A loud pounding sounded from somewhere and broke Paige from her sleep. Struggling to fight her leaden eyelids, Paige sat up and spotted her small enchanted alarm clock.
It read 1100.
But at night or in the morning? She briefly wondered, moving towards the door.
Wrenching open the door Paige was temporarily blinded by the glaring sunlight that assaulted her eyes.
Definitely morning.
"Hey." A hollow voice greeted her and her vision slowly returned to show her the faded picture of a wilted, sickly looking Dawn.
Still half asleep, Paige wasn't ready to make mouth noises yet, so she just pulled her friend into a constricting hug.
Paige felt like she was hugging a thestral; a skinny, frame occupied by death. Dawn looked skinnier then she ever had, and her face seemed to have lost its healthy glow. Her choppy short black hair was messy and plastered to her forehead.
"How is he?" Paige finally managed to squeak out.
"He's still alive." Dawn breathed as if the mere word gave her relief and Paige let out a breath that she was unaware that she had been holding in.
"He was still sleeping when I left, but most of the injuries were easily enough mended. He came pretty close to bleeding out a couple of times though and needed two different blood bolstering draughts." Dawn grimly informed her.
"Was he…? Do we know if he was….?" Paige struggled to ask the big question that remained.
Dawn gulped heavily.
"We don't know if he was contaminated by the Werewolf. Some of his wounds could have made by claws, but they were all honestly so bad that they can't tell."
"But he wasn't bitten?" Paige confirmed, knowing that it was the most dangerous form of contamination.
"We don't know for certain, but It doesn't look like it.." Dawn assured her.
"But we won't really know until the next full moon hits." She added morbidly.
"Have you been with him all night?" Paige dumbly realised, looking at Dawn's dishevelled appearance and the fact that she was wearing the same filthy, bloodstained clothes from last night. Her face still bore the dark smudges made from Magus's soiled hands last night.
"I waited and waited, but they wouldn't let me see him!" Dawn bawled in frustration at the injustice of it.
"No..." Paige softly uttered distraughtly and led her inside, she suddenly felt guilty at leaving her friends at the hospital while she went home and slept. She had somehow made it home in daze, completely nonfunctional, she barely remembered how.
"Go take a shower, I'll find you something to wear." She offered kindly.
Dawn had to roll up the legs of her loaned pair of jeans since she was a good few inches shorter than the owner and the borrowed top was a couple of sizes too tight, but hung long on her bedraggled form like a haggard scarecrow.
While Dawn showered Paige had picked through her bare cupboards and pantry trying to piece together something to eat for the pair. It ended up being tea for two and a half-opened packet of chocolate biscuits.
Dawn sipped at her tea numbly and simply stared into the middle distance until Paige finally grew impatient and pressed her for more details.
"How long will Magus be in for?" She wanted to know.
"Over Christmas at least, he underwent serious magical surgery and has a long recovery ahead of him." Dawn morosely mumbled, a stark contrast from her usual peppy self.
"Ohh." Paige softly uttered, thinking how devastated she would be if she was confined to a hospital for Christmas; her favourite holiday.
"Well we can at least visit him and bring-" But Dawn cut her off angrily.
"No! We can't even visit him! They have him confined to a ward, stating security reasons, so no visitors, no presents, no alcohol!" Dawn ranted away in a furious tirade.
"What?! Why?!" Paige asked, sharing her outrage like a packet of half opened chocolate biscuits.
"Magus has history with St Mungo; a few of the healers and hospital directors have unfinished business with him. This is there fucked up way of getting back at him by making him miserable under the guise of treatment." Dawn went off on another rage fueled rant.
Paige could understand how her mentor might put a few noses out of joint with anyone, but to have created a hate so great that he was deprived visitors after being gravely injured was hard to imagine.
"They wouldn't even let me see him and when I started getting demanding their security tossed me. Those thugs are lucky I was so upset I could barely string a curse together." Dawn added dejectedly. Paige felt certain that some of the security themselves were now occupying beds in their own hospital after the effort of trespassing the feisty young witch.
