans of 52 became 51.
He did not share sympathies and after seeing Esme's tear-tracked face ordered her to place his body in the rubbish bags to be taken away by the bin men the following day. The bastard even joked how the boy couldn't have timed it better. She had done as she was told but not before stripping him down. She knew Lenny would've wanted what little he had to be passed on to save any others who had the misfortune of being dumped in Hell.
Lenny hadn't been the first and he wouldn't be the last.
*END OF FLASHBACK*
Esme's magic hadn't helped her then but she would be damned if she didn't use her now refined skills to save this boy. She got to work immediately; casting diagnostic spells; easing potions down his throat; healing and heating charms; piling on blankets, and, when she could do no more, she sat with him, holding his hand tightly as tears stained her face once more.
"I couldn't save Lenny," she said. "But please, for the love of life, don't die on me Theodore. I…" She choked. "I couldn't take losing another to the same thing."
Esme cried herself asleep clasping onto her patient.
Young Theodore Nott's eyes flickered open fully and he whispered, "Don't worry nurse," he whispered, his voice hoarse. "I have no intention of leaving this world just yet."
And somewhere, whether it be high or low, in the land of the dead; the ghost of a child called Lenny smiled down on his best friend and applauded her in his solitude for all that she had achieved and for not giving in to the darkness that had surrounded her.
This is meant to be one-shot but, if people are interested, I'll take it up as a multi-chapter story.
Please review and tell me what you think- it means a lot. 3