The Good War

by inwardtransience

Despite her best efforts, Elizabeth Potter is repeatedly drawn into situations she wants absolutely nothing to do with. People just refuse to leave her the hell alone. (fem!Harry, dark!independent!Harry, mentor!Snape, F/F, playing with tropes for fun and profit)

108. Fourth Year — XL (a)

Hello again! This scene went stupid long, because I simply can't help myself. I split it in two — it's a perfectly natural stopping point, if you need to take a break.

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April 1995

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The blood alchemist Severus got her an appointment with mostly took meetings at an office in her home. That wasn't unusual, for a lot of professionals in the magical world, and it was a more private setting for specialist healers — Liz understood it was standard practice for midwives and blood alchemists in particular. She did most of her talking with clients at her office, but a lot of the intense medical stuff was actually done at a proper hospital. According to Severus, there were some basic procedures she'd do right there in her office, or if it only took a potion or whatever, but serious work was done at the hospital instead. Also, she needed to get a full, comprehensive blood test first, and after talking to Severus (by letter) she wanted Liz to get some kind of full-body medical scan too — to map out exactly what the damage from the scars was, so she could better plan the procedure to remove them — which also had to be done at the hospital, with specialised equipment. Pomfrey told her about that a while ago now, big damn imaging devices, like muggles had but with magic? Whatever.

So, her appointment with a blood alchemist was actually two appointments, they had a whole schedule worked out. The first one, in the morning, was at the Republican Institute for the Medical Arts, in Paris — a very modern, new place, built after the neo-Communalist revival in just the last couple decades, as the use of "republican" kind of implied. The second appointment, actually with the blood alchemist, wasn't until the afternoon, a floo trip away in Troyes. (The people at the hospital would be able to process the information from her exam and hand it off to a courier to bring to her specialist in that amount of time, apparently.) They had a whole timetable, doing the medical exams in the morning, then flooing to Troyes to linger for a few hours, getting lunch at some point — probably just some coffee and a pastry or two in some café or something, since neither of them tended to eat much in the middle of the day — before eventually wandering off in the direction of the blood alchemist's house to show up at more or less the right time.

It seemed slightly ridiculous to dedicate a whole day to appointments with healers, but it wasn't really quite so bad as it sounded, Liz guessed. The appointments altogether would probably only take two, three hours — an hour and change for the exams at the hospital (including waiting time), and then an hour and change with the blood alchemist (more or less depending on how it goes). It just seemed like a lot and kind of miserable because she really didn't like seeing healers. She was mostly okay with Severus doing her basic check-ups and shite at this point, like the things the IDL required for the student tournaments — it was only Severus, and he was well aware of the parts she was sensitive about by now — but she'd really rather avoid being poked at by anyone else if she could help it. Honestly, she'd like to keep healing things with Severus to an absolute minimum, but that couldn't always be helped — especially since Severus had to be a responsible adult and do the basic childrens' healer shite, ugh.

(She was complaining, but she knew it wasn't a bad idea, so she wasn't complaining that much. Besides, Severus had decided at the exam they'd needed to do for the winter tournament that Liz could switch to a lighter nutrient potion that was far quicker to brew, saved her a lot of time, so.)

It didn't help that she couldn't make it easier on herself by being high at the time. She'd asked Susan to get her a refill of those neat marijuana crystals, very handy for dealing with crowds, and strangers touching her — unfortunately, that particular drug had an effect on the character of a person's aura which might interfere with the tests they were going to do. Apparently the effect was even more noticeable for Seers, for complicated soul magic reasons, could definitely screw up the exam, which sucked.

She could be high for the actual meeting with the specialist, which, considering it would involve explicitly discussing her body with a complete stranger, that sounded like an excellent idea. Severus sounded very sceptical when she mentioned that part of the plan. If she had to guess — and she did, his tightly-contained mind too opaque — he was uncomfortable with the idea of her making permanent, life-changing decisions while on drugs. And, sure, she did have to admit that that sounded bad in isolation, but the whole reason she wanted to do this was because she was unreasonably neurotic about this shite — there was no way she'd be able to manage that conversation, and actually properly communicate the things she absolutely wanted to happen, if she didn't have a little help getting through it. The alternative idea had been to write down everything relevant ahead of time, and just hand it to the woman, but if she had questions, yeah, this was better.

If it came down to it, and she decided to do something stupid, Severus would be right there to catch it — French law required a guardian's permission for a minor to get a serious elective procedure like this. Really, no reason for that very Snape-ish look he'd had, it would be fine...though, that he could stop her from doing anything stupid might be why he hadn't actually said anything about it. Eh.

Severus had arranged the appointment to land during Easter break — the Castle significantly emptied, the international students even dipping back home for the holiday — scheduled a portkey from London to Paris the afternoon before her appointments. Liz had expected they'd just be flooing over there the morning of, but honestly this was better — she hated the floo, especially water crossings, and there was always a possibility something could go wrong in transit and they'd be late. Though, the reason Severus wanted to leave the afternoon before was concern that getting through customs might be slow, especially early in the morning, they'd have to wake up very early to make sure they'd make it on time. Coming the day before was just safer.

When they were waved right through the checkpoint at the keyport with very little fuss, Severus looked a little bemused — he'd maybe forgotten that there were benefits to being nobility, guaranteed by international treaties and shite. Which was very stupid, but it did make travel more convenient. Though, getting through international borders was normally very quick for normal people too, she wasn't sure why Severus thought it'd be a big hassle?

Asking him about it, he admitted that he was normally carrying completed potions and/or components on his person when he was travelling anywhere. Yeah, that would do it right there — had to make sure you weren't bringing anything illegal or dangerous into the country, that was, like, the one thing they actually checked for...

Severus had asked her ahead of time for permission to dip into Potter money to pay for the hotel. Since he was her guardian and all, he could do that whenever he wanted to, but he never did without asking first — and when he did, it was always things for her anyway, so. And he'd wanted to lean into her absurd inherited wealth because he thought it might be a good idea to go to a ridiculously expensive muggle hotel. A muggle place because, well, people might not have made a big deal about the Girl Who Lived being around in her previous visits to France, but now people were following the Tournament and stuff, so. And a fancy hotel would be more private, and using more expensive materials for, like, the beds and stuff meant it was more likely to be comfortable for her for Seer reasons — not a hundred per cent guaranteed, but better odds, at least. That seemed like good logic, so, why not, whatever he thought looked good, don't worry about the price. It wasn't like she couldn't afford it.

Looking at the number on the bill, converting the francs to pounds to galleons in her head, it did seem a little absurd for a hotel stay at first glance — but she was stupid wealthy, she guessed, so "a little absurd" wasn't actually a big deal for her. Whatever. And the room was nice, she had to admit that.

Liz had dressed up a little, aware the place they were going was a bit much — also, it was just fun to get prettied up sometimes — with one of her nicer muggle-passing dresses and her mother's necklace, picking matching earrings out of her jewellery box, charming the ring in her lip and the bar in her eyebrow gold and red to fit the colour scheme she was going with here, actual magic-made nail polish for her fingers, and cosmetic glamours colouring her lips and around her eyes. Making a whole thing of it, you know, because why not. (Toned down a little from what would be acceptable in the magical world, muggles tended to be somewhat more subtle with these things.) Severus put in some effort too, but more in a successful, important businessman sort of way — except the long hair, of course, some muggle men wore their hair long but it was much more rare. Even as nicely as Liz had done herself up, immediately on walking in the foyer at the hotel, she wondered if she hadn't done enough: it was ridiculously nice, all shining marble and embroidered furniture and gold bloody filigree for decoration. Fake gold, she was pretty sure, bronze or something that just looked close enough, what the hell...

It was wasn't quite as absurdly over the top as the Entrance Hall at Hogwarts, but still.

They did get some funny looks at first, but Liz could tell at a glance that that wasn't because they were underdressed (which they weren't, really, just vaguely felt like it). Mostly, it seemed kind of questionable for a grown man and a teenage girl to be checking into a hotel together. Liz rolled her eyes, told them to stop looking at them like that, he was her father, for fuck's sake — she'd almost said uncle, but going with father seemed more likely to make them fucking stop it. (Since they both had black hair and were stupid pale, that was believable if you didn't look too closely.) She'd kind of forgotten that Severus understood French more or less fine, even if he couldn't speak it very well, but after a blink of tense surprise, he played along. The vague suspicion turned into vague sympathy as her mother's absence was explained — gossiping while they waited for the final touches on the room to be squared away and for the money stuff to go through — with her having died when Liz was an infant. This necklace was hers, isn't it pretty?

Anyway, that awkward moment smoothed over with a mix of reality and fiction — it was really easy to make up something believable if you just tweaked the truth a little — they were led up to their room by a bloke in the smart, crisp-looking uniform the staff were all wearing, who absolutely insisted on taking their bags. Rich people couldn't be expected to so much as carry their own things, after all. They even took an elevator up the few levels, because rich people couldn't be expected to use the bloody stairs either. A short walk down the hall — as nice as the entrance but more restrained about it, cool and moody, the carpets and walls patterned in dark, subtle colours — brought them to the room, the bloke opening the door and waving them in.

And it was, naturally, absurd. It wasn't a room so much as a flat, and a very nice flat. All stone tile and fuzzy rugs and poofy furniture, everything done in light, creamy colours, practically glowing in the sunlight coming in through the bank of windows along one wall, overlooking le Jardin des Tuileries and the river and the city beyond. The door came into a sitting area place, with a sofa and a couple armchairs turned toward the windows, and an actual kitchen — a little small, but with all the necessary stuff, you could cook in here. There were separate bedrooms, one on either side of the living room, as light and soft and pretty as the sitting room, each with a sliding door leading out onto a balcony with vines crawling over the railing and a spacious attached bathroom, complete with separate shower and tub, which didn't seem entirely necessary.

