Skin and Bones
The sun had come up but the morning light was still filtered by the trees. Andromeda Tonks was sitting up in bed reading while Ted lay next to her enjoying a few more minutes of the quiet morning. It was a wonderfully slow start to a Saturday.. at least until the alarm on the security wards went off. The couple were out of bed in seconds with their wands in hand. Ted stumbled as he found himself standing upright before his brain caught up with his body's reactions.
While Ted Tonks recovered from the surprise, Andromeda cast the Point-Me charm. The tip of her wand swung to their back garden. The Repulsion and Notice-Me-Not charms around their house usually kept stray animals out of their vegetable garden and their potions patch. Ted was mostly awake by the time they reached the back door of their house. They spent a while as the husband and wife took turns searching through the window. Nearly shoulder to shoulder, they were concerned but not frightened.
Andy cast the charm again. It came back stronger this time with the wand trembling above her hand. The Tonks went through the back door one at a time and then stepped to opposite sides of their back patio. The flat stones were cold and rough on Ted's bare feet. Andromeda was wearing sox.
Ted Tonks knew that he set the wards around their house last night. It was too early for visitors today. They could meet visitors who walked up the path or who apparated to their courtyard. No one arrived at their back door.
They heard a snaping and crashing sound as someone or something moved carelessly through the brush behind their house. Ted was about to shout when a man stumbled out of the low brush and onto their lawn. The stranger's chest was bare and he was barefoot. He looked like a homeless druggie, but that didn't make sense. They lived too far from the nearest muggle town for that. The nearest stream was over a kilometer away. In any case, the charms should have turned away any strangers. The man stumbled and hopped on one foot as he stepped on something hidden in the damp grass.
The couple shared a glance. They didn't know if they should stun the stranger or rush to his aid. They felt impulses to do both. They saw the man gather himself and stand upright again. He looked at the house and the yard and then walked, step by cautious step, toward the back of their home. Ted stepped out of hiding while the man was still standing in the grass.
"That's close enough," he said.
The stranger wiped the hair out of his eyes and looked at him. He studied Ted for a moment and then noticed Andy who was standing a few meters away. A series of emotions played over the stranger's face but the feelings ran faster than Ted could follow. The stranger tried to speak and only coughed. He put his hands on his knees and coughed again to clear his throat. He stood upright before he tried to speak again.
"I.. I am head of House Black. In the name of the Family Magics, I ask your help."
Andromeda Tonks was a Black. She felt the sudden tug of the family magics. It would tear at her core to turn this stranger away. Ted felt the pull too, though not as strongly.
Andy moved closer. "What do you need?" she said.
Before she received an answer, Ted asked, "Who are you?"
Those two simple questions were a lot to think about for a man who had used only a handful of words in the last dozen years. His situation was made even more difficult because he had hidden his thoughts from the Dementors who guarded him in Azkaban. When that effort drained him too much, he would retreat into his Animagus form of the Irish Wolfhound and sleep. The hound didn't use words at all. Years out of practice, it was now hard for Sirius Black to talk.
He felt his family magics point to the Tonks as he and Buckbeak flew by before dawn. His family magic had found them, but only now did he recognize who they were. He knew the witch had asked a question. So had the wizard. He could handle this if he deliberately did one thing at a time.
"Sirius Black," he said. He turned to the witch. Her mother would be his mother's cousin. "Need everything," he said. He didn't even have a wand to call his own.
Andy took a step before Ted raised his wand and cast. Ted cast a Revelio, and then a Homenum Revelio spell right behind it. The figure in front of them was as he appeared. He was also alone.
Andromeda Tonks had met her cousin Sirius Black years ago. He was about three years her junior, perhaps a year younger than her sister, Narcissa. That said, the man in front of her was unrecognizable. Whatever he'd said, the pull from the family magic was also undeniable. She was also a Healer. This man, or what was left of him, needed help.
"Can you move?" she asked. He'd obviously got himself here whoever he was.
Sirius opened his mouth several times but each time he thought of something else he should say. Eventually he noticed that they were waiting for him to speak.
"Not well," he said. His legs and back ached. His hands and feet hurt. Blame the impulsive Wolfhound and his midnight hunts.
Healer Andromeda Tonks had already figured out that they would have to move him slowly. "Steady him," she said, and Ted Tonks took Sirius's elbow. She cast a spell and lifted the stranger up off his feet.
Andromeda said, "I don't know who he is, but you felt the magics. Bind his magic if you have to, but I'm healing him first. Help me take him to the back examination room."
