The Eighth Year Universe
Love Wins
When the Ground Beneath You Slips Away
The chapter title comes from the song:
Call on Me – Angels Fall.
Budapest, Hungary
The recon over the suspicious building had been a long job, which Harry had known. That was why he hadn't worried when an hour had passed, then when that hour bled into two or three.
But by 4 am in the morning, he began to worry.
Everyone else was asleep, but he was standing by one of the large clockface windows, his eyes on the sky looking for any sign of life. He couldn't send a Patronus because that would give their position away if they were hiding or in trouble. Still, if it reached 5am, he would wake the others and send out a search party.
For this reason, he let out a breath of relief when he saw something moving towards him on the horizon. With a frown, he reached for his wand. The object didn't look like a broom, it was too large, but as it loomed closer, Harry realised why.
It was two brooms flying side by side; one figure was holding the other upright.
He flicked his wand at the door, which triggered an alarm downstairs. It would notify them of an emergency and get the Healers up here as fast as possible.
Harry pressed on one side of the clock face, and it swung forward, creating a gap large enough for the two broom riders to get through.
When they landed, Harry saw the full extent of the situation. Bill was soaked in sweat from the effort it had taken to get Mitchell back here. And Mitchell was as pale as a sheet, with a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his leg.
"What happened?" Harry asked, transfiguring a makeshift bed for Mitchell, who was unconscious.
"It was my fault," Bill said with a shake of his head, "I didn't expect aerial trigger traps, Harry. Fuck, why didn't I expect that?!"
He turned around and kicked the wall in frustration. Then the three healers ran into the room, with the rest of the team trailing behind them.
Lilly was the first to drop to her knees next to Mitch, "Bill, what did this?"
"Bill," Harry said, jostling his friend.
Bill snapped himself out of his self-pity and ran a hand through his hair, "Uh, aerial wards. They had trigger traps on them. He got shot with an arrow when we were flying over the trees at the back of the house."
"And you took it out?!" Lilly asked in disbelief, "Didn't anyone ever teach you to leave something like that in until you get to a hospital?"
"It doesn't stay in," Daphne said from behind Lilly, "Trigger traps use tricky magic, similar to leprechaun magic. As soon as they were clear of the warded area, the arrow would have disappeared."
"Fuck," Lilly muttered, "And it's gone through straight through the tibial artery, which explains the blood loss. I need another set of hands over here."
Victoire was already kneeling next to her, "What do you need me to do?"
"You've clamped arteries in the field before, haven't you?"
"Just once," Victoire replied.
"Well, it's about to be twice," Lilly said, "Nevee -"
Nevee pre-empted her and handed her a saline solution.
Lilly removed the bandage and poured it onto the wound. Then she said, "Nevee, light."
"Lumos," Nevee murmured, holding her wand above the wound so that Lilly could see what she was doing.
"Okay, I need you to clamp the artery while I clean out the wound."
Victoire nodded and pressed her wand against the wound, muttering the appropriate spell to hold the artery closed. Lilly then flushed the wound out with a saline solution and asked, "Is that it clamped shut?"
Victoire said another incantation, then nodded.
"Right, I'm going to close this up," Lilly said, "Someone switch over with Nevee to give me light."
Daphne knelt down opposite her and cast a Lumos charm over the wound.
"Nevee, Vic, go into the med-pack and start a blood transfusion. We're about a litre away from him going into shock."
Victoire nodded and grabbed the med-pack.
"What's his blood type?" Nevee asked.
"It's in the med pack," Lilly called back.
Nevee opened it up and checked the chart attached to the inside, "O positive, great. We've got loads. How much do you think he needs?"
"Uh, at least 2 litres," Victoire replied.
"Start with that, then we'll see how he's doing," Lilly said.
Harry looked down at Lilly. He had been watching her this entire time, but he had also been trying not to get in the way.
"So…he's going to be okay?"