Liz was a little bemused that there wasn't actually a solid wall between the bathroom and the bedroom, just a glass divider, glinting subtly in the sunlight. After quick double-checking that the bedroom door locked, she just shrugged it off — she guessed this was fine. The garden and the river past it meant they weren't facing any buildings, and the people on the ground would have too shallow of an angle to see inside. It was a little awkward, but whatever. At least the open space and all the glass meant it wouldn't feel cramped.

While the bloke was still showing them around, Liz plopped down onto the bed, her hands and the backs of her legs touching the fabric. The blanket itched a little, but the sheets under it were cool and smooth and fine — actual linen, and must have been made in at least relatively fine conditions, because it didn't feel obviously offensive. She noticed Severus watching her, when the bloke was facing away she gave him a quick thumbs up. The blanket was a little psychometrically uncomfortable, but it was pretty subtle, and the linen sheet would be between them anyway, so.

She could only tell Severus pressed some kind of note into the bloke's hand on his way out the door because she caught both of them noting the motion in their heads. Not sure what that was about, presumably one of those rich people things.

One of the bedrooms had a second door in it, firmly locked — a detachable room that could be connected to a suite on other side depending on the occupants' needs, she guessed — once they were alone Severus suggested he would take that one. Having a mystery door somewhere outside of their rooms might bother her a little, yeah, thanks.

Liz clarified that she'd just told the staff here that he was her father so they'd stop being paranoid that he was a paedophile or something — extremely awkwardly, she'd really rather not say anything about it at all, but she didn't want to...she didn't know, give him the wrong idea or whatever. He just brushed it off, so, that probably hadn't even been necessary.

That evening, they just wandered around the gardens and the Latin Quarter, stumbled their way into dinner at a restaurant somewhere — with the money taken from Liz's accounts, at her insistence, since this trip was all about her anyway. Besides, she suspected the place they'd ended up at was a little expensive for Severus's salary, and if he was going to be spending his money at nice restaurants it should be with his girlfriend. (She did actually say the latter part out loud, to his face, he gave her a funny look but didn't try to argue with her.) The food was great of course, and it was...relatively light on her for Seer reasons. Not the best she'd had, of course, but the duck was edible at least, and she got through the rest fine. The wine was good? She wasn't sure if she was even supposed to be having wine, what even were the laws about that in France? The waiter person didn't blink at it, so, maybe they didn't care?

Liz had maybe a little bit too much wine, she got kind of silly and...giggly. On the walk back, she'd kind of been clinging on to Severus's arm for balance, which was a bit embarrassing in retrospect. It was only Severus, but still.

Severus planned on staying up for a while reading or whatever, but alcohol tended to make Liz a little sleepy, so she just retreated into her room instead. Besides, it was getting sort of late by then anyway, getting to bed wasn't the worst idea in the world. Once she was alone in her room, her door resolutely locked, she'd undressed. Like, all the way, she meant. She was still working on her desensitisation campaign, so that wasn't an unusual thing to do these days — just, she might not have been comfortable doing it if she hadn't been a bit silly from the wine, an unfamiliar place and all. The presence of the big bloody windows didn't actually occur to her until after she was already naked, but it wasn't like anyone would be able to see her in here anyway, it was fine. She kept the lights off just in case, the glow from the city (and maybe a little leaning on Seer instincts) were enough to get around without them.

Liz was making progress on the desensitisation front, as slow and tedious as it might seem in the moment. The things with Hermione, they'd graduated from baths — something that you'd expect to be naked for, and limited in scope — to hanging around in her room doing homework or whatever — something well out of the ordinary, and more unstructured. They'd only really managed it once so far, Liz had backed out their first attempt. It was, just, really hard, especially since they were exposed the whole time — in the bath at least there were bubbles and shite — and reading or whatever was difficult, her attention constantly diverted to her own nakedness, and Hermione's nakedness, and just feeling generally anxious and uncomfortable. She'd stuck it out for a whole two hours, honestly kind of impressed with herself.

(It wasn't getting any less exasperating how completely unbothered Hermione was, in contrast to Liz trying not to panic for no fucking reason...)

Alone, she'd worked up to wearing more psychometrically-comfortable underwear pretty frequently — she only went with the familiar muggle cotton knickers when she expected to be observed that day, too self-conscious without them, or it was one of those days she was just in a bad mood for no reason — and sleeping naked more often than not. It'd been difficult to calm down enough to sleep the first few times, and sometimes she still ended up preoccupied by something, or was having a day where she was especially disgusted with herself and didn't want to be quite so aware of her body at all times. So, it wasn't every night, but pretty often at this point.

Especially since she'd realised she could solve a lot of the issues with her being distracted, or too inexplicably jittery to sleep, by just getting off. A good orgasm tended to clear her head pretty well, and if she did it in a way she could wear herself out a little, it was normally pretty easy to slip right into sleep straight afterward. When she did that, sometimes she'd wake up not long later, but most nights it was easy enough to roll over and drift off again, so, it worked more or less well.

Of course, she had to be in the mood for that to work — that wasn't often a problem, thanks to her hormones never shutting the fuck up, but sometimes it was, if she was preoccupied with something or just especially uncomfortable. She had a few methods of getting through that, though. One of them was her pensieve, dipping into one memory or another. She had a bunch that worked, some sent by Tamsyn, or her own memories, or a couple of Daphne's she'd copied at some point. (Though ones involving Daphne didn't always work, depending on the mood she was in she might just make herself miserable over their breakup instead.) The other option was, er...romance novels, she guessed. Very racy romance novels.

That was something she'd been looking at the last couple months, ever since she'd overheard the Hufflepuff girls talking about one (all blushing and giggly about it). The available options Liz had were somewhat limited to start off with — books with straight couples were far more common than lesbian ones, especially for muggle books but it was a problem with mages' too — but being able to read English, Gaelic, and French fluently, and German and Cambrian more or less decently well, broadened the sources she could go to considerably. French and Cambrian publishers in particular were promising — French just because the market was much bigger, being the common international language on the magical side and all, and Pandemos Printers actually published a surprisingly large volume of fiction in Cambrian. There was a lot of normal drama stuff, plenty of fantasy and even a sliver of science fiction (rare on the magical side), but they were the largest publisher of romance novels in magical Britain probably by an order of magnitude. Of course, they were the largest fiction publisher in the country to begin with, so that wasn't saying that much, but still. They did also print books in English, Gaelic, and French, but the selection in Cambrian was easily the largest, and had the most available, er, 'romance' novels, possibly thanks to the Lovegoods themselves — one of the Mistwalker Clans, descended from what had been a cult dedicated to love and sex (and also art of all kinds, though they tended to be less well-known for that part) — being a primarily Cambrian-speaking House.

A disproportionate fraction of the lesbian romance novels she'd found were attributed to authors called Some-Feminine-Sounding-Name Lovegood — just worked out that way, she guessed. She was actually leaning more toward Pandemos's Cambrian books than the French ones, just because the French novels were way more likely to include straight stuff, even if it was only incidentally, to the side of the main couple. It wasn't, like, extremely offensive to read, or anything — vaguely uncomfortable sometimes, but she could get through it — but the Pandemos books were nice enough to include a note about the, er, intimate content, what sexes would be involved, and also if there was going to be any rapey shite in it, which was very much appreciated. One French book she'd tried had had a completely unexpected attempted rape scene in it at one point, had left her all jittery and skin-crawly for the rest of the night...

Her Cambrian still wasn't fluent, by any means, but these books were aimed at a more, er, common audience, the prose wasn't exactly super dense. She got confused by a word or a sentence here and there, but she mostly got through them fine.

The one she was looking at now was actually historical fiction, from the perspective of a muggleborn mage having a rather messy love affair with the famous Nymphadora Black. (Liz was pretty sure Pandemos would have needed the Blacks' permission to use her name, but it was a pretty old book, from the 1910s, so who knows how that came about.) The main characters was one of those people who got adopted into the family during Henry Black's time, and would eventually make baby Blacks with Nymphadora (because that was a thing that happened), but they actually met before that, the sequence of events was pretty wandering and complicated. It was also a pretty sexy book, like, just in the moment to moment to narration, but also in actual sex scenes, pretty dense with those. Probably one of the more flagrantly explicit books she'd come across yet, and it was all with women, so.

Well, er... Actually, she wasn't sure if that counted? Nymphadora was still described femininely even when she grew...certain anatomy — because that was a thing metamorphs could just do — and, she didn't know, the way it was written it still felt super gay. She guessed it was a vibes thing.

So, still feeling all warm and tipsy from the wine, Liz laid in bed reading her sexy book (using a little wandless light blob in the dark), until she got wrapped up in a racy scene, which did the job of getting her sufficiently in the mood. She'd already duplicated one of the pillows.

In the morning, Liz quickly rinsed off in the shower — a bloody odd thing, a square stall with three glass sides and one side completely open, with no door or anything, but she was alone in here so whatever — and also cast a few cleaning and scent-neutralising charms. (The conjuration on the pillow had failed at some point during the night.) She'd be getting medical exams and stuff, and it'd be embarrassing if smells were clinging to her, and she knew she'd almost certainly never encounter whoever would be cleaning up theirs rooms after they left, but the thought of the cleaners noticing smells was still embarrassing. Besides, it only took a few seconds to take care of it herself, easier in the long run than the vague nervousness of leaving something like that behind. She quick checked the electronics in the room, but it didn't look like she'd broken anything doing magic, so, good.

