Author's Note: As always, the majority of the characters belong to J.K.R, Warner Bros. and such. Review, review, review, for I'm feeling unloved and weary lately. Here are some review idea questions: What is up with Antonio/Glin/Ron? What will happen with Remus? Will Charlie ever get any action?
Ron shook his arms and tiny shards of glass shimmered down to the floor. He dropped the broom he'd been holding.
Glin looked up at him hopelessly. He wasn't supposed to be here, although she couldn't really remember why. She was angry with him, frustrated, but she had no recollection of the reasoning behind the anger. Whatever was still working of her mind told her that he needed to leave. She opened her mouth to tell him this, but all that came out was "Ron-"
He was beside her now. He moved incredibly quickly, Glin thought. He was smoothing the hair back from her forehead, and his fingers were so cold.
"You're burning up. We've got to get you to a medi-center." He began to take her out of the bed, but she protested.
"S'cold. Stay in bed."
"You have to get up," he said. After a few minutes of arguing with her, he just wrapped the sheets and blankets around her and lifted her into his arms. He jostled her a bit when he performed the disapparation.
The medi-center blurred into reality about them. Babies were crying and people were shouting. A particularly rowdy group of children were running about, and Ron noted absently that they were playing knights and dragons, a game he'd played often as a child. While a great deal of people were swarming about, they didn't seem surprised by his appearance at all, nor did they seem particularly interested in him at all.
"A little help here?" He asked the general population in annoyance.
A woman who was carefully sealing a gash on a child's forearm looked up at him. "If you want help you're certainly not going to get it that way. Go to the admittance window and fill out the paperwork Linda gives you."
"But this is an emergency!"
"And these people aren't having emergencies? Gina waited four hours for someone to look at her arm, and when one of us could finally find a moment to do it, we didn't even have a room to put her in while we healed it. Talk to Linda, and she'll get you set up."
Ron sighed, and turned to walk in the direction the woman had pointed. Glin moaned lightly in his arms as he bumped her foot against a chair, and he clutched her tighter to him. "Are you Linda then?"
"Aye," replied the rather large woman behind the counter without looking up. "Fill out this form completely, and return it to me when you've finished."
Ron decided to go for the charm angle. "Look, Linda, let me level with you. I'm really worried here, I'm not even entirely sure she's conscious. Is there a way that I could do the paperwork while someone made sure she's all right?"
The woman looked up, and adjusted her glasses. "I'm not promising you anything, but if you get that paperwork filled out right quick, I might be able to put a rush on it. That's the best I can do with things as crazy as they are today." With a gentle push, she pointed him in the direction of two open chairs.
Ron filled out the paperwork as quickly as he could, and with as little trouble to Glin as he could manage. With most of the little boxes checked off as "unknown," he handed a winking Linda the pieces of parchment.
"Just wait a bit, Love," she comforted him. "Keep her awake if you can."
Little did Linda realize what a mammoth task this was becoming. Glin would start to drift with less than a moment's notice, and it was all he could do to keep her awake. Finally, after what seemed like hours, but was very likely only a half hour at most, someone called out Glin's name.
A sandy-haired young man placed Glin on a gurney and began to give her a once over with a variety of diagnostic tools. Muttering to himself, "Dr. Jaimeson," as his nameplate stated, began running over possibilities.
"Blood pressure is low. Has this ever happened before?"
"No," Glin replied meekly. "It's probably just a really bad case of the flu."
"That hypothesis would be concurrent with the symptoms," the doctor said, half to himself. "I'll have to run a variety of testing to rule out other possibilities though."
"Do we have to stay for all of that?" Glin whined and clutched at Ron's hand.
"Of course not," Ron soothed. "Do we?"
The doctor looked up absently from Glin's chart. "Definitely not. The lab is horribly backed up, with non-priority blood test results taking around a week..."
"Isn't this a priority?" Ron said, in what he hoped was a menacing tone.
"Not really," the doctor said, obviously not perceiving a threat. "She's right, you know. It's probably just the flu. When combined with her alcohol consumption, it's highly likely she just became severely dehydrated. We'll put a couple bags of fluid into her intravenously to re-hydrate her. If her blood pressure comes back up, you can take her home then."