Lilly finished sealing the wound and looked up at Harry, "Yeah. I think he's going to be fine."
Harry let out a breath and nodded, "Thank Merlin for that."
Lilly got to her feet and looked down at herself. She was covered in blood.
"This is the part of being a Trauma Healer that I don't miss," She said, adding, "Scourgify."
Victoire cleaned the floor, and then she helped Nevee set up the blood transfusion.
Lilly knew she could leave that to them; it was basic stuff, after all. So she walked to the table where the others were.
"Was it worth it?"
Bill pulled a scroll of parchment from his pocket and smoothed it out on the table.
"It's heavily fortified," Bill began, "Which means they are definitely hiding something in there."
Daphne nodded and pointed to a jagged line at the side of the house, "Is that a gate?"
"Yeah," Bill said. He ran a hand through his hair and pulled it back with an elastic tie, "It runs around the perimeter of the house. The entrance gate is here, and it's warded with blood magic like the gates on most pureblood manors. I also picked up at least four different curses on the gate. I didn't have time to decipher them all, but they were nasty."
"So we aren't just walking straight through the front gate," Harry said with a nod. He looked to the map, which had three floors on it.
"No basement?"
"Not unless it had separate wards to the rest of the building," Bill replied.
"Which is possible," John mused.
"Entirely," Harry agreed. He pointed to an external door on the left side of the second floor, "This is another access point?"
"Yeah, it's weird," Bill admitted, "I don't know what they're keeping up there, but the only access is from the outside. The ground and first floor look like this place was a house, but the second floor is…weird. It's like it's a converted attic."
"With access from the outside only," Daphne said darkly, "Which no attic would need to have unless there was something in there that they wanted to keep separate from the rest of the house."
Harry nodded, "You've made a note about accessing it via a metal stairway?"
"Yeah, it's like a fire escape," Bill explained, "We saw some guards while we were there, but none of them saw us. Like I said, Mitchell got hit flying over the trees on the way back."
"How many guards?" Harry asked. He pushed a wooden box towards Bill.
Bill reached inside and grabbed a handful of red checkers, then he began to place them on the map.
"There were two here, outside the main gate. Another two here, outside the front door and two pairs patrolling the perimeter," Bill said.
"And there will be more inside," Harry mused.
"We couldn't break through enough layers of warding to get heat signatures," Bill said apologetically, "Not without them noticing the breach."
"It's fine. This is enough," Harry assured him.
Neville stood by his side and looked down at the map, "You're thinking the same thing as me, aren't you?"
Harry looked over at him, "That we're going to have to go in from above?"
Neville nodded and looked at Bill, "Did you come in from a different direction than the one you left in?"
"Yeah," Bill admitted, "We got lost on the way there, so we ended up approaching from the back. We perched in a tree and did our diagnostic spells from there, but on the way back, we flew over the front of the house."
"Okay, so if we approach from behind, you and Daphne can get through the aerial wards, right?"
Daphne and Bill both nodded.
"As soon as we're through the aerial wards, they'll notice the intrusion," Daphne pointed out, "And at that point, you could land on the roof. But you wouldn't be able to go through any doorways until we had curse-checked them."
"Unless we blew it all out in one go," Harry said, his eyes meeting hers, "When the aerial wards go, knock out the curses on the doorways too."
Daphne was following his line of thought, "It would only work on external doorways, but it would get us in."
"But it's not possible," Lorne said, looking between them, "The level of magic required to do that…."
Neville chuckled, "Oh, it's possible. What we're talking about is the magical equivalent of an electromagnetic pulse."
He raised his wand and pointed it to the electric light above them, "Imagine that is the aerial wards. If we blast enough magic through them…."
He twisted his wand and murmured a spell under his breath. Sparks of electricity shot from his wand, then a beam hit the light, and it glowed brighter and brighter until…
BANG.
The light bulb blew and shattered, then every other light in the room did the same.
