Note: Ok, brace yourselves – I've introduced an OC, something that always makes me slightly nervous. I offer no explanation or justification here, just see how you get on with her. She's not massively important to the plot, and hopefully her function will be satisfactorily explained during the course of the chapter.
Chapter Twenty
The Healer of the Heartless.
The first thing that Lucius became aware of when he came back to reality was, of course, the pain. Every joint in his body felt like it was on fire. He was no stranger to the Cruciatus curse, but this was the first time that he had ever passed out under its effects. One would think that one would get used to the feeling, not tolerate it as such but remember and prepare oneself for the effects as they came, but this was not the case. It was not a feeling that one could ever get used to; each time the pain was as shocking and terrifying as the first. The second thing that he became aware of was a cold hand on his forehead. It was a very welcome cold hand, and he was angered when it moved away. He felt rather bereft without it as the throbbing pain in his skull threatened to overwhelm him. The third and final thing that he became aware of was a low muttering somewhere in his vicinity. Presently, the cold hand returned, providing blessed relief.
Lucius opened his eyes to find the world around him slightly blurry, but recognisable enough as the master bedroom. He wondered idly, since his head was too painful for him to try and think pointedly for any length of time, how he had managed to get up two flights of stairs whilst unconscious, and he attributed this move to the owner of the hand. He tried to sit up, but the voice that had been muttering, a voice no doubt attached to the hand, stopped him.
"Oh no. You stay put, young man."
If Lucius had been able to, he would have smiled at the now-familiar tone. There was only one person who called him 'young man'. Cold glass pressed gently but persistently against his lips.
"Drink," said the disembodied voice firmly, and Lucius swallowed obediently but reluctantly. The potion felt like fire as it rushed down his throat; its taste was so sickly sweet it was difficult to keep down but it began to work on his aching body almost immediately. Unseen hands removed the vial and replaced it with a no less fuzzy but much more welcome glass. "Just a sip this time."
The cognac chased the disgusting potion down and finally, Lucius's vision cleared, and the owner of his administrating voice appeared; a witch on the wrong side of fifty with stern blue eyes behind rimless spectacles and a perpetually worn-down expression. She sighed.
"Lucius Malfoy, you'll be the death of me." She flicked her head sharply and her long braid of hair, brown with a generous dusting of silver, swung over her shoulder. "You see all that grey? I swear you've caused more of it than my own children, and that is saying something."
"It's good to see you too, Cam," Lucius replied weakly, wishing that his voice had not sounded quite so feeble.
Camilla Rosier's expression softened, her eyes melting from frustration into sadness.
"I'm glad you're awake, Lucius," she said, before shaking her head at her private train of thought. "You withstood quite a bit, or so I am told."
"Draco!" Lucius's mind flooded with panic for his son and he made to get up again, but Camilla's unnaturally cold hands on his shoulders forced him back down against the pillows.
"Goddamnit man! You've just undergone the worst torture of your life and I'm not done trying to rescue you from its effects yet so for the love of Merlin, will you lie still and let me do the worrying?" she exploded. The force of both her outburst and the glare that Lucius gave her in return seemed to weaken her steely resolve and she appeared to sag visibly under his eyes. "Draco's perfectly fine. He's keeping an eye on Ciss, who is sleeping off a shock tonic in the living room. Before you ask," she added quickly, holding up a finger as Lucius opened his mouth to speak, "she is physically unharmed, just shaken." She returned his glare with an equally powerful one of her own. "Can I get on now?"
Lucius, glad to hear that his family was safe and unhurt, nodded minutely and closed his eyes, and as Camilla resumed her ministrations, he found himself wondering at the role that she held within their ranks. 'The one who patches you all up after your ridiculous escapades'; that was how she described herself. It was a task that she shared with Severus; when the potion master's expertise in his field were unavailable, or when he was in need of the healer's hand himself, Camilla would step, unasked and mostly uncomplaining, into the breach. She had been one of the little band of wives who gathered with Narcissa to wait out the long nights when their men were out at the Dark Lord's beck and call; the company providing a small comfort and respite from the fear each woman felt should her lover not make it home. Of their select little group, Camilla was the only one to have lost her husband to the Veil, and this had made her remarkably protective of the other wives' other halves. She was determined that none of her friends would share her widowhood, and so she worked so hard to prevent such an occurrence.