Remus stood in the doorway, absently rubbing his mouth for a few minutes, then turned to go back in the house. Sirius was standing in the foyer, lounging against a wall, watching him, and smiling smugly.
"I take it you and Miss Knight had a great deal of fun chatting about that book?"
"The book?" Remus queried absently before blinking and recovering and looking at the heavy volume in his hand. "Right, yes, the book. It's very fascinating, with all sorts of valuable historical..." He trailed off.
"She kissed you, didn't she?"
"I don't know where you got an idea like that."
Sirius snorted. "I'm rather familiar with the symptoms. The lip-rubbing, the slight blush and flustering at the mention of it and..." He hesitated and grinned. "You liked it didn't you?"
"Preposterous.," Remus scoffed. "Even if she had kissed me and I had liked it, it would be irrelevant. She's far too young for me."
"Women who are too young for you don't show up on your front door in robes that are stylishly too tight, with the top two buttons undone. Besides, she's not too young for me," Sirius argued. "Ergo, she's not too young for you."
"Perhaps I have different standards."
"Perhaps you're afraid of being happy," Sirius countered.
"Perhaps you should bugger off and find somewhere else to stay," Remus sulked.
"You truly are a spoilsport, Moony. Perhaps if I'm lucky she'll force you to have a good time."
"The two of you are entirely too much alike."
When Draco walked out of the bathroom, toweling his hair dry. Ginny was right. It was getting a bit long. He thought, perhaps, he'd let her trim it. If worst came to worst, he supposed letting her hack away at the mess wouldn't be entirely detrimental. He could always magically fix things if Ginny wasn't at good with the shears as she professed.
He strolled over to his bureau, and began to shuffle about in the drawers before a voice stopped him.
"I've already laid out stuff on the bed," Ginny said, stopping as she was halfway through the doorway. "I'll get Marigold ready."
"But-" Draco protested, but Ginny cut him off.
"No 'buts.' The three of us will have to be seen in public eventually, and the two of you need new robes, anyway."
"We have robes," Draco argued. "At least, I do. Besides, we could get a tailor to come to the house."
"Your robes are all things your mother picked out for you. You can't honestly tell me you prefer wearing things with ruffles."
He walked to right in front of her and wrapped one of her curls around his index finger and watched it bounce as he released it. "Looking to change me already?"
She rolled her eyes and cupped his cheek in the palm of her hand. "You know that's not it at all. I just don't want you to be afraid of being around people anymore."
"I'm not afraid," he said crossly, while pouting. "I went to your party."
"Because you were mad at me."
"Mad with desire," he teased as he kissed the corner of her mouth. "In fact, I'm feeling particularly mad at the moment." He kissed her, one of those slow, mind-melting kisses.
"Ow!" He yelped as Ginny pulled his head back by his wet mane.
"You're not going to distract me that easily, Draco," she told him, kissing his chin. "Besides, we need to pick out new furniture and stuff for the manor."
"Can't you do that on your own?"
"It's not my house."
"Merely a technicality," he murmured as he tried to distract her a bit more.
She was moments away from untying the knot of black silk at his waist before she remembered herself. "A valiant effort," she whispered huskily in his ear. "But we're still going."
"Drat," he said emphatically.
"If you're good, then maybe after..."
She left him to get dressed, and he crossed to the bed. She'd laid out his clothing neatly on the bed. Simple black robes, charcoal gray slacks, a gray dress shirt and a dull green v-neck sweater. Set to the side were a pair of trolleys, decorated with little winged hearts, charcoal trouser socks, and a green and silver striped tie. He vaguely recalled getting the underwear years before as a gag gift. He'd never actually intended to wear them. And yet, he found himself stepping into them, not so much because underwear was underwear, but because Ginny had picked them out for him.
This almost maternal side of her was something that usually just came out around Marigold. He'd seen glimpses of it during his drunken fiasco, but hadn't recognized it then. It gave him an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach, almost an aching. It wasn't entirely unpleasant.
Ash grew from the glowing end of his cigarette, and he flicked it into the cool, night air. He imagined it swirling down to the earth, disintegrating all the while until it was like a rain of gray snow. Absently, he considered quitting. Women these days were beginning to look down on kissing men who tasted of tobacco.