There was a breath of realisation and then a dry voice from behind.
"Can you put the lights back on, please? We're trying to do a blood transfusion here."
Lilly chuckled and restored light to the room with a flick of her wrist, "Sorry girls. Nice demonstration though, Neville."
Neville smiled in amusement.
"Still," Oliver said, "That's going to take a lot of magic. Are you that powerful, Daphne?"
Daphne shook her head, "Not on my own. But if Harry and I combine our magic, we can do it."
Bill nodded. He didn't question it because he knew how powerful the Potters could be when they combined their magic, and it was, frankly, terrifying.
"Once they've done that, we're going to have to act quickly," Bill said, "And we will need to split up. Right now, I'm assuming Mitch is going to be out of action, which leaves us with an odd number."
"No, it doesn't," Lilly cut in, "I can partner an Auror. I trained for it. I'm a Senior Trauma Healer."
Harry looked at her, "Lilly…."
"I've saved your arse in the field more times than I can count, Harry," Lilly said, her blue eyes locking onto his, "Don't bench me when I'm needed."
Harry looked away from her to catch Neville's eye. As much as he didn't like it, Neville knew that Lilly was right.
He nodded, "She's right. She did train for this."
With a nod, Harry said, "Then this is how we're going to tackle this. Neville will stick with Daphne and me, and we'll blast through those wards. Then we'll land on the roof and take out the patrolling guards from above. Oliver and Evan, I want you guys to land as close as possible to the front door and take out the two guards there. Shep, Lilly, you're on the gate – get the guards there, and Bill, you'll be with them. Once the guards are down, make sure our magical EMP hit the gate too. We need it clear so that we have another escape route."
Everyone nodded.
"Where will Victoire and Nevaeh be while this is happening?" Lilly asked because, of course, she was concerned for the Junior Trauma Healers.
"Hanging back, for the most part," Harry replied, "We don't send Healers into combat unless they're trained for it, and I'm not about to break protocol. Victoire and Nevaeh will hide nearby."
"Okay," Lilly said. She looked from the parchment map to Harry.
"When's this all going down?"
"Tomorrow," Neville replied instantly.
Harry nodded at his partner and looked out at the others.
"At nightfall."
Blacknot Castle, Scotland
"Andie!"
Andrea smiled at her best friend, "Hey, Ella."
Ella hugged her tightly and pulled her into the kitchen, "I've not seen much of you this summer. I kind of thought you had been avoiding me, to be honest."
"I kind of was," Andrea admitted. She gave her friend a sheepish look, "I'm a little jealous that you've got it all figured out, and I have no idea what I want to do with my life, and I'm also kind of bitter that you're leaving."
Ella sighed and looked over at her, "I'm sorry about leaving. I did think that was why you were avoiding me. You've never been very good with goodbyes."
Andrea nodded and placed the box in her hands in front of Ella, "I bought you a leaving gift when I stopped being petty about the whole thing for five minutes."
"Being petty really isn't your thing," Ella said with a smirk, "Your sister, on the other hand? Yes."
Andrea rolled her eyes, "Don't even start. She annoys me at the best of times, but it's so much worse with Mum and Dad gone."
Ella nodded sympathetically, "How are you doing?"
"I'm worried, but I'm trying not to think about it," Andrea said stiffly, "Are you going to open that?"
Ella could tell when her best friend didn't want to talk about something, and she knew trying to force her to do so would just make matters worse. She opened up the box and pulled out a small silver mirror.
"Is this what I think it is?!"
"It's a two-way mirror," Andrea said with a nod, "So we can still talk, even when you're half a world away."
Ella's eyes filled with tears, and she pulled Andrea into a hug, "You're the best, thank you!"
Andrea smiled, although it was tainted with sadness.
"Have you heard anything from Noah?"
Ella scoffed, "Nothing. I'm glad, to be honest. If he had tried to come crawling back, I don't think I would have been able to trust him anyway, but I…I really liked him, you know?"
