FanFiction.Net
~*~
Qh4+
Black Queen
He couldn't believe he had actually lost control and hit the other man. It frightened him to know that he still had that uncontrolled anger in him; he thought age had given him control over his strong feelings. Blood still pounded in his ears, but the burning rage was beginning to fade and was swiftly replaced by guilt and concern. He hoped that he hadn't hurt the other man too badly. It was years since someone had managed to provoke him like that and even back then only a few persons had ever managed to rile him up like this. Most of them were supposedly dead. One of them was standing in front of him.
Blood flowed from the other man's nose, but Ron still had the feeling that he was the one that was worse injured of the two of them. The acid words still caused a dull ache, and a small but noisy part of him screamed that he should be beating the shit out of this man for insulting his family. But he didn't listen to that voice anymore. He had already played right in the hands of the bastard, and when he hit him he had admitted his defeat. The words had ripped open old wounds and rubbed salt and acid into the bleeding cuts. He didn't want to give the man the pleasure to see that his words had cut deep enough for him to want to beat him to a bloody pulp, so he breathed deep and counted, and counted.
"No need to overreact." The other man said calmly and oddly familiarly. He took his hand away from his bleeding nose. After one look at his slender fingers, painted crimson by blood, he turned ghost-pale and passed out.
Oh great. Just great. What was he going to do now?
~*~
William Rosier smiled as he cleaned up the mess remaining on the lunch table. There was a lot of soup left, and that was a bit disappointing, but he had seen a lot of people eat it, and not only old people. He couldn't suppress a chuckle. They wouldn't know what had hit them, and neither would the health officers. It would take 12 to 24 hours before the full effects set in, according to the book, and surely they would be too stupid to trace it back here. This would be nothing like food poisoning.
Since it was plenty of soup left that would be thrown away anyway those who had worked today sat down for a quick meal. Gina sat down next to him and offered him a bowl of soup. He was a bit hesitant at first, but then he remembered something from the book - the potion only worked on Muggles, he was almost certain it said that. He smiled wide and accepted the bowl. Perfect. No one would suspect him if he had eaten the stuff himself. It was an excellent idea. He was pleased with himself for coming up with such a cunning detail.
The soup was delicious.
~*~
Every little piece of medical magic he had ever known seemed to swirl around in his head, he felt a bit dizzy for a moment. Had the other man only fainted he would have put his legs higher than his head to let the blood flow back to his head, but right now blood was pouring out of that same head and he had heard somewhere that bleeding body parts should be placed high.
Then there was a small possibility that he had fainted due to some unknown disease or medical condition - he had looked like he was ready to pass out after attacking him. He conjured a towel and some ice to try and stop the bleeding, but he would probably have to mend the poor bastard's nose somehow. Having five brothers he knew something about broken noses. There where fairly simple charms to heal them but he couldn't recite them from the top of his head. He had a book on medical magic home in his flat, and he didn't dare to try something complicated without step-by-step instructions. Magical mistakes involving body-parts was usually a messy thing - he remembered that Vaseline-incident all too well.
The towel and ice had lessened the blood-flow somewhat, but he didn't want to take any chances. He scooped up the unconscious man in his arms and Apparated directly home, braking at least four different laws and regulations doing so.
~*~
Ron staggered under the man's weight when he arrived with a pop in the middle of the living room. He put him down on the sofa and left the towel for him to bleed on while he searched his bookshelves for the appropriate book. He had two rather large bookcases, one covering the wall to the kitchen, and one on the opposite wall, near his desk. He found the book on healing on a low shelf, crammed in between his advanced potions book and a stack of old notebooks. He must have managed to spatter something sticky on one of the books because they were stuck together. He pulled both of them out and tried, unsuccessfully, to pry them from each other.
After consulting his aged copy of Household Healing - now with a potions extension glued to it - Ron performed a simple healing-charm to stop the remaining blood flow. The other man was still out cold. A quick diagnostic charm from the war popped up in his head, it was not that specific, but if the patient had any internal bleedings, corrosive curses or other life threatening conditions, you would know. A faint orange glow reassured him that his patient seemed to be fine. He stopped to think for a while. It would be easier to fix everything while the patient was unconscious and didn't complain. He mended the broken nose with another charm and sat down on the floor again. The adrenaline rush that had kept him going seemed to have ended abruptly, leaving him tired and empty. He slid down on the floor with his back against the side of the sofa.
A letter lay on the floor inside the door; he hadn't noticed it before since he didn't enter through the door. It had at least ten different stamps stuck to the thick brown envelope, a sure sign of mail from home. He gave the unconscious man a quick glance and decided he could wake on his own.
Dear Ron,
I cleaned your room today, well actually we cleaned the whole Burrow, Fred and George visited and helped too. It felt so weird to be in your room without you. It wasn't as bad as cleaning that place, you know, but sometimes I wonder if you ever cleaned your room properly. No wonder Mum had fits about you. It's so weird with all of your things gone, you really have moved out for good, haven't you? I haven't seen you since Christmas and that's more than four months ago!
