Chapter Nine

The wood of the broom handle seemed to be near-rotting, and a few patches of the broom's head were barren. Briar blinked down at the broomstick, her face impassive.
"So, how about we try it?" The excitement was palpable on the young man's face, and she felt bad for wanting to turn him down. Briar glanced uncertainly at her father, unsure whether or not to trust this strange man. While he wasn't the sort that mothers would hide their children from, the young man introduced simply as "Harlow" was unusual. Although lately everything had been unusual. It was her twelfth summer, and subsequently her twelfth new home. But their constant moving seemed to bother Rurik little. In fact, the only thing that moved Rurik was this young man. While visibly not much older in appearance, Briar knew that the age gap between the pair was significant –and yet Rurik looked to this "Harlow" with reverence.
"I –I don't know," Briar muttered, watching as this stranger's face fell. Instantly, Rurik's attention snapped to Briar. "Nonsense. Your broom lessons at Hogwarts were a failure –let Harlow teach you, Briar."

Briar's ears stung with shame. It was one thing to announce her failures, but another to broadcast it to someone else. Harlow blinked away Rurik's words, tossing back his dark coloured hair from his eyes. "It'll be fun," Harlow pressed, his white teeth gleamed promisingly. Briar hesitated a second longer, but at her father's sharp gaze and the urge to prove herself to her father, she gave in.

Predictably, the wood of the broom had snapped. And Briar plummeted from a height comparable to a nearby chapel's highest steeple. Luckily, she had managed a charm that halted her abrupt descent, a scream still caught lingering in her throat.
"I just couldn't get over the feeling of falling," Briar muttered against George's thigh. "And the fact that Rurik just blindly trusted some kid because he shared the same last name. –You know, I never did see that Harlow guy again after that."
George's face registered something similar to disgust. "Blimey, Freddie and I never would have pushed you if we knew–" "-It's okay," Briar cut in quickly, leaning up to capture George's cheek. She pressed her lips against the stubble he had forgotten to shave, "You didn't know. Besides, it's a stupid old childhood fear. Just like being afraid of the dark." George caught her gaze with his, "Just lemme know next time you're feeling the urge to nose-dive the dirt. Deal?"
A barely-there smile tugged at the corners of Briar's thin lips, "Deal-." Briar was cut short as George pressed his lips against hers. And then he pulled back, wiping at his tongue with the edge of his sleeve.
Laughter bubbled against her tongue. Briar's bright eyes crinkled with humor as George tried to wipe away the taste of bile. "You should let me brush my teeth before you try something like that," Briar announced, a grin splitting her face.

Briar York was many things. A talented witch, brilliant in both spellwork and diplomacy, and all the while managing two separate jobs as Head Auror and potionsmaster for Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes. Briar York was many things, and today, Briar York was sick.
George had woke up that morning to an unusual amount of heat. When he turned to Briar, he found her buried beneath most of their blankets, shivering enough to quiver the bed. When he had pressed his palm against her brow to check for a fever, the resulting heat had blistered his palm.
Hours later, Briar was still burrowed beneath a mountain of misshapen quilts that George had fetched from the linen closet. Briar moaned out in agony; her abnormal white complexion was flush with colour, and sweat glistened visibly against her brow. The bedroom they shared had been thrown into chaos –every door in the nearest vicinity had been blown open with her unconscious bursts of magic. And Briar's favourite cabinet, the one made of mahogany, had toppled onto its side. To add fuel to the growing misery, the framed mirror with its damaged corner had been shattered, spraying glass across the entirety of the bedroom.

"You're joking," George announced from the doorway, appearing not long after he heard the shatter of glass. With an absent wave of his wand the mirror repaired itself, and the cabinet stood properly once more. George leant against its wooden frame, sweeping a hand through his ginger hair and absently across the place where his ear once resided, "You'll survive a severed limb, a hole in your abdomen, and a bloody war –but this," he made a sweeping gesture, disbelief plaguing his handsome features, "This is what stops the ruthless Briar York."
Briar peered up at him with foggy, blue eyes. "I could still kick your ass," she muttered, her voice muffled beneath the swaths of fabric. George's hazel eyes twinkled with amusement, "I'm sure you could, love. –D'you want something to eat? Mum used to make us soup whenever we got sick."
Briar's clouded eyes seemed to focus, just for a second. "Pudding," she announced. George's brow furrowed, when he opened mouth to question her, she cut in. "Rurik would make me pudding whenever I was sick. Butterscotch, usually."
Shrugging, George pushed away from the doorway. "Right, I'll get on that."

