WARNING! This is a "healing" chapter so there is some gore.
~ With Me, Into The Dark ~
"Can anyone who isn't injured assist me, please?" Azalais requested.
The room was packed with injured witches and wizards, as almost the full Inner Circle had been caught in a surprise raid by the Ministry during the newest recruits' marking ceremony. Those who'd stayed behind to fight the Aurors, providing cover for their fleeing companions, had fared much worse than those caught in the initial attack.
No one came forward. Everyone in the room other than the healer was either injured badly or helping hold together the bits of someone who was, and those who were holding their friends' guts in or pinching an artery to stop a family member from bleeding out, did not want to stop what they were doing in order to help whoever was first in the healer's line - especially if it meant that their own loved one would end up dying in the meantime. Many of them did not realize that Azalais's first patient was the Dark Lord himself. Had Bellatrix been conscious, she would have berated her fellow Death Eaters for their hesitance in volunteering to aid their master. However, her own injuries were too great, and she had passed out from the pain shortly after arriving at the secured location.
When it seemed that no help was immediately forthcoming, Azalais calmly kept about her task. Voldemort's injuries were minor, especially as compared to the damage some of the others had taken... but as he was the Dark Lord, his well-being was the first priority.
"There, you're done," Azalais said and, not sparing him another glance, began to pick her way across the body-strewn floor toward her next patient - the one who seemed to be in the most danger of imminently expiring. The sound of footsteps behind her made her pause and she looked back over shoulder to find that the Dark Lord was following her.
Not bothering to wait for a verbal expression of the question he could see in the healer's eyes, Voldemort said, "You require assistance, do you not? Should I allow some of my best soldiers to die simply because you could not attend to them all in time?"
Although he had baldly stated that his intentions were entirely selfish in a materialistic way, Azalais took it to mean that there were people in this room whose deaths would take an emotional toll on their supposedly-loveless master.
"Thank you, my lord," the healer replied. She flashed him a brief, tense smile before continuing to make her way toward the corner where Severus Snape was making a valiant effort to keep Lucius Malfoy's internal organs from spilling out of his body onto the floor. She heard the Dark Lord's steps falter behind her as they passed the Lestranges' group (which also contained the latest recruits - Regulus Black and Barty Crouch Junior). Without stopping or turning to look at him, she said, "Those closest to death must be tended to first if you wish them all to survive, my lord. We'll leave that group for last."
~end of scene~