Hermione Granger wasn't exactly what Violet would call fit. She was probably up there with Ash, Longbottom, and Violet herself on a list of most sedentary members of their team, with her tendency to spend her free time in the library. Most of the others were either fliers — broom sports required a surprising degree of physical effort, especially Envy's trick-flying — or serious duelists — a sport which also required a good deal of physical mobility and stamina. Even Mallory was an avid hiker, going for miles-long treks into the Forest or up into the hills surrounding the valley on weekends, exploring the geomantic environment first-hand.
But fit or not, panic was a great motivator. Violet was worried, too — her friends and family were out there just like Granger's, and Lord Black and whoever else they were sitting with could probably protect Madam Granger better than Mum and Dad and Colin and Marcy could protect each other and little Jackie (Violet's niece was only two, she had to be terrified) or the prefects the younger Hufflepuffs. But on the other hand, no one was aiming at them — the Blacks had made a lot of enemies by asking Madam Granger to speak for them in the Wizengamot — and Vi's family were all in the students' and visitors' (commoners') sections. If there was any serious violence, it would probably be in the foreign dignitaries' and nobles' sections. And even if it wasn't, if they were in serious danger, there was nothing Violet could do to help them. As their little tussle with that veela had shown, Vi was more of a hinderance than a help in an actual fight. She wasn't good at violence or even at picking the right shield charm to block incoming threats. (She'd stopped taking Defence after OWLs because there was no point, even when they had a decent teacher.)
She wasn't really sure what Granger thought she could do to help her mother in the middle of a riot either, since she'd gotten the impression that Granger was almost as bad as Violet at defending herself in a one-on-one, thinking on her feet situation — if she had time to plan and people to cast heavier offensive spells, sure, but she wouldn't have a bloody fort to command up in the stands! Lord Black was a former auror (and a wartime auror, at that) who had originally been trained as a battlemage by the bloody Blackheart. Aside from betraying the Potters and killing Pettigrew (which he obviously hadn't done) and escaping from Azkaban, he was probably best known for single-handedly holding the healers' tents at Glastonbury against the Dark Lord's giants long enough for the other wounded to be evacuated, after being seriously injured himself. (The Light had still lost the battle, but Lord Black was credited with saving at least fifty lives that night — including Violet's Uncle Dave, who'd been one of their healers.)
If the World Cup riot was anything to go by, he hadn't gone soft in Azkaban, either. The Prophet had published a leaked list of people who had been killed, those the DLE had confirmed were responsible, and if they'd been deemed fair kills, why — Lord Black had been responsible for five, all of whom had been throwing around Unforgivables, so clearly they'd been seriously dangerous wizards themselves. He wasn't going to let anyone hurt his Wizengamot representative. Granger showing up would probably just get in the way, another person he'd have to protect. Really, the best thing she — or any of them — could do was wait here, safe, until someone came to tell them things had settled down and they should go to the recovery tent or back up to the school or wherever.
But then, she sort of doubted that Granger was really thinking clearly right now. She took off running toward the trees with a speed which not even Weasley (the most fit, non-injured person at the Fort) could match, distracted as he was by whatever was happening to his twin up in the stands. Violet hadn't quite caught her own breath yet from their mad dash to get here, and while Potter didn't seem to be breathing hard, he did seem to be favouring his right leg — the one which had suffered a broken tibia at some point in the fight (most likely in his final collision with that tree, judging by the degree of swelling when they'd reached him). She had set the bone before waking him up, of course, and repaired the simple transverse fracture enough to walk on. She'd even reduced the pain and swelling around it, but the muscles were still tender and the bone itself would require time to fully heal. Running on it had been a terrible idea, but since the other option was being hit with veela fire or (after that other boy had found them) being cursed halfway to hell, he hadn't had much of a choice. (She probably should have counseled him to yield and just go sit down somewhere, but she really didn't think he would have listened, and she also didn't think the rest of their team would have thanked either of them if he had.)
Longbottom had noticed, too. "Alright, Harry?"
"Ah, yeah, it's just my leg. Come on, we should try to catch Maïa before she does something stupid..."