Briar could scarcely remember the first time she had been truly, genuinely sick. She must have been six or seven at least –certainly there had been a handful of bad cases of the flu, and whatnot –but this had been the first time where she had been deathly ill.
Her father, Rurik York was a young, single father. A good father, if not emotionally withdrawn since the passing of his late wife. Parenting was hardly something he would sweat. And yet when it came to sick children –sick magical children at that, Rurik was at a loss.

With each shuttering cough, Briar's bedframe trembled. She lay swaddled within a dozen quilts like a newborn, and yet Briar couldn't help but shiver as if ice water had been dumped over her tiny frame. Rurik peered worriedly over his child, his youthful face was crumpled with more emotion than Briar had ever seen. –Not that she could consider his expression beyond her fever-induced mind. While a clever man, Rurik had never dealt with an illness tainted by magic before, simply because he had been a rather healthy muggle-born himself. Of course, at the first sign of a glass-shattering cough Rurik had called in a healer.
"Just a simple influenza," the healer had remarked simply, removing her blistered hand from Briar's forehead. "The fever is at a normal temperature for her size, it'll break soon enough."
And yet Rurik was at a loss –afraid to even comfort Briar lest it somehow encourage her sickness.

"Dad," Briar's voice was soft against the pattering of rain against the shingles. Rurik hurried from the other room, cursing under his breath when he saw her propped up against her pillows. While she was a fair child, she seemed almost too white in contrast to her pillowcases.
"Dad," she called again. Her head lulled to one side, and she peered up at him from beneath her white lashes. "'M'hungry, dad."
Rurik's head jerked away painfully, just as a gust of wind pounded past him in response to another rattling cough. His head spun, and his scarred hands worked their way uneasily through his knotted hair. 'What did sick kids eat anyway?' he thought to himself. He needed help. That much was certain.

There was a hand brushing through her hair when she roused. Briar peered blearily upwards, far too tired to protest George's affections. Their bedroom was out of sorts once more, although George appeared none too concerned. Briar wondered idly if he had taken care of his many siblings when they had been just as ill. Or perhaps Molly had.
Briar reached an small hand upwards, brushing her fingers through the still-short hairs around his remaining ear. He flinched subtly at the heat of her flesh, but didn't protest.

"Hungry still?" he asked her, gesturing to the dish at their bedside table with a nod. Briar eyed the pudding, considering it.
Finally, she sat up, revealing the sweater she wore. George's eyes fell to it instantly. While it had faded over the years, the gold "G" emblazoned on its front stood out in stark contrast to the red material. Given to her during her final year at Hogwarts, Briar had kept it tucked safely away until now. Obviously pleased, George pressed a kiss to her sweat-laden temple.
She ignored him, content with spooning the pudding into her mouth.

It wasn't long after she finished her pudding that she was lulled back to sleep. Rain had just begun to patter noisily against the rooftop as she drifted off, George's fingers still combing through her messy locks.

A woman with raven coloured hair stood over her. Her eyes, like her hair, were dark –although they were much softer than Briar would anticipate. She was a handsome woman. And when she stooped to press a damp cloth against her brow, the woman's hair cascaded down her shoulder in gentle waves, smelling strongly of rich, foreign spices.
The woman drew up once more, turning to face her father who slouched against the doorway.

"She looks nothing like you," the woman's voice was a gentle murmur. Akin to fondness, Rurik eyed her, "She takes after her Celeste. Although she's much quieter."
The woman nodded, turning back to Briar. With manicured fingers, she brushed her way through Briar's mess of tangles. "It must hurt, sometimes," the woman noted aloud. "Her being a carbon copy of your wife."
"Sometimes," Rurik admitted, flinching slightly as Briar moaned out, turning her face into the mattress. The pair watched cautiously as the bedframe gave a simple lurch before stilling.
"This is insane," the woman shook her head, her brows knotting. "I mean, I don't see you for years, and then suddenly your head's in the fireplace and you're asking for help." Rurik had the decency to look embarrassed, "You know how mother was," he grumbled, "and Briar needed help, what was I supposed to do?"
"I'm not scolding you, Rurik," the woman shot back, her dark brows arching. She turned back to Briar, retrieving the cloth from her brow and tsking at the burnt fabric. She retrieved another cloth from the basin at her feet, layering it over Briar's forehead, ignoring the steam that rose in response. "Besides," the woman continued softly, "what is family for?"
Rurik lowered his gaze politely, "Thank you, Ina."