Back to the cleaning. You left some interesting junk under your bed... RON! Haven't you learned anything from the twins? Don't leave evidence behind, ever. Some of the magazines where rather amusing actually. Naked wizards, who would have known... I'm keeping those by the way, I burned the rest. Those kinds of magazines are discriminating and exploit witches. Shame on you! I found a stack of old, mouldy parchments there too, they looked unimportant but I couldn't separate them from each other and when I tried to throw them away I couldn't. Clever little enchantment... did Hermione help you with it? It's entirely your fault that Fred sprouted antennas when trying to crack the hex on it. Anyway, I sent the stuff to you. Who knows, it might be important.
The letter went on, but Ron turned his attention to the stack of parchments Ginny had mentioned. He pressed his palm to the centre of the topmost parchment and touched each fingertip in turn with his wand. The black mould melted away to be replaced by black ink. He remembered writing the letters carefully
Draco Malfoy
Ron remembered the day he disappeared. He had always suspected some kind of foul game, even after his friends lost interest in the sudden departure of their favourite childhood foe. He had started to collect "evidence" in this file around that time. It started as a childish pastime, followed him during the war, and finally got some kind of resolution during the confusing months after V...Voldemort's defeat. He had been right, but he could never have imagined them exactly how foul the things he had managed to dig up would be. He turned the pages without reading properly, he knew what they said already and he had put that shit behind him. A Muggle photograph slid out from one of the pages and fluttered away. Ron rescued it from under the sofa and sat back on his heels, facing the other man. He slowly lifted the photograph, comparing the scowling adolescent in the picture with the sleeping adult in front of him. He felt a wave of conflicting emotions when he realised he had found his old enemy.
Malfoy. He could barely stand to think the name after what Malfoy Senior had done to his friends both during the war and before it. But the old Malfoy was dead, good riddance, and this wasn't him. The photo went back where it belonged, secured with a piece of spellotape, and the file was spelled shut again. Ron shoved the file between two books in the nearest shelf with unnecessary force.
"He's not his father," he thought, "he's his own disgusting self."
Ma... Draco seemed to be asleep when he checked, nothing that unusual, some of the healing charms made you drowsy. It wasn't that difficult to fix, he would simply have to... Ron groaned. He could have enervated him instantly instead of going through all this trouble, but then he might not have realised who the homeless wizard was. No use thinking about that now, what's done is done, water under the bridges and all that rubbish.
"Enervate!"
Dazed grey eyes looked up at him.
~*~
Next chapter: Tea with a Weasley. The calm before the storm, or something like that.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
A/N:I want to thank my betas Minerva Solo, Lisa and Lynn, any remaining mistakes are my own. Phew... Only one chapter left after this, but as usual I'm going to post it in two parts.
He couldn't believe he had actually lost control and hit the other man. It frightened him to know that he still had that uncontrolled anger in him; he thought age had given him control over his strong feelings. Blood still pounded in his ears, but the burning rage was beginning to fade and was swiftly replaced by guilt and concern. He hoped that he hadn't hurt the other man too badly. It was years since someone had managed to provoke him like that and even back then only a few persons had ever managed to rile him up like this. Most of them were supposedly dead. One of them was standing in front of him.
Blood flowed from the other man's nose, but Ron still had the feeling that he was the one that was worse injured of the two of them. The acid words still caused a dull ache, and a small but noisy part of him screamed that he should be beating the shit out of this man for insulting his family. But he didn't listen to that voice anymore. He had already played right in the hands of the bastard, and when he hit him he had admitted his defeat. The words had ripped open old wounds and rubbed salt and acid into the bleeding cuts. He didn't want to give the man the pleasure to see that his words had cut deep enough for him to want to beat him to a bloody pulp, so he breathed deep and counted, and counted.
"No need to overreact." The other man said calmly and oddly familiarly. He took his hand away from his bleeding nose. After one look at his slender fingers, painted crimson by blood, he turned ghost-pale and passed out.
Oh great. Just great. What was he going to do now?
William Rosier smiled as he cleaned up the mess remaining on the lunch table. There was a lot of soup left, and that was a bit disappointing, but he had seen a lot of people eat it, and not only old people. He couldn't suppress a chuckle. They wouldn't know what had hit them, and neither would the health officers. It would take 12 to 24 hours before the full effects set in, according to the book, and surely they would be too stupid to trace it back here. This would be nothing like food poisoning.
Since it was plenty of soup left that would be thrown away anyway those who had worked today sat down for a quick meal. Gina sat down next to him and offered him a bowl of soup. He was a bit hesitant at first, but then he remembered something from the book - the potion only worked on Muggles, he was almost certain it said that. He smiled wide and accepted the bowl. Perfect. No one would suspect him if he had eaten the stuff himself. It was an excellent idea. He was pleased with himself for coming up with such a cunning detail.
The soup was delicious.
Every little piece of medical magic he had ever known seemed to swirl around in his head, he felt a bit dizzy for a moment. Had the other man only fainted he would have put his legs higher than his head to let the blood flow back to his head, but right now blood was pouring out of that same head and he had heard somewhere that bleeding body parts should be placed high.