It was an unwritten rule amongst the Death Eaters that whilst everything else in their line of work was excusable, justified, there was one place that remained untouched. The Death Eaters never crossed the threshold of St Mungo's. This was not out of deference to the sanctity of the Asklepian, but rather a desire to save face and save their skins. With regard to the former, it shattered their capacity for aloof terrorism if the Dark Lord's warriors had to drag one of their compatriots into St Mungo's emergency department; with regard to the latter, it was simply too dangerous for them. For those that the Death Eaters fought against, the hospital was truly sacrosanct. The healers were fiercely protective of their patients, and the Auror office took any calls from St Mungo's extremely seriously indeed. Thus, it had been unanimously and silently decided that any injuries received in their line of work, particularly those received at the hands of the Dark Lord himself, would be treated within their own ranks.
"There," said Camilla with a final poke of her wand – Lucius thought that she would have made an extremely effective Mediwitch in that respect. A tone of weak satisfaction came into her voice. "You are as fixed as it is possible for me to fix you." He opened his eyes as she handed him the half-filled brandy glass. "Drink up."
As he sipped the amber liquid, he watched Camilla stand from her position on the edge of the bed and stretch the cricks out of her spine, and he wondered how long she had been watching over him. She yawned and looked around, finally spotting her cloak draped over the chair in the corner of the room. She summoned it and wrapped it round her shoulders, impatiently flicking her braid out of the collar and fastening it before pushing her glasses up onto her head and blinking a few times to refocus on her patient from a longer distance.
"I am going to check on Ciss; she should be awake by now, and then I'm going home. Finn and Mareike will have been stewing all night." She paused. "I'm not going to stop you coming with me, but take it easy; if you collapse I will not be the one to pick you up again."
Gingerly, Lucius levered himself up. As desperate as he was to see his family again and reassure himself of their safety with his own eyes, he knew that Camilla was a hard taskmaster who would have absolutely no qualms about tying him to his bed to prevent him from moving if necessary. He swung his legs off the bed and Camilla watched him, ready to lend a supporting arm if required but also realising that Lucius had been humiliated enough that night without the added indignity of needing a woman a good decade older than him to help him up. He managed to get to his feet unaided and slowly followed Camilla out of the door. He remembered what she had said about his being more trouble than her children, and Lucius felt a pang of guilt. The widows, as Camilla herself had told him on a previous occasion, were often forgotten about. It was this that made her so confident of not feeling the Dark Lord's wrath herself when she helped his followers in the aftermath of their receiving the brunt of his anger.
"He won't bother with us," she had said. "He never bothers about the widows. We're as dead and useless as our husbands in his eyes."
"How is your family, Cam?" asked Lucius presently. Camilla started at the unexpected question.
"They are… thriving, Lucius. Alexandra is in America, safe I believe. She seemed fine in her last letter but I have not heard from her for over a month. They always say that no news is good news, but in these troubled times I am not so sure." She sighed and her voice became hard. "Of course, you know about Daniel."
Daniel Rosier, Camilla's son, had like so many young men followed in the footsteps of his father. But whereas Draco had been somewhat coerced into his taking of the Mark, Daniel had done so willingly, eagerly even, wanting nothing more than to champion the cause that his father, whom he idolised long into adulthood, had given his life for. It was a decision that he had fought bitterly with his mother about, and their friends had long given up hope of a reconciliation between Daniel and Camilla.
"After losing his father to it…" Camilla was murmuring to herself. "You'd think he'd be put off the call for life, but no…"
"The Dark Lord would have taken him as Evan's replacement in any case, Cam," Lucius said gently. "We do so often follow our fathers in that way."
"Oh, I know that it was inevitable; I accept that I would have lost him to the Dark Lord at some point. What I've always taken issue with is the enthusiasm with which he did it." Camilla sighed. "I mean, look at Draco, and Finn."
