The Healing Touch
Chapter One
Madame Pomfrey's eyes widened as Ron stepped into the Hospital Wing, cradling the unconscious form in his arms.
"Mr. Weasley, what happened?"
"I don't know," said Ron. "I was coming out of the shower after practice, and there she was on the pitch. Looks like she fell. Dunno where her broom got to."
"What's her name," asked Pomfrey.
"Dunno. I think she's in Ravenclaw. I always see her sitting on the steps. Just call her 'Steppy,' usually."
The door burst open again as Ron help lay his charge down on one of the beds, and he heard a sigh of relief behind him.
"Thank goodness!" said Hermione Granger. "Parkinson told me you were on your way to the hospital wing--" She suddenly realised she was thanking goodness that someone other than Ron had been hurt, and blushed furiously, covering her mouth with her hand.
"Well, it's good that you're here, Miss Granger," said Madame Pomfrey. She held up her own bandaged hands. "I shall need both of your help. Are you familiar with Durban's Dermal Salve?"
Hermione nodded instantly.
"Yes, well, there is a jar on my desk, please bring it over. Mr. Weasley's doing a wonderful job of keeping her injured back off of the bed, but we'll need your help with her robes."
A moment later, Hermione had returned with the jar, and Pomfry directed her to place it on the bedside table.
"Now, Miss Granger, you'll need to remove this young woman's robes from her back. Mr. Weasley, would you be so kind as to turn yours?"
Ron stood and turned, blushing for no sane reason, until Madame Pomfrey touched his arm. "Miss Granger is taking good care of the young woman's modesty, Mr. Weasley, but she needs you to take good care of her back. Just get a good handful of that salve, and start rubbing it in."
Ron looked down at the girl's back, bruised and scraped and partly flayed by her fall, but elegant of line, and very strong. She was a good girl, this one, he decided, and dug his fingers into the open jar of salve. He looked up across the injured back, and Hermione, who was holding the girl's clothes over her front, smiled, and nodded.
Ron returned the nod, and began smoothing on the salve. It had a wonderful feeling on his fingers, simultaneously warm and healing and cool and soothing, and inflamed skin subdued itself to a healthy English pink as it smoothed on, Small abrasions began to close themselves, bruises began to lighten.
The young woman groaned with unconscious relief.
Ron grinned, and looked over at Pomfrey. "I'm doing it right, yeah?"
"Yes, Mr. Weasley, you're doing fine."
"I'm proud of you, Ron," said Hermione.
Ron grinned back at her. "Maybe later, I can show you my Healing Touch."
She raised an expressive eyebrow at him. "Maybe later, you'll need one."
Ron's eyes widened. "Fair enough," he said, and looked down at the young woman as he massaged the salve into her back. She groaned again, and Ron chuckled.
"At least she appreciates me."
Chapter Two
"You guys go on up ahead, yeah?" said Ron. "I'll meet you in a bit. I just want to stop by the hospital wing."
Harry smirked at him. "Now, I wonder why that could be! Are you injured, mate?"
"I don't think he is, Harry," said Hermione, a little darkly, "but that could change."
"Nah, c'mon, 'Moine, 's not like that. But the kid seems to, I dunno, need me. So I make her feel a little better. Is that such a bad thing?"
Hermione finally smiled. "No. I actually think it's rather sweet of you, Ron. Mind if I tag along?"
"Of course not!" Ron replied, a little too quickly, and Harry laughed.
"I'll come, too, then, shall I?" he said. "I'd rather like to meet this woman of mystery!"
"Come on, then," said Ron, and they trooped together up towards the stairs.
"So no-one knows who she is, yet?" asked Harry, and Hermione shook her head.
"No. She's not a student. None of the professors know her. Pomfrey's the first one to even notice she was here, and that was thanks to Ron. A lot of the students have seen her, sitting on the steps, smiling. She's never spoken. to anyone here, either."