"I know," Andrea said sympathetically, "But I'm sure there will be plenty of hot boys in Egypt."
"Maybe," Ella said, rubbing her eyes, "Have you told your family about your hot new lover yet?"
Andrea scoffed, "No, and I don't think I ever will. Nobody wants to be a part of the chaos that is my family."
"Still," Ella said with a grin, "Just picture Thea's face when she finds out."
Andrea grinned back, "It's all that gets me through the long days, to be honest."
Ella laughed out loud and reached over the table to grab Andrea's hand, "I've missed you, Andie."
"I've missed you too," Andrea promised.
Budapest, Hungary
The mood was solemn that day. Nobody was really talking in the clocktower safehouse, and when they were, it was in whispers.
Lilly had gone back to sleep briefly, then made breakfast for everyone. After that, she checked on Cameron, who had more colour in his cheeks, but he hadn't woken up yet. That was a little unusual, but then again, he had lost a lot of blood.
She went about her checks and noticed that his blood pressure was lower than she would have liked. She frowned and unbandaged his leg to get a closer look and make sure that it wasn't infected, and that was when she realised what the problem was.
"Nevee, Victoire!"
Both girls ran over, and Victoire's eyes widened when she saw how swollen Cameron's lower leg was.
"What spell did you use to clamp the artery?" Lilly asked, and for a woman who was usually a kind and empathetic teacher, the hard look in her eyes was out of place.
Victoire stumbled over her words, "I uh, I used Fibulae."
"Damnit!" Lilly cursed, "That's not strong enough for an artery. It's fine for a vein, but for an artery, it's Fibulasigillum."
"I can help," Nevaeh said from the other side of Cameron's body, "I clamped and sealed a few major arteries when that thestral went berserk at Hogwarts last year."
"Alright, you're in," Lilly said, "Victoire, just…hold the light and don't do anything else."
Victoire nodded tearfully but held her wand out above the wound.
Lilly cut into Cameron's leg again, and blood spurted out everywhere.
"Suction!"
Nevaeh used a spell that siphoned the blood from the wound, disappearing when it reached the tip of her wand, and Lilly cursed, "I can't see anything. Victoire sterilise my hands."
Victoire did so, and Lilly shoved her hand into Cameron's leg.
Harry made a face, but he had seen her do something like this before, so it wasn't quite as disturbing to him as it was to Daphne.
"She's got her hand in his leg!" Daphne hissed.
"She can't see what she's doing. She needs to clamp the artery manually," Harry returned quietly.
"You've seen her do this before?" Daphne asked in disbelief.
"No, but I've seen her with her hand inside a guys chest once."
"Harry, I don't have enough hands, and we don't have time for back-up!"
Harry dropped to his knees next to the man they were treating in Diagon Alley, "Okay, what do you need me to do?"
"Exactly what I tell you," Lilly said. Then she shoved her hand into the man's chest.
"What are you - "
"There's a hole in his aorta, he's bleeding out. I need to keep it plugged while you heal it, okay? I'm gonna walk you through it all, and we're going to do this together."
Harry nodded and took a breath, "Okay, what do I need to do?"
Back in the present day, Harry said, "She saved a guys life because she thought so fast."
Lilly looked up at Nevee, "Okay, I need you to clamp this correctly, and god, I hope you have as steady a hand as Clara says you do. Otherwise, I'm gonna lose a finger."
"You won't," Nevee promised, "I'm good with my hands."
Lilly nodded, "Go. Victoire, keep that light where it is."
Both girls nodded, and Nevee manoeuvred her wand into the wound, letting it hover millimetres away from the artery that Lilly was clamping.
She said the words of the spell, and silver thread knitted the artery back together. Lilly let go, and nothing happened. She breathed a sigh of relief.
"That was flawless," She said, looking up at Nevaeh, "Do you want to close him up?"