Severus had thought to warn her ahead of time what the exam this morning would involve. There would be some basic physical exam stuff, no different than her routine check-ups with him, and they'd also take some blood — done with charms, no needles. The imaging device — Transplanar Coronal Resonance Imagery, was the proper term — took up three whole rooms. Well, one room and a hallway, technically, the second room was just to prepare. In the prep room there would be a bathtub filled with cool saltwater — she'd have to strip down (yes, naked) and fully immerse herself in the water. It was going to be a bit cold, and she couldn't warm herself up with magic either. She wasn't supposed to dry off, instead going straight to the hallway. It was going to get pretty cold, but unfortunately she just had to tolerate it. The imaging room itself would be covered with ceramic tile, the only feature an indicator light — she'd be given instructions about what exactly they wanted her to do while they were taking their pictures.

Pictures metaphorically — Severus tried to reassure her that there weren't any cameras pointed int the room, the people operating the device wouldn't actually be able to see her. The illusion the device would create would be, er, accurate, but it took time to put that together, and nobody would actually be watching her while she was in there. Not really that reassuring, since they'd be making an absurdly detailed model of her body — as in everything, inside and out — but he said her blood alchemist would be getting the only copy, the rest of the information destroyed according to magical France's privacy rules, so fine, she'd try to keep her head through it.

She'd planned what she'd be wearing to the hospital with the knowledge that she'd need to undress and dress again in mind — comfortable things that were quick to get on and off when she needed to were the priority. (After all, she didn't want to be sitting around underdressed in the prep room any longer than absolutely necessary.) After a bit of debate, she'd gone with a pair of cotton pants and two layers of her too-small tight vests, for comfort reasons, and one of her new psychometrically-pleasant linen dresses, this one relatively plain green edged in white, simple enough to pass for muggle. It laced up the back (with a modesty flap that would hide the vests), but it was enchanted to tie or untie itself when prompted, so that was easy enough to deal with. It laced in enough to cling close to her from hips to shoulder — not particularly tight, Liz could just feel it there — with the vests enough material that her lopsidedness wasn't really visible.

She added a Slytherin quidditch scarf around her waist, her hair kept back with one of her colourful fashion scarves. Before bed last night, she'd taken out the dangly golden earrings from Lily's jewellery box and just left them empty, put the curved bars she'd started with back in — she'd have to take out all of her piercings before the exam, but she could do that in the prep room. She coloured her fingers and toenails green with a charm — the only cosmetic thing she was doing, since she'd need to take them all off before the exam anyway — and took her shoes for the day out of her bag, but didn't actually put them on yet, just carrying them. A pair of muggle shoes, rather casual heels, the straps looking more sandal-like than anything fancy and the bottom a solid footprint without a detached heel point. The angle was pretty subtle too, only added an inch and a half or so to her height, if even that much. She thought they were kind of fun though, and this was why she'd coloured her toenails too, so.

That was everything, she thought? Liz quick glanced over herself in the full-length mirror over in the closet. When did she get so fucking girly? She'd kind of always been in some ways, she guessed, just, at some point she'd started looking it too. Just, fuck, bit much, don't you think?

(Honestly, she did think she looked sort of nice like this, in a cute girlish way that was just vaguely embarrassing when she thought about it? She was aware, with the rational, thinking part of her brain, that that was probably some fucked up thing from the Dursleys leftover — or just her general issues with her own body, or more likely both — but knowing a feeling was stupid didn't make it magically go away. At this point, she was just trying to power through it by doing cute girlish stuff more often — similar to Tamsyn's desensitisation scheme, really.)

Right, she still felt vaguely uncomfortable for no apparent reason, but she thought this was fine. Stepping out into the common area of their hotel room-slash-flat, she was entirely unsurprised to find that Severus had gotten up first — she still wasn't convinced this ridiculous man ever slept. He was dressed somewhat less professionally than yesterday, but still nice, in dark trousers and a thin blue jumper, sitting in one of the chairs near the windows with a newspaper. She couldn't see the header from here, but she did notice a moving photograph, he must have already gone out to pick up a magical paper. On the counter in the kitchen area was a plate with a couple pastries and a press coffee maker thing, the plunger already pushed all the way down with some coffee in there sitting waiting. (Probably pretty strong from sitting there for however long, despite the grounds already being forced down, but that was the way Liz liked it anyway.) She didn't think he'd been sitting here waiting that long — he had a cup with him over there, and the amount missing from the press was probably only enough coffee to fill one cup.

"Good morning, Elizabeth," he said, not looking up from his paper.

"Hey." Liz drifted over to the kitchen area, dropped her shoes over by the door with a slapping noise. She quick checked the cabinets, and was honestly a little surprised to find a spice rack hidden away near the stove — they really weren't kidding with this stupidly fancy hotel thing, were they. Carefully tapping the cinnamon over an empty coffee cup...right, that looked good. She filled it up out of the press, a quick tap of her wand against the rim cast one of the charms they learned in Potions, to force a suspension that wouldn't happen naturally. For brewing, they did that to make sure reactions happened evenly, but for her coffee the same charm effectively dissolved cinnamon into it, kept it from just floating to the top. She looked over the couple pastries sitting next to the coffee thing, turned to ask Severus over her shoulder, "How much sugar you think is in these? The croissant should probably be fine, unless they put in a filling or something..."

She felt a little flutter from Severus's head, not sure what that was. He'd let his paper droop down, watching her with an eyebrow arced up, his attention on her—

"Oh shite, I'm sorry, I said that in French, didn't I?" It was the croissant that had tripped it, she'd reflexively said it with the correct French pronunciation...and then just kept speaking French...

A pulse of amusement coming off of his head, he drawled, "You did, yes." He set his paper aside, stood up and started walking toward her. "I was waiting for you before ordering breakfast — the pastries simply came with the coffee."

"What, you mean, to be brought up here?" She was aware that was a thing hotels did — she'd even stayed in a few that mentioned it — but it wasn't something she'd really done much? She could be so picky about stuff, it was easier to just figure it out herself...

"Of course. You'll recall I mentioned privacy as one of the benefits of choosing a higher-end hotel. There is a proper restaurant downstairs, if you would prefer — I suspected a minimum of exposure to other people in advance of your exam would be ideal."

"No, that's a great idea, um..." She didn't know, sometimes it just didn't occur to her she could do lazy rich people things if she wanted to. And, well, she just generally preferred to avoid making a fuss over herself. Partly because she remembered Petunia being extremely shitty to service people — the firmest guiding principle Liz would say she had was that she did not want to grow up to be like Petunia, she avoided anything that made her feel too much like her — and also she just reflexively avoided drawing attention to herself when possible. The latter was initially Dursley things (quiet and out of the way), but also people so much as looking at her made her uncomfortable sometimes, so, it was just easier. "I just didn't think of it, I guess. Is there a menu somewhere or something?"

"Yes, I believe I left it near the tray here..."

Liz knew from previous visits (and implicitly, picked up from Valérie) that breakfast in France was normally pretty light, without the heartier fry-ups and stuff you saw in Britain — a cup of coffee and a bit of toast with butter and jam was typical. But, since this was a stupid fancy restaurant, and maybe because they had a lot of international guests and stuff, the options here were a bit broader, with more brunch-like stuff. A lot of it sounded super sweet though, lots of jam and powdered sugar and the like, which would be an issue for both taste and Seer reasons. After a bit of poking around she found they had croque madame on here, ah ha, perfect. Well, assuming the meat and the cheese wasn't psychometrically bad, anyway, but she had better odds there than with sugary stuff, so. Severus planned on telling them she was diabetic, just in case, good idea.

Severus called down to place their order through the phone in the room — right, she'd thought he'd need to walk down to do that in person, but obviously they were set up to do it through the phones, stupid. She tried not to wince at his awful French, almost offered to take the phone and finish the conversation herself, but it sounded like he was getting through it okay. Did have to repeat things a couple times, but. Once he'd hung up, he said, "They anticipate it should be about a half an hour."

...Her sandwich should take maybe ten minutes at the most, but she guessed they probably had to wait their turn in the kitchen. And they had to get the stuff up to their room, of course, so that time was actually pretty good, when she thought about it. "Right. So, um... I'm guessing we're supposed to check out before leaving? So I should go pack up my things." Not that they'd gotten around much, should only take a couple minutes.

"We may if you wish to get home immediately, though I have reserved the room for two more nights. On Narcissa's recommendation, I acquired tickets to a stage show of some kind this evening — I recall you expressed some interest in performative magics, if only as preparation for the Seventh Task — and there will be an I.D.L. tournament in Dijon tomorrow. But we may leave early, if you prefer."

"Oh! No, that, that sounds interesting, actually. I just, um...didn't know you'd made a whole thing of it." He had said weeks ago that staying longer would be an option, since they'd be on break from class at the time, but she didn't remember him mentioning he'd actually made plans. Kind of thoughtful plans, actually — she did want to get a feel for performative magics before the Task, and she was aware Severus didn't really enjoy professional duelling...

It was nice of him, that was all, she hadn't expected it.

They still had plenty of time before her appointment at the hospital, so the wait for their food wasn't really a big deal. Severus went back to his French newspaper — a neocommunalist one, from the look of it. As far as Liz knew, Severus wasn't a communalist — her vague, inexpert feeling was that his politics were more in step with the academic guilds, particularly the healers', which was on the 'left' of British politics, but not super radical or anything — but the neocommunalists were the largest political party in France, so Liz guessed it was just a normal newspaper here. She dipped back to her room quick to grab some of her Competency work. The History exam had a list of suggested reading materials, she was working her way down it, filling up a book of notes.

The History Competency was sort of odd, in that there were dozens of versions: each ICW country which used the ICW's exams had their own version of the History exam (as well as certain other culturally-dependent subjects), but there was also a version specifically for international students that covered European history more broadly. As could be the case when it came to teaching subjects like history, the angle they took on things could change a lot depending on who was setting the exam. Countries like, say, France or Aquitania had communalist-leaning governments, and the tone of their history curriculum reflected that.