"You should stay here and wait until the elves come to escort us back to the recovery tent," Violet informed him. The organisers, knowing full well that, yes, kids were going to be seriously injured in this Task, regardless of whether there were healers in the arena or not, had set up a very professional-looking field-hospital, with Saint Mungo's elves on hand to evacuate anyone who couldn't be treated here. Poppy was there, and Snape, as well as the other trainee Healers (except Coraline, who had drawn the short straw and was keeping an eye on the three students still in hospital up at the school), and a couple of people from both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, so Violet was fairly certain they would be able to handle anything the students managed to do to each other individually — but on the other hand, there were forty-five students out here, and from what she'd heard of Weasley's commentary she would estimate at least thirty of them had been eliminated by injury, so it was very possible the healers on hand had expected that they might be overwhelmed and opted to stabilise some of the lower-urgency patients to be passed on to the Hospital, along with those who would require sustained, more intense therapy to fully recover. The poor boy Longbottom had engulfed with fast-growing grass came to mind.
In any case, they had been told that they would be brought back to the recovery tent to await the scoring when the Task was complete. Given that there was apparently a bloody riot going on in the stands (God, I hope I'm right about my family being out of the way...), Vi somehow doubted they would be getting their scores immediately — maybe not even today — but she thought they would probably still meet up with their fallen teammates there at some point.
Potter gave her a tired, annoyed glare. "I'm fine, Violet. Let's go..."
"Oh, don't be a hero, Potter," Ash drawled.
Potter rounded on him with sudden viciousness. "Piss off, Ryan! No one asked you! You all can stay here if you want, but I'm going!"
"Don't be silly, Harry," little Greengrass said, tucking herself under his arm to let him lean on her a little — regretting jumping on him, if the look she'd given him when he admitted his leg hurt was any indication. "Of course we'll come. I don't know what you think Maïa's going to do, though. Even Lyra and Arte have to be pretty tired by now, and even if they didn't want to stop just because the Task is over, they wouldn't just ignore an actual riot! I'm sure as soon as Maïa tells them what's going on, they'll stop."
Weasley snorted, leading the way after Granger. "Assuming Black doesn't think she's interfering and knock her out before she can get a word in."
"I really don't think Lyra would..." Longbottom began, but trailed off as he apparently realised that he wasn't quite as certain of that opinion as he thought. "If she were to hex Maïa, Maïa would be furious with her."
Ash chuckled. "D'you really think that would stop her?"
"She knocked out Nott," Weasley informed them.
"She's not, er, dating Nott, though," Longbottom noted.
"That wouldn't stop her," Harry scoffed. "But I'm more concerned Maïa will walk in front of a blasting curse or something trying to get their attention long enough to tell them to stop."
Weasley and Longbottom winced, though Greengrass rolled her eyes up at the boy leaning on her shoulder. "Maïa's not stupid, Harry! She knows better than to walk out into the middle of a duel!"
"She's not thinking, Tori! Her mum's up there somewhere in the middle of a riot! A magical riot! And Emma's a muggle! And besides, you're right, it's been, what? forty-five minutes? They probably are tired by now, accidents happen, and— Let's just go, okay?" He pressed on slightly faster, the group lapsing into silence as they approached the large clearing where the big ground battle had begun.
Violet felt it before she saw it, tingling impressions serious curses made on the local magical environment in the course of a real magical battle. She'd never felt it before, of course, but there were historical accounts from all over the world of this battlefield pall — destruction, pain, and fury that lingered well after the fighting was done, sometimes for years (not that she thought it would in this case, but there were battlefields on the Continent and all over the Americas that basically had their own ghosts) — and Uncle Dave had been right when he told her that she would know it if she ever felt it. She smelled it first, too — ozone, stronger than it ever was after a natural storm, and the acrid smoke of fire spells, somehow less natural than the smoke on the breeze from trees the veela had set aflame all throughout the arena.
She really didn't know how Potter and Greengrass could be truly surprised when they stumbled out into the scorched clearing, the ground broken and deeply gouged by cutting and blasting curses, fallen, broken trees still smoking slightly, though the fight had clearly long-since moved on.
