Diane advanced cautiously, wand lowered but still gripped firmly, and tried to take in the scene in front of her. Charlie Weasley lay sprawled across her bed, his clothes torn and bloody. He appeared to have been trying to bandage a badly injured right shoulder, but the wound was wrapped loosely and messily, and it was already starting to bleed through the dressings. As she got closer, she saw that an angry, oozing burn spread along the back and side of his neck and down behind the opposite shoulder. His ankle was bent into a strange angle, and the side of his face looked dark and swollen even in the dim light.
She had neared almost to the point where she could touch him. His eyes were not entirely focused as he watched her approach; when she finally stopped directly in front of the bed, he rolled his head back woozily and blinked at her a few times.
"Hey, Diane." A muscle in his jaw twitched in a way that meant pain, and she dropped all misgivings and sat on the bed beside him.
"Lie still," she commanded. "Let me see if I can fix the horrid job you've done on this shoulder." Carefully, she pulled aside the bandages. Underneath, the gash bit deep into his flesh, stretching from the taut muscles of his neck and shoulder down across his chest.
"Tarda Cruorem," she murmured, passing her wand gradually along the length of the wound, and then repeated the incantation when she reached the other end before working her way back up. Charlie let his head roll backwards, closing his eyes as she worked.
She paused. The injury still gaped across his skin, but blood had stopped flowing from it. "Charlie," she asked, voice stern, "How did this happen?"
"'s a long story," he replied through gritted teeth.
"You were cursed." There was no question in her voice. "The wound isn't responding as it should be because it was designed to resist normal healing; someone attacked you with dark magic."
He looked at her without answering. She sighed.
"I guess the story can wait. I can fix it, but there'll be some scarring, and I need to clean it first. This might hurt a bit. I'll give you something for the pain."
She rose from the bed, but he stopped her with a hand on her wrist. She turned to look at him, and he held up an empty glass vial. "I think I already used all of it."
"What?" She snatched the vial from him. Sure enough, written on it in her own neat handwriting were the words Dolor Elixir. "This had twelve times the normal dose! You shouldn't have needed all of it for that gash! What were you thinking?"
"Not for my shoulder." He tilted his head backwards stiffly. "My back."
Leaning over him, she carefully helped roll him onto his front, using her forearm to support his wounded shoulder and chest above the bed. His shirt hung in tatters, already mostly destroyed; it didn't take her long for her to remove it entirely. When she had, she drew in a quick breath.
The burn she had seen on his neck extended all the way down his back and continued until it reached his waist. In places, the skin was shiny and blistered, but mostly it was charred and black, entirely destroyed. There was a purple sheen to the burnt area that Diane didn't like the look of at all. Gently, she reached out a hand and touched an area of unmarred skin at the edge of the burn. Charlie groaned, his face pressed in Diane's sheets; the skin was ferociously hot to the touch. As she scrutinized the injury with a more wary eye, she saw exactly what she feared: in places, the edges of the burn seemed to be moving, advancing…
She knelt at the edge of the bed by Charlie's face and he shifted to look at her.
"I'm amazed you haven't passed out yet," she said softly. "Later, I'm going to want you to explain things," Charlie's eyes shifted uneasily away from hers. "But right now, I need to put you under in order to better treat you." She laid a hand across his forehead and put her wand by his temple. "Just relax. Don't resist me."
She closed her eyes and muttered a few words. Slowly, Charlie's eyes began to unfocus, then to shut. When she looked up again, he was breathing deeply in a magical sleep.
With Charlie unconscious, Diane let her emotions briefly flood over her. She had no idea what was going on, what kind of trouble Charlie was in. She hadn't seen him in years, and now…for him to show up at her apartment, under these circumstances…She glanced over at his motionless form, at his glistening, blackened back, and he moaned a little in his sleep. Diane felt suddenly overwhelmed, weighed down by helplessness.
She closed her eyes and breathed in, out. Pull yourself back together.
"I need another pair of hands," she said aloud, and grabbed a sheet of parchment. After scribbling a quick message, she called to Galen.
"I need this delivered quickly, alright? I don't care if he's sleeping, or with some girl, or at a bar, make sure he gets this and don't come back until he's on his way over here. It doesn't matter if you have to bite his ear off, make sure he comes." Galen regarded her for a moment with silent round eyes, and then set off through the open window.
"Alright," Diane whispered to herself. "Let's hope I know what I'm doing, Weasley."
Diane was applying Murtlap essence to Charlie's back while trying to keep stirring the potion she was brewing when she heard a small 'pop' come from the kitchen.
"Finally," she breathed, wiping sweat from her face before calling out, "In here, Watson!"
"Hey, Boss!" Watson strode into the room. "What the hell is going on? Your note wasn't clear at all, and that bloody owl of yours wouldn't leave me alone!" He paused, looking around the room. "Who is he?"
"An old school friend," Diane replied impatiently. "He got into some trouble, and I need another pair of hands to help fix him up." Jack moved closer, peering curiously over her shoulder at Charlie. "I've got to make an ointment for his back: I think that's the only way it stands a chance of healing. Meanwhile, I need you to watch him and put Murtlap essence on the burns. Apply a freezing charm around the edges every five minutes or so, but do not put water on it. That'll just aggravate it."