The international exam was set by the ICW itself, which was still controlled by the conservatives. Tamsyn had taken a quick glance over an exam from a couple years ago — she said it felt much more moderate than it used to be, likely due to influence from the growing communalist minority in the Senate, but it still wasn't great. Liz had decided early on that she would take the international exams, since she didn't know which school she'd be attending anyway (though at this point she was pretty sure it'd be Durmstrang), the study materials she looked up tailored toward the exam.

It wasn't that bad? She could definitely tell there was a perspective there, especially when social movements and stuff came up. (There'd been so many peasant rebellions in the couple centuries before Secrecy.) How obvious it was varied author to author, but Liz could tell their sympathy tended to be more with, like, the kings and nobles and artists and scholars and merchants and shite. It was possible some of that was just by chance. The study of history was pretty heavily dependent on written records, and it wasn't that long ago that powerful and/or wealthy people were the only ones who could write much at all — or at the very least, to store their writing where it was likely to be preserved. Read something from someone's perspective and you're more likely to sympathise with them, that's just how people worked.

A lot of history books and stuff tended to treat the powerful people in society as the main character(s), but of course they did: they were basing their work on writings by those same people, so they kind of treated themselves as the main character(s), and it carried through. If that made sense? Liz was pretty sure it did.

She was going through stuff chronologically, and she was just now getting to the implementation of Secrecy and the generation immediately afterward. Having already read about this stuff from a more communalist point of view, the politics were very obvious.

After a while sipping at her coffee and reading, taking intermittent notes — she actually already knew most of this from other sources, just framed differently — Liz and Severus both doing their thing in near wordless silence, there was a knock on the door. Severus quick covered their things with an unobtrusive charm before moving to answer. The bloke actually came into the room, which Liz hadn't expected — good thing she'd gotten properly dressed ahead of time, she guessed.

A younger man, late teens or early twenties, in the same smart blue uniform as the staff she'd seen so far, he pushed a wheeled cart into the room — spotting their coffee cups by the chairs in front of the windows, he redirected the cart that way. He unloaded the cart, politely chattering away all the while. Asking where they were from (lots of international guests on spring break at the moment), what they were up to in Paris, blah blah. He was a little surprised by how good Liz's French was, she froze for a second — she couldn't exactly tell a muggle she'd subsumed the language just last summer — before she could decide what to say Severus was spinning a story about her mother being French, he'd made a point of her splitting time with her relatives on this side of the Channel. Liz couldn't remember if that contradicted the story they'd given the staff downstairs yesterday afternoon, but she assumed Severus knew what he was doing.

Liz spent the whole time trying not to give away how uncomfortable he was making her — he kept looking at her, his attention a physical pressure on her skin. It wasn't that bad — she wasn't picking up any hints of particularly pervy thoughts or anything — it was just awkward, made her feel irritatingly self-conscious.

The bloke explained that the yoghurt was labné — strained yoghurt, that is — and they hadn't mixed in anything to sweeten it, so it should be mostly fine for her. Why would it matter if— Oh, right, he thought she was diabetic, okay. And if she noticed anything in the sandwich, that was just a cream sauce, no added sugar or anything, that should be fine too. Um, thanks? she guessed? There was a warm tingle from his head — he was reading her confusion over what he was talking about and then not knowing what to say as shyness, and vaguely adorable — and Severus walked the bloke to the door. There was another subtle palming of a note of some kind, a last brush of eyes over her skin before the door closed, and they were alone again.

Liz forced out a sigh, hands rubbing at the sides of her neck — trying to shrug off the lingering creeping discomfort. Really, that bloke's thoughts hadn't been that intrusive, but it'd still been aggravating. Credit to Severus for the idea of having breakfast in their room, private was definitely better.

"Elizabeth? Is something the matter?"

"Not really, he just kept looking at me." Liz flopped back down into her chair, with another heavy sigh. "I mean, it wasn't that bad this time, I wasn't catching any creepy paedo shite or whatever. Just a little much first thing in the morning, you know? Really wish people wouldn't stare at me sometimes."

There was one of those odd, cool, lurching feelings from Severus, mild but unmissable. From experience, she was pretty sure that was some shade of concern — he did worry about how sensitive her Sight was getting, she knew, and how difficult it could be to just do normal person things, but there wasn't a lot they could do about that. "You look nice."

Liz blinked, looked around toward Severus — he was still in the kitchen area, making another round of coffee. "Um...thanks?" She really didn't know how she was supposed to react to that, especially when it was said so casually and out of nowhere...

Apparently how awkward she found this was very obvious, judging by the shiver of amusement from his head. "Now that you've begun putting more effort into your appearance, people are going to notice."

Oh! The weird out-of-character compliment was meant as an explanation, right, that made sense, then. "Ugh. I guess people just thinking I look nice is better than perverted freaks, but it still... Catch women watching you all the time when we're in public, but apparently you don't feel that like I do, lucky bastard."

With a crackle of exasperation, he drawled, "I keep myself clean, dress neatly, and have the composure and basic decency to not behave like a lecherous boor whenever exposed to the presence of a member of the female sex. Expectations for men are abysmally low, I'm afraid."

...Fair enough.

Breakfast was pretty good, the sandwich rich and gooey and crispy, the natural flavours of the butter and ham and cheese and egg subtly accented with black pepper and rosemary and...sage? Maybe sage. (She was very certain about the rosemary, but there was something else there, subtle enough it was hard to pinpoint.) There was a faint cool, almost minty tingle that she knew was some kind of negative psychometric thing, but it was light enough she could barely tell — she wasn't even entirely certain which part of the sandwich it was coming from. Probably the ham? That did seem the most likely, but the cheese was all melty and the egg yolk was running all over, kind of hard to separate things out. Since she'd started being more careful about psychometric stuff, she'd figured out that this wasn't bad enough to give her nightmares (usually, anyway), so it was probably fine.

Besides, it was pretty good, it'd be a shame not to be able to eat it.

The bowl of yoghurt was for the both of them, apparently — there were some oats mixed into it, topped with berries that she assumed must have been frozen and stored away...or maybe grown in a greenhouse or something, she guessed. Liz went ahead and tried a dollop out of it, since they'd been nice enough to go out of the way to alter the yoghurt base so the 'diabetic' girl would be able to eat it. Just a little bit, though, her sandwich was pretty big and filling, and she didn't really like yoghurt or berries much in the first place.

...It was fine, she guessed. The texture of the yoghurt stopped the oats in there from feeling too much like oatmeal and giving her Privet Drive feelings, and it wasn't unpleasantly sweet like most yoghurt she'd tried before. Not something she'd go out of her way to have again, but it was fine.

After breakfast, they lingered reading and sipping at coffee for another hour and change before it was time to go. Severus was intentionally cutting it somewhat close, so she wouldn't be stuck in waiting rooms with who knew how many people for however long before it was her turn — which, again, was thoughtful of him. (He really was trying to make things easier on her for Seer reasons, she did appreciate it.) While they were getting ready to go, Severus reminded her to hide away anything magical that they didn't want any cleaning staff to see — oh right, good point, dipped back to stuff all her school books and notes into her bag, tucked under her clothes where they weren't easily visible — and then they were leaving. He made a point of walking out through the main entrance, so the staff didn't later realise they were gone and wonder when that had happened, before finding a quiet spot in the gardens across the street and apparating them off.

The Republican Institute for the Medical Arts was in one of the magical neighbourhoods scattered throughout the city, away from the original site at the centre — what would have been outlying road junctions and farming villages once upon a time, but had since been swallowed up by the growing muggle city. (The built-up area around Paris was roughly the same size as London's, the same process of absorbing neighbouring villages and towns, including the magical enclaves associated with them, had happened in both.) It was a relatively small place, completely rebuilt after the war, centred on a modestly-sized avenue, the path paved with plain brick and lined on both sides by trees and shrubs. The buildings were mostly rowhouses, the ground floor often converted into shopfronts or restaurants or whatever — pretty typical in dense city centres in general, but almost ubiquitous in certain districts of magical towns. There were some bigger buildings here and there, detached, breaking the rowhouses up into blocks divided by narrow alleys, surprisingly green, the space crawling with vines and speckled with flowers.

The hospital was at the near end of the avenue, surprisingly large and modern-looking, brick and plaster and glass. There was a sizeable courtyard in front of the building, populated with trees and a water fountain — a complicated floral design, sprays of water sent up by the stamens and along the layered petals. It looked like people were setting up food carts in some of the more open areas, nearing an early lunch hour. On hand for staff or visitors to the hospital who couldn't leave long enough to have a proper meal, Liz would guess. The main entrance didn't have solid doors, instead they walked through an empty threshold, wards clinging at Liz's skin, into a wide open atrium. A couple stories high, the brick edifice above to three sides, sunlight slashing through the glass making the whole space seem to faintly glow, rays caught funny by one glass panel or another refracting to paint narrow rainbow chinks across the inside surfaces seemingly at random.

Hanging from the ceiling was an overlarge flag — split in half corner to corner, one triangle red and the other blue, a design in yellow at the middle, a sunburst cupped by a bundle of feathers and an oak branch. That was the flag of magical France, Liz knew. There'd been a very brief moment during the Revolution where the Communalists had adopted the muggle tricolour, out of a lack of an immediately obvious alternative, but mages strongly associated the colour white with l'ancien régime, so it'd quickly been abandoned. They'd never actually decided on an official flag the first time around, had bigger issues to worry about, but the star on a red or red and blue flag had become common with various communalist groups in the country. This flag hadn't been designed and adopted until the early 70s, after the neocommunalists came back into power under Comtois.