"We have to get in there and see him!" Paige decided determinedly, drawing inspiration from thinking what her mentor would do if the situations were reversed.
"That's my girl!" Dawn agreed polishing off her cup of tea and looking drained, but ready for action.
Paige felt wide awake now, sparked to life by the reckless fire of indignation that was burning inside of her.
It took all of Paige's negotiation skills to talk Dawn into waiting until the following morning before attempting to visit Magus. She reasoned that no one would expect trespassers on Christmas day and that they two women could simply blend into the visiting crowds.
The pair entered together in the light disguise of scarves and hats with thick jackets, which were all perfectly plausible with the cold weather outside.
"How do we know which room he is in?" Paige muttered to Dawn under her breath as they started down the halls arms entwined in support.
They stalked up to the animal inflicted injury ward on a hunch and became peeking down corridors until they saw it.
Two familiar characters standing watch outside a door, they had just escorted a group of people that were predominantly redheaded out of a room .
"You'd be here to see Magus then would ya, Dawn?" The young female Auror with changing features asked the pair snidely.
Paige almost jumped out of her skin in shock at being busted, Dawn was less startled but guarded in her response.
"Tonks.. Do you know where he is.." She began quietly and Moody pretended not to be listening to their whispered conversation.
"He's not supposed to have guests ya know? Something about being dangerous." Tonks told them in a slow matter of fact way eying the pair carefully.
At that point Tonks seemed to recognise Paige
"Shoulda figured you'd be trying to come and see him too. Thought you might have had more brains then that though." Tonks muttered shaking her head, her expression unreadable.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Paige demanded in a hushed whisper.
"Doesn't matter, he's down the hall but there's no way the guards will let you in." Tonks brushed her off and nodded a few doors down.
Sure enough two St Mungos security wizards stood sentry outside the door looking bored and irritable in their dull grey robes.
"We'll see about that." Dawn declared in challenge her jaw set in determination.
Tonks gave a nonchalant shrug as if she didn't care how it went and went back to ignoring them.
Paige and Dawn turned to focus on the problem at hand and the two guards that blocked entry to see their friend. On closer inspection as they approached, Paige noticed that one of the guards had a black eye and a broken nose that had been recently acquired, she had a sneaking suspicion how.
"I didn't think they would post security.." Dawn cursed quietly.
The pair walked past trying to be inconspicuous and Paige hissed to Dawn "I have a plan".
They walked around a corner in the ward and Paige hastily explained her idea to Dawn. They shed their outer cloaks and jackets, before with a few complex wand movements transfigured their robes into the style and colour of the St Mungos healers. For extra effect they donned surgical masks and grabbed a few supplies to carry and conceal Dawn's large handbag which she had refused to leave behind.
Nervously they approached the guarded door once more. Tonks snorted quietly at their audacity, standing beside her Mad-Eye Moody purposely looked the other way with a smirk on his twisted face. At least they didn't seem likely to stitch the pair up and foil their scheme.
"We just need to change his bandages." Dawn confidently told the pair of bookends standing in front of the door to the room.
The two security guards looked at each other in confusion.
"Weren't they just changed this morning while he was unconscious?" The first guard asked skeptically in challenge.
Dawn seemed lost for words for a second and Paige somehow found the words to step in.
"And by now he'll be bleeding again already, have either of you two dressed wounds left from a werewolf before?" She sharply interjected staring pointedly from one guard to another.
The two guards stopped in their line of questioning and just gaped for a moment.
Dawn picked up her thread of attack nicely.
"Well what are you two bozos waiting for? Open the door for us already." Dawn demanded and nodding down at her own arms full of medical supplies.
"We'll come in with you, he can get aggressive." The second guard with the broken nose piped up as he carefully opened the door.
"And risk contamination? I think not." Paige sniffed through her surgical mask as she passed him at the door.
"We are perfectly capable of handling him ourselves, thank you very much." Dawn added in a superior tone, closing the door behind her.
With a distinct click the door shut and locked behind them.
