A/N: Hi everyone! I'm back with the next five chapters! Hope you're still liking this silly story of mine! :)
Disclaimer: I don't own Rose Granger-Weasley, Newt Scamander or any other character created by J.K. Rowling. My aim is merely to entertain and play around with them a little.
Chapter thirty-one: In which memories run amuck
At early as it was, not many students were already awake when the group stepped inside the castle. A few teachers were making their way to the Great Hall, sending curious glances their way, but nobody stopped them or tried to question them, which Rose was extremely grateful for.
Newt and Dumbledore had disappeared in the stairs, towards the latter's office no doubt, but she wanted to take her friends and companions to the Hospital Wing first. She had done what she could to their physical wounds, but the psychological ones, she couldn't do much for.
Theseus glanced down at her periodically, as if monitoring whether or not she'd have another panic attack. Rose was too focused on her task to really stop and consider her whereabouts, however. Or perhaps, because she'd already been to Hogwarts once in this time, she wouldn't panic again…
She was wrong, obviously, for as soon as they stepped inside the very familiar Hospital Wing, she was once again reminded of her time as an Apprentice Healer, working under Madam Pomfrey for several months and taking care of the injuries sustained by her younger cousins. Theseus sensed her tense, and he let go of her arm to take her hand instead. She looked up at him in thanks, and her breathing settled.
Madam Pomfrey's predecessor saw them from her small office and hurried to their side with a rather severe look on her face. Though Rose didn't yet know how she was called, it seemed that all the nurses at Hogwarts bore the same expressions when faced with reckless pupils.
"Mister Scamander, what is this?" she asked Theseus, pursing her lips.
"Missus Febris, I'm so sorry. My friends and I sustained injuries in an…incident, last night. My sister thought it better to come here rather than crowd Saint Mungo's, where people are bound to ask questions." Of course, that wasn't at all the reasoning behind Rose's wish to come to the infirmary, but his excuse was a sound one. She was surprised he'd come up with it so quickly.
The Matron turned her severe eyes to her, then to the rest of their friends, who stood to the side, looking around in a daze. "I am Matron Brigid Febris. Please, find an empty bed and make yourselves comfortable. Healer Scamander and I will discuss your injuries before I decide what to do with you." She made a gesture as if to swat them away, and Queenie's blue eyes widened.
Rose shrugged when her friend looked at her incredulously, and Queenie drew Jacob closer before leading him to adjacent empty beds near the back of the room.
Rose could now see two students who were already occupying the space. A very young boy who had to be a First Year and who had his head and right arm bandaged; and an older girl who was clad in Quidditch robes and cradling her left arm. Rose recognized the symptoms of Skele-Gro, having experienced it herself after a nasty match against Slytherin in her Fifth Year.
"Miss Scamander," the Matron called, and Theseus let go of her reluctantly. She signified that she was fine for the moment, and followed the older woman to her office, which wasn't much different from Madam Pomfrey's. "Explain."
Rose sighed. "I'm not yet sure that what happened is going to be secret, so I can't tell you much about the circumstances." Healer had to deal with that on a regular basis, so she knew that the older witch wouldn't be offended by that. "What I can tell you is, several of us came in close contact with Fiendfyre. There were cuts and bruises that I already tended to with my personal supplies. Dittany, mostly," she added, needing the precision of her job right then. "What I cannot treat, however, are the psychological scars. We lost someone," her voice caught, "Theseus will need Dreamless Sleep, and maybe even a Calming Draught."
The Matron's eyes widened, and her hand rose to her lips. "Newton?"
Rose shook her head sadly. "No, he's alright. He's upstairs with Professor Dumbledore. It was Leta."
A long silence followed. Then, the nurse looked over Rose's shoulder, no doubt trying to locate Theseus, and she sighed once more. "Poor boy. Already shattered by the War, and now this." A determined look appeared on her face. "I'll make sure he's properly treated. Anything else?"
"The darker-skinned gentleman is called Yusuf Kama. He bears the scars of an Unbreakable Vow, which should be fulfilled, but I cannot be sure it is. His psyche is also a bit…unsettled. My friend Queenie is sitting with her fiancé Jacob. He's a Muggle. He's witnessed things today that no one like him has ever seen before. I think he'll need Dreamless Sleep as well, unless you have a better idea. And the young woman over there," she pointed at Credence's friend, "has remained quite catatonic and shocked since the whole affair."