Nevaeh nodded, "Yeah, of course."
Lilly took a step back and looked down at herself. She was covered in blood, and the spatter had covered the floor and the wall behind them as well.
"Victoire, can I trust you to do a transfusion without almost killing him?" Lilly asked.
Victoire nodded tearfully, and Bill stepped forward, "Don't you think you're being a little harsh-"
"Respectfully, Bill, she's your daughter, and that means your opinion is not going to be objective," Lilly cut in before Bill could finish. She lowered her voice and added, "Maybe you aren't harsh on a trainee when they mess up and nearly kill someone, but I know who is, and her training method works just as well as mine does."
Daphne nodded at Bill and lowered her voice, "She's right, Bill. People learn under pressure, but a huge part of learning comes from making mistakes and working your arse off to make sure you don't repeat them."
Bill nodded and took a step towards Victoire. Daphne put her hand on his arm and shook her head.
"Let her do her job. Once she's done, you can hug her."
With a sigh, Bill hung back and looked at Daphne with a pained look in his eye.
"It goes against everything in me, you know that, right?"
"Of course I do," Daphne whispered, "But you and I are in the same boat with our oldest children right now. They are adults, and as much as everything in us screams at us to help them, we have to let them find their own way."
She placed her hand on his arm and said, "Come on, have a cup of coffee and let her finish her work."
He didn't want to, but Bill knew Daphne was right, so he let her lead him away.
Harry stepped over to Lilly and ran his wand down her body, casting a deep cleaning charm to remove all the blood and grime. When he was done, she sighed and said, "Thank you."
"I remember your Lady Macbeth moment," Harry said. He smiled and gave her shoulder a squeeze, "Lilly Moon's way of saying she was struggling without actually asking for help."
Lilly smiled sadly, "That was after I lost my first patient in the field, wasn't it?"
"Yeah," Harry said softly, "It was."
Lilly was trying to pretend that she was fine, but Harry knew her better than that. Years of working in the field with her and even longer of being her friend told him that.
They were in a little shack that they had been called out to – it had been a raid gone wrong. The Hit Wizards had been ambushed, and one of them had been hit with a bad curse that caused internal bleeding. Lilly had tried her best to stop it, but every time she stemmed one bleed, another worsened.
After ten minutes, the Hit Wizard had died, and Harry grabbed Lilly's shoulder with enough force to anchor her but not too much that it startled her.
He pulled her away from the body and said.
"Time of death 11.17pm."
Lilly breathed shakily, and Harry looked down at her.
"Lil, you okay?"
Lilly nodded. She didn't want to appear weak in front of the other two Hit Wizards or the Aurors who had been called out to assist. To their credit, those Aurors were hovering in the doorway to let Harry deal with the situation.
"I'm fine," She said, looking down at her hands which were stained with blood – the clothing she wore in the field – a jumpsuit with the St Mungo's logo on it, was stained too.
"Just feel kind of like Lady Macbeth right now," She had joked weakly.
Harry knew the joke was a cry for help, so he cast a full-body cleaning charm on her, removing all of the blood in an instant.
She let out a breath and looked at him, unshed tears burning her eyes, "Thanks, Harry," she breathed.
Harry nodded and pulled her into a hug. She squeezed him a little too tightly, and she held on for a moment longer than usual. Then Harry whispered a charm that redid her glamour so that when she pulled back, she looked entirely put together.
"Anytime."
Back in the present day, Lilly took a breath and reached for Harry's hand, "Thanks," she murmured.
Harry nodded and squeezed her hand, "Anytime."
Daphne watched them. She leant to the side, where Neville was standing.
"They have a pretty special bond, don't they?"
"Yeah," Neville said with a smile, "They do. But they've been through a lot of hard things together. You know Lilly's never really retired from being a Trauma Healer. Every time Harry called on her expertise, she came running. Those two have saved each other more times than I can count."