The girls had entered a bleak single bedded room with thin white curtains veiling the bed. There was a grunt and a moan behind the curtain with the sound of movement in the bed. Paige had a split second to contemplate the nature of these noises before she was dragged inside the curtain by Dawn.
The source of the noise became quickly apparent; a milk coloured Magus McIntyre was restlessly writhing on the rumpled white sheets. He was bandaged almost from head to toe, what few patches of skin that were visible were pouring with sweat. His bedside cabinets were bare except for an unreachable and untouched water jug.
"Oh Magus." Dawn whispered his name and his movements calmed as he found her voice. Magus squinted against the bright lights to see his intruding visitors.
"Sweets? Paige? Boy am I glad to see you guys, I thought you might be that dickhead healer coming back in to gloat." His voice was hoarse, but sharp in its quality like broken glass. His forehead was beaded with sweat and many of his wound dressings were indeed soaked through.
His gauzed hand had sought out Dawn's face and had tenderly pulled her in until her forehead rested on his and she could embrace him. They stayed that way for quite some time before Dawn blinked heavily a few times and noticed the shackles on the hand that held her.
"Seriously?" She enquired with a choke of angry disbelief.
"Well apparently I'm dangerous and a flight risk. I only punched one guard and throttled one particular healer!" He lamented as if he couldn't believe the circumstances.
Paige shook her head in amazement, no wonder he was in tight confines.
"Okay I may also have grabbed Leone's arse as well, but all this was while I was under the effects of several very strong potions." He admitted innocently raising his wounded hands in defence.
Dawn gave him a dirty look and tried to find an uninjured part of him to slap but gave up out of sheer difficulty.
"Hey Slim, how ya holding up?" Magus asked Paige realising he had been rude and not really acknowledged her.
"Well I'm not held together by bandages." She made the comparison, gently holding one of his hands for a moment.
"Good to see you still have all your fingers and toes." He agreed in a sedate, but friendly manner.
"How are they treating you?" Dawn wanted to know, looking at his spartan furnishings and pouring him a glass of water without asking.
Magus sat up a little straighter in bed with great difficulty and accepted the glass with a shaking shackled hand.
"Bloody terrible, I've had cosier rooms at the Hog' Head. I'm treated like a goddam plague victim who escaped from prison. They don't tell me shit, but I've had no reactions to silver nitrate of wolfsbane so those are good signs." He ranted with a snarl and took a small feeble sip out of the glass.
He immediately spat it across his sheets.
"Water!?" He spluttered in dismay glaring at Dawn suspiciously.
"Are you trying to bloody kill me, woman?" He demanded groggily.
As if she expected this response, Dawn sighed, reaching into her purse and drawing out a small bottle of whiskey to hand to him.
"Merry Christmas." She muttered sarcastically.
"Did I ever mention how much I love you, Dawny?" He rescinded all his previous mood and took fortifying gulp after gulp.
"Alcohol, now?" Paige had the opposite reaction, shocked by the reckless activity they were supporting for a person who had just narrowly avoided death.
Dawn guiltily shrugged while Magus continued to chug.
"I figured a decade of cumulative hangover might just finish him off." She defended her actions, while still taking the bottle off her friend before it was half finished.
"Ahhhh, that is better." Magus agreed in relish and indeed he had lost much of the sweaty sheen to his skin. His eyes seemed to blaze anew with life and he flexed his bonds experimentally.
"Can you two do me just the one more favour?" He entreated the pair, summoning them in close with a gesture.
When they were close enough to hear him, he hissed out his final request.
"Get me the fuck out of here!"
Paige recoiled in surprise.
"But you are barely alive." She argued.
"Alive enough to live, I don't need any more of these quacks poking round at me with their wands. I can do the rest myself." Magus insisted, turning his attention from Paige to Dawn instead.
"Magus.." She started uncertainly.
"Come on Sweets, you know my history here and you know that I can't stay. This place is my Azkaban."
Dawn moaned in deliberation, but the sight of him straining against the restraints did it for her.
"How? Can you even walk?" She challenged him, tapping his wrist and arm straps, causing them to spring open.
Magus looked sheepish for probably the first time in his life.