The young woman lay quietly on her belly on one of the beds. Pain had settled on her features like a kind of weight. Hermione held Harry back at first, and Ron went over and perched on the edge of the bed next to hers.
"Hey, Step," he said, softly, reaching out a gentle finger to move a few strands of hair from her forehead. She looked up at him, and the beginnings of a smile played with her lips, while some of the weight seemed to lift from her eyes.
"He's so gentle with her," Hermione murmured to Harry. "It's really quite heart-warming."
Harry smiled at her, but he saw the tension in her shoulders, the sharpness of her eyes watching Ron with the girl.
"I'm sure there's no need to be jealous," he told her.
"Of course, not," Hermione murmured, as Pomfrey walked over, smiling, to her patient and visitor, and offered Ron a jar of salve. "He's just--" She suddenly blushed bright scarlet, realizing what she was saying, and snapped at Harry, "Why would I be jealous? I've got no claim on Ron!"
Ron unscrewed the top of the jar, and pushed up his sleeves as Pomfrey started undoing the ties at the back of the muggle-style hospital johnny the girl was wearing over a pair of pyjama bottoms.
"I should go over and help!" said Hermione quickly, and in a slightly odd voice.
Harry smiled, and went over and sat by Ron, watching as his friend gently applied the salve. The young woman's eyes slittled with contentment, and some of the muscle tension left her shoulders -- and seemed, Harry noticed, to go into Hermione's.
The girl looked up at Harry, and he smiled.
"Hello," he said. "I'm Harry."
She nodded, as if to say, I know who you are.
"Don't have much to say? Well, fair enough," he offered, with what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
The girl sighed, as Ron's fingers worked the salve into her injured back.
Harry nodded at her. "You're saying all you need to."
Chapter Three
Ron glanced over the young woman's back at Hermione. "Seems to be mostly better, yeah?"
Hermione glanced down. The smooth, elegant plains of the girl's back were mostly unmarred.
"Well, there is that," she murmured, angling her head toward an angry, livid red area, just above the pyjama bottoms.
Ron flushed. "Yeah, well... I didn't think I ought to... I mean, it's pretty far down, you know!"
Hermione smiled, and reached for the jar of salve. "No reason to leave the poor girl to suffer, Ron. I am here to help, you know,"
The silent young woman cocked an eyebrow up at her, and Hermione flushed almost imperceptly. She took some salve on her fingers, and began smoothing it gently over the angry weal. The girl moaned her relief at the salve's soothing magic.
"Hermione, are you groping that poor girl's bum?" came an amuse voice behind her, and she flushed and shot Harry a death-glare.
"Harry James Potter, it is hardly appropriate for you to be making jokes like that. This poor young woman has an injury that's been neglected due to Ron's discomfort with treating it, and now you're here, making cracks like that, making her uncomfortable as well!"
Harry glanced down at the girl, and saw the amused glint in her eye.
"Am I making you uncomfortable, Step?"
She smirked at him.
"I don't think Harry's making her uncomfortable, Hermione."
Hermione's death-look encompassed Ron as well, but her fingers wer gentle as she smoothed the salve over the weal and the area around it, her fingertips gliding gently under the edge of the pyjama bottoms and knickers to get the salve to just another inch or so of skin.
Ron watched Hermione's fingers on the girl's -- er -- lower back, a flush rising to his cheeks, and he tried, instead, to pay more concerned attention to the weal itself.
"Looks sort of like a heart," he mused quietly, and Harry grinned at him.
"It's a Valentine, mate," Harry told him, with a grin. "Her Valentine for you!"
Hermione and the girl both swatted him at the same time.
Chapter Four
Hermione grabbed Harry's arm, and dragged him off to another corner of the hospital wing. Ron followed along, with a smile and a wink at the young woman on the bed. If someone other than him was going to get a bollocksing from Hermione, he certainly didn't want to miss it.