"They're a good team," Daphne agreed.
Neville put an arm around her shoulder, "They are, but then again, so are we."
Daphne looked up at him and smiled, "Yeah, we kind of are, right?"
"We raised the kids while they saved the world," Neville said, a soft smile granting his face, "And you were there for me through everything with my back…I know we're not like the Black-Nott's, Daphne, but…we are a family, we always have been."
"And we always will be," Daphne finished.
Late that night, Harry checked in on everyone before disappearing downstairs to get some sleep. Most people were already in the dorm room, but he found Lilly in the kitchen.
"Hey."
"Hey," Lilly returned, "Thank you for earlier."
Harry shrugged, "It's what we've always done, isn't it? Anchored each other to reality when we need it."
With a nod, Lilly said, "Yeah. Still, it's been a while and…it's good to know you still have my back."
"I'll always have your back," Harry promised.
Lilly nodded again, then Harry added, "I was just checking in on everyone before bed. But I can't find Victoire. Do you know where she is?"
"No. I haven't seen her for a few hours," Lilly admitted, "But…I think I might know where she is."
"Do you want me to talk to her?" Harry asked.
Lilly shook her head and poured the remains of her coffee down the sink.
"No, I think I owe her that myself," She stepped forward and kissed Harry on the cheek, "I'll find her. Just go to bed. You're going to need your rest tomorrow."
"Okay, but don't be long. You need it too," Harry said with a note of finality.
Lilly promised him she wouldn't be long, and then she headed upwards to find Victoire. This building was unfamiliar to them, but what Lilly did know was where Victoire would go if something like this happened in St Mungo's, and that was up.
St. Mungo's had lots of different wings – with the maternity centre being the only one that was actually in a separate building. But, being an old building, like Hogwarts, the hospital also had many secrets. One of the staff's favourite haunts was out of bounds for the patients.
Just off the trauma wing was an ornate stairwell that wound upwards through a small tower with no real purpose. There was a singular room at the very top – it had once been an office or study. Still, ever since the expansion in the 1930s, it had fallen out of use. The circular room, with its domed ceiling and large arched windows, offered a perfect escape.
Lilly had gone up there more times than she could count after she lost a patient or had a hard day, and she knew it was where the Juniors went when things got tough.
By that logic, she worked out where Victoire was. In the clock tower room, there was an old steel ladder that ran up to a hatch. Harry had popped his head through it and said it was just a loft space that, therefore, had no use to them.
Lilly climbed the ladder, pushed the hatch open and popped her head out, and sure enough – there was Victoire.
The space was small, and it was also low because of the triangular roof this building had. Lilly climbed up and shut the hatch behind her, then she kept her head down and made her way over to Victoire.
The younger woman was sitting by a tiny, oddly shaped window. Only when Lilly really looked at the triangular window did she realise it was the Deathly Hallows symbol. A circular ring, complete with a vertical crossbar were carved from metal. It was actually quite beautiful, in a gothic way.
Victoire had her knees drawn up beneath her. She was leaning against the cool metal of the window with bloodshot eyes and tear tracks on her face.
"Don't tell Dad I'm here," Victoire said quietly, "He kept hugging me and looking at me with sympathetic eyes. I don't deserve that."
Lilly sat down on the floor and looked at her, "You don't think you deserve sympathy?"
"No," Victoire said with a scoff, "Why should I? Mitchell might lose his leg, and that's because I made a mistake. I keep…I keep going over it all, trying to work out how I got it so wrong."
Lilly nodded and looked at her, "I know how you feel."
Victoire laughed humourlessly and looked at her, "No, you don't."
"Yes, I do," Lilly assured her.
Victoire shook her head and looked away, "You're the best. Everyone says it. You've won an Order of Merlin because you're so good. Uncle Harry looks at you like you're literal sunshine because he knows how good you are. You don't know how it feels to screw up this badly."