"Bloody hell," Potter muttered over the girl's hushed "Woah," both of them stopping dead.
Longbottom almost choked on a nervous giggle. "I told you magical battles are scary..."
"Well, yeah, but like, fighting Krum was scary! This is just... Bloody hell!" he repeated.
Ash raised an eyebrow at him. "Wait until you actually see the omniocular footage they put together to distribute — whatever you're imagining, I guarantee you're underestimating it."
Potter glared at him again. "I have seen Lyra fight before, you know!"
"Not like this, unless—"
"Oi! Are we trying to catch Maïa or not?" Weasley interrupted, pointing through the blackened trees at a small, bushy-haired figure picking her way through the detritus at the far side of the clearing.
"Yes," Potter snapped, still glaring at Ash as though daring him to continue being...well, Ash Ryan. He wasn't really ever insulting or anything, he just had...sort of a knack for getting under people's skin. It was a tone thing, Violet thought. "Let's go!"
They almost caught her — Violet suspected it had taken her a few minutes to figure out which way her girlfriend's fight had gone after she and the Cæciné girl left the clearing, since there were large scorched and broken areas at a few different points around the edges of it. They got close enough to see a curse lancing in at her, her panicked hesitation, and then Black appearing out of nowhere — shadow-walking, because Black swore she wasn't a vampire but she clearly wasn't human (even more obviously so than the Blacks' reputation suggested) — shielding both of them from the explosive curse — Granger staggered from the shielded blast, tripping over the broken ground — but unable to stop the follow-up curse — something light enough Vi could feel it from here.
She could also feel Black trying to resist it, pulling dark magic into herself — obscenely dark magic, and far more of it than any fourteen-year-old ought to be able to channel. Her aura was flaring out of control, strongly enough that Violet was having trouble resisting the fascination effect of standing in the presence of a furious sorceress, magic like a force of nature, and she was no slouch when it came to channelling capacity herself. Everyone in the clearing — the surviving Hogwarts students, a lilin girl and veela boy standing on the sidelines, even Cæciné herself, still holding Black at wandpoint but not moving to throw another curse at her, just wavering slightly on her feet, staring in disbelief at the fact that the mad little girl hadn't gone down already — seemed to hold their breath.
The moment didn't last long, though. The curse, whatever it was — some sort of light battle magic, Violet was sure — seemed to become more intense the more Black tried to resist it, until the waves of dark power rolling off of her suddenly vanished, along with the eerie spectral flames racing over her skin. She collapsed like a puppet with her strings cut, apparently unconscious. (Hopefully just unconscious — Violet wasn't sure what that curse had been, but it had obviously been searingly light, and Black was equally obviously actually some sort of dark creature, no human could channel magic that dark—)
Granger, her balance barely recovered in the seconds since the blasting curse sent her stumbling, fell to her knees beside Black, rolling her over, head lolling, which Cæciné seemed to take as her cue that the fight was over, sinking to the ground as well, her schoolmates hurrying to her side as Potter, Longbottom, and Greengrass ran to Black and Granger. Violet was only a few steps behind them, shooing all four of them away from the fallen girl to perform a sequence of standard diagnostic charms.
"Is she—?" Granger asked, her attention clearly torn between her girlfriend and the riot out in the stands, her gaze flicking involuntarily away to the south and the violence they could neither see nor hear from here.
"She's alive," Violet assured her. "She...should be okay," she added, trying to sound more certain of that than she was, because this was so far beyond anything she'd ever dealt with in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing, it really wasn't funny.
Up until now, the injuries she'd been asked to treat were more or less what she'd expected for the Task: prank spell effects, minor physical wounds, flying (or crashing) injuries, maybe a bit of cursebreaking, if any of the more serious fights ended with anyone wounded lightly enough to not be evacuated to be treated properly, but nothing too extensive. (If anyone was wounded beyond her ability to handle they would be evacuated, she'd assumed as much even before Director Zabini had confirmed it because the whole school had been assured that the organisers had taken precautions to ensure no one would actually die like they had in Tournaments past.)