Liz thought the oak and the feathers (didn't know what the fuck that was about) made it look rather busy, but it was a fine enough flag, she guessed. Better than the British one, at least — that complicated dragon design seemed like a bloody pain to stitch...

Anyway, there was a bit of activity in the atrium, people hanging around on chairs here and there, a few groups chattering, but it wasn't too badly crowded. Severus led the way to a receptionists's station, counters arranged in a full square, staff sitting at desks behind them all the way around ready to point people in the right direction. They were told to go that way — by the signs, where all the exam rooms and testing stuff was concentrated — and up to this clinic on that floor, there were signs, couldn't miss it. Both of them were asked questions about whether they had certain symptoms, didn't know what that was about, but they were waved on without further fuss.

Screening for certain infections, Severus said — mages were more resistant to illness than muggles, but there were a handful that hit them really bad. There had been infamous cases in the past of aggressive infections just tearing through hospitals, killing dozens of people at a go, so they screened people coming in and had each section isolated from each other with wards now, just in case. Standard practice at magical hospitals these days, though you normally only saw integrated isolation wards like they had here in newer buildings. Saint Mungo's didn't have them, for example, they had to keep a very close eye for symptoms, it was a whole thing.

Down a hall, tile floor and plaster walls covered in signs and posters and photos and paintings, and they came to the bank of elevators for this part of the complex. They were much nicer than the ones in the Ministry, fully enclosed with ceramic painted in pretty little swirls, and faster, moved smoothly without all the clanking. Just more modern, Severus said — these would have been made maybe two decades ago at the most, but the ones in the Ministry were over two hundred years old now. (Fuck, she hadn't realised they were that old, no wonder they were such junk.) A recorded voice announced the right floor, she and Severus slipped past a woman with a couple of primary school -age kids and started down the hall. This level seemed pretty much identical to the ground floor, tile and plaster in gentle pastel colours, informational posters and landscapes and stuff hung here and there...

The waiting room was much the same, theme-wise, though the posters had some more specific information about specialist services and the like — prenatal care, blood alchemy, that sort of thing. This clinic specifically did exams and tests and stuff for outside healers, sometimes just healers working out of an office that didn't have the right equipment, but more commonly particular kinds of specialists who didn't normally work out of hospitals. The place wasn't particularly packed, thankfully, just a few other women around, one accompanied by a man Liz assumed was her husband, one with a single well-behaved little kid, quietly fiddling around with some kind of block puzzle.

Liz wasn't surprised by the occupants, she assumed all the women were pregnant, or at least about to be. (Only the one with a man along was obviously showing.) Mages giving birth in hospitals wasn't unheard of, but it was rare — much more often they would do it at smaller local clinics, their own homes if that was feasible, in Britain various sanctuaries run by religious groups were pretty common. Severus said people did get prenatal care, but that mostly done by midwives — which might be a specialisation healers could get or an entirely separate profession which didn't require a healing Mastery at all, depending on which country you were in (Britain was the latter kind) — appointments virtually never hosted at hospitals, the midwife instead visiting the parents-to-be at their home whenever possible. Mostly pregnant women's care was run privately through midwives or at whichever place they planned on giving birth, but sometimes there were complications, or the midwife wanted them to get various tests, so they had to be sent somewhere that could do that — at this hospital, those requests were sent through this clinic.

Given how comparatively rare serious blood alchemy procedures were, and how common pregnancy was, that everyone else in the room was knocked up was a pretty good bet.

When they checked in, Liz was a little surprised to be given paperwork to fill out — standard stuff for the clinic, as well as papers sent on by her blood alchemist. Medical history, mostly, both for her family and her own stuff, similar to the forms she needed for the ICW tournaments but not identical. Severus could tell her what all the things on the checklist were, since he was a qualified healer and everything, but he couldn't tell her whether anyone in her family actually had them or not. There was a section for any allergies, sensitivities, or disabilities — Severus said her intolerance of light magic should go in the sensitivities category, and psychometry went in disabilities. (Not because people with it were disabled, as such, but because in this country various entities were required to accommodate Seers' peculiarities when feasible, under the same terms as laws protecting disabled people.) There was also a section on her history of illnesses and injuries — very few and lots respectively — and there, that was it.

After a hesitation, she went back and added in breaking her brain as a child, when her mind magic triggered. That was a pretty big deal, and could sometimes interfere with healing stuff, so it should really be included at some point.

The stuff sent on by her blood alchemist was a consent form, asking Liz's permission to take and keep a sample of her blood. That was a necessary part of the process, Severus said — not for healing, but getting alterations done, the correct genetic edits would be made on a small sample, which could then be used as a reference to be projected to the rest of the body — and how easy it could be to curse someone with a bit of their blood meant that certain guarantees were made whenever any was taken for any reason. She wouldn't actually be taking that sample until Liz met her (didn't want it passing through other hands on the way, safety), but apparently she'd sent the paperwork on ahead. There was another form detailing the work she wanted done, and to put down any questions she might have, so her blood alchemist would know to have answers prepared when they met in person. This one was already partially filled out in an unfamiliar hand — a description of the scars on her chest, the damaged tissues to be removed, cleansed, and replaced. Speeding along breast development to a point appropriate for her age was actually a separate item, not included in the reconstruction by default for whatever reason.

Liz turned the page a little away from Severus for this section, sitting almost sideways in her chair. There were the scars on her back, it didn't look like Severus had mentioned that. She was going to fix her stupid fucking hair, obviously — that was one of the more important things on her list, she hated her hair, and according to the occasional glimpse of the future she'd gotten that one was definitely happening. That red colour was neat, she liked it. (But of course she did, she won't have chosen it if she didn't.) Oh, um, she didn't really need to change her skin colour, exactly — though she was, just, terribly pale — but if it was possible to make it so she could actually tan instead of just burning all the time, that'd be good. She'd also like to be taller, but she had no idea whether that was something that could be done — she suspected the answer would be no. Oh, and triggering her omniglottalism, of course, if they could do that while they were in there.

Um...did she get to decide what her tits were going to end up like? Was that a thing people did? Just curious...

A couple more people came in while Liz was filling out the paperwork (women again), the very pregnant woman with her husband (presumably) had disappeared. She only had to wait a few minutes after turning in the papers before a woman was calling her name — she didn't bother checking if Severus meant to come with her, she didn't feel any intent to start moving from him, so she got up and walked over toward the door further into the clinic. A young woman was standing at the door waiting, in the plain green and blue trousers and narrow-sleeved shirt Liz had seen on most of the other staff people in here or that they'd passed in the halls. Some kind of uniform, she thought, though not everyone was wearing them. Her hair was completely hidden with a scarf, French red and blue and edged with a curly embroidered pattern, trailing down her back to keep the entire length hidden. It almost looked like the thing Muslims did, sort of, but all of the people Liz had seen so far who obviously worked here were wearing one, some in the same red and blue but some seemingly custom jobs — maybe part of the dress code, keeping their hair out of the way and from getting in anything important. Liz was only slightly surprised that she wasn't white — probably mixed, her face a rich light brown, like a pale caramel colour — but that wasn't really unexpected, magical France was more racially diverse than magical Britain.

As Liz neared the door, the woman said, "Good morning, Lady Elizabeth," in rather stilted-sounding English. She gave Liz a little head-dip and a smile, in place of any kind of greeting that would require touching her — consciously, aware she was a Seer. "I am Colette Ayari, and I am to do some tests with you today. Okay?"

"Yep. I speak French, by the way," she said, in French. "Also, just 'Liz' is fine."

A slightly sheepish tone slipping into her smile, "Good, good. Right this way, then..." Only a short walk past the door they came to a cross hallway, unfamiliar enchanted equipment arranged in a row along one side. Another healer was already here with a patient — maybe these were scales? "You will need to take your shoes off, briefly. Is the jewellery enchanted?"

Liz loosened the straps on her sandals with a couple quick flicks of her finger, tiny pulses of surprise from Ayari (was that an Arabic name?) at the wandless magic. Toeing them off, she nodded. "Basic stuff to keep them clean and prevent rusting, and a localised healing spell."

"Ah. Excuse me, may I...?" Ayari's wand was in her hand, the other to the side of Liz's head. The point of her wand came very close to Liz's face, she stiffened instinctively, but Ayari was just casting analysis charms at one of her ear piercings. After a couple seconds, the wand vanished back up her sleeve. "Very well, these won't interfere with anything I have to do. You will need to take them off for your turn in the camera, however."

"Yeah, I know."

"Good. Stand on the platform right here for me, please, facing the wall." One of Ayari's hands started toward Liz's back, moving to gently guide her into place, but she checked herself before she actually touched her. "You see here in the middle, feet inside the circle..."

The short little platform — ceramic, maybe only three inches above the floor — was definitely an enchanted device of some kind, she could feel it tingling against her feet. Ayari's wand was out and pointed at her again, Liz jumped at a sudden crackle of magic, crawling over her head to toe...measuring charm, she thought. A pair of bars were folded down out of the wall, Ayari adjusted them to about Liz's waist height. Grab onto those, yes, now this was going to feel a little funny, but it shouldn't hurt. Take in a deep breath, hold it — Ayari pushed some part of the equipment built into the wall, there was a sudden jolt of magic through her, almost like a static shock — all right, breathe all the way out, hold it again — another jolt of magic, slightly more uncomfortable than the first — there we go, you can put your shoes back on.

After a brief pause, Liz trying to shake off the vague tension the funny jolts had left behind, an illusion appeared in front of the wall over the platform — numbers glowing different colours, none of it made any sense to her. Ayari scrawled some things down on the folder she was carrying, letting out low little humming noises, her mind flicking and turning. "I assume you participate in some kind of athletic activity. Quidditch, football, maybe dance?"