Lilly nodded thoughtfully, "I have won an Order of Merlin, and your Uncle Harry looks at me like that because he's seen me at my best, but…he's seen me at my worst too, Victoire. I'm not perfect. None of us stepped out of the training centre in Amiens perfect."
Victoire looked up at her, "You've messed up too?"
"Of course I have," Lilly replied, "Do you really think you get to this level without making a mistake in the field? I remember the first time I did it. I'd been out of the training centre for maybe a year. It was all going great, I got complacent, and then there was a suspicious fire in the Closes. It burned through an entire block, and we got most people out, but some were dead on arrival."
Victoire frowned but listened intently.
"I pulled a little girl from one of the flats, and she was fine, clean as a whistle," Lilly said with a sigh, "There were so many others in terrible shape, and this girl was fine. I asked her where she had been hiding, and she said she'd gone into a crawl space under the kitchen floor, so I decided she was safe and told her to sit down in the green triage area while we looked for her mother."
"What happened to her?" Victoire asked quietly.
Lilly looked straight ahead when she spoke next, "Half an hour later, I went back to ask her if she could tell me her mother's name or what she looked like, and three Healers were working on her. Three healers on this tiny girl. She couldn't have been older than five…."
Lilly swallowed and blinked away a couple of tears, "I had just trusted her. I hadn't even run a diagnostic check, and if I had, it would have told me that she had suffered inhalation injuries. Her lungs were burned, and she developed secondary pneumonia. She died on that table, and when her mother came looking, I had to be the one to direct her to the black tent where her daughter's body was."
Victoire looked down at her hands.
"Her name was Kayla Knott," Lilly finished quietly, "She was beautiful, with dark hair and these deep, dark eyes. Her face is burned into my mind, even though this happened over 20 years ago."
Lilly looked out of the window and spoke quietly, "Her mother was called Kayleigh, and she was a squib who worked as a waitress in the ice cream parlour. She wasn't a bad mother or a neglectful one, and Kayla would have had a good life if I hadn't messed up. I know that because she had a little sister called Skyla, a year and a half younger than her. That little sister grew up and went to Hogwarts, where she became a Ravenclaw. She's 25 years old now and an apprentice at Ollivander's. I know all of that because I never stopped checking in on that family after what happened."
Victoire reached across and grabbed Lilly's hand.
Lilly smiled tearfully at the younger girl, "You didn't lose Mitch, and he probably isn't going to lose his leg. But one day, you will lose your first patient, and it will stick with you. But it has to. It's that feeling, this horrible feeling that's tearing you apart right now. It's what stops us from ever making the same mistake again."
Lilly wiped her eyes and looked at Victoire, "Whenever there is a fire, I check every single person for smoke inhalation. Regardless of how they look or where they say they were, I check them all. I give them all oxygen, and because of that, I saved the lives of two Aurors who would have died otherwise after the Knockturn Alley explosion in 2005."
Victoire nodded.
"Making mistakes, learning from them and remembering where we went wrong," Lilly finished, "It's how we become great."
Victoire wiped her own eyes, "I just didn't know it would hurt this much," she admitted in a whisper.
"Nobody said it was easy," Lilly said softly. She squeezed Victoire's hand, "But there's a brilliant Trauma Healer inside you, Victoire Delacour."
Victoire nodded and swallowed, "Is that why you were so hard on me earlier?"
Lilly pushed herself to her feet and smiled, "There's some truth in that old phrase, you know? I only pushed you because I care."
She held her hand out to Victoire.
"Now, come on. Have a cup of tea and get some sleep. Tomorrow is a big day, and you need to be at the top of your game."
Victoire nodded and let Lilly pull her to her feet. In the small space, she reached over and hugged the older woman.
"Thank you," Victoire murmured.
It felt a little full circle, but still, it made Lilly smile when she pulled back from the hug and looked Victoire in the eye.
"Anytime."
- TBC -