The lilin caught in the midst of her own bomb going off was a bit more than she'd been prepared for, but not that much worse than the result of interference between half a dozen prank hexes, like the ones someone had used on one of the second-year muggleborns last month. (Probably a handful of second-year Slytherins — Poppy said they and young Mister Rhees had an ongoing feud, though of course all of them, including Rhees, denied it.) She hadn't been able to heal the damage from all of the cantrips going off at once, but it seemed lilin were more durable and less vulnerable to fire than human mages (not a surprise, really). She had been able to stabilise the prisoner, and the elves didn't seem to think she needed to be evacuated, which went a long way toward assuring her that her stabilisation had been successful. The lilin girl should be fine until someone came to retrieve them, and a more experienced (fully qualified) Healer could see to her.
This, though...
Violet wouldn't have agreed to do this if she'd thought she would be asked to deal with anything as extensive as Black's current injuries. Yes, she did have basic first-aid training, more than enough for most of the injuries which had come up today, but she had really just started learning serious healing, and she had no interest in becoming an arena healer for the International Dueling League, or even an emergency cursebreaker-healer! She wanted to be a family healer! Maybe specialise in childhood magical development! She could only assume the elves hadn't popped in and taken Black away immediately because the task was technically over, and they were preoccupied with whatever was happening outside the arena.
Which meant Violet had to at least try to help her.
Physically, the girl was a mess. Her nose was clearly broken — swollen, with two spectacular black eyes — and she was covered in superficial cuts, contusions, and second degree burns — the left side of her chest and shoulder looked particularly bad, and those had already been partially healed. Her left side seemed to have taken the brunt of the damage overall, actually. Her left ulna and radius appeared to be held together by transfiguration at the moment (Poppy was going to be furious). The spell was anchored by a rune carved into the inside of her arm just above a tattoo of a bird Violet had never noticed before (because of course that had seemed like a good idea, Black was clearly insane), but it was unraveling anyway because she'd taken a serious (progressive? Vi wasn't sure whether she was reading that right...) light cutting curse just below her left elbow (which would require breaking before it could be healed), and the lingering magic in the cursed wound was somehow interfering with the underlying magic Black had cast on herself.
Her left carpi ulnaris was torn, the pisiform dislocated, and her sloppy attempt to stabilise the wrist had compressed the ulnar nerve — probably not enough to prevent her using the hand, but certainly enough to weaken her grip. Vi was fairly certain the damage to her left cotyloid ligament was from a partial subluxation, the femoral head not quite wrenched out of its socket far enough to remain dislocated, but certainly enough to cause a partial tear — honestly, she was shocked Black had kept walking on it, let alone fighting (bloody madwoman), especially since her left knee and ankle were also strained, as though she had been forcibly twisted with that foot planted.
She'd taken some sort of blunt force trauma to the chest — a banishing, maybe, either applied directly to Black or to some physical object which had then struck her in the sternum — causing fractures to the left second and third costal cartilages (close enough to her heart to have killed her if it had been a piercing hex — bloody hell...). Her right fourth and fifth ribs were cracked, between the angle and the articulation with the transverse process of the vertebrae, probably from being thrown into something (there were corresponding contusions throughout the overlying skin and muscle); several tendons and ligaments in her neck showed signs of whiplash, quite possibly from the same event. Her xiphoid process had probably broken off in a separate impact from the one which had broken her costal cartilages, though there was no way of determining whether that was related to the whiplash or broken ribs.
None of her physical injuries were immediately life-threatening (thankfully), though Vi was somewhat concerned about a potential concussion — there was a very obvious knot on the back of Black's head — and the possibility of serious internal bleeding developing from any lacerations caused by the displacement of the xiphoid process. It hadn't punctured her liver, it would be obvious by now if she had a major haemorrhage, but Vi would be shocked if there wasn't significant damage to the muscles of her diaphragm (she just didn't know any analysis charms with the specificity to say for certain).
That none of her injuries were likely going to kill her before a real healer could treat her was incredibly lucky, because with the magical complications she was seeing, Violet had no idea how.