"Duelling and quidditch. Why?"

"Ah, I see." Ayari hesitated for a second, her mind cool and twisting, but too self-contained for Liz to read without intruding. "Master Severus is also a qualified healer, as I recall. Does he have you on a nutrient potion?"

"Yes."

"Mm, never mind, it should be fine." The woman didn't explain, just made another note in her folder — Liz guessed she was mildly concerned about her weight, but since another healer was already keeping an eye on it had decided it wasn't urgent. "That's all we need here, come this way..."

In the adjoining hallway, leading deeper back into the clinic, Ayari led Liz into a private exam room, tapped at something on the wall next to the door with her wand before following Liz inside, closed the door behind her, privacy spells snapping into place. (For a second, Liz was faintly nervous at being stuck in a room with a stranger, but she brushed the feeling off — besides, most healers couldn't duel for shite, Liz could probably take her.) The room looked very similar to Liz's vague memories of visits to doctor's offices with Dudley and Petunia, counters and chairs, equipment fixed into the walls, an elevated, reclining bed in the middle. Except the materials were different, of course, plaster and ceramic and the occasional metal bit, absolutely no plastic anywhere, the lighting seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere, the equipment fixed to the walls plain ceramic boxes, completely unfamiliar.

Pulling open a drawer under the counter along one wall, Ayari said to go ahead and sit up on the bed, just be a second. A little ceramic case retrieved from the drawer was set on the bed next to Liz, Ayari continue on to the wall. A flick of a switch on the side of one of the boxes, Ayari grabbed onto a handle and tugged it out — whatever this thing was was built surprisingly deep into the wall, a structure about a foot deep and two feet tall sliding out, a good five or six feet wide. Inside of the skeletal frame was a maze of ceramic boxes and tubing and reservoir crystals, Liz couldn't make any sense of it. Ayari slid open a panel, from this angle she could barely make out a bunch of little rectangular chips of ceramic suspended on a miniature rack. Glancing back and forth between the folder and the device's innards, Ayari fiddled with it, moving the ceramic chips from one spot to another, seemingly for no reason at all. That must do something, but Liz couldn't guess what.

She got her answer pretty quickly. Ayari slid the panel closed again, hiding the rack of chips, and then gently pushed the entire structure back into the wall, the lock snapping into place, once again only showing the innocuous ceramic face fixed into the surface. They were going to set up the blood tests now, let them run while they did the other parts of the exam. The process of drawing her blood was super quick and painless, a wave of Ayari's wand drawing Liz's blood through her skin to be collected in a little phial — specialised charm for healers, she'd seen it before but it was still very neat — the open end of the phial inserted into a slot at the front of the device. Oh, so the fiddling inside the thing Ayari had done was to set up the device to test for the specific things they wanted to look at? (Come to think of it, those chips did vaguely remind her of the key she'd used to activate the wards at home.) Ayari smiled at her correct guess — no, Liz wasn't thinking of getting into healing, but she did like enchanting, pretty easy guess...

The exam was uncomfortable, especially with how they hit a snag pretty much right away, but it wasn't that bad, really — Ayari was trying to be easy on her, touching her as little as possible and keeping her mind shaded with pretty passable occlumency. Her mind was mostly soft and inoffensive, so, still uncomfortable, with her mind pushing close against Liz's each time she touched her, but it wasn't intolerably so. Would still like to get this over with as quickly as possible, but it could have been worse.

Ayari explained that they needed to make sure there weren't any unnoticed health issues going on before serious procedures of any kind, so this would need to be rather thorough. Yes yes, fine, whatever, just get on with it. The case was flipped open, showing little ceramic tools she couldn't identify. The first one was a narrow ceramic band, Ayari unlatched it and then closed it again around Liz's wrist, pulling at something to ratchet it tighter until it was snug against her skin. Partly to distract herself, and partly just curiosity, Liz asked what that was for — took her temperature, timed her heart rate, and measured her blood pressure, neat. Another device, a little stylus Ayari held in her fingers and a clip-on ear piece, this one was for listening to her heart, sit up straight, please, and just breathe normally. Ayari started moving to brace Liz with a hand on her shoulder, but caught herself again, the stylus enough of a barrier that her mind was held back from rushing against Liz's.

Of course, this happened to be a part of Liz's body she was particularly sensitive about — she was, just, trying not to think about it, staring off at the wall to Ayari's left, breathing and forcing her mind as blank as possible.

She was trying not to pay attention, but she could still tell something was wrong. The stylus wandering across her chest, pressing in harder or softer, narrow enough of a point that it almost even hurt at times. A frown gradually built on Ayari's face, a frustrated simmering in her mind. Finally, "I don't suppose there's some serious enchanting on this dress."

Liz grimaced. "No, that's probably the scars."

"Scars?"

"Yeah, curse scars. From that Hallowe'en? That's why I'm here, to get them removed."

"Ah..." Ayari did know what she meant by that Hallowe'en, of course, but thankfully she didn't react to being reminded of the Girl Who Lived shite, all business. "What is the coverage like? Up here, I can tell," she said, waving her hand over her own chest, "but where are the edges?"

Trying not to look as uncomfortable as she felt — she would rather not talk about this subject, honestly — Liz traced over the boundary of the mass of scars that'd been covering her chest for as long as she could remember, from memory.

"So they aren't over your stomach, or your sides?"

"Not the right side as much, on the left it goes, like, halfway back..."

"Okay, that will do. Lay down, please."

Ayari adjusted something out of Liz's view with a foot, and the back of the bed tilted to lay flat; Liz let herself flop over onto her back, hands self-consciously moving to straighten her skirt, even though it hadn't moved at all. Nerves tingled at the sight of Ayari standing over her, but Liz took a long deep breath, closed her eyes, forced herself to stay calm as well as she could. It didn't help that what Ayari was doing was kind of uncomfortable. Since she couldn't get a straight-on angle at Liz's heart with her scars in the way (the curses attached to them blocking however the stylus thing worked), she was aiming up from underneath — that required pushing down at her stomach, and digging the stylus up under her ribs, not really painful but just really weird and nauseatingly uncomfortable. And she had Ayari's mind pressing close against hers the whole time too, with her knuckles resting against Liz's stomach, ugh.

Since Ayari's mind was so close, Liz got a faint, lurking feeling that something was wrong — though, with Ayari's occlumency up, she couldn't tell what that was exactly, just the general feeling. After a couple minutes of seriously uncomfortable poking around, she was asked to lift her left hand above her head, and Ayari was poking the stylus against her side now. This was also uncomfortable, and more painful than the last one, actually, the ceramic point digging between her ribes, Liz grit her teeth. Ayari must have noticed, apologised, but unfortunately this thing wasn't designed to see through this much tissue, it was a lot harder to get a clear picture.

In fact, she was still missing a couple things she had to check, which were too difficult to get from these angles — she was going to need Liz to roll over onto her front for a moment. That was a little more difficult to do than she made it sound, since the bed wasn't that wide, and Liz had just been sitting on the edge and letting her feet dangle down, and crawling her way up was going to be super awkward in this dress. Instead she just stood up, moved more toward the middle of the bed, and slid sideways straight into place — there, that was easier then crawling around and making an idiot of herself.

Ayari pressing the stylus in against her back made her extremely uncomfortable, for some reason, going tense and spanging with nerves, her stomach lurching. But they were almost done, Liz just had to get through it — she grit her teeth, pressing her forehead against the bed, the sheet fisting in her hands...

"All right, that's all I needed," Ayari said, Liz letting out a sigh as the stylus was finally lifted away. By the time Liz had pushed herself upright again, Ayari was scrawling away in her folder, frowning slightly. "Have you had any chest pain? Like a pressure, as though there is something in there too big to fit comfortably."

"...No?"

"How about occasional dizziness, especially when standing up, or a persistent cough, or a thumping feeling, like your heart skipping a beat?"

Liz frowned. "I don't know. The first one and the last one, a little bit sometimes. Why?"

"Mm. May I see your hands, please?" Liz held out her hands, twitched when Ayari's came up under hers, sending her mind slamming into Liz's. Leaning a little closer, Ayari's thumbs ran over the tops of her fingers for a second, circling her cuticles. "Good. One second." She suddenly crouched down in front of Liz, gently took her foot, thumbs kneading across the top, uncovered by her shoes, and then squeezing in around her ankle and partway up her calf. Once she'd checked Liz's right foot, she repeated the process with her left.

Which was pretty uncomfortable, of course, but at this point Liz was more distracted by curiosity. "What? What is it?"

"Perhaps I am simply being overly cautious, but..." Ayari stood up again, her wand appearing in her hand. "Sit up straight, please. This is going to be a little uncomfortable, I apologise. I'll go quickly." Resting her hand against Liz's stomach, Ayari flicked a charm at her — there was a funny thumping ringing feeling, an echo vibrating through her, concentrated in her middle. Ayari shifted her hand up, just under her ribs, cast the charm again. Then her hand moved up to Liz's back toward the right, her fingers splayed open, and then cast another charm — this one had a similar echoing feeling, but different enough Liz could tell it wasn't the same spell, like a different frequency. She then had Liz turn a little to the side, so she could get her hand over the other side of her back, another casting of the spell.

Once that was done, Ayari detached the band wrapped around her wrist. The thing projected another bundle of coloured numbers that was complete nonsense to Liz, but the healer just nodded. "Yes, mm. If your blood alchemist does not bring up any concerns related to your heart, mention them yourself."

"Why? Is there a problem?" If Liz did have some kind of heart problem, she would think she'd have noticed before, considering how much of a workout she got at duelling practices...