"Honestly, Harry," Hermione hissed at him, "your behaviour is completely unacceptable! This is a hospital! People here are exposed in a way that they seldom are elsewhere in their lives, and they're very vulnerable! You simply cannot make jokes about that exposure! It's-- It's degrading!"
She wheeled on Ron. "And don't think I missed the look on your face, either, Ron. That girl is not here to give you two some pervy jollies! That was the application of a necessary medicament. There's no excuse for you to act like it's red-hot, girl-on-girl action!"
"I never!" cried Ron. "Well... Only a little! But it's not my fault, Hermione, I'm a teenaged boy! She's got a very pretty back and you were putting your hands--"
"I know where I was putting my hands, Ron! That's why I was the one putting them there. That's the point, Ron. She can't help where she was injured, so it's really not right for you to--"
"I know that, Hermione! That's why I tried to look elsewhere."
"Really, Hermione," Harry interrupted. "It's not Ron's fault I let everything be a straight-line. I'm very sorry."
"I'm not the one you owe an apology to!"
Harry looked at his feet for a moment, then slunk back over and perched on the edge of the bed next to the girl.
"Look," he told her, "I'm really sorry. I never meant to say anything untowards or improper. I really, really hope I didn't make you feel uncomfortable, or ogled or something.
"It's just... I kind of think of you as one of us now, you know? So I just thought I could tease you the way I do Hermione and Ron. I promise you, absolutely promise, I meant no disrespect. Will you forgive me?"
Harry's green eyes looked earnestly into hers as he waited for her answer.
Chapter Five
The girl merely stared up at Harry, her face nearly blank but for her hooded eyes and the grim set of her jaw.
"Oh, Merlin!" Harry put his face in his hands, and when he did, she waggled an eyebrow at Ron and Hermione, and tipped them the slightest wink. The eyes were hooded and surly, though, by the time Harry's face emerged from his hands.
"All right," he said, very quietly, very sincerely, "what can I do to make it up to you, Step?"
Her bottom lip quivered slightly, and she lookled at the floor, then back up at him, firmly, and shifted her gaze significantly over to the jar of salve on the bed-side table, and back into Harry's eyes.
"You mean-- You want me to-- to--"
Her eyes remained on his, unwavering, for a moment longer.
He took a deep breath.
"All right, then," he murmured, and pushed up the sleeves of his Gryffindor jumper, reaching for the jar. He scooped a generous dollop of the soothing salve onto his fingers, and looked back down at her bare back. The angry red mark was awfully low down, and Hermione had made a point of how important it was to not just cover the mark, but surround it by a couple of inches.
You can do this, Harry. The girl asked for your help. She's not here to be ogled or groped, just needs your help, and that's where she needs it.
Another deep breath and he brought his fingers down on the skin just above the livid weal, gently, firmly massaging in the salve. He was concentrating on what he was doing, so he saw niether the girl's merry wink at Ron and Hermione, nor the very real smile of pleasure that subsumed her features.
The skin of her back was smooth, and very warm -- actually hot over the weal itself -- and quite pleasant to the touch, and Harry tried to focus his thoughts only on healing, only on helping. She's here because she needs your help, Harry.
Chapter Six
He saw a shadow across from him, and realised Ron had perched himself on the other neighboring bed, reaching a long arm over to the jar. "Let me help you out, there, mate."
Harry frowned up at him. Help me out? That's ridiculous! The whole area we're dealing with here is smaller than Ron's hand!
But Ron's fingers joined his on the angry mark, occasionally sliding against his, and the Ginger-haired boy looked up at him, and said, "So, mate, I'm telling you, Puddlemere hasn't a hope next week against the Cannons."
His fingers gently steered Harry's under the edge the girl's pyjama bottoms and knickers, spreading the salve into territory that was undeniably her bum, the top of the swell of her buttocks and the cleft between, as he told Harry, "You know Oliver can't hold the team together in the face of the Cannons' offensive line-up."