"Doubt it, my legs are mended now but feel like cooked spaghetti." He muttered in a quiet voice.
The effort of leaning over and snatching his wand from a drawer of patient property was enough to visibly drain him. His complexion was now that of old milk once more, but with a determined expression he moved to sit on the edge of the bed and pulled back his curtains. Dawn moved forward to tenderly rearrange the scant gown he was dressed in so that his balls were no longer on display.
"So what is your plan to get out of here?" Dawn relented to ask him in a whisper so as not to alert the waiting guard detail outside.
"Who is on the door? Can I get out of here using the old McIntyre charm?" He proposed trying to look his roguish self, but only managing to look constipated.
"No luck there, two sullen guards at the door and I don't know if the order members down the hall will be much help; it's your ex and Mad-eye." She told him in reproaching tone as if concerned if that was the extent of his plan.
"Damn, I'm surprised Tonks even let you in to see me!" Magus conceded grimly.
"I'm surprised she didn't come in and smother you with a pillow for old times sake." Dawn mused.
"There would be a long wait in the que behind the healers." Magus sullenly corrected her.
"Windows are enchanted, no luck there." Dawn informed them trying the catch in vain.
"If I can't even stand I'm not going to be much good in a fight." Magus bitterly noted.
"Hmmm create a distraction and carry you out?" Paige tried again for a plan.
"Risky." He assessed their chances.
"Not if we use some good magic." Paige cut in having had a chance to think on the issue.
Magus turned to her in sudden interest.
"Go on Rookie, what have you thought of?" He eagerly encouraged her.
"Okay, but you never get to call me Rookie or New Girl again if it works?" She negotiated shrewdly.
Magus looked grudgingly impressed at her bargaining despite the dire situation.
"You got a deal, Kid." He agreed reluctantly.
"No 'Kid' either, I'm not that much younger than you two." Paige quickly added to the deal and accepted his cold sweaty palm in a handshake to seal it. She grimaced, it was like shaking hands with a dead fish.
"Okay here is what we do…." Paige began to detail as the two other leaned into her.
Five minutes later.
The door to the restricted room opened silently and Paige stepped slowly through by herself.
She addressed the guards either side urgently.
"He's bleeding worse than we thought, can you please run down to the storeroom and grab us some more bandages."
The guard on the right nodded briskly and disappeared down the hall.
Paige turned to the other guard and put a bit more distress on her expression.
"I need you to find healer Pye for us urgently? This guy is really crashing and we need some more medical help here."
The guard reluctantly looked to the door past her in apprehension but Paige was careful to block his view.
"Don't worry about us, he is still unconscious. He might not wake up again at all if we don't do something though." Paige urgently informed him.
This seemed to satisfy the guard though and he turned and dashed off down the hall past Tonks and Moody.
Paige leaned back through the door.
"Okay we are good, we need to go now!" She hissed.
Dawn hustled out past her clutching safely to her clunky handbag.
"The uniforms were a nice touch." Moody commented dryly as they rushed past them.
"If you guys could not snitch on us that would be greatly appreciated." Dawn whispered as they passed at a brisk walk.
"Hell, we are here watching over an order member, not troublesome patients for the hospital." Tonks snorted and looked at the ceiling with great interest. Moody did a great impression of a blind man with his walking stick.
"Thank you Moody, Tonks and I'm sorry about.." Dawn gushed out overwhelmed with gratitude.
"Don't mention it. It's Christmas; a time for forgiveness." Tonks muttered in concession.
"Merry Christmas." Paige wished them in a rushed whisper and Moody tipped his bowler hat in response.
"She has a long memory that girl, I didn't figure on her forgiving us any time soon." Magus piped up thoughtfully from the open top of Dawn's handbag, courtesy of the undetectable extension charm. It hadn't been easy fitting a badly injured man through the top of her bag and in his weakened state he had needed lots of help from Dawn. Awkwardly he sat slumped in the magically enlarged space listlessly staring up at the patch of light which was the unzipped top of the bag.
"I always felt guilty about it all, I couldn't meet her eyes for a year." Dawn admitted flatly as she carefully passed the bag to Paige and transfigured their robes once more before donning their coats.