"Signore?" Mario asked nervously.
Antonio whirled about to face him. He looked relaxed, his body leaning lightly on the balcony railing, a cigarette lounging in his hand.
"What is it, Mario?"
Mario fidgeted. The Signore had been edgy ever since he'd been alerted to the Signora's condition. "She is fine. 'Dehydration,' they say."
"Mmm," Antonio replied noncommittally. Mario pressed on.
"I've talked with a few people. They assure me that her blood test results will take at least two weeks to process."
Antonio let go of his power long enough for Mario to be flung against the wall. "You're saying I have two weeks?"
"N-n-np, Signore," Mario managed to force out. "Two weeks for the results. Proper diagnosis is... highly unlikely."
"I don't care for your answers today, Mario, but I'll keep my temper in check." He pushed himself away from the balcony, and let his cigarette stub fly into the night. "If I must finish in two weeks, I will finish in two weeks. I will go to her now."
"Signore... She is staying with a... friend."
Antonio's eyes flashed, the pupil seeming to devour the rest of the eye, then shrinking. "Call Fleur. I wish the distraction to be removed. I'll be out." He followed the cigarette butt off the balcony in a dramatic swoop.
"Ron, really, I'm fine. Just tired, they said," Glin argued as she pushed her way out of Ron's bed.. "I'll just rest at my apartment."
They'd been having this argument for awhile now, Glin exhausting herself even more with the effort of it. Ron had evidently already told everyone important of her whereabouts, and seemed to intend to keep her locked up with him like some sort of fairy tale princess in a tower. The mollycoddling had gone on long enough now. She'd suffered through him putting her into a pair of his sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt even though he knew she preferred to sleep nude. She'd suffered through him spooning her chicken soup like she was some sort of invalid, and she'd suffered through him spouting stupid platitudes the whole time. "You need to drink more fluids." "You'll catch your death of cold." "Here comes the train...choo-choo." She'd been nosed beeped, she'd been asked if she'd needed help going to the bathroom, and she was done with it.
"You can't rest there. There are shards of glass all over the place," he countered, pushing her back down until she was seated on the bed.
"I'll call someone to fix it," she said, standing again.
"Why bother when you can just stay here?" He tried to ease her back down.
"Because!" She screamed in exasperation as she beat weak fists against his chest.. "I can't do this anymore, Ron.. Don't you see? I don't want this. I don't want you! I don't want to come home to some person who knows all my little secrets, tawdry or otherwise. I don't want to have people talk about me as if I'm only half a person when I'm without you. I don't want you to be jealous because I'm beautiful for me and not for you. I don't want some sort of thing where I have to be responsible for what you feel and what I feel and what you feel about what I feel. It's crazy, Ron! Can't you see that?"
"Sshh..." Ron murmured, his arms staying tight about her, not even deflecting the ineffectual blows she kept slamming against him. "I know. I know."
"I...I...I just can't. I can't be some silly, stupid girl who is glad that she has someone to take care of her. I have to take care of myself, Ron. I just have to take care of myself." She repeated this over and over, like some sort of a mantra, until it wasn't words any longer, it was just sobs. She was too tired to hit him anymore, so she just rested her head against his chest, letting him rub her back.
He began to ease them both into the bed, and she stiffened and murmured into his chest. "I can't do that with you anymore, Ron. Things get all muddled."
"Not sex, Glin. Just sleep. We both need it," he explained.
"Not together, we don't," she argued.
"I need it together." They were in the bed now, with him spooned behind her, hugging her a bit like a child would hold a stuffed animal. She felt a warm wetness on her neck. He was crying. "You gave me quite the scare earlier."
"I'm fine. I'd be fine if I could just go-" She couldn't finish because he cut her off.
"Please, just for awhile, pretend that you care that I'm not fine." It was his body that was stiff now.
It wasn't fair of him, to call her unfeeling. Not when she was so very tired and cold, and his warm presence was lulling her into a deep, comfortable sleep. Certainly not when he'd broken a window for her. Not when he'd been crying.
She rolled over to face him, and tucked her head beneath his chin, her nose finding the warm place on his chest where it seemed to fit perfectly. She placed her hand into his slightly larger one and sighed. "I'm sorry."