Jack's face whitened and his eyebrows shot up. "This burn is from Fiendfyre."
"Well," Diane sighed, turning to concentrate on her potion. "I'm glad that you've learned something about healing while you were studying under me."
Mechanically, Watson grabbed the bowl of Murtlap essence and gently began smoothing it over the destroyed skin. "What happened? Who is he, really? Some sort of criminal?"
"No!" Angrily, Diane blew a strand of hair out of her face. "Like I said, he's an old school friend. I don't help criminals!"
"Well, that must be some trouble he got in if he was running into Fiendfyre. That's really dark magic." Diane concentrated on adding the right amount of Yeti hair to her small cauldron as Watson plowed on. "He might not recover; I mean, that potion you're brewing is supposed to be hellishly hard, and…"
"Watson!" Diane snapped, feeling her temper getting the better of her. "I know what I'm doing! Merlin's beard, do you never know when to just shut up?"
"Sorry," Watson replied in a rather small voice. Diane bit her lip and stirred her potion carefully, trying not to think too much.
The hours stretched on. Diane felt the sweat running down her neck as she worked on the potion, sitting in the middle of a haze of heat and smoke. Once, she realized only just in time that she had been about to add dried nettles when she was supposed to be using peppermint, and although she had caught the mistake, the taste of panic had remained in her mouth long afterwards.
Seated on the bed beside Charlie, Jack lacked entirely the attitude which he usually gleefully displayed. In caring for his patient, he was uncharacteristically quiet. When Charlie moaned in his sleep, he responded immediately with more Murtlap essence, or with a gentle touch on the forehead. He wiped the sweat from the other man's face, and was methodical about applying a freezing charm every few minutes.
I was right to bring him, Diane reflected to herself sometime around midnight. The kid was a natural Healer, kind-hearted and perceptive in the face of suffering. And she could not have handled this on her own.
The clock had just struck two in the morning when Diane added the last of the shredded Phoenix Fern to the pot. With a soft hiss, the mixture thickened and turned white, and she immediately took it off the fire, stirring it tenderly a few more times before at last rising from her cross-legged position on the floor.
Jack looked up. "Is it ready?" She nodded, and he stood to get a closer look. "Well, it certainly looks the way it's supposed to. I guess he'll find out in a moment if it actually turned out alright." They both turned to look at Charlie. The purple-tinted burn extended over his entire back, and was inching over his sides. "I mean, it's not like there are any other options, right?"
"Right," Diane replied, trying to push down the nausea that she felt rising in her stomach. "Will you hold him still?"
Jack moved to Charlie's head. "I don't envy you what's about to happen, mate," he told the comatose red-head warningly.
Diane let her hand rest briefly over Charlie's hair. Please let this work, she thought fiercely.
She moved to Charlie's side, and took a ladleful of ointment out of the cauldron. Carefully, she let the mixture fall generously atop the giant burn, and then evened it across the charred skin with her fingers. He stiffened under her cautious hands, but then relaxed. For a moment, nothing happened. Maybe it's this easy, she thought in the silence. Or maybe I've done something wrong…
Quite suddenly, a high-pitched hissing sound filled the small room, and Charlie started thrashing wildly from side to side. "Hold him!" Diane screeched, but Watson was already on it, gripping Charlie's head carefully between firm hands. She grabbed his legs, and they both watched as the white salve that was spread over his back began to blacken, then to bubble. Even holding onto his calves, Diane could feel his body temperature rising. Charlie was groaning, loudly and painfully. A thin smoke began to leak from the crust of the now-black ointment, and then it came faster, emanating so quickly that soon almost the entire room was full of purple-tinted smoke.
Diane let go of Charlie's thrashing legs, springing up quickly to open the window. "Ventus!" she screamed. With a rush of hot air, the smoke swept out of the room, dissipating into the darkness of the night sky.
Slowly, she turned back around. Charlie was no longer struggling, and instead lay limply over the covers. Watson had fallen backwards, and sat with a shocked expression on his face, spread-legged on the floor.
"Is he alright?" she asked, panting.
Watson rose onto his knees to examine Charlie's still body. "He's breathing."
Diane closed her eyes to allow herself a quick moment of unadulterated relief. Opening them again, she walked over to the bed. "Alright then," she commanded. "Help me with this."
Together the two of them worked to remove the remnants of the potion smeared over Charlie's back. Where it had once been white and creamy, the mixture was now black, with a crusty, clay-like consistency. Underneath, however, Charlie's skin looked like skin again. It was red and raw, even peeling and bleeding a little in some places, but no longer scorched beyond recognition. When they had stripped away the last of the ointment, Diane sunk to the floor, back against her bed.
"Hey, Boss." Watson's voice seemed to come from very far away. "Boss."
"What is it, Jack?"
"You are damn good."
She couldn't help herself. She burst out laughing, and Jack joined in as Charlie snored softly in the background.