Harry's eyes locked on Ron's. That had been, quite possibly, the stupidest thing he'd ever heard -- and that was taking into account that he'd lived over a decade with the Dursleys!
"You're mental, mate! I mean, look, I know you love the Cannons, but honestly, Just look at Puddlemere's record! And with Oliver as keeper? I'm sorry, but Chudley might as well concede now. Their record will be the same, and it'll save them all that time changing in the locker room!"
"Oh, now hang on!" Ron cried.
As they wrangled about Quidditch, a house elf appeared with a tray containing a bowl of warm soup, and Hermione intercepted him. "I'll take care of this," she told him. "You go relax."
She took the tray, and heard the house-elf grumble, as he turned and disappeared, "First Miss Hermione tries to pay us, then she takes our jobses away!"
She looked pained by the comment, but brought the tray over, and perched next to Harry, by the girl's face. "Soup's here," she told her. "Would you like some?"
The girl's eyes, closed in a dreamy smile of pleasure, slitted open, and she looked gratefully at Hermione.
Hermione glanced over at the boy's four hands, smoothing salve on the girl's lower back -- yes, she admitted to herself, and the top part of her bum -- with a gentle but respectful touch that any healer would be proud of, while Ron continued speaking incomprehensibly but apparently provocatively about Quidditch, keeping Harry's attention on him rather than his fingertips. Her heart swelled with pride for both her boys.
She could only try to do as well. She dipped a spoon into the soup, a rich, beefy afair that smelled wonderful, and brought it up to the girl's lips.
She slurped it in noisily, with an embarrassed, grateful smile up at Hermione.
This had continued for about five minutes, when she heard the sound of a throat clearing behind her, and all four people looked up, into the twinkling gaze of Professor Dumbledore.
Chapter Seven
Ron and Harry froze, eyes wide, with their fingers down the back of the girl's knickers. Sheer, stark terror filled both of them at the same thought: Trying to explain this to the formidable Molly Weasley.
But Dumbledore smiled widely, his eyes merry.
"Harry, Ronald. Poppy tells me you've been an inestimable help in caring for this young lady -- and you as well, Hermione!" He tipped her a wink, and she flushed with pride. "I'm so sorry to interrupt."
He took a step closer, glanced approvingly down at Ron's and Harry's hands.
"It's good to see that Poppy, if anything, understated your excellent care!" He approached more closely still, went down on one knee beside Hermione, and gazed kindly into the young woman's eyes. "These three young people have been very good to you, have they not?"
She smiled, and nodded, her face content.
Dumbledore nodded, and lay a hand gently atop her head. "I think, perhaps, though, it's time to go. Don't you?"
She looked up at him, a little sadly, and essayed the slightest nod.
"You know, of course," Dumbledore told her, "That you will always be welcome here. We will be here to greet you on your every return."
His tone became more serious. "But you also know what I once told young Harry. It does not do to dwell on dreams, and forget to live."
She nodded, slowly, and then turned to sit up in the bed, as Harry and Ron stepped back. She held the open hospital johnny to her chest with one hand, and with the other, reached over to Hermione, her fingers sliding through the hair at the back of her head and drew her close. Her voice, the barest whisper in her ear, was Northern, perhaps Manchester, with only the faintest traces fo London. "Thank you Hermione."
She kissed the Gryffindor on the cheek, then stood, regarding Harry.
She reached behind his head as well, pulled him down to whisper in his ear. "Thank you, Harry. I was never mad. Just making you sweat a bit."
She held his head there for a moment, placed a gentle kiss on the corner of his mouth. He blushed, and smiled down at her.
She turned around, faced Ron, who had come around the foot of the bed. His blue eyes gazed warmly down at her, and she returned his smile, and brought her hand from her chest as stepped towards him. The Johnny began to slip down, revealing elegant clavicles and the beginnings of the twin swells before she was against him, her arms wrapping around him, her head resting for a moment on his chest. He brought his arms around her with a smile. She looked up at him a moment, and spoke aloud to him, her voice thick with Manchester and emotion. "You've been so kind to me Ron. Thank you so much."