His body relaxed into hers as he pressed a kiss to her hairline, and they both drifted in the warm cocoon of each others arms.
Ron shook his arms and tiny shards of glass shimmered down to the floor. He dropped the broom he'd been holding.
Glin looked up at him hopelessly. He wasn't supposed to be here, although she couldn't really remember why. She was angry with him, frustrated, but she had no recollection of the reasoning behind the anger. Whatever was still working of her mind told her that he needed to leave. She opened her mouth to tell him this, but all that came out was "Ron-"
He was beside her now. He moved incredibly quickly, Glin thought. He was smoothing the hair back from her forehead, and his fingers were so cold.
"You're burning up. We've got to get you to a medi-center." He began to take her out of the bed, but she protested.
"S'cold. Stay in bed."
"You have to get up," he said. After a few minutes of arguing with her, he just wrapped the sheets and blankets around her and lifted her into his arms. He jostled her a bit when he performed the disapparation.
The medi-center blurred into reality about them. Babies were crying and people were shouting. A particularly rowdy group of children were running about, and Ron noted absently that they were playing knights and dragons, a game he'd played often as a child. While a great deal of people were swarming about, they didn't seem surprised by his appearance at all, nor did they seem particularly interested in him at all.
"A little help here?" He asked the general population in annoyance.
A woman who was carefully sealing a gash on a child's forearm looked up at him. "If you want help you're certainly not going to get it that way. Go to the admittance window and fill out the paperwork Linda gives you."
"But this is an emergency!"
"And these people aren't having emergencies? Gina waited four hours for someone to look at her arm, and when one of us could finally find a moment to do it, we didn't even have a room to put her in while we healed it. Talk to Linda, and she'll get you set up."
Ron sighed, and turned to walk in the direction the woman had pointed. Glin moaned lightly in his arms as he bumped her foot against a chair, and he clutched her tighter to him. "Are you Linda then?"
"Aye," replied the rather large woman behind the counter without looking up. "Fill out this form completely, and return it to me when you've finished."
Ron decided to go for the charm angle. "Look, Linda, let me level with you. I'm really worried here, I'm not even entirely sure she's conscious. Is there a way that I could do the paperwork while someone made sure she's all right?"
The woman looked up, and adjusted her glasses. "I'm not promising you anything, but if you get that paperwork filled out right quick, I might be able to put a rush on it. That's the best I can do with things as crazy as they are today." With a gentle push, she pointed him in the direction of two open chairs.
Ron filled out the paperwork as quickly as he could, and with as little trouble to Glin as he could manage. With most of the little boxes checked off as "unknown," he handed a winking Linda the pieces of parchment.
"Just wait a bit, Love," she comforted him. "Keep her awake if you can."
Little did Linda realize what a mammoth task this was becoming. Glin would start to drift with less than a moment's notice, and it was all he could do to keep her awake. Finally, after what seemed like hours, but was very likely only a half hour at most, someone called out Glin's name.
A sandy-haired young man placed Glin on a gurney and began to give her a once over with a variety of diagnostic tools. Muttering to himself, "Dr. Jaimeson," as his nameplate stated, began running over possibilities.
"Blood pressure is low. Has this ever happened before?"
"No," Glin replied meekly. "It's probably just a really bad case of the flu."
"That hypothesis would be concurrent with the symptoms," the doctor said, half to himself. "I'll have to run a variety of testing to rule out other possibilities though."
"Do we have to stay for all of that?" Glin whined and clutched at Ron's hand.
"Of course not," Ron soothed. "Do we?"
The doctor looked up absently from Glin's chart. "Definitely not. The lab is horribly backed up, with non-priority blood test results taking around a week..."
"Isn't this a priority?" Ron said, in what he hoped was a menacing tone.
"Not really," the doctor said, obviously not perceiving a threat. "She's right, you know. It's probably just the flu. When combined with her alcohol consumption, it's highly likely she just became severely dehydrated. We'll put a couple bags of fluid into her intravenously to re-hydrate her. If her blood pressure comes back up, you can take her home then."
Remus stood in the doorway, absently rubbing his mouth for a few minutes, then turned to go back in the house. Sirius was standing in the foyer, lounging against a wall, watching him, and smiling smugly.