Light magic contamination was probably the term for this sort of magical toxicity reaction, though she'd never actually heard it used before. Dark magic contamination, yes, that was fairly common, but light magic generally wasn't destructive or corrupting in the same way. She supposed it made sense that there would be light cutting curses which would resist healing, in much as there were dark cutting curses that did the same — that would explain the effects around a shallow slicing wound across Black's upper chest and the deep cut to her left forearm — but she was fairly certain light magic wouldn't (shouldn't) spread beyond the wounds, not only inhibiting their healing but acting almost like a creeping poison, causing more damage everywhere it reached. (Not on a human, anyway.)
With dark magic contamination, she could try to circumscribe the wound and at the very least prevent any further spread with light magic, but Violet didn't know any dark versions of those particular healing spells. And even if she did, there was a third concentration in Black's abdomen, as though she had suffered a deep transverse cut, similar to the one on her chest but without a physical wound, leeching light magic into her vital organs and blood in a way that was impossible to circumscribe anyway. Plus whatever that last curse had been — it'd caused major systemic interference in Black's own magic, like a transfusion of energy from an incompatible source.
That was not a common syndrome by any means, though it was sometimes seen when a duelist attempted to subsume apart a curse which was significantly darker than the natural tenor of their own magic (lighter in this case, obviously) or came into direct contact with certain predatory demons like grumkins and shrieks which injected dark magic into their prey to incapacitate it. "Soul poisoning" was the term. Violet had only seen one case herself — two of the Slytherins in her year, Warrington and Higgs, had gotten into a nasty duel over Higgs failing to enter his name for the Tournament, which resulted in Warrington trying to subsume a bloody liver-shredding curse. He'd managed to prevent it from shredding his liver, which was something, but had still ended up in hospital as his magic reacted badly to attempting to assimilate the dark energy of the curse.
Poppy had said there was usually nothing to be done for soul poisoning but let the patient sleep it off until their magic stabilised, which could take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, depending on how extensive the contamination was. If they fell into a truly comatose state, it might be advisable to slow their biological functions so they wouldn't suffer from hunger or thirst, or even spell water and nutrient potions into them. If there was no improvement within two weeks, or their condition began to noticeably deteriorate, there were specialist techniques which attempted to introduce magical energy to interact destructively with the initial incompatible transfusion, but that was very risky, a last resort sort of thing, because a soul in flux was unstable enough without deliberately introducing more interference. And beyond that, there was really nothing a healer could do to help. Warrington's case hadn't been that bad, he'd been back in lessons two days later, but Violet would be surprised if Black wasn't unconscious for a week from this.
All in all, Violet thought it might be for the best that she not try to address any of the physical damage. She hated not being able to help her at all, but most of the healing spells she knew were light, which would only make the soul-poisoning worse, and the rest could have unpredictable effects when used on a patient whose soul was in flux, even when they targeted the physical body rather than the patient's magic. Since none of the physical injuries were actually (imminently) life-threatening, it would be much more advisable to wait until she could be treated by Poppy (or more likely Snape — he seemed like he would have more experience with dark healing magic, and probably also with soul magic).
And what the hell were Weasley and Granger and Ash doing? she wondered, looking up as she realised the violinist was playing again. Weasley was directing the sound and the magic away from the rest of them with the same parabolic reflecting shield Granger had used to redirect Mal's Resonating Demolition Curse at the Beauxbatonnais earlier, but with Granger using runic casting to amplify the effect (like Black had used it to project Lord Black's illusory rock song at the award ceremony earlier), the music was still making her feel slow and tired, and—
They weren't trying to use a rune-cast amplification of performative magic to calm a bloody riot, were they? That was just...
Mad.
That was completely bloody insane.
Even if it worked, it was still just— Using performative magic to influence people en masse, without their consent— Actual concerts and ballets were fine, but something like this was really illegal. Even the Aurors were supposed to get special dispensation to use that sort of magic! Not that she was really surprised Granger and Weasley didn't care — Granger probably didn't even know she was committing a serious crime in front of any number of representatives from their own government as well as foreign magical and muggle governments — committing it on them, actually, since they'd obviously be affected, and— Fuck. Just...fuck.