"Are you sure he is a wizard?" Ted asked.
"I'll check."
Magics aside, her hands on the stranger's skin told her where to start. She threw down a blanket and cast a warming charm on the examination table before she set her patient down. She spread a second blanket over him followed by a second warming charm. Ted was kind enough to take notes and label the results of her diagnostic spells.
Their visitor's core temperature was slightly low. He was significantly underweight and malnourished. He had low muscle mass and severely low bone density. The latter might be unrecoverable depending on his exact age. His heart rate was elevated. His cardiac function was weak but adequate. Blood quality was poor, but that was expected. There were numerous scratches and small cuts on his face, arms, and legs. Some were still bleeding. He was a wizard, but his magical core was weak and withered. He might be a squib, yet she had felt his magics when they met.
He was seriously ill, but treatable. "Let me get you some clean robes. Can you slip out of those?" she asked.
She put on gloves and ran her hands over his skin. She examined the gloves to make sure he wasn't bleeding where she hadn't yet had a chance to look. Both she and Ted helped the wizard sit up. Sirius slowly rocked and shifted as he slid out of his pants. When she looked at them clearly, the rags were nothing worth saving and it would have been easier to have simply cut her patient out of his clothes. She was tempted to vanish the rags but there were more important things to do.
She mixed some warm water and electrolytes. She often used them on sick infants. "Drink all of this," she said.
She watched him take a taste and then a larger gulp of the sweet and salty solution. A moment later, she put her hand over his and slowed him down. She'd made a mistake. "Here, use a straw," she said. She took the plastic cup from him before he finished. He was obviously thirsty. She would give him more in a few minutes.
She scanned him again and his temperature was slowly improving. "May I clean you up?" she asked.
It took several seconds for him to nod. That worried her. She didn't know if it was hard for him to hear and understand what she said, or if it was hard for him to express himself. At least he was alert enough to nod his head even if his voice wasn't working for him.
She found a surgical cap and slipped it over his head. She tucked his hair up into the cap so she could clean and heal his face with his long hair out of her way.
"Please close your eyes for a minute. This might sting a bit."
She used a cleaning charm on his face and followed it with an antiseptic wipe before she closed his cuts. It would be easier if she could get to his skin directly without having to work through his facial hair. She asked him to lie back so she could repeat the process one at a time on each arm and leg. The soles of his feet showed that he had been barefoot for a long time. She healed a few cuts there as well.
"I'm Healer Andromeda Tonks, and this is my husband.."
"Edward Tonks. You're Cissy and Bella's sister," Sirius said. "You read me a chapter of Babbitty Rabbitty out of Cissy's new book. She was angry that you read it to me and not to her." He'd had to stop speaking every few words. His speech was raspy, but what he said was understandable.
She finished with the Episkey healing charm and lowered her wand to look at him. He claimed to be Sirius Black. She hadn't seen Sirius in over 15 years. She tried to put one face over the other but it didn't fit. It had been too long. The magics said it was right, that he could be a Black. Add to that the fact that he knew about her sister. She vaguely remembered their summer party and reading a birthday book to a four-year-old boy. That was a lifetime ago. It could have been this man.. or not.
She hazard a guess. "You were Walburga's boy?" she asked.
"There were only two of us, and Regulus has been dead for.. Oh, gods it's been 15 years."
"But Sirius Black is in Azkaban," she said.
"Was in Azkaban," Ted said. "Past tense. He escaped."
The couple looked at each other for a moment. This certainly wasn't how they expected their morning to unfold. All in all, they thought they were doing fairly well at facing the unusual situation. At almost the same time, they looked at the dirty pants piled in the gray stainless-steel tray. Behind the grass stains and the dirt, they saw the faint pumpkin-colored stripes, still visible even after they'd faded to muddy brown over threadbare and dirty gray. They saw the prison uniform of Azkaban.
Ted was the one who spoke first. "You killed the Potters and.."
"Never! Never accused." Black's voice broke. He was barking the words rather than delivering them smoothly. "Never tried. Never sentenced," he said.
"But I read.."
"Test it. Look it up yourself," Sirius said. It was more dare than command. He knew what they would find. He didn't know if they would care.
It took Ted Tonks a second to answer, "And you can prove it as well. Take the vow."
Tonks put out his right hand. A moment later Sirius did the same, though his arm wasn't as steady or as strong as Tonks. They each wrapped a hand around the tip of Andromeda's wand.
"Are you Sirius Black?" Ted asked.
"Yes."
"Did you kill the Potters?"
"No.