"I take it you and Miss Knight had a great deal of fun chatting about that book?"
"The book?" Remus queried absently before blinking and recovering and looking at the heavy volume in his hand. "Right, yes, the book. It's very fascinating, with all sorts of valuable historical..." He trailed off.
"She kissed you, didn't she?"
"I don't know where you got an idea like that."
Sirius snorted. "I'm rather familiar with the symptoms. The lip-rubbing, the slight blush and flustering at the mention of it and..." He hesitated and grinned. "You liked it didn't you?"
"Preposterous.," Remus scoffed. "Even if she had kissed me and I had liked it, it would be irrelevant. She's far too young for me."
"Women who are too young for you don't show up on your front door in robes that are stylishly too tight, with the top two buttons undone. Besides, she's not too young for me," Sirius argued. "Ergo, she's not too young for you."
"Perhaps I have different standards."
"Perhaps you're afraid of being happy," Sirius countered.
"Perhaps you should bugger off and find somewhere else to stay," Remus sulked.
"You truly are a spoilsport, Moony. Perhaps if I'm lucky she'll force you to have a good time."
"The two of you are entirely too much alike."
When Draco walked out of the bathroom, toweling his hair dry. Ginny was right. It was getting a bit long. He thought, perhaps, he'd let her trim it. If worst came to worst, he supposed letting her hack away at the mess wouldn't be entirely detrimental. He could always magically fix things if Ginny wasn't at good with the shears as she professed.
He strolled over to his bureau, and began to shuffle about in the drawers before a voice stopped him.
"I've already laid out stuff on the bed," Ginny said, stopping as she was halfway through the doorway. "I'll get Marigold ready."
"But-" Draco protested, but Ginny cut him off.
"No 'buts.' The three of us will have to be seen in public eventually, and the two of you need new robes, anyway."
"We have robes," Draco argued. "At least, I do. Besides, we could get a tailor to come to the house."
"Your robes are all things your mother picked out for you. You can't honestly tell me you prefer wearing things with ruffles."
He walked to right in front of her and wrapped one of her curls around his index finger and watched it bounce as he released it. "Looking to change me already?"
She rolled her eyes and cupped his cheek in the palm of her hand. "You know that's not it at all. I just don't want you to be afraid of being around people anymore."
"I'm not afraid," he said crossly, while pouting. "I went to your party."
"Because you were mad at me."
"Mad with desire," he teased as he kissed the corner of her mouth. "In fact, I'm feeling particularly mad at the moment." He kissed her, one of those slow, mind-melting kisses.
"Ow!" He yelped as Ginny pulled his head back by his wet mane.
"You're not going to distract me that easily, Draco," she told him, kissing his chin. "Besides, we need to pick out new furniture and stuff for the manor."
"Can't you do that on your own?"
"It's not my house."
"Merely a technicality," he murmured as he tried to distract her a bit more.
She was moments away from untying the knot of black silk at his waist before she remembered herself. "A valiant effort," she whispered huskily in his ear. "But we're still going."
"Drat," he said emphatically.
"If you're good, then maybe after..."
She left him to get dressed, and he crossed to the bed. She'd laid out his clothing neatly on the bed. Simple black robes, charcoal gray slacks, a gray dress shirt and a dull green v-neck sweater. Set to the side were a pair of trolleys, decorated with little winged hearts, charcoal trouser socks, and a green and silver striped tie. He vaguely recalled getting the underwear years before as a gag gift. He'd never actually intended to wear them. And yet, he found himself stepping into them, not so much because underwear was underwear, but because Ginny had picked them out for him.
This almost maternal side of her was something that usually just came out around Marigold. He'd seen glimpses of it during his drunken fiasco, but hadn't recognized it then. It gave him an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach, almost an aching. It wasn't entirely unpleasant.
Ash grew from the glowing end of his cigarette, and he flicked it into the cool, night air. He imagined it swirling down to the earth, disintegrating all the while until it was like a rain of gray snow. Absently, he considered quitting. Women these days were beginning to look down on kissing men who tasted of tobacco.
"Signore?" Mario asked nervously.
Antonio whirled about to face him. He looked relaxed, his body leaning lightly on the balcony railing, a cigarette lounging in his hand.