"Perhaps." Ayari started scrawling away in her folder, at first copying numbers off of the device before writing what seemed to be a pretty lengthy note. "Something does sound a little off, and your blood pressure is lower than I would expect. It is subtle, though, and you haven't any of the signs of a serious condition. But, that just means we may have caught it early in development — it's possible nothing is wrong, and I am being overly cautious, but it is still worth asking your blood alchemist if they do not bring it up themselves. I am making a note of it in my report, but just in case."

...Okay, then. Seemed kind of unlikely — heart trouble wasn't exactly one of the medical issues Liz expected to have — but whatever, she'd remember to ask.

That was the most uncomfortable part of the whole exam, the rest went by without too much touching. Ayari quick checked her ears and her eyes — apparently she had some kind of refractive error that should make her vision slightly blurry, which was news to her. Like, yeah, the fuzziness Ayari described (especially at distance and at night) was pretty spot on, but, she'd just assumed this was what everyone's vision was like? That should be a quick easy fix for any blood alchemist, so, apparently Liz was going to come out of this with slightly improved vision, which was also something she hadn't expected, fucking weird.

(She couldn't say she was surprised that even the things about herself she'd thought were perfectly normal actually weren't.)

After that, Ayari used a special analysis charm that she said (when Liz asked, curious) tested nerve pathways for defects. The spell was faintly painful, and tended to make Liz twitch, like a static shock, but it wasn't that bad — though it was tedious, the spell only testing small patches at a time, Ayari needing to do it over and over and over. Every couple castings, she'd stop to make notes on a sheet in the folder — an outline of the human body, a branching network of lines superimposed over it — before moving onto the next ones. There were a few issues, apparently, but mostly due to awkward 'rewiring' after injuries, which wasn't a big deal, that was just a thing that happened naturally. No serious neural diseases or dead spots they had to worry about, so, Ayari made notes of the weird spots but she didn't expect the blood alchemist to actually do anything about that — correcting them would be a very invasive procedure for really no benefit.

Ayari quick checked her blood test, printed out on a sheet of paper spat out when it finished working. Apparently that thing had even tested her fucking DNA while it was at it, because Ayari told her she was a carrier for a few heritable diseases, one of which was very serious — apparently, some people were born without the ability to process certain kinds of sugar...including the stuff found in breast milk, so, that could get very bad very quickly. (Often, fatally bad.) Oh, and something called cystic fibrosis? Ayari strongly suggested getting both edited out, just in case, the sugar one especially — the other one could be fixed with blood alchemy at any time, but the sugar one would quickly cause serious organ damage that would need further treatment — but it wasn't like Liz was planning on having children anyway. She meant, they might as well fix that sort of thing as long as they were messing with her DNA anyway, why not, it just wasn't actually a priority.

The blood test printout was folded up and stuck in her file; the device spat the blood sample back out, Ayari incinerated the contents with blue-white purifying flames, holding up the spotless crystal to Liz — safety laws, she was supposed to openly demonstrate that the sample had been destroyed. Anyway, that was it, they were done in here. Ayari led Liz back out of the exam room, but not toward the waiting room, instead taking a turn down a hallway in the opposite direction. Through a wide double door, the colouring of the walls subtly changed, Liz was pretty sure they'd left the clinic proper. Pretty soon they arrived in a waiting room — smaller than the one back there and not even fully isolated from the hallway, just a waist-high wall separating off a little carpeted space with a sofa and three armchairs. This one was completely empty, Liz and Ayari were the only people here, faint chatter from an office somewhere bouncing around the corner.

That door right there in the middle of the waiting area led into their big damn fancy imaging device. Liz's turn in the camera started in (Ayari quick checked the time), ah, less than five minutes, excellent timing. Their exam had actually run a little long, thanks to the difficulty around her heart, but that just meant she didn't have to wait as long. Someone should be coming by to give her full instructions any minute now, and then they'd be starting. Once that was done, she'd be led back out to the waiting room — not by Ayari, she was going to go finish writing up her report and move on to her next job, one of the people here would do that. A somewhat awkward goodbye later, and Ayari was walking away, leaving Liz alone.

She didn't move for one of the chairs, instead ended up pacing in a little oval through the waiting area. Nerves were tingling along her skin, making her feel tense and twitchy, she forced herself to keep breathing smooth and normal — she was not looking forward to undressing for the bloody scan. It was definitely worth doing, since it was apparently a necessary step to get rid of her fucking scars, but it was going to suck. She knew it wasn't really a public place, but it, just, she hated it, that was all.

Luckily she'd started in on that desensitisation thing already — she had a feeling this would have been fucking impossible if she hadn't been trying to work on not being so painfully neurotic about her own damn body. Still didn't like it.

She'd only been left alone for a couple minutes when she felt the mind approaching, looked that way before a man stepped around the corner. A little older than Ayari, he was in the same trousers and close-sleeved shirt of everyone else here, but didn't have the head covering, hair a mop of short blond curls. Pointing at her as he approached, "Elizabeth Potter?" She just nodded. "All right, let's have a seat and go over the procedure for the day. Right over here..."

The bloke was named Andreas René Gribi, he was specifically a technician working the imaging device (meaning he was an artificer and not a healer). He had a vaguely German-sounding accent — he was Swiss, apparently — but it was pretty subtle, had been in France for a long time. He started off with a quick layman's explanation of how transplanar coronal resonance imagery worked. It was pretty neat, actually — it used sympathetic magic to make an illusory copy of the contents of the testing chambre inside of a little box, which could then be captured in a reservoir to be further processed and manipulated.

"The request we received," Gribi said, "is for a complete physical reconstruction, plus a basic fixed spectral analysis. We need to induce a distinct resonance for different types of tissue, but over the years we've managed to define our terms more generally — we'll only need to take eight images, which ideally takes, oh, maybe six or seven minutes. It may be longer, if one of the images doesn't come through correctly and we have to redo it, but certainly no longer than twelve minutes. Ah..." He trailed off, little flickers of discomfort shrugging off his mind, eyes dragging over her for a second. His voice dropping a little, "This will be a total reconstruction — I understand you're to have some scarring removed?"

It felt like he was waiting for a response, which didn't seem necessary, but whatever. "Yeah."

"Right, so. Ah. The model we're building today is going to be...anatomically correct, shall we say. However, neither I nor any of the other technicians need to see it to build it. There are tests to confirm the image resolved correctly, and that is not done with a visual check, but simply analysing the character of the reservoir's contents. None of us will be looking, the first person who will be seeing it is your specialist. Okay?"

...Trying to reassure her they wouldn't be staring at pictures of her naked body, she guessed. That was probably meant to be reassuring, but it really wasn't — she could tell he was telling the truth, but feelings weren't rational. "Okay."

"Very well. So." He paused a moment, thoughts clunking away in her head. "You'll step through the door here, where you'll find a small room with a prepared bathtub, a shower, and some towels. You'll need to entirely undress — including the piercings," he added, gesturing at his own face, "and take a dip in the bath. The water will be a little cool, and it will smell salty. You will need to entirely submerge, head under the water — it isn't necessary to stay there for any length of time, so long as everything gets under the water at some point. Once you get out, go straight through the opposite door, no drying off. There will be a short hallway, which will further strip away any magical impurities the salt bath didn't catch. It will feel quite cold, but unfortunately any warming charms will interfere with the test.

"On the opposite end you will find the testing chambre itself. There will be a small circle in the middle, stand there — once you have, the door out will close, altering us outside that you're in place, and the test may begin. There is an indicator light inside the room, it will glow yellow while we are taking an image — do not channel any magic, and try to stand as still as you can. If the image didn't come out right, it will flash red, and we'll try again; if it does come out right, it'll flash green, and we'll move on to the next. We are taking eight images — once you see the eighth flash of green, the door will open again, and you can come out. Rinse off the salt in the shower, and someone will be waiting for you out here to lead you back to your waiting room when you're ready.

"Right, I think that's everything. Any questions for me before we start?"

Well, several about how this transplanar resonance shite worked, but this wasn't really the time. "Um, don't channel magic, does any magic count? Like mind magic."

"Yes, mind magic counts — you're going to have to cut this off for the test," he said, waving vaguely at her head.

Liz sighed. "I can't. Something in there snapped when my mind magic triggered when I was seven, I can't turn it off."

A shiver of surprise rung through the air, pattering against her skin, Gribi rearing back in his seat a little. "Oh! I see. Yes, that might, hmm..." His eyes tipped up to the ceiling for a second, a rapid series of thoughts clicking through his head in a tight spiral. "All right, that should be manageable. Luckily we're not doing a complete spectral reconstruction today, that might be impossible. Anyway, we'll just switch around the order of the images to minimise— Where are the scars we're dealing with located?"

"Chest."

"Okay, that should be fine. Try to pull your aura in as tight as you can — preferably under your skin and above the shoulder. A little slippage may be fine, but we want to minimise interference as much as possible. The image we end up with might be a little choppy, but if you keep your aura close and we work quickly it shouldn't be too bad. Worst comes to worst, we might need you to dip in the bath a second time and do a couple of the images over, but it shouldn't come to that, I don't think. So, ready to get started?"

The changing room wasn't too cramped, thankfully, and surprisingly dark and moody. The floor and the ceiling were made out of dark blue ceramic tiling, the walls had the same tiling around the bath and the shower, but elsewhere wood panels a rich, faintly orangish brown. There weren't any obvious light fixtures, just a directionless glow like they had in a lot of magical spaces, but much dimmer than usual, her surroundings soft and not-quite-shadowy, the colours muted. Intended to make people feel less exposed, she guessed. There was a lock on the inside of the door — a sign on the door noted that there was a single key that could open it from the outside, kept in the control room with the technicians, only to be used in emergencies — Liz quick flicked it closed before walking deeper into the little room.