"I swear on my life and my magic that I am Harry Potter's Godfather and bear that oath," Sirius said.
Andromeda's wand pulsed a third time as he answered.. as Sirius Black had answered. The wizard sitting in front of them was still alive and he was not guilty of murder.
"Wow," she said.
Sirius and Ted only nodded.
Andromeda slipped her wand into the belt of her bathrobe. "Then let's get some food into you and get you washed up. I don't want to give you these potions on an empty stomach." She started drawing vials from her storage cabinets.
"What do you want me to fix in the kitchen?" Ted asked. It bothered him to leave his wife with a stranger, but he was following her lead as she treated him.
"Some of that chicken soup, then a diluted mix of pumpkin juice and orange juice to start. He's still dehydrated." She wondered if they had a ripe banana.
She levitated Sirius back into the air while Sirius slipped into a set to scrubs. His skin felt better, but his joints still ached.
Andy handed back the plastic cup and straw once Sirius was sitting down. "Sip this slowly as you tell me how you hurt yourself."
The Healer finally sat herself on a stool in her examination room.
"I'm an Animagus. I've been.. living as a dog near Hogwarts. Last night, the hound got the food we needed. He ran a bit too much. Today it hurts."
"You ran all the way from Northern Scottland to Worcester as a dog?" she asked.
"No. Sorry. I flew. There is a Hippogriff in the stand of trees behind the thicket. If you have any pets, then you want to bring them in tonight. We'll have to feed the Hippogriff tomorrow."
Healer Tonks changed the subject. "Let me come back with some more clothes for you. Your body is going to be doing a lot of healing."
Sirius Black struggled to put on the sox she handed him. Eventually he made up the buttons on the flannel shirt. After that, Andromeda helped him pull the sox up over his heels. He was 35 years old, but he moved like an elderly man as he slowly walked down the hall and into their kitchen.
He ate every spoonful of what they offered him. For the last few days, the hound had been eating for both of them, and Sirius was, or used to be, heavier than the hound. Now, he felt both hungry and full at the same time. He flinched when he noticed that he could look outside and that other people might be able to see him through the uncovered windows. He felt exposed.
Healer Tonks interrupted his worries. "Sirius, I'm going to be honest with you. You're as thin as an anorexia patient. For a while, I have to be careful feeding you the right things at the right times. You might feel a bit flushed as you recover. Your metabolism will surge because your body has so much recovery to do. We're going to feed you five times a day for a few weeks, but we have to start slowly. I'm not trying to hurt you by denying you food. Please believe me, but it might feel that way as I ask you to eat slowly.
"Would you rather have a rest now or have us draw you a bath?" she asked.
Sirius examined the empty bowl and licked the back of the spoon. "I could have a bath?" he asked in disbelief. He and his prison cell had been cleaned with spells at every equinox, but a bath…
"Of course you can. Is that before or after you rest?" she asked.
Merlin's gifts, he would love the feel of warm water. The ideas of warm water and soap were a distant theory, but he'd like to be completely awake to enjoy them. "I.. I think I need to rest right now." He didn't know why he was so tired.
"Let's finish these potions and then we'll get you set up in the guest room."
HPHPHP
After Sirius had climbed under the blankets, Andy came and hugged her husband. She held him tight.
"Is that what we do to people in Azkaban," she asked.
"That, and he has been living in the rough for the last few months, maybe the last few years. It doesn't look like he was getting his regular portion of fresh fruits and vegetables."
"Is it true he never had a trial?" she asked. She was talking with her cheek pressed against his chest.
"That's what the magics said. I'll check at the ministry on Monday morning. Do you have patients scheduled? We'll have to keep him hidden and I don't want to put my clients or your patients at risk."
Andromeda Tonks listened and nodded her head in agreement. "We'll work out a schedule. He'll need to eat every few hours and then exercise by walking in the garden and later down the lane."
"He can hardly talk. Will he be alright?" Ted asked.
"Yes and no. He'll always have a deficit, but he should return to most of his old self in time. We have to get him through the next three weeks, but I'm worried about his magical core," she said.
"You are a lifesaver." Ted gave his wife a tighter squeeze.
"Am I? I'm a Healer, but I have no idea what we've started."
"But you healed him?" he said. Ted had seen with his own eyes as the man's cuts and scratches closed and stopped bleeding.
"He still has a number of infections I have to treat, And right now.. I don't know if he could light a wand."
HPHPHP
Author's Notes- Feedback is appreciated. Feedback is essential if you want more stories like this. What do you think of the second chapter now that you've met Ted and Andromeda?