Yes, the House of Black would probably make sure she didn't actually get charged with anything, claim extenuating circumstances and argue that they should actually be inducting Granger into the Order of Merlin too, or something, but Violet was still shocked she'd managed to get Ash to go along with it.
In the time it took for Vi to realise that, okay, insane as this ploy objectively was, Granger, Weasley, and Ash probably wouldn't actually get in too much trouble, especially if it worked, Granger, necessarily not protected by Weasley's shield in order to cast her megaphone thing (apparently not instantaneous, she had to keep renewing it, the runes at the far edge fading away as they carried Ash's music and magic up and out, giving it the power to be heard — hopefully — all the way up in the stands) began to sway slightly on her feet, despite biting one of the knuckles on her off hand in a clear effort to keep herself awake and focused.
Ash apparently noticed that too, shifting the tone of the music from a sleep-inducing lullaby to... Violet wasn't really sure how to describe it (music wasn't really her thing). Something...springy. Light and simple and waking up, sort of...? carrying a feeling like stop and take a breath and look around and realise exactly what you're doing right now.
It was refreshing and a little shocking, like having a glass of water thrown in her face, and it brought...clarity, that was the word she was looking for, washing away her anxiety about Black's condition (and presumably the rioters' fear and anger and whatever else had sparked the riot in the first place) along with the sleepiness that had come before, in a matter of seconds.
Ash repeated the short, springy melody twice, a little slower each time, before he gestured with his bow for Granger to cut the amplifying enchantment. "That's it. I'm done in. If that didn't do it, you're going to have to wait for Dumbledore or whoever to stop the fighting, because I am officially completely done." He looked it, haggard and exhausted. (Performative magics could be quite draining, after all.) He let himself slump to the ground to sit in what seemed an awkward position to Vi — feet planted, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and his forehead on his crossed arms, instrument tucked safely under his legs. Since there was nothing to be done for Black, Violet rose to offer him an Invigorating Charm.
She was pretty sure he was going to take her up on it, but before he could work through the offer and say as much — blinking up at her as though the question ("Want a pick-me-up, Ash?") was so much gibberish and he couldn't imagine why she was talking to him — Granger, kneeling beside Black again, told Weasley, loudly enough for Violet to overhear, "Waking her up, what do you think I'm doing?"
Weasley, who was clearly a far more reasonable, rational person than Violet had previously assumed — charming and chivalrous as the Gryffindor pranksters tended to be (coming to her defence with McLaggan, for example), she had to admit she'd never really considered them a voice of reason before — shook his head. "That is what I thought you were doing, and I also think it's a bad idea. Violet? Care to weigh in on this one?"
"What? No, don't try to wake her up, Granger! Why would you—?"
"My mother is still up in the stands somewhere!" the fourth-year interrupted, still somewhat hysterical. "I need Lyra to help me find her!"
"Yeah, well, unfortunately, I don't think you can wake Black up right now, and—"
"Well, it can't hurt to try, then!" Granger, glaring at her as though her attempt to sound calm and authoritative was complete dragonshite (which it admittedly was, but not because she wasn't right about it being better for Black to remain unconscious, just because she didn't really know anything more about what to do for her beyond leaving her unconscious), cast a Reviving Charm before she could add that yes, trying to wake her — casting any magic on her at all right now — could hurt her, and was in fact a terrible idea.
Black, in defiance of everything Violet knew about serious soul-trauma, jolted upright, eyes wide and panicked, flailing for the wand Violet had confiscated (rather than leave it lying on the ground or put it back in the holster on Black's broken arm), before realising that she wasn't under attack; the witch holding her wand on her was, in fact, her girlfriend; and also she was still suffering multiple serious physical injuries as well as multiple points of light magic contamination, including a very serious case of soul poisoning (consciousness notwithstanding), so perhaps lying down again might be the better course of action.
Her eyes fell closed, but she was still awake, forcing words out, thin and pained...and in a language Violet definitely didn't recognise.