There was a bench to one side, she sat down and cast a quick mirror charm, so she could see what she was doing getting her piercings out — the eyebrow one was particularly awkward, all but poking herself in the eyes, but she managed it. Thankfully they were aware people might have loose things they didn't want to lose, in the corner was a little raised platform with an empty bowl on it, Liz dumped her jewellery in there. She untied the scarf restraining her hair, then the one around her waist, kicked off her shoes.

So, she just had to do the clothes part now. Right, then.

After taking a couple slow, deep breaths — it was fine, she was alone in here, she was fine — Liz stood up, loosened the laces on the back of her dress with a swipe of her fingers, pulled it over her head. There was a row of hooks on the wall over the bench, she hung her dress from one. Her fingers digging under the hems of her vests, she took another slow breath, before pulling them both over her head. She nudged her pants down off her hips, kicked them over by her shoes, and immediately stepped toward the bath — her steps stiff and awkward, feeling all tense and jittery. As much practice as she'd gotten lately, she still did not like this, get it over with as quickly as possible.

The tub was made out of a similar ceramic to the tile, not quite the same shade, the water inside had a faint greenish tinge to it...though it was hard to say how much of that was reflection from the ceramic or a trick of the light. Liz leaned a hand down on the rim of the tub, for balance, and belatedly noticed her wand holster still strapped to her arm — shite, she was going to have to leave that behind here too. Grimacing, trying to ignore the flare of unease simmering in her chest, she pulled the straps loose one at a time, dropped the whole thing next to the bowl. And then she stepped into the tub, one foot at a time. The water did feel noticeably cool on her legs — still standing, about knee high — she started sinking toward the water, but stopped before anything, er, sensitive got under, braced by her hands on the rim, the water faintly lapping at her bum. It smelled a little funny, not just salty, but...she didn't know. Mint and/or sage, maybe? There was something else in it besides salt, magically cleansing elements, hard to guess exactly what they'd used. And it was cold, unpleasantly so, her feet already getting tingly and...

She grit her teeth — this was going to suck.

At the last second, she remembered to pull her mind in, held tight against her as close as she could — the whole point was to prevent further 'contamination', after all — before loosening her arms and letting herself drop into the water. A gasp was shook out of her throat at the feeling of a million tiny icicles prickling at her skin up to her ribs, even sharper in particularly sensitive spots, she nearly lost her grip on her magic, fuck. She sucked a quick breath in through her nose, her limbs rigid with tension, she forced herself to lay back, muscles instinctively spasming in protest, cringing as the water rushed over her head.

A quick swipe of one hand over her head to make sure all of her hair had gotten under, and Liz immediately sat up again, gasping, and practically leapt out of the water, staggering up to her feet, water splattering against the tile. Fuck, that was cold! Gribi had seriously undersold how fucking cold the water would be! Already feeling a little stiff, her skin numb and tingly, she forced herself to move, staggering toward the opposite door — hanging open when she got here, a band of artificial white light cutting through the dark room toward the (open) shower in the corner. Sopping wet, water still audibly pattering against the floor with every step, water trickling down her skin numb and vaguely ticklish, she yanked the door further open, the motion feeling stiff and clumsy, wincing a little at the brighter light.

The hallway was narrow, only enough room for one person to walk through, covered on all sides with creamy off-white tile. There was a handrail to one side — also ceramic, no metal, she assumed built to be alchemically neutral — running all the way down but broken by a gap every couple of feet. As she felt a curtain of magic brush over her skin, she realised the gaps in the railing lined up with the layers of ward lines. She'd been a little distracted at the thought, walking through the first one, but forced herself to move again, feeling too stiff and clumsy, passing through another grasping curtain of magic, another...

Stepping through one, she noticed little coils of steam rising off of her, and then stepping through the next Liz suddenly hitched to a stop, a shuddering gasp wrenching through her — the water on her skin and in her hair suddenly poofed up in a burst of mist (quickly wicked away by the wards), a bone-deep chill dropping through her in a blink. The blast of cold came as a shock, Liz nearly lost control of her magic, she grit her teeth and concentrated, holding herself close (didn't want to have to do this twice), and forced herself to take another step, feeling even more stiff than before, rigid and numb, leaning on the handrail...

Liz noticed her hands had started shaking — oh, look at that, she was starting to shiver already. Did she really need to be so fucking cold for this to work?

Only one more ward line, and she reached the testing chambre itself. It was roughly cubical, a couple metres to a side, the surface entirely covered in featureless white tile, smooth and perfect enough it was honestly somewhat difficult to get an exact sense of how big it was, or where the corners were. There was a circle in what she assumed was the middle, painted on the tile in black — she tottered her way over there, actively shivering now, arms fruitlessly hugging herself and her steps shaky. The door clunked closed behind her, making Liz twitch, but she put it out of mind, forced herself to keep breathing, long and slow, holding her mind close, trying not to think about how fucking cold she was, and how easy it would be to fix that with a quick wandless charm...

On the one hand, the cold was miserable — Liz's teeth had started audibly clicking from the shakes, they almost hurt — but on the other hand, she was entirely too occupied feeling awful and trying to keep her aura pulled in close to give any mind at all to the fact that she was naked right now, so. She guessed that was something.

Other than being terribly cold, the test itself wasn't a big deal. She, just, stood there, trying to hold as still as possible. As the light turned yellow the first time, she realised that the way she was reflexively hugging herself (cold) was partly covering her scars, so she forced herself to let go, arms stiff and joints already burning from being held like that. Nobody had said that would be a problem, but just in case. (She absolutely did not want to have to do this twice.) The first time she got a green light, thankfully, she took a few breaths as long and deep as she could with her body refusing to stop fucking shaking, when the light went yellow again she again tried to hold as still as possible, after a couple seconds the light went green again, perfect. Yellow...green...yellow...green...

The sixth yellow light was followed by a flash of red, Liz hissed out a breathless curse through her teeth. She was still shivering, but not as badly as before — which she was pretty sure was a bad sign, actually. She felt really stiff, it kind of hurt to move, very numb, her skin doing that weird thing where it felt thicker and less pliant than it should, occasional prickles of feeling shooting through the numbness...

The second try went green, and the seventh picture went through fine, but the eighth (ninth) yellow light went red again. Liz grimaced, held her magic in as tight as she could, practically holding her breath. Yellow...red, fuck, just take it already! Yellow...red, argh! Yellow...

...green! Thank you, Christ. A couple seconds after the green light went on, there was an audible click, and the door out opened by itself. Liz tried to lurch into motion, but her legs didn't quite obey her, numb and stiff, dull pain shooting up as she forced her knees to bend. She staggered a couple steps, unsteady, but she made it to the hallway. Practically limping along, leaning against the handrail, she could still feel the filmy clingy curtain of the wards brush over her despite how thick and numb her skin felt — felt weird, but that was a magical sense and not a physical one, so that made sense when she thought about it. Her hand slipped once, her shoulder banging against the wall, but she kept moving, almost there...

Liz limped her way over to the shower area, slapped her hand against the panel — the water burned against her skin, drawing a hiss through her teeth, but she ignored it, she was far too cold and needed the warmth no matter what, leaned on her arms against the wall, shivering again...

Just, fuck, that was all. Let's not do that again.

She leaned against the shower wall until the heat stopped hurting and she stopped shivering, before working at getting the salt off her skin — and out of her hair, fuck, like little gritty bits of sand stuck in there. It didn't take too long, thankfully, probably designed to dissolve out in the water. Switching off the shower, she dried herself off with a charm — carefully layering them on her hair to prevent the impossible shite from poofing up too much — before moving for her clothes.

After dressing again, checking in a mirror charm that nothing was out of place, she opened the door to find a couple people were actually in the waiting room this time. (The person after her must have gotten here already.) A woman in the hospital uniform popped up to her feet as Liz came out. She quick confirmed her name, before leading her off in a seemingly random direction. After a minute or two zig-zagging through corridors, Liz stepped through a door into the waiting room she'd started in — Severus was in the same chair he'd been in when she'd left, a journal of some kind rolled up in his lap. In the middle of a conversation with the couple next to him, looked like.

Liz walked over, trying not to stare — the couple happened to be a nymph man and a goblin woman. She was very sure they were a couple — the nymph was being kind of...drapey — which was, er, somewhat unusual, but also nymphs had an almost ethereal, graceful air about them, this one blue-skinned and with beads plaited into his white hair, just kind of distracting. (Even when they were men, but not in a sexy way, they just looked neat.) Also, she didn't think she'd ever seen a goblin woman in real life before, and she didn't see exile goblins — ones who lived outside of their underground enclaves, she meant — very often...except Flitwick, of course. She didn't look that unusual, really, in a perfectly normal sleeveless blouse and skirt and leather boots, just sized for her stature and frame, and she had so many piercings, in a line along her overlong ears and in her heavy brow and...

She was definitely staring, couldn't help it.

Now that Liz was done, they wrapped up their conversation quickly. From the sound of it, the goblin had recognised Severus, and had spontaneously asked him for a second opinion on the pair's prospects of successfully having children. So they were a couple, not something you saw in magical Britain. (A married couple, even, noting the bracelet they each had around their left wrist — goblin custom, she recalled, designed and traditionally even made by their spouse — pretty sure their marriage would be illegal back home, even.) Humans and goblins could successfully interbreed (though it required blood alchemy), but apparently Severus was unaware offhand of it being done with nymphs. There were concerns with the compatibility of their innate magical character, it seemed, especially since the bloke was a river nymph...which made it more difficult, for some reason? Anyway, Severus gave them a couple of names to call who'd know better than he would, they said their goodbyes and started off.

Liz glanced back over her shoulder as they went, taking a last glance over the odd couple. How did the sex work? Seemed like the height difference would make that incredibly awkward...