Then there was a small possibility that he had fainted due to some unknown disease or medical condition - he had looked like he was ready to pass out after attacking him. He conjured a towel and some ice to try and stop the bleeding, but he would probably have to mend the poor bastard's nose somehow. Having five brothers he knew something about broken noses. There where fairly simple charms to heal them but he couldn't recite them from the top of his head. He had a book on medical magic home in his flat, and he didn't dare to try something complicated without step-by-step instructions. Magical mistakes involving body-parts was usually a messy thing - he remembered that Vaseline-incident all too well.
The towel and ice had lessened the blood-flow somewhat, but he didn't want to take any chances. He scooped up the unconscious man in his arms and Apparated directly home, braking at least four different laws and regulations doing so.
Ron staggered under the man's weight when he arrived with a pop in the middle of the living room. He put him down on the sofa and left the towel for him to bleed on while he searched his bookshelves for the appropriate book. He had two rather large bookcases, one covering the wall to the kitchen, and one on the opposite wall, near his desk. He found the book on healing on a low shelf, crammed in between his advanced potions book and a stack of old notebooks. He must have managed to spatter something sticky on one of the books because they were stuck together. He pulled both of them out and tried, unsuccessfully, to pry them from each other.
After consulting his aged copy of Household Healing - now with a potions extension glued to it - Ron performed a simple healing-charm to stop the remaining blood flow. The other man was still out cold. A quick diagnostic charm from the war popped up in his head, it was not that specific, but if the patient had any internal bleedings, corrosive curses or other life threatening conditions, you would know. A faint orange glow reassured him that his patient seemed to be fine. He stopped to think for a while. It would be easier to fix everything while the patient was unconscious and didn't complain. He mended the broken nose with another charm and sat down on the floor again. The adrenaline rush that had kept him going seemed to have ended abruptly, leaving him tired and empty. He slid down on the floor with his back against the side of the sofa.
A letter lay on the floor inside the door; he hadn't noticed it before since he didn't enter through the door. It had at least ten different stamps stuck to the thick brown envelope, a sure sign of mail from home. He gave the unconscious man a quick glance and decided he could wake on his own.
Dear Ron,
I cleaned your room today, well actually we cleaned the whole Burrow, Fred and George visited and helped too. It felt so weird to be in your room without you. It wasn't as bad as cleaning that place, you know, but sometimes I wonder if you ever cleaned your room properly. No wonder Mum had fits about you. It's so weird with all of your things gone, you really have moved out for good, haven't you? I haven't seen you since Christmas and that's more than four months ago!
Back to the cleaning. You left some interesting junk under your bed... RON! Haven't you learned anything from the twins? Don't leave evidence behind, ever. Some of the magazines where rather amusing actually. Naked wizards, who would have known... I'm keeping those by the way, I burned the rest. Those kinds of magazines are discriminating and exploit witches. Shame on you! I found a stack of old, mouldy parchments there too, they looked unimportant but I couldn't separate them from each other and when I tried to throw them away I couldn't. Clever little enchantment... did Hermione help you with it? It's entirely your fault that Fred sprouted antennas when trying to crack the hex on it. Anyway, I sent the stuff to you. Who knows, it might be important.
The letter went on, but Ron turned his attention to the stack of parchments Ginny had mentioned. He pressed his palm to the centre of the topmost parchment and touched each fingertip in turn with his wand. The black mould melted away to be replaced by black ink. He remembered writing the letters carefully
Ron remembered the day he disappeared. He had always suspected some kind of foul game, even after his friends lost interest in the sudden departure of their favourite childhood foe. He had started to collect "evidence" in this file around that time. It started as a childish pastime, followed him during the war, and finally got some kind of resolution during the confusing months after V...Voldemort's defeat. He had been right, but he could never have imagined them exactly how foul the things he had managed to dig up would be. He turned the pages without reading properly, he knew what they said already and he had put that shit behind him. A Muggle photograph slid out from one of the pages and fluttered away. Ron rescued it from under the sofa and sat back on his heels, facing the other man. He slowly lifted the photograph, comparing the scowling adolescent in the picture with the sleeping adult in front of him. He felt a wave of conflicting emotions when he realised he had found his old enemy.
Malfoy. He could barely stand to think the name after what Malfoy Senior had done to his friends both during the war and before it. But the old Malfoy was dead, good riddance, and this wasn't him. The photo went back where it belonged, secured with a piece of spellotape, and the file was spelled shut again. Ron shoved the file between two books in the nearest shelf with unnecessary force.
"He's not his father," he thought, "he's his own disgusting self."
Ma... Draco seemed to be asleep when he checked, nothing that unusual, some of the healing charms made you drowsy. It wasn't that difficult to fix, he would simply have to... Ron groaned. He could have enervated him instantly instead of going through all this trouble, but then he might not have realised who the homeless wizard was. No use thinking about that now, what's done is done, water under the bridges and all that rubbish.
"Enervate!"
Dazed grey eyes looked up at him.
Next chapter: Tea with a Weasley. The calm before the storm, or something like that.