Granger clearly didn't either, stubborn, irrational determination to drag her recently-unconscious, clearly injured girlfriend off to help find her mother faltering in the face of her complete incoherence. "English, Lyra? Or French."
Black opened her eyes just enough to squint up at her. "Where's my wand?"
"I've got it," Vi admitted. "You shouldn't be trying to cast anything, anyway. You're soul-sick."
The tiny madwoman let out what might have been a groan if her ribcage weren't cracked in multiple places. As it was, it was little more than a wincing sigh. "Cæciné. Cæciné!"
The second time was actually loud enough for the Aquitanian champion, talking to Potter and Greengrass some distance away — where did her schoolmates go? — to hear her, though she didn't seem to entirely believe that she had. "Black? How are you conscious?"
"Ugh, epinephrine and endo-morphine mostly. That last curse is over, right?"
"What are you?"
"Dying, I think. What was that? Is it going to keep hurting me if I try to neutralise this shite?"
Cæciné, who looked even more exhausted than Ash despite the alertfulness effect of the music, dragged herself a bit closer, legs trembling with the effort. "Seriously, how...?"
"Who's... Harry, hex Cæciné. Please."
"Er...no? Just go back to sleep, Lyra. There's a riot in the stands, or was, I guess? and Maïa wants you to help her find Emma, but you're not in any condition to help, so..."
"That's why you woke me up?" Black glared at her girlfriend — staring at her helplessly, worrying her lower lip as though trying to come up with a backup plan since, inexplicably conscious or not, Lyra clearly wasn't in any condition to help. "Cæciné, answer my question!"
"What?"
Black halfheartedly threw a small rock at the other girl, without so much as turning her head to aim. It missed by a smaller margin than Violet might have expected, though it still fell short enough it bounced by her knee. "Light curse. Resisting made it worse. Instantaneous or ongoing?"
"It was a judgment curse. You shouldn't have been able to resist it at all!"
Black chose not to address whether she should or should not have been able to resist the curse in question (regardless of the fact that she clearly hadn't done so successfully), instead closing her eyes and pulling what Violet considered a reckless amount of dark energy into herself, especially for someone whose soul was unstable at the moment. "Black, are you sure you should..."
She trailed off as tension and pain faded from the lines of the younger girl's face and body. When she opened her eyes again, they were glowing with an eerie blue-white light. "Yes. Wand?" Violet handed it over, allowing her to reinforce the transfiguration holding her left arm together before letting both limbs flop back to the ground. "Emma's fine, Maïa."
"You don't know that, Lyra!"
"Yes I do. She's with Siri and Cissy. And besides," She pointed at the bird tattoo. "Gabbie's a little scared, but Emma's not, and the tracking charm would have broken if she were dead, so fine enough."
That was...apparently not an answer Granger had expected. "You put a tracking charm on my mother?"
"Do you know how many people have tried to kill Emma in the past two months? Of course I put a tracking charm on her," Black muttered, eyes drifting closed.
"What? No! How many— Damn it, Lyra!" She cut herself off as she realised her girlfriend was unconscious again.
"Come on, Maïa," Potter said, laying a hand on her shoulder. "Let's— We should bring Lyra back to the Fort — it is safe to move her, right?"
Violet nodded, casting her analysis charms again. "There's nothing wrong with her spine, she's just completely physically exhausted." Whatever she had done channelling dark magic there had resolved most of the instability in her soul, though (which Vi was pretty sure shouldn't have been possible, she shouldn't have been able to channel magic at all, let alone renew that transfiguration), and pushed back the effects of the light magic still leaching out of her wounds, enough Vi felt confident casting a couple of charms to 'set' her broken ribs and fix her xiphoid process — wrenched further out of place by her reflexive sit-up — in its current position. It wasn't healed, of course, but the charm would stop it moving around relative to other tissues and causing more problems until it could be properly healed.
"Right, then we should take Lyra back to the fort and, since I think if the elves were still watching they would've popped her out, we should probably see if we can find Ced and Theo and anyone else who's still out here before they get crushed by a burning tree or something..."