The Matron nodded thoughtfully at all of that, before turning to her. "What about you, dear? More panic attacks?"
Rose's eyes narrowed, but then, she sighed, exhausted. "Two more since we last saw each other. One was rather severe."
"I'll give you a Calming Draught too. Do you know what trigger them?"
"Yes." She didn't give more information.
"Good. Then you'll know when to take it." Business-like, now, she straightened her apron. "Please go and tell Professor Dumbledore I will need to see the younger Mister Scamander as well, when they are done talking. I'll be good handling this on my own." She made for the door, but turned to Rose once more. "Good job, Healer Scamander."
Rose was grateful for the praise. She was less happy to know that she was now requested to cross the whole castle on her own to find her brother and their meddling teacher friend…
With one last glance towards Theseus, she launched a message to Queenie, hoping she'd hear it, before she left the Hospital Wing.
Surprisingly enough, the time that it took Rose to go up to the third floor and Professor Dumbledore's office was quite short. Then again, she'd tried to picture being in a calming setting – unsurprisingly, the Burrow's orchard – to stop herself from losing her shit in the stairs.
She'd only realised she had arrived when she'd knocked on the door. And reckoned that her muscle memory of her studies at Hogwarts had been into play, since she hadn't gotten stuck in the vanishing step on the South corridor's staircase.
Newt opened the door, and his green eyes widened when he saw her, alone. Dumbledore's voice echoed from inside, and Rose guessed at his tone that he was smiling. "Come on in, Miss Rose."
The office did not trigger anything, to her awe, and she was almost glad to sit in one of the velvet-covered armchairs. Newt and his friend had already shared a cup of tea, and Kit was cuddling a pillow in front of the fireplace, a bowl of fresh water nearby.
"I'll have to look at his injuries when we're home, Newt," she said without thinking about it twice. When she raised her gaze, she saw that Dumbledore was smiling even wider, and Newt himself seemed touched.
"I can do it, but thank you."
Rose felt herself blush. Of course, Newt knew better than her how to take care of his creatures' injuries, what had she been thinking?
Perhaps he'd seen the look on her face, because he then added, "Actually, maybe it's best if a trained Healer took care of him." She shook her head affectionately and he smiled.
"Newt and I were done recounting. Was there something you needed?" Dumbledore asked, lounging in his own armchair.
"The Matron has asked for Newt to go downstairs when you have had your conversation. She wants to check on him." She turned her gaze to said young wizard, and with pursed lips, she said "She's already tended to Theseus."
Newt nodded grimly, and stood. "Albus, do you mind?"
"Of course not! I'm actually going to join you. I just need a moment with your delightful sister." He smiled and waited until the door closed behind the magizoologist to turn his piercing blue eyes to the young witch in front of him. "How are you feeling, Miss Rose?" His smile faded; worry crossing his face, now. "I can't even imagine what it must have been like to face him…"
He didn't need to elaborate: she was perfectly aware of whom he was talking about. Rose sighed, and looked at Kit once more. "It was…terrifying. I knew a lot of things about him and what he'd done…or what he'll do, rather, but…"
"No one can truly prepare for a face-off with a Dark Wizard such as Grindelwald…"
Rose huffed. "No, indeed. You'll know all about that, Professor." She realised her mistake too late, and felt sorry for him when a look of pure grief appeared on his face. She cleared her throat. "Sorry. I didn't mean… That was-"
"What do you know about Gellert Grindelwald, Rose?" He'd dropped the 'Miss', which she was somehow grateful for.
Another sigh. "I know enough, Professor." She met his gaze and stared, refusing to even blink. "I know enough, but I don't judge you for any of it."
He held her gaze a moment longer, then nodded, closed his eyes for a second, and when he reopened them, he looked almost cheery once more. With a clap of his hands, he stood from his chair. "Well, let's join the others downstairs, then, what do you think?"
Rose bit her lower lip. Being reminded of what she knew about the famed Professor had also reminded her of something else… She reached inside her jacket, and her fingers closed around a small vial she'd forgotten the existence of.
"Actually…" She stood too, but without any wish to leave. "Can I ask you a favour, I mean, another one, Professor?"
He'd stopped asking her to call him 'Albus', which she also was grateful for. "Of course you can, Rose."