"What is it, Mario?"
Mario fidgeted. The Signore had been edgy ever since he'd been alerted to the Signora's condition. "She is fine. 'Dehydration,' they say."
"Mmm," Antonio replied noncommittally. Mario pressed on.
"I've talked with a few people. They assure me that her blood test results will take at least two weeks to process."
Antonio let go of his power long enough for Mario to be flung against the wall. "You're saying I have two weeks?"
"N-n-np, Signore," Mario managed to force out. "Two weeks for the results. Proper diagnosis is... highly unlikely."
"I don't care for your answers today, Mario, but I'll keep my temper in check." He pushed himself away from the balcony, and let his cigarette stub fly into the night. "If I must finish in two weeks, I will finish in two weeks. I will go to her now."
"Signore... She is staying with a... friend."
Antonio's eyes flashed, the pupil seeming to devour the rest of the eye, then shrinking. "Call Fleur. I wish the distraction to be removed. I'll be out." He followed the cigarette butt off the balcony in a dramatic swoop.
"Ron, really, I'm fine. Just tired, they said," Glin argued as she pushed her way out of Ron's bed.. "I'll just rest at my apartment."
They'd been having this argument for awhile now, Glin exhausting herself even more with the effort of it. Ron had evidently already told everyone important of her whereabouts, and seemed to intend to keep her locked up with him like some sort of fairy tale princess in a tower. The mollycoddling had gone on long enough now. She'd suffered through him putting her into a pair of his sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt even though he knew she preferred to sleep nude. She'd suffered through him spooning her chicken soup like she was some sort of invalid, and she'd suffered through him spouting stupid platitudes the whole time. "You need to drink more fluids." "You'll catch your death of cold." "Here comes the train...choo-choo." She'd been nosed beeped, she'd been asked if she'd needed help going to the bathroom, and she was done with it.
"You can't rest there. There are shards of glass all over the place," he countered, pushing her back down until she was seated on the bed.
"I'll call someone to fix it," she said, standing again.
"Why bother when you can just stay here?" He tried to ease her back down.
"Because!" She screamed in exasperation as she beat weak fists against his chest.. "I can't do this anymore, Ron.. Don't you see? I don't want this. I don't want you! I don't want to come home to some person who knows all my little secrets, tawdry or otherwise. I don't want to have people talk about me as if I'm only half a person when I'm without you. I don't want you to be jealous because I'm beautiful for me and not for you. I don't want some sort of thing where I have to be responsible for what you feel and what I feel and what you feel about what I feel. It's crazy, Ron! Can't you see that?"
"Sshh..." Ron murmured, his arms staying tight about her, not even deflecting the ineffectual blows she kept slamming against him. "I know. I know."
"I...I...I just can't. I can't be some silly, stupid girl who is glad that she has someone to take care of her. I have to take care of myself, Ron. I just have to take care of myself." She repeated this over and over, like some sort of a mantra, until it wasn't words any longer, it was just sobs. She was too tired to hit him anymore, so she just rested her head against his chest, letting him rub her back.
He began to ease them both into the bed, and she stiffened and murmured into his chest. "I can't do that with you anymore, Ron. Things get all muddled."
"Not sex, Glin. Just sleep. We both need it," he explained.
"Not together, we don't," she argued.
"I need it together." They were in the bed now, with him spooned behind her, hugging her a bit like a child would hold a stuffed animal. She felt a warm wetness on her neck. He was crying. "You gave me quite the scare earlier."
"I'm fine. I'd be fine if I could just go-" She couldn't finish because he cut her off.
"Please, just for awhile, pretend that you care that I'm not fine." It was his body that was stiff now.
It wasn't fair of him, to call her unfeeling. Not when she was so very tired and cold, and his warm presence was lulling her into a deep, comfortable sleep. Certainly not when he'd broken a window for her. Not when he'd been crying.
She rolled over to face him, and tucked her head beneath his chin, her nose finding the warm place on his chest where it seemed to fit perfectly. She placed her hand into his slightly larger one and sighed. "I'm sorry."
His body relaxed into hers as he pressed a kiss to her hairline, and they both drifted in the warm cocoon of each others arms.