She reached up, pulled him down, and kissed him, fresh and peckish, like a child, square on the mouth. But though she kissed him as a child would do, she clung on just a little longer than she needed to.
"She's a very lucky girl, you know," she said. "And she loves--"
And at this point, although her mouth still moved, her voice was silent, and Ron felt his arms sinking into her back, as it became unsolid, ephemeral, and in moments, Ron was hugging a hospital johnny to his chest while empty pyjama bottoms and knickers fluttered to the floor.
Chapter Eight
The trio looked, stunned, for a moment, at the place where the girl had been, and turned to Dumbledore, who was smiling gently at them.
"What happened to her?" Ron finally asked.
"She returned home, Ronald."
"I don't understand," Hermione said. "Hogwarts is warded against all forms of magical teleportation. How could she...?"
Dumbledore's smile widened. "A remarkable girl! A remarkable girl!"
"Was she..." asked Harry, as Hermione flushed yet again. "Was she a... ghost?"
"No, dear boy, no. Not a ghost, but a spirit. Or, perhaps, part of one. We get many visitors here at Hogwarts. Usually, we aren't even aware of them, or are only peripherally." He gestured. "Anonymous faces in the halls, usually seeming happy. Sometimes, though, when a spirit is in especial pain -- plagued, perhaps, by a physical injury -- they come here to heal, to be succored and cared for, and to have returned to them some of the love they bring us."
"Where do they come from, Professor?" asked Hermione.
"Oh, other worlds, i suppose. Other times. Who can say? But whenever they visit, they bring us their love, and bring us life, and they deserve to be cherished. I daresay, as little aware of them as we are, we would be less than nothing without them."
"And she left because she doesn't need us anymore?"
Dumbledore's smile was kind. "No, Ronald. She will always need us. But the healing she needed... That was done. You three young people provided that most admirably. And past a certain point, to stay here as she was... It ceases to be healing, and becomes another kind of illness. No, Ronald, she needs you still, have no fear, but it was time for her to leave. You will see her again."
The three young people looked back and forth among themselves, and Ron shrugged, and looked at his feet. "Well," he murmured, very quietly, "G'bye, Step. I'm glad you came for a while."
Harry's hand came down on his shoulder. "All right there, mate?"
Ron blinked, and looked over at his friend. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Let's go down, yeah? I think it's time for dinner, and I'm starving!"
Hermione set the tray on the now empty bed, and stood. "When aren't you hungry Ron?"
He grinned back at her. "When it happens, I'll let you know."
Dumbledore smiled, holding the hospital wing's doors open for them. "Please, Ronald, do include me in that dispatch. I should like to inform the Daily Profit, I think. Ronald Weasley Not Hungry sounds to me like front page news!"
And the four set off together towards the dining hall.
Sarah woke slowly, eyeing the clock with a slightly sour expression. Half eleven! I could sleep through the last trump!
She got out of bed and stretched. Her back still hurt like mad, but she thought of writing she could be doing, the amount life she was missing out on by sleeping so late. The pain was still there, but somehow, she was feeling much better.
It's good to be back, she thought, then frowned. What the hell did I think that for? I haven't been anywhere!
She shuffled toward the bathroom and her morning ablutions, stretching again as she went.
The End
My fellow writer, The Steppy One, recently joined Live Journal, and mentioned that she was really hurting from a back injury. I thought she needed more help than she was getting, so in the comments section of her journal, I sent her off to get proper care in the Hogwarts hospital wing. Each chapter presented here was posted as an individual comment over the course of a few days in August of 2006.
Of course, then my ego bloated, as it always does, out of all proportion, and I wanted to clean up the typoes that were created by me writing the story in her "Comments" fields, and put it up here. Step seemed to appreciate it. I hope you will, too.
Yes, that is a deliberate quote from Jake Thakray. he said it first, and better than I could.