"Hey she gave the ultimatum, it wasn't your fault. I wasn't going to stop being friends with you just because she is insecure." Magus responded in an echoing tone as if he was at the bottom of a well.
They lapsed into silence as the girls took the stairs rather than chance being busted and having the elevators shut down.
"I've always wondered what girls keep in their bags!" Magus suddenly said in childlike excitement and there was a faint sound of him rummaging around.
"Don't touch anything in there!" Dawn hissed at him in dire warning. They had made it all the way down the stairs without any sign of alert.
"Jeez when was the last time you cleaned out your bag?" Magus complained as they went. A couple of old chocolate frog wrappers seemed to jump out the top of her bag under their own accord. There was the sound of something delicate and glass inside the bag breaking.
"Just a heads up; these condoms in here are well past expired, you little slapper!" He cheekily added as he continued to rifle through the contents.
Dawn snatched the handbag from Paige and gave it a good jostle for good measure to unbalance its rude new occupant, who gave a faint scream in protest.
It was looking good for a getaway as the weaved their way through the crowded atrium.
Until..
"Hey Paige!"
A voice loudly called out to them when they were mere metres from the exit.
Paige hissed at Dawn.
"Keep going!" subtly she drew her wand and turned to see who had called her name.
To her surprise she saw the rangy tall figure of Tim from magical law enforcement, he was wearing a green Christmas elf hat which did not exactly detract from his slightly goofy usual appearance.
"Tim! What are you doing here?" Paige spoke in a somewhat shriller voice than normal people use in conversation. She shoved her wand away guiltily, the poor guy had been about half a second away from getting a very painful severing hex.
The good-natured Tim tapped his hat.
"I'm visiting my little cousin, since she is stuck here with an untimely case of Dragon Pox." He explained and waved a festive bag with a present in it.
Paige felt bad trying to brush off the guy considering how decent and friendly he had always been to her, snatching a glance over her shoulder she saw Dawn make it out unimpeded.
"Aww that is sweet of you." She cooed at the kind gesture.
"What about you?" Tim returned the question.
Paige decided that in this instance the truth or at least part of it would be best.
"We came here to try and see my mentor Magus, after his accident the other night." She explained and found that her voice still caught a little saying the word accident. It seemed a very polite way of saying 'he got the shit thrashed out of him by a werewolf'.
Tim deflated in humiliation as he realised that was obvious.
"Jeez, Paige I'm sorry I didn't think; of course you would be here visiting him. How is the Medicine Man doing?" Tim asked scratching the back of his neck nervously.
"Don't sweat it and thanks for getting me home last night" She thanked him with a hand on his arm.
"We didn't get to see him, apparently he is in isolation." She told Tim, looking as dejected as she could.
"How are you holding up with it all? It has been a pretty intense few months for you hasn't it?" Tim softly asked in what appeared to be genuine concern. Paige was somewhat taken back to actually have someone checking up on her and actually seeing how she felt about things for a change. She could not recall Lawrence ever asking the question.
"I'm getting there. Thank you, Tim. For everything" She emphatically replied, before remembering her current hospital heist and quickly found her exit. Two familiar grey robed security guards had appeared on the stairs and were scanning the crowd now.
"But Dawn is in a bad way. I better get back to her." She added gesturing behind her.
Tim again looked apologetic.
"Please don't let me keep you. Let me know if there is anything I can do." He hastily spoke.
"Thanks Tim, have a good Christmas okay?" Paige finished with a smile.
"Yeah you too, Paige. Merry Christmas." Tim returned her grin, looking like he had just opened a present himself.
Paige dashed outside to see Dawn sitting on a park bench outside, a very sickly frail looking young man sat beside her weakly tossing bread to the ducks in the nearby pond.
"Sorry about that." Paige quickly apologised and narrowly avoided standing on an enthusiastic duck.
"Can we go now, Girls? This hospital gown is mighty breezy if you catch my drift.." The pale, shaking manchild whinged in puns.
Wordlessly the three joined hands and apparated away.