"Could I use your Pensieve? I've been delivered a message that I'd like to read…"
Dumbledore's blue eyes stared back at her intently. Very, very intensely. For a moment, Rose was scared that he might have been a Legilimens, but thankfully, he only chose to say, a small smile tugging at his lips, "I won't ask how you know that I own a Pensieve, Rose, but I dare say that it is quite unsettling that you do." He waved his hand, and a cabinet opened, revealing a beautiful stone basin with unknown runes carved around it. "Lock the door on your way out, please," he added, before leaving the room.
Rose checked on Kit first, but the Niffler was quietly asleep, careful not to roll onto his own injured paw. She cast a stasis charm on it anyway, just in case, before approaching the cabinet and the Pensieve itself. She'd studied about them, of course, and had seen the very same she was about to go into perched in Professor McGonagall's office a century later. Still, she had no idea what it would feel like, or what it would look like…
She delicately poured Leta's memory into the basin, watching it swirl gently, a silver thread in a mist of black, before reaching for it slowly.
The moment her fingers came in contact with the surface, Rose felt herself being pulled forward, not unlike the sensation of travelling by Portkey, and she let out a little squeal as she toppled into the Pensieve, falling through smoke that got more and more defined the further she fell.
Soon, she found herself standing in one of the Ministry's bathrooms. No doubt on the First Floor, as she recognized the tiles and cubicles. However, it wasn't exactly the setting that Rose focused on, but the person standing in front of the sink mirror, staring at her own reflection.
Leta was wearing the same clothes that earlier that day, when she'd…gone. Rose felt a lump form in her throat, and she instinctively reached for her friend, but her hand got through the memory of Leta as if she hadn't been there in the first place.
Tears prickling her eyes, she waited. And she didn't have to wait long.
"Rose," Leta said to her own reflection. The red-head understood that the message that the brunette had wanted to give her, she'd forged into a real memory of a speech she'd rehearsed alone. "My dear Rose," a small smile. "If you are here with me now, it means something horrible has happened, and I am dead. Don't be sad, though. Death is peace, and I long for peace, even though I know that it is selfish to think so. By now, I hope you know my secret, so that you can better understand why I wish for quiet." She sighed, and dropped her gaze to the tap, bracing herself on the sink.
Rose nodded to thin air. Leta's secret: the accident in which her baby brother had died. The accident for which she'd felt responsible her whole life, as if she'd been a murderer, a fratricide.
"Rose, I need your help." Leta's eyes went back to her reflection. "In a few minutes, Theseus, Mr Travers and I are going to travel to Paris to find Newt and to stop Grindelwald's rally. I know you're with him, because you are as protective a sister as I've known you to be since we met in that tea-shop." She smiled again, prompting Rose to do the same through her tears. "I need you to take care of them. Both of them. I know Newt adores you and let you into his heart and life as he's done no one since we were at Hogwarts together. But Theseus…if I am dead, and he's not, then he'll need you more than ever. I love him, Rose, more than life, but I fear that he feels the same for me…" She chuckled, then, shaking her head. "Listen to me. I must be the only witch in England who wishes for Theseus Scamander not to love her too much…"
Rose chuckled with her. She wasn't wrong.
"Theseus will not let go of me, of the memory of me. He's passionate, loving, and loyal to a fault. I fear that he may not let himself love again if I am gone. Worse: that he might do something foolish to join me in the afterlife. Rose…" Her dark gaze became almost apologetic. "Rose, I know that you love him. Not as a brother, not as a friend. I know, because I've seen it in you. And I don't blame you: Salazar knows that Theseus is impossible not to love…"
Rose gasped at that, and the following words were almost drowned in the noise of her beating heart.
"Rose, don't feel sorry about it. I know that you'd never try anything, even if he wasn't engaged to me. You're too noble for that. But if I am gone then, please, help him love again… You're an amazing person, Rose, and the only person who was eager to become my friend since Newt. Please do that for me. Take care of them both, and help Theseus love again. And make sure it's someone who deserves him."
The memory blurred, meaning it was coming to an end, but Rose could hear one last thing through her own sobs.
"Thank you, for letting me know what it was like to have a true friend…"
When she landed back in Dumbledore's office, Rose fell on her knees on the carpet, and let out a deafening scream of grief.
And at last, after hours of living on pure adrenaline, she let go…and properly cried until her eyes were dried out…