Thorfinn Rowle, since returning from Germany having been forced to take over his father's place in the ranks, had become a second son to Camilla. A friend of his family, she had offered him and his young wife space in her near-empty home, and it was clear that she considered the couple her third and fourth children.
"How is Finn? And Mareike, for that matter?"
Camilla's lips pressed together in a thin line, but the expression in her eyes was not one of disapproval, rather one of restraint, as if the action was keeping herself from revealing information that should not be revealed.
"They're fine," she said eventually. They had reached the living room by this point, and Camilla seemed glad of the excuse to break off the conversation. Something in her eyes seemed worried, but it was a different kind of worry to the one that she usually wore. Normally her expression was something akin to exasperation and pity, but now she was the picture of a worried parent. When the people she considered to be her children were all adults of their own right, all fighting in this interminable war in their own way, the risks and the responsibilities that they bore seemed so much greater, and the worries were naturally multiplied in the same way. It was only natural that Camilla should be worried for Alexandra, Finn, Mareike and even Daniel, but her eyes were, Lucius realised, more than worried. There was fear in them, a fear that had not been there a few days previously. Something had happened, something that Camilla was keeping close to her chest, and whatever had happened, she was scared by it. She broke away from his pointed stare and knocked politely on the living room door before entering.
Narcissa was sitting on one end of the chaise longue, her pale face hidden in her hands. Draco had an arm around her shoulders, but he stood as Camilla and his father entered. Aware of feeling her son's presence leave her side, Narcissa looked up, and on seeing Lucius alive and comparatively well, she jumped up and made to run into his arms, but Camilla stepped neatly between them.
"Sit," she said firmly, scooting the chaise a metre or so towards them with her wand. "There is to be no fainting on my watch. I categorically forbid it. I've had a long night of distress and revelations and I need my beauty sleep as much as any other witch on the wrong side of middle age does."
Narcissa and Lucius obeyed their elder's command and sank onto the chaise longue together. Narcissa immediately slipped her arms around Lucius's waist, resting her head softly against his chest; close enough to hear his heartbeat and reassure herself of his continued existence, but her touch light enough so as not to aggravate suppressed pains. He held her close, stroking her silky waterfall of hair; the intimacy a comfort to both of them. Neither was particularly given to public displays of affection, but at that point they were too relieved to care about the witnesses to their unguarded moment. Lucius cast a glance back at Camilla and although the older witch smiled, it was a sad smile, a tragic one. She was remembering what it was like to be held by her own husband like that, hugging her arms across her chest in an unconscious mimicry. It was clear just how deeply she missed Evan; how fresh the wound that his passing had cleaved in her heart still seemed, even after all these years without him at her side. She never wanted Narcissa to have to experience that aching loss, and that was why she fought so hard to heal what she could.
"Thank you Cam," said Lucius quietly. "I'll be fine now. You go home to your family."
Camilla nodded her silent thanks.
"I sincerely hope, Lucius, that the next time we meet, you are conscious. Remember the greys; I can't afford to get any more! I'm not that old." She paused. "Good night Draco, Ciss."
"Good night Cam," murmured Ciss, raising her head from Lucius's shirt. "Thank you for everything." She smiled weakly. "Sometimes I don't know what we'd do without you."
"Oh, you'd manage," said Camilla. She began to leave the room and Draco made to come with her and show her out properly, but she shook her head.
"No pet, I'll see myself out. You stay here, your family needs you."
With a final, wistful look at the couple on the sofa, Camilla left the room, closing the door soundlessly behind her. Draco crossed to the chaise and sat down heavily next to his mother, who instinctively unlatched one arm from around her husband to draw her son closer in beside her. They stayed like that, silent, a little family unit, for a long time. Lucius found his thoughts coming back briefly to Camilla. He wondered at her resilience, and at the way she continued to fight so ferociously. He wondered what distress and revelations she was going home to, and he wondered what had made her so very frightened.
Note2: We will learn more about Camilla's family in due course. Evan Rosier and Thorfinn Rowle really are Death Eaters, mentioned in the books, and Rosier really is dead, but since we know nothing about them other than this fact, I decided to embroider slightly… Anyway, I hope you got on with her, and I hope the message of this